While Kenny and I were working on his book report last night, Jeff attended a curriculum meeting at school for Kenny's First Grade class next year. When the principal left the school last month, Jeff was very concerned about bringing our kids back in the fall. He didn't like how "corporate" was handling matters, especially the curriculum questions from the parents.

But, he came away very reassured about the coming school year, at least as far as Kenny is concerned. The two first grade teachers each have years of experience at this school. They do much more reading and writing than in kindergarten. There will be two first grade homerooms, the school promised last night, even if there are four students in each class. One mother has twins and doesn't want them in the same class. So, her issue was addressed to her satisfaction.

In fact, the assistant principal says that she receives new student applications just about every day. I don't think attracting new students is as impressive as retaining students. And this school has a high rate of student turnover, probably about half of which is due to dissatisfaction with the school. I'll tell you, if we had anywhere else to go, we probably would have also. But, there's nowhere else to go. And I'll talk about public school.

The situation is our town's public school is half-day kindergarten. This year, now, Kenny is finishing up his third year of full-day, full-week school. He's reading and writing and taking weekly spelling and reading comp. tests. Imagine him in the public school first grade program with children coming off a half-day kindergarten program. They can't read, they can't write. It would not be a good fit to stick him in there.