Private or public
That is the question.
We had conferences last week for Antonio and turns out he is ready for Kindergarten! I was happy, excited, nervous and anxious all at the same time. That means Antonio is doing great socially and academically; which we kinda assumed!
However, that leads to the question. Go private or public?
Where he goes now they also have Kindergarten (and 1st grade). We love it there and have heard amazing things about their program. If we kept him there, he would go all day 8:50-2:45 M-Th with Friday being a half day. Of course that comes with a fee but we then would not have to pay for daycare. I could drop him every morning and Albert could pick him up. Timing works well. That does however assume our schedules wouldn't change. If they did we could be in a big pinch. The offset would save us money, not a lot but some. However, we would loose Mrs. Rosemary who we absolutely love. We are lucky enough to have her willing to told a spot for Antonio to be able to be there during the Summer. Yay! The ability to have her there to fall back on if needed (Winter/spring breaks etc) would not be there though. That is a bit stressful to me. The other negative is that he would go there (school) and then go to public in 1st grade. He wold have to make friends all over again. :/ However, his current teachers mentioned that he has made friends fairly easily this year.
For public school he would go to Sunnyside Elementary which appears from the road to be a bunch of portables. I admit, I have not gone up close to see them but that alone makes me lean the other direction. The kids at Rosemary's all go there. Mason, who is closest in age to Antonio is in Kindergarten there now and William (Rosemary's son) went there and is in 1st grade now; so he'd have a couple friends there and on the bus. Rosemary says Sunnyside is great now and that it's the best it's been in awhile. Apparently they have a new principle who is very hands on. If we send him to Sunnyside we will keep him at Rosemary's and continue to pay her (obviously) year round but would still be saving money compared to this year because we won't be paying for Pre-K. On days he goes to Ms. Rosemary's he would be picked up from her house and taken to school by bus (which makes me nervous) so the to/from school aspect is easy with public school. Also, on school breaks he would go to Ms. Rosemary's versus us having to stay home with him (if we went private).
In a sense for me, it really breaks down to this;
Go private and get an excellent education and be very comfortable with the school but Albert/I would have to take time off of work for no school days & hope our schedules stay flexible.
Go public and stress level for me goes down as far as child care but education and school would be basic.
We save money either way. Albert really likes where he is now (as do I) and seems to be leaning that way but the lack of childcare/back up plan stresses me out. I hate leaning on my Mom so much. Not that she'd be much help with the Winter/Spring breaks etc. I hope to tour Sunnyside this week or next. Registration starts Tuesday, the 11th, for where we are now and is open until it fills up. Sunnyside is now until June. Why is this so stressful. Part of me wishes there were just no options. Sigh.... Wish me luck!
