Back to School

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Here in Maryland, today is the first day of school following summer vacation. For my son, it is his frist day of school... ever. He just turned 3 this month, so it's only pre-school. He was very excited about going to school, until he found out today that going to school requires him to get up at six in the morning. That pissed him off, and now he considers the whole "school" thing to be .

I can't say I blame him - I know I don't like getting up in the morning, and now that he has to be up by six, I'm setting my alarm for five. That's really .

Anyway, I woke him up this morning, and he told me it was too early because it was still night time (which at 6, is technically true). My wife was a stay-at-home mom for the first three years of his life, so he typically got up around eight, and no matter what time of year, that's always after sunrise. I tried to explain it to him that the sun would be up soon, but he just started crying - which pretty much how I feel when my alarm goes off in the morning.

We're hoping that he will quickly get into the routine of going to bed earlier. However, since there's a nap in the middle of the day (11:00-12:30), maybe he won't.

 

That's cool, Aldeth!

Why does he have to get up at 6am? That seems very early. What time does he have to be there? Or is it a really long walk to get there?

I have no idea how the pre-school system works there. Has he been to any other sort of thing before this? Does he stay at this until he starts real school? What age does he start real school? Did he have to start pre-school at 3?

 

Wow - lots of questions. 6 am is very early, and I feel terrible to wake the little guy up then. HE doesn't have to be anywhere at any specific time. The issue is that both my wife and I are gainfully employed, and WE have to be at our work locations at very specific times.

We enrolled him at a preschool about a half mile away from where my wife works. If they actually were walking there, it would be a VERY long walk, as the pre-school is about 20 miles from where we live. (Are you suggesting that there are so many schools in New Zealand that most children walk to school? The vast majority of children going to public school in the US get to school via bus. Most of them don't have a 20 mile trip of course, but anything beyond even half a mile would be very far for a small child.)

My wife has to be at work at 7:30, and with a 20 mile drive to work, she needs to leave by 6:30 to make sure she's there on time, and the little guy likes to eat breakfast before he leaves, so we get him up at 6.

The reason he had to start pre-school this year is because my wife returned to work. My wife is an elementary school teacher - but they don't have pre-school at my wife's school. The earliest grade they teach there is kindergarten, which is for children who are 5.

Jack could continue going to that school until he's 5, when he would start kindergarten, but that is certainly not the plan. Ideally, we'll only do this for one year. We'd like to move, which is only practical if my wife can get a teaching job closer to where I work. (I currently work 42 miles away from where I live, so it would be even worse if I were taking Jack to school by my work location.)

The schools that were my wife's first choice for this school year weren't hiring, and she was essentially forced to take a job that is in the opposite direction of where I work. (I guess she technically wasn't forced - she could have decided not to go back to work, but if she wanted to work, she had to go with a school that was hiring.) There are two schools by where I work that require teachers to be there at 8:30. That would make life much easier on us. We could move close to where that school was, it would cut down on my drive time to work, and she probably wouldn't have to leave for school until around 8:00, which would mean Jack wouldn't have to wake up until about 7:30, which is about what time he normally gets up anyway.

 

Moving is a hassle....just quit your jobs and find new ones closer to home.

 

That doesn't sound that strange I don't know how it's the case in NZ, but around here most kids do walk to their primary schools as they are often just a 10 minute walk away (or a 10 minute bike ride if the school is a bit further away). Well, maybe not for a three year old (schools around here start at the age of four), but they can go in the child carrier on mom's or dad's bike. No school buses or parents dropping their kids off by car around here

 

Oh, moving is a huge pain in the ass. I'm not looking forward to it. However, jobs aren't exactly abundant in these parts, and I think my odds of landing a job at similar pay closer to where I live are rather slim - remember that I work for the army, have pretty good job security, and now is definitely not the time to look to the private sector. If my wife were able to land a job closer to where I work, we'd have moved already.

To tell the truth, my wife and I would love to move anyway. We live in a rather small townhouse (980 sq ft total - not on each floor). It was fine with just me and my wife, but things have been getting progressively more cramped since Jack has arrived. We were hoping to get the move done this past year, but you have to go where the jobs are...

Well that's not the case in the US. The closest elementary school to our house is about 3 miles away - much too far to walk or ride a bike for anyone younger than a teenager IMO. That's not new either - the same was the case when I was in school. None of the public school I attended from elementary through high school were within reasonable walking distance.

Bedtime was much easier on Day 2 - we finished the bath at 7:30, and he asked if we could read a story and go to bed - he was out cold by 8:00, meaning he got about 10 hours of sleep last night - which is about what you need when you're 3.

 

Ashley is starting nursery (pre-school) on the 17th of September. We live about a 5 minute bike ride from the school so I have a seat on my bike for him. He starts at 9am so we'll be leaving the house at about quarter to.

He's going to have to get used to being up early as well. He likes to a piece of toast and a bowl of cereal for his breakfast and it takes him about half an hour to eat it because EVERYTHING distracts him

Rob's decided to go back to college as well...at 34 he's the oldest student (everyone else is 16/17) and is only about 3 months younger than his tutor. Hope I don't get called into his school for his bad behaviour!

 

Condoms are wonderful things.

 

Yes. If all the kids had to travel for miles to get to school, that would probably be a hint that they needed to build another school in between the two distant ones. My son walks 5 minutes to his primary school. When I was a kid, I walked 15 minutes to my primary school, 35 minutes to my intermediate school, and 10 minutes to my high school.

Hang on. Are you saying that kids catch a bus to go half a mile? 800 metres? Kids in USA catch a bus to travel the equivalent of two laps of a running track? No! That can't be right, surely.

 

I humbly admit that I pulled that number out of my arse, and didn't bother to look up the walk radius of Maryland schools. Now that you asked, I looked up the information. In Maryland, you are provided with public transportation to school if you live more than 1.5 miles away. So 2400 meters. I was thinking more about my kid, and I'd never let Jack walk 800 meters to school by himself. (Although I wouldn't drive him from that distance - I'd walk with him.)

EDIT: But now that I think about it - Maryland is densely populated. I imagine if you lived in a less populated area (I don't know - like Alaska or Wyoming) that kids are traveling 20 miles to go to school.

 

Oh yeah, kids that live in rural areas would definitely travel much further to school. I shouldn't assume everyone lives in suburbs!