5 Down, 179 More to Go - Back to School

We’ve made it through the first week of school.  All the emergency contact forms are back, money is on the lunch account, and class schedules are set.  We didn’t miss a bus, we were on time for school, and no-one lost a lunchbox yet.  I’d say we’re off to a positive start.

Which is a good thing when you’re spread out over not one, not two, no, not even three schools.  This year, we are in four different schools – two middle and two elementary – thanks to the confluence of our home in the DCC school area and the magnet program.  Four schools, four sets of administrators and teachers.  Three PTAs.  Two bus routes.  One busy family.

With multiple schools, sometimes it’s hard to be at every event at each school – actually, often its impossible.  But it’s important for us to try to make as many as we can, we have to prioritize the “can’t miss” versus the “it would be fun, but not crucial”.  Unfortunately, that means sometimes we have to pass up the family pizza and Bingo night for the testing information session.  It’s all part of being a family, the compromise and give and take.

Even still, it’s important to be involved as much at each school as possible.  In the next few weeks, our evenings will be filled with back-to-school nights, PTA/PTSA meetings, and program information meetings.  We’ll hurriedly get homework done and eat in the car on the way to school before we file into the various auditoriums and gymnasiums and cafeterias.  We’ve got a new school in the bunch, new teachers, Curriculum 2.0, and a pile of expectations and questions.

Like families all over the county, we’ll have the regular stuff - homework, parent-teacher conferences, class parties, and testing.  New for our family – one will be moving to a holding school in preparation for modernization and one will be choosing a high school (I’m still grasping the idea that my baby is that old already).  So there will be old and new, good and bad, things to remember, things to forget. 

Follow along with me, here on The Patch, as we make it through another school year.  I welcome your comments and questions. 

What are you and your kids excited or nervous about this school year?

Frances blogs regularly on her personal site, Just Piddlin' at www.slackermomof4.blogspot.com and posts on her FaceBook page - Just Piddlin' with Frances.