…And then she got in

We were one of the lucky ones. Anna’s name was called sooner, rather than later, and there was a LOT more later than there was sooner. As the lottery ended, the officials moved swiftly to face us, ready for questions. Shoulder to shoulder , they unintentionally gave the impression of closing ranks, protecting the posters on which they’d just affixed a few thousand names.

Most of the names were on various waiting lists, and most of those parents slid out of the room, whispering into cell phones. From my unofficial count, it seemed that a total of five parents in the whole room had selected in this round. We all bore similar expressions: excited, sure, but also a little bit … shy? Like, we were all smiling, but no one was whooping or fist-pumping.

It felt strangely alien to win our slot, especially because we hadn’t done anything all those other parents didn’t do. As randomly and truly as it could be, this was pure, unadulterated luck. I can’t say I felt touched by fate or chosen, just … lucky.

Which isn’t to say I didn’t treat us to yet another tour of the school grounds, watching Anna’s reaction (“Three playgrounds! I LOVE this school!”), eyeing the few kids who were still around that late in the day, trying to picture her there. That night I studied their website with such fervor you’d think I was facing a test. I had silly fun going to the LandsEnd website to gaze longingly at the uniforms. Equal parts geek and just plain strange, I guess.

But now the real work begins. Tours and info sessions and meeting the teachers, and yesterday we finally got our acceptance letter in the mail (which is why I felt I couldn’t safely post this ’til today). That will all be fun. What won’t be fun is deciding, signing on the dotted line. As much weight as that lottery day carried, school choice is not a simple game; matching a kid with a charter shouldn’t ever be automatic.

By all of the published indicators, the teaching is strong. The population of kids is ethnically and socioeconomically mixed. What you can usually anticipate with accuracy is strong parental involvement, and that seems to be the case here, too. International Baccalaureate, bi-lingual (in German, which is different). Grade levels K – 8. UNIFORMS.

This is a great school, in all the general ways I know about at the moment. It’s a charter, which always requires a close look (they are given a lot of latitude, so nothing, from the way they spend their money to their school day schedule, is necessarily a given). Charters are notorious for unreliability and, in times of strife, high teacher turnover; they can often hire outside the boundaries that limit the personnel decisions traditional schools have. But this school has been around a while, which is a good sign, and its staff turnover has been low, which is a better sign.

So for now, we’ll be glad for our luck and hope the decision proves a good one, whatever it is.