Mini-Blog #3: Public School

It's been an interesting few weeks in the world of alternative, or, as some know it, "public" schooling.

First, we are the proud parents of the Student of the Month. Woohoo! It took some time and investigative skill to learn what this actually meant - since we found out about it by the fancy laminated certificate signed by the principal that quietly came home in the school folder. Turns out, there was an actual assembly where the students of the month were recognized in front of the whole school (we weren't there but we were supposed to get a letter about it but we didn't) and it's given out to two students per class, PER QUARTER. AND, it's based on character, not academics, which pretty much rocks, and means we all went to Cracker Barrel to celebrate our student-of-the-month-actually-quarter.

Second, the student-of-the-month-actually-quarter has a "best friend." She bounded into the car one day brandishing a note from said best friend's mom. We are now dating the family, determining levels of comfort and compatibility.

Our first date with the best friend's family was at the school's family night at McDonald's, my first experience with a public school "event." The kids had a great time running around the courtyard, which used to be a PlayPlace until someone FINALLY realized that an outdoor enclosed plastic winding tube in South Florida should be called a DeathPlace and tore it down. I appreciated the best friend's mom's honest answer to my offer to have her daughter come play - basically: "You seem very nice but I don't know you and I'm not ready to let my child go." It was oddly very comforting.

We met again the next night at the school auction. Now, where I come from, school auctions are a Very Big Deal. The date is on the calendar a year in advance, with save the date cards and emails and letters and requests for items and sponsorships and fancy printed invitations and teasers and booklets and $100 per person tickets and themes and babysitters and new outfits suitable for hobnobbing.

I knew not to expect that, especially when the first time we heard about the school auction on Friday night was the photocopied half-sheet that came home on Monday. That's right, we found out on Monday. We felt compelled to go and support the school and evidently we were one of few (maybe 30?) families who felt that way. While we had a good time and were happy with the prize we won - a giant cookie bouquet, fortunately the ONE thing Eden was about to sell her little sister for - I had this tremendous feeling of hopelessness about all of it.

See, we were supposed to be attending this other event for the ministry we support which exists to spread the Gospel in the public school system. So while we sat with maybe 100 people in a spartan school cafeteria, where no food was served and random porcelain bunny villages rested on folding tables decorated with plastic cloths, being raffled off for raffle tickets that cost $1 each, 100 of our friends were across town feasting on amazing food and raising money in the tens of thousands to "support public schools." Which they really do. But it was a strange feeling - this desire to see the two worlds really come together. What if our next ministry event was to actually attend a public school fundraiser and blow their numbers out of the water? Wouldn't that send an amazing message?