If you think the average American family spends more time searching for athletic shoes and computer games than for the schools their children attend, you haven't been school shopping with my brood.
With two children four grades apart, and with very different needs, tracking down the right schools is like putting together the tiny pieces of a complicated jigsaw puzzle.
Through moves to new neighborhoods, cuts in programs and the natural shift from elementary to middle school, our search for the right schools for each of our children has always started at the same place -- the kitchen table. Even back during that first search for a kindergarten for our daughter, we talked about the things that were most important to us.
Decide What You Want
Based on the personality and needs of each child, we prioritized the things we wanted in a school. My husband and I have always agreed on the basics such as math and reading, but we arm wrestled when it came to prioritizing art and music classes vs. basketball and soccer.
One of our top items has always been finding schools that place a priority on technology and computer competency. Together, we also addressed things that would limit our search like transportation to and from school and daycare.
Do Some Checking
Once we decided what was important to us, we began our search. We started by asking neighbors about the local school, but most had kids who were grown and gone.
I went to the library to get copies of the annual report card that most newspapers run on the local schools. Needless to say, we passed on the schools that got D's and F's.
Digging a little deeper, we went back to the real estate agent who sold us our house. He gave us another type of report on how area schools ranked in test scores, per-child spending and average class size.
After I eliminated the schools that failed or barely passed the standards, the ones that had as many substitute teachers as permanent ones and the one that was rumored to have been built on a toxic land fill in the '50s, we narrowed our choices to two schools.
Visit Schools
We went into meetings with principals armed with a battery of questions. I asked about handling of discipline problems, experience and training of staff and diversity of students and teachers. My husband wanted to know the size of the hard drives on the computers, Mac or PC.
I grilled them on their gifted and talented programs, the types of field trips they took and their strategy to improve their standardized test scores. My husband asked about new math and how often they had gym class. We both wanted to know how many of the things we considered basic had been put on the chopping block during budget cuts.
I knew it was important to find out how each school would measure our children's progress. Standardized test scores are major indicators, but I wanted to know about other things that would tell us how our son and daughter were progressing.
Did the schools use easy-to-read report cards? Did they keep journals and portfolios of my children's work, or were children graded on their ability to sit still and not ask too many questions? How would they work with my children to help them improve?
Visit Teachers
We left interviews with both principals duly impressed. The next hurdle was the interviews with the teachers that would be working with our children. We visited classrooms, sitting in tiny chairs at the back of the room.
We looked at class size, and how the children interacted with the teacher and each other. The teachers in both schools used creative methods to encourage class participation. In fact, during a flash card math game in one class, I had to restrain my husband from saying, "Oooh, oooh, I know that one." He liked that school best.
After class, we talked with the teachers about the textbooks, computers, homework and discipline. Both teachers showed us the skills our child would be expected to learn by the end of the year.
They also showed us their lesson plans for how they would help the students master those skills. In both schools, we felt that the classes we visited would nurture our children and allow them to flourish.
Talk with Other Parents
But before making our final choice, we decided it would be a good idea to go to the Parent Teacher Association meetings at both schools. It was a good opportunity for us to meet other parents. We got a feel for how the school uses parent participation.
At the first PTA meeting, the parents were inviting and willing to answer our questions. But they eyed us just as carefully as we eyed them. "Would you be interested in being a room mother?" one woman asked.
Another explained the local retailer program that offered bonus dollars to schools if parents bought chicken, power saws or mulch at their stores. One of the things on our wish list early on was the ability to participate in school activities, so these opportunities excited us.
I was sold, until an item on the agenda came up about the children who were being bused to the school. There was just something about the way that the president said "those children" that made us feel uncomfortable. Diversity and a welcoming environment were as important to us as multiplication tables, so our top choice fell fast to No. 2.
Make a Careful Choice
Our final step was to bring back all the information we had gathered, good, bad and indifferent. We sorted it all and made a careful choice.
Two years later, when the needs of our son changed, we picked another school for him. After that we shopped for a middle school for our daughter.
This year we're looking carefully at our choices for our daughter as she heads into high school. She's looking at where her friends will go and what school has the cutest boys. We're looking at numbers of kids who will graduate and the presence of metal detectors and drug sniffing dogs. Since she plans to attend college, we will also investigate the strength of college prep courses, SAT scores, and the number of graduates who get into Ivy League schools.
In another couple of years we will be looking at middle schools for our son. After that it will be college for our daughter. A school shopper's work is never done.
Andrea Collier is a freelance writer who lives in Lansing. Michigan. She and her husband are parents of two school age children.