The School Dilemma

According to E. W. Howe, "If there were no schools to take the children away from home part of the time, the insane asylums would be filled with mothers." I would like to propose my own corollary to this statement. "Too many choices in schools will put this mother there equally as fast."  

Border living has many perks, mainly like having the U.S. just a few miles away, but the school situation is not one of them. In fact, I have changed my mind so many times about what school Jacob should attend that I've grown weary of even thinking of it. I have obsessed and worried and driven everyone that would listen crazy with the hearing of it. And I am still not completely happy with my decision, but it has been made, and Jacob is going to school. And all that is left to do is blog about it so I can move on-- at least until summer break when I can change my mind again 15,000 more times if I want. 

These are our options: 

A. Send him to a local Tijuana private school. There are two, but they are both bilingual schools where the majority of students are wealthy Mexicans, and English is taught only as a second language. Supposedly half the day is in English and half is in Spanish, but I've heard that at one of the schools, that is not always the case, and Spanish is used heavily throughout the day. Both schools require ugly uniforms, and Jacob doesn't speak Spanish. Oh, and the biggie, they don't allow mohawks. 

B. Send him to public school in the U.S. The consulate provides transportation to one public elementary school in the San Diego area. Due to budget cuts, the school no longer has a music or art program, which is just sad, especially since Jacob loves art and can spend all day drawing and making things out of paper and boxes. He would be gone from 6:15 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. and would have to cross the border every day. This would require him to keep up with both his passport and his SENTRI card (an expedited border-crossing pass). Jacob tends to lose things. For example, on his first day of kindergarten, he lost his lunch box. And on his first day as a bus rider, he lost himself for over an hour. 

C. Send him to any school he can get accepted to in the U.S. He could go anywhere as long as I am willing to drive him to and from school myself everyday. Four hours in the car driving Mr. Jacob is not my idea of a good day. And I'm pretty sure that neither Andrew nor Benjy would be very keen on the idea. 

D. Send him to St. Lisa's Private Academy of Home. I distinctly remember emphasizing to Chris's Career Development Officer that I did not, under any circumstance, want to homeschool my kids. 

So during the weeks leading up to our move, I researched and obsessed over the school options. There were even a few insane weeks that I looked into homeschooling him, mainly because I was worried about him having to cross the border every day. It just seemed like an overwhelming amount of responsibility for a seven year old. I had almost decided that I would actually enroll him at St. Lisa's Private Academy of Home when both Andrew and Benjy got sick (again) for over a week, and I was given a reality check. How could I devote myself to Jacob's education if I was spending all my energy trying to get the other two well? I decided that it wouldn't be fair to Jacob for him to be trapped at home with us when he loves and needs to get out. So I nixed Option D again. 

And I decided on Option B. He would go to the public school in the U.S., mainly because they spoke English there. I wasn't happy about the 10 hour days nor the fact that we would be in separate countries for most of the day, but I didn't feel that I had another option. Option C would involve too much time in the car for the other two, and I didn't think it was fair for them to spend their childhood looking out the window of the car. 

Option B it was, until we actually got to Tijuana. Then, all I heard about was how wonderful Option A was. Most of the mothers of preschoolers had their children at one of the local bilingual schools, and they couldn't say enough good things about the school. They were convinced that Jacob would pick up Spanish after a few months, and he would be fine. Yes, it would be hard for him to be immersed into a foreign language, but the benefits would be substantial. He would leave Mexico bilingual. 

So, I decided that maybe Option A was the best fit, mainly because Jacob would be in Tijuana and not in another country. And of course, I would love for him to be bilingual. My only fear was that he would be completely miserable and frustrated with enduring the Spanish half of his day. Whenever Chris or I would try to talk to him in Spanish he would start yelling, "I don't speak Spanish, la la la la la!" and he would stick his fingers in his ears. Not a good sign, I thought. Plus, I knew that if he was frustrated at school, it wouldn't be school that would take the brunt of it. It would be me.  

But at the local school, he would be near me yet not at homeschool (a decided bonus). So I started investigating it. A super accommodating friend, who has her son in school there, took me around to the uniform places and acted as interpreter as we gathered information. It was after that day of feeling like an idiot and not being able to handle my own business in regards to my kid's education (and several hours of hand-wringing and crying) that I decided that Option A definitely would not be right for me. Maybe Jacob could adjust, but I wasn't confident that I could.  

Today makes Day 3 for Jacob going to public school in the U.S. At the end of Day 1, he bounced through the door with a grin from ear to ear. He had lost his water bottle, but his documents had all made it home, and he had made friends. At the end of Day 2, he was simply exhausted. And so once again, I debated Option D--St. Lisa's Private Academy of Home. Jacob said, "Mommy, I love you, and I miss you, but I like to go to school." We're going with that for now. But don't get me started on what I'm going to do about preschool.