OUR School Project plus Guilford County Schools: Tying the Hands of Parents Everywhere

Jake and I have a school project due tomorrow. That's right, my child has a project due in preK. Now don't get me wrong, I LOVE it. I've always loved doing the research part of any school project...which is why I have a million Louis Armstrong web pages bookmarked, but we haven't started the actual poster. In fact, I don't know for sure that we're doing a poster yet...

Which is why Jake is now at school, blissfully unaware that his mom is panicking, just like in college the night before every paper was due. You know, I was a women's studies major. Why didn't I steer him toward a woman for his Black History Month project?? And maybe they'll do a project in March for Women's History Month... Susan B. Anthony, here we come.

Actually, Ike and I did quite a bit of steering this time to make up Jake's mind. I first gave him a choice of three: an Arctic explorer, Jackie Robinson, or Colin Powell. Okay, really, I was trying to get him to pick Robinson. What child wouldn't pick the baseball player? Mine, of course. "Colin Powell was a soldier and is a politician?? Oh boy, let's pick him!" (No, he didn't say all of that.)

Powell is not very interesting when you're trying to do a preK-level project on him. And as a certain Anonymous pointed out, "I thought he was supposed to pick someone Black?" So we tried a new approach:

"Hey Jake, Colin Powell is boring. If you do your project on Louis Armstrong, you can take Daddy's trumpet to school." (By the way, if anyone has a trumpet they can loan us next Wednesday for Jake's presentation, please let me know. We can't find Ike's.) That did it, of course. So Satchmo wins...which means Mommy wins.

Now the Guilford County Schools thing. We will not be able to let Jake repeat preK after all. This is not the fault of Jake's teacher or the school's principal, both of whom thought it would be no problem. According to Doyle Craven of the School Assignment Office,

Once a child reaches the age of kindergarten eligibility,
(5 years old on or before October 16), the child would no
longer be eligible for pre-k. If a student is old enough
to start kindergarten, we will not accept them into a pre-k
program, therefore, it would not be appropriate to retain
a pre-k student.

That's right, Guilford County Schools will not, as a policy, be flexible or look at the individual child's needs. I sound bitter, but I'm really not. Jake will be fine. We love his school, his teacher, the staff, everything about it. We'll keep working with him to build his confidence and to help him stand up for himself. He's going to be okay, but I wonder about any kid who really cannot keep up with the other kids. Any kid who is showing signs of being behind academically and emotionally. Will that child also be pushed forward? The answer is obviously yes.

Okay, on to that project...