The good, the bad and the ugly of our move

It's about 3.5 months since we moved. I marvel at how fast this house has felt like home. When I have moved in the past, there was always a period of time that felt strange. It was never like that in this house. It immediately felt like we belonged.

We're learning the neighbourhood. Shopping is better in this area, Kildonan Place and the surrounding big boxes have about every store we'd like to shop except for Chapters (and let's face it, 90% of the time we order from Amazon). Even Ten Thousand Villages is relatively close which is a great way to do ethical and fun gift giving. Huge toboganning hills are just a brief walk away, and a pool and rinks are nearby.

Winter is not really a time to sit out and shoot the breeze with neighbours, but we have had chats with the people living on either side of us. They seem nice.

School has been an adjustment and the area that we feel the most dissapointment about. We loved the school the girls were going to when we were in West Kildonan. We expected that things would be just as good here. They aren't.

Before the move I visited the catchment school and had immediate misgivings. There was no sense of welcome, people only seemed interested in getting us to fill out forms. The principal was non-relational. What I heard about the school from others wasn't that bad, but neither did I hear anything that was that positive. I mentioned 2-3 times to the school that I wanted my kids to visit the school before they enrolled, and that I wanted them to meet their teachers during this visit. They had a LOT of lead time on this. When I phoned to make an appointment, they didn't ask me what would be convenient for us, they told me what time to come. When I called back to say a different day would work better, the receptionist said the principal had another meeting, but she supposed that the principal could make it work if we were brief. When we came to the school as a family they left us to wait for a long time, and even after that the principal never came out, she just sent the resource teacher to show us around the school. The resource teacher didn't talk to the kids at all. I started asking child-like questions to get her to talk at the kid's level but she never caught the hint. Ashlin's teacher at least stopped and said hi when we looked in the classroom, but asked us if Ashlin was starting there, so it was obvious the teacher hadn't informed her of anything. And we found out that the principal still hadn't decided which class Taryn would be in, so she didn't get to meet her teacher. I looked at her face, full of disappointment but trying hard to be mature about it, and my heart broke. We decided to research other schools in the area before starting them anywhere.

We found out another school, not too much further, could possibly take students from another catchment. I talked to the principal, and she seemed welcoming and relational. She made sure that the children could meet their teachers before starting. And when she visited she talked to the kids. But I'm still bugged by a couple of things. One is that the school insists that parents wait outside. One of the things we loved about our old school was that we retrieved our children right at the classroom door. It gave us opportunities to exchange pleasantries, talk about little things that had arisen and gave us a knowledge of each other to make discussions of any more serious issues a better starting place. To make parents wait outside, I feel, communicates a certain amount of distance and disrespect (this is Winnipeg, after all, coldest provincial capital in Canada). The other thing (and this is division - wide) is that we now get charged for lunchtime supervision. While also done in other divisions, I know that schools can arrange themselves to provide supervision without charging parents, because that is what happened in our last school. It again communicates disregard to me when a school does not look for creative solutions but rather just falls back upon the lets-just-charge-the-parents. Many families today are cash-strapped and struggling. I don't think it's right for schools to add to that burden.

Add to that forms that sound less like information and more like legal documents, and I feel that we have wound up in a division that is policy driven rather than people driven, one in which the schools are not there to serve the parents and children but the parents and children are there to serve the institution.

At first, Ashlin seemed to be doing better. While we loved our last school, we also knew that the K teacher was not the strongest, and Ashlin was not handling her head-heavy heart-weak style. At the new school, the K teacher seemed great. But yet now Ashlin is whining all the time about going to school, and saying that she hates it.

Taryn immediately talked about school being boring. That was the word she used every day. She has gone from a child who loved school and was excited about the things she learned to a child who doesn't like it and doesn't want to go. At the old school, she was getting great feedback on every part of the curriculum except phys. ed. Now she is apparently struggling in math and doesn't seem focused.

We could try yet another school in the division, but I have the feeling the whole division is unresponsive to families. We could try going back to our old school, but that is in another division and besides the difficulty involved in the administrative aspects, it would mean tons of driving. Rob is considering home-schooling, and while I know that the benefits of home-schooling are substantial, but I also know that would cement us into a one-income family for a long time.

ALmost enough to make me want to move back to WK.