This afternoon, we went to the 3K orientation for Kaia’s new school, where she’ll be starting on Thursday. The orientation was straightforward: the administrators explained the schedule, cadence of the year, afterschool program activities and focus areas. The principal made some snarky comments about New York City’s Department of Education (DOE) since their 3K and 4K programs are publicly funded. They provided lukewarm pink lemonade and grocery store donuts. They reiterated the school supplies list, which included odd things (well, odd to me, anyway) like hand sanitizer, hand soap, and paper towel rolls. What is this: the school cannot even afford hand soap after my child poos or pees, so now I have to provide this…? Is this what public school education is like now?

The main reason we’re even doing this double commute down to Chinatown every day is that this is one of just a handful of Chinese immersion schools that is publicly funded in New York City. So there will be an English speaking teacher and a Mandarin speaking teacher in the class to teach the usual curriculum for the school day. Then, in the afterschool program, they will focus on Chinese language, writing/character recognition, and culture. I was so happy to hear that they’ve already set a date for parents to get together with the kids in the classroom for Mid-Autumn Moon Festival and lantern making. I hope we get selected since they said it’s a lottery (not all parents can attend every event, so they rotate). Unfortunately, they were still selecting who would be the Chinese teacher, so that hadn’t been finalized yet.

At bedtime tonight, I talked more with Kaia about how tomorrow would be a big day: she’d go to her new school and have a new classroom with new friends and new teachers. They’d give her lots of yummy snacks and food. She had to remember to pee and poop in the potty and ask the teachers for help. And she responded, “And I get to see Ms. Tanique?” (that’s her former 2s teacher). I lightly told her that Ms. Tanique would not be there. She looked sad and said, “I want Ms. Tanique!” I said again that Ms. Tanique would not be there. Yes, that is sad, but she’d have new teachers that she’d like and get to know. She smiled and then squealed, “And new friends, too!”

This double commute better be worth it. I’m not sure how I am going to feel if she comes out of a year of this and her Chinese hasn’t improved. Some critical reviews of the school said that while it was good, they didn’t feel that their kids’ Mandarin had gotten that much better. They also did not like that when their kids spoke with their friends/classmates, it was all in English. When they switched their kids to 100% immersion schools (of course, private), the kids all spoke in Chinese to each other. We shall see…