Pre-School

Did you honestly think you were going to have to wait until college to pay tuition and go through a screening process? Think again. Pre-school is a process and a half. Some of it depends on the parent. I think there are some parents that see it as the start of the "elite status" process. You know. The whole stereotypical: "getting in the right preschool will get my kid into Harvard" or "start them out on their road to the Senate." That wasn't our concern.

We just wanted a positive environment for our kids. Honestly, the biggest factor in determining our first choice of pre-school was location. There was a well regarded one, just down the street. So there was opportunity to car pool. This all would be a huge benefit for Demi, who runs a daycare out of the house. Getting out is not always easy for her, depending on when the other children come.

Here's the ordeal we had to endure though (you'd think that we were trying to get the boys into Harvard though. Or a rock concert.) Any child who was in the pre-school already was guaranteed a slot. OK. If that child had a sibling who would be new to the pre-school, that sibling was guaranteed a spot. Sure. Whatever. Any board member was guaranteed a spot for the their child. You could argue nepotism, but hey, they don't get paid. They are due. So they only know the number of truly "open" spots in their programs the day before Open Enrollment.

Here is the rub. Since they know the demand is higher than supply, they have parent by the...well you know. They give out wrist bands at 6:30 AM on the day of Open Enrollment. People over time development a method for waiting in the cars but keeping their spot in line by creating a sign up sheet. The first person there puts paper on the door of the school with their name and license plate number next to the number 1. The next person is number two, etc. You folks are smart. You can figure it out from there. When the school administrators show up, they hand out the wrist bands in order (yes, just like tickets for the Rolling Stones). Again, over time, people showed up earlier and earlier to start the sign in list. We were told through the grapevine that even 4 AM was not early enough, some parents had taken to camping out.

Our plan? I was going to grab a sleeping bag, head out to the parking lot between 2 and 3 AM. Sign in. And camp out. As fate would have it, I got sick that night. Demi was passed the short straw. Like a trooper, she went with the sleeping bag at 1:30 AM. She was third in line. Pole position person, had their two kids in the car with them. They showed up at mid-night. And if you think, hey sign in, leave, and come back....think again. It's cut throat. People will rat each other out and not think twice. Some guy had the audacity to show up at 6:20, run to the doors as they opened and say he hadn't known about the sign up sheet and he had been there for hours. Demi looked him in the face and called him a liar. "You pulled into the parking space next to me 10 mins ago." He left with his tail between this legs.

We got Caz the program we wanted though. And our neighbors were kind enough to help with the car pool. More then their fair share.