Signing on the dotted line

Well, we did it. Last night we filled out the form asking that LB be placed in the APP (academically highly gifted) program next fall. We didn’t make the decision lightly or without some-no, a LOT of trepidation. And we emailed the principal, the vice-principal and the director of the advanced learning department about our concerns before actually handing in the form.

 We toured the school Tuesday while it was in session, and no doubt about it, these kids are kept engaged and challenged in ways that kids in traditional classrooms are not. Just a quick look at the posters, displays and kids’ work on the walls alone confirmed that. LB whispered to me as we stood in one 5th-grade room, “This is the most interesting classroom I have ever seen. I want to go here.”

In every classroom, all of the kids looked interested in the work and happy to be there. No one was acting up, clowning around, or appeared to be in trouble. One room had some kind of plant experiment going on at each pod of desks, and LB looked like she’d won the lottery-science experiments are one of her favorite things EVER.

And yet, we were disquieted as we went from room to room, most of them filled with white kids from affluent families. In one, a black girl looked at Lee and LB with such relief on her face I couldn’t help but notice. I learned later she’d recently moved here from a southern city with a huge black population and felt very isolated. We knew that LB, if she went to this school that she too might go entire days without seeing another black or biracial child except in passing at lunch or recess.

But, the school itself is head and shoulders above any school we’ve looked at, this or any other year. And we weren’t all that surprised when the principal talked about a family who’d moved their child out of this school for the most prestigious private school in the city had come back after only a few months. It’s that good.

But, you know there has to be a “but”-there is a sameness to the students that is simply inescapable. It’s also in the faculty. And this has led to a “disconnect” as a parent of color told us in a discussion after the tour. “They don’t get it,” he said. “They KNOW they don’t get it, and are working on it,” but still, it’s there.

The principal herself gave a perfect example of “not getting it” in her welcome to the prospective parents.  “Look around,” she said, “You kids will be in classes with other kids who look JUST LIKE THEM.” Lee and I and a black family sitting near us looked at each other, stunned. WHERE exactly where the kids who looked “just like” LB and their child??? And why, exactly, is it a point of pride to tell a group of wealthy white parents that all of the children are just like theirs?

That was one of the points Lee made in the email to the powers that be. If the stated goal is to bring in more children of color, the kids AREN’T all going to look “just like” each other. That’s something he and I want to work towards and plan to be a part of. We want to be able to say to next year’s prospective black parents, “Yes, send your child here. We see things changing and your child will be all right.”

An outside report on the school last fall told of a black child being told to leave because “this is a white school.”  It SHOULDN’T be. It’s simply not possible that only 8 black children in the city are bright enough to be there. Things have to change.

If we can’t say they are changing, we will have made a mistake in sending LB into the fray, excellent education be damned.

Interestingly, I had a chance yesterday to talk with two black women who teach in the public schools here. One is our family friend mentioned in previous posts, the other was LB’s Kindergarten teacher. Both told LB that she would need to be strong being one of only a handful of black children at the school. Both assumed automatically that she would face some measure of prejudice. Both told her to refuse to accept that and to stand up for herself when it happened. And both told her that she is being given a gift-entrance to a path that isn’t open to many children of color. Do yourself proud, they did. Make the most of what you have been given. You can do anything from here on, they both said. You can achieve great things.

That’s a lot to hand an eight-year-old. And yet, for a child whose heroes are Rosa Parks and Ruby Bridges, it’s something she understands. She WON’T be “just” a student at this school, she will be one of perhaps 10 or 12 black children. She will be the object of some curiosity, perhaps hostility, and certainly be under a microscope, since her father and I have made the most noise about the inequities in the history of this place.

We intend to support her every step of the way, and she’ll have plenty of additional support from our teacher friend, to her adopted Nana, to her church leaders, to her hip hop instructor-all people who took opportunity and ran with it. I hope we did the right thing.