Frequently Asked Questions

Does your school allow testing?

We actually asked about testing AND offered to foot the bill ourselves. (Yeah... I know it costs hundreds of dollars, but we figured it was worth it.) We were told that the district does not provide testing because they have too many students and couldn't possibly afford it for all of them AND that district does not allow parents to pay for testing because it would be unfair to those children whose parents could not afford to pay for it. So, since the school district can't pay for it and since the parents can't pay for it, no one can have it.

Have you considered private schools?

There are a large number of private schools in the greater Chicago area. We narrowed our search to those schools that were within a one-half hour drive (one way) or an hour drive (round trip). An important thing to remember is that distance does not equate to time driven. So, due to heavy traffic, even with using shortcuts, this narrowed the search significantly. Still, there were quite a few private schools left.

In our search, we found that the private schools are either:

1. booked solid. One told us that parents sign their kids up at birth in order to guarantee that they have a seat when the time comes.
2. just as strict about cut-off dates as the public schools. Further, they claim not to allow promotion mid-year. (At least the public school told us that was an option.) We also found that some private schools actually have earlier cut-off dates than Sept 1.
3. extremely expensive. One hinted that they could find a spot if we gave them $10,000. I hope they were joking.
4. a combination of more than one of the above

Out of all the schools that we checked, we found ONE that would allow Ellie into first grade. However, we decided against it because:

• A friend of ours who is a social worker reported conditions where children who don't fit the norm (have learning disabilities, etc.) are left to themselves in a room all day. This sounded like neglect to us, and we could not stand the thought of sending Ellie to such a place.
• During a visit to the school, the head administrator went on and on about how "The Little Mermaid" is evil and appeared to have similarly close-minded views about many other things.
• The place is about a 1 hour round trip from here. That means we would spend 2 hours per day shuttling Ellie back and forth. By contrast, the public school is less than a block from here. (Yes, we tried the route on several days just to make sure that the time estimates weren't an anomoly caused by one day of bad traffic.) Incidentally, the major road between home and that school is now under construction and has been narrowed from 4 lanes to 2, so it would actually take LONGER to get there than what we estimated.

Why not just move to another district or state?

We considered this back in April. Our lease had expired and we were looking for other alternatives, so the time seemed right. At the time, we looked at our budget, determined how much we could afford, and started calling schools from other areas in the city. It seemed that the schools in the places where we could afford to live had strict policies about the cut-off dates. (A regional note: many of the schools in areas with more affordable housing in the greater Chicago areas have problems with overpopulation. One school administrator was honest enough to admit that the stance was taken simply to control attendance levels.)

However, we just moved to this area less than two years ago. After the previous move, it took some time for Ellie to get adjusted, make new friends, etc. She's just now to the point where she seems to have recovered from that move. She has friends, activities that she likes (dance lessons, swim lessons, Brownies), etc. Even though she isn't going to first grade with her best friends, she still gets to see them in the afternoons and weekends.