The month of February is always the most challenging month for Nursery School Directors, as it is the month of admissions and exmissions. It is the season of supporting families through the process of getting into ongoing schools and then reviewing hundreds of applications for a very limited number of spots here at the JCC for next September. This cycle always feels like it challenges the philosophical underpinnings we work to support the other eleven months of the year.
The Saul and Carole Zabar Nursery School strives to be a strength-based community. We see children for their abilities, for their potential; for all that they are today as well as all that they dream to be. We create classrooms where children can feel successful and parents should feel supported and welcome. We work to create a school environment where everyone is treated equally, with a deep respect for each child as being a valuable and unique member of our community. There is no one in the world like your child and we value this sacred spark within each and every one of them.
And then we confront the challenges of getting into kindergarten – a selective system by which children are measured and judged. For families who elect to look at Independent Schools or some of the selective public schools, they are required to put their lives on hold to tour as many as ten schools, bring children for interviews, bring themselves for interviews, and write essays, checks, thank you notes and top choice letters. It is a stressful exercise for parents and children experience parents’ anxieties as they are asked to “prove” that they are fit to be in these ongoing school programs. There are days when children do not feel like showing all that they know. There are days when it is difficult to get a taxi in the middle of December to get to a tour on time. There are days when children are under the weather or would prefer to be in school, with their friends and familiar teachers. But this exmissions process requires that everyone march through this demanding process.
And then schools need to make impossible decisions. How are they possibly going to select a small group of future students from a stack of hundreds of applications? They rely on tools for measurement: ERB scores, school reports, recommendations, school visits, parent interviews. And they strive to create some rubric, some way for their admissions committees to consider this mass of information. I do not criticize the schools. The Admissions Directors are kind and decent people, working on behalf of theirschool to further their mission by selecting students for their future Kindergarten classes. Admissions Directors do connect to the children and parents that they meet through this process and wish that they had more spots. The problem is not the Admission Directors or the committee or even the Head ofSchool.
The problem is that this system strives, as it must perhaps, for a goal that is not possibly to be achieved, for how do we measure 4 year olds? How do we weigh the range of life experiences, talents and strengths that these children bring to the classroom?
First, there is so much that we cannot know when we superficially look at a four year old and his or her family. We do not know whether one child may in future years struggle with their multiplications tables (no matter how many ways we test them at age 4). We do not know if a family is going to go through a challenging time in the future and how that might impact the child. We do not know who might make that insightful comment in a classroom next year that may change the course of the conversation or even the curriculum unit. We do not know which four year olds might someday stand up for the child who is being bullied by her classmates.
Secondly, even with the concrete information we have in front of us – how do we choose between the child who speaks two languages and the child whose parent is a cancer survivor? How do we choose between the child whose mettle has been tested by a physical disability and the child who is already doing elaborate mathematical computations in their head? How do we value the life experience of one child over another and then determine who would be a more valuable, more “fit” member of a Kindergarten class next September? Schools need to make choices because there are scarce resources and they simply cannot accept all of the children who apply. And in the face of scarce resources, very tough and sometimes seemingly senseless decisions are made.
Ongoing schools have made their initial decisions and some families face disappointing results. Even the families who had positive outcomes seem exhausted and depleted from the process. This process is not one that makes people feel valued and cared for. Parents feel pressured to make decisions, pressured to push waiting lists, and pressured to listen to the senseless chatter that lives on the internet. Few want their children to be judged – they who are so, so valuable and precious to us, regardless of where they go to school!
I am going to say it today and I will keep saying it – this process does not have any relationship to the value of your children. I suspect that the vast majority of the children who apply to any one of these schools would be perfectly appropriate students. And even after this very selective, grueling process, schools will discover in their midst children with learning struggles and children who have challenges working with peers. This process cannot weed out all the imperfections for as we know: all children are perfect and very imperfect at the very same time! They all have work ahead of them and incredible gifts too.
When people say that parents are crazy through this process, I always say that this process is crazy-making, not the parents. What parents want at their core is to find a warm, nurturing, appropriate setting for their children. I believe we are DNA-wired to want to protect our children and that the process of exmissions presents us many uncertainties and what-ifs that we necessarily feel this instinct challenged. The process is tiring and brutal, and we don’t have a whole lot of control in the outcome.
But here’s the good news – we can protect and care for our children regardless of what school they are in next year! What it means to protect our children is far more complicated and nuanced than simply getting into the “right Kindergarten.” Protecting and raising our children means doing what you have been doing each and every day since the day your child was born. It means waking them up with a hug, it means feeding them foods that nourish their bodies, and it means listening to them as they share their daily stories. It means creating boundaries when they are behaving in ways that will not serve them long-term, it means caring for them when they are sick, comforting them when they are scared, finding ways to laugh and play, kiss and celebrate. It means remembering that their connection and relationship to you is far more significant than anything else. All for all this, you do have some control!
Amidst all the insanity, I am grateful to work in a school that strives, even through the month of February, to care for children in an ethical, inclusive and empowering way. We know your children are valuable and precious – each and every one of them.
Shabbat Shalom and enjoy the break next week,
Ilana received her B.A. from Harvard College and a Master's Degree in Education from Bank Street College. She was born and raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and now lives there with her husband and three children.
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