PRESCHOOL ANTICS
Tomorrow, we're taking the boys along, as we sign Deven up for preschool at Holy Family Day Home. We're really happy with the school, and we plan to have him start there this fall. It's the oldest childcare center in the city, with very sweet teachers & administrators, 2 meals & snacks served, convenient hours, a beautiful new building @ 16th & Dolores (8 long blocks away; but conveniently located along the BART line - good for me - and an easy drive for Yogesh); it's a larger school (100+ kids ages 2-5), with lots of socioeconomic diversity (>70% of the kids at any time are on some form of assistance), and the cherry-on-top: It's by far the least-expensive we've looked at. This doesn't mean it's *cheap* - but @ $1,295/month until he's potty trained, then $995/month, not nearly as bad as the $1,695+/month at other places we looked at.
Lest you think we could just call and sign him up...oh, no. When I was first pregnant, I spoke to very wise friends Tom & Kaya, who congratulated me in a high-happy pitch, then quickly lowered their voices and advised "Get yourself on preschool lists [for when he's 2]now." I thought they were kidding, but quickly realized they were dead serious. So, like any over-anxious neurotic San Francisco first-time mommy-to-be, I put Deven on 4 waitlists when I was 13 weeks pregnant:
- Holy Family Day Home (closest, lovely, no deposit)
- Marin Day Schools (4 locations, known as a top school, $50 deposit)
- Katherine Michiels School (closest to our home, high end but ick building, $75 deposit)
- Children's Village (tough location, sweet teachers, $50 deposit)
I reviewed countless other schools, visited another 8, considered hard whether to put Deven in Daycare or hire a nanny (we ended up with the Nanny, which was a good choice for us), and though we had no guarantees...I waited. Oh yes, and since then, I've also added us to
- Glen Park Montessori (out of our way, $50 deposit)...and I almost considered adding us to 3 other lists.
If you think that was enough to get him into our top choice, let me set you straight: We got him into the school by not only my efforts above, but also my dogged persistence. When Deven was ~ 15 months, I started calling. I added to my calendar, once a month, to call my top choices (HFDH & KMS), and sweetly remind them of how interested we are in their school and how much we wanted Deven to attend there. I found out that Deven's pre-birth application had been misplaced by HFDH in a computer-file upgrade, so I reminded them how interested I was in Deven's attending there, and begged them to let me reapply with the same October 2006 application date. After speaking with just about every assistant at HFDH, I finally got through to the Admissions Coordinator, and begged (I mean, literally, using a nice-voice and all the emotion I could muster on the cellphone while driving). I think she wanted me to stop calling her, so she said she'd found proof of my October 2006 application, and agreed that I could use that date on my application.
With the effort I put in, you'd think I was getting him into Wharton, not the wee-ones program at the nearby nursery school.
...but in the end, my persistence paid off: In March, we learned that Deven got the only open spot in the not-yet-potty-trained class, as they took mostly kids moving up from their infant program in another location, into their Dolores Street preschool. Phew!
And now, tomorrow, my first baby - my sweet little Deven Reid - will go with us to sign up for preschool. That nameless group "They" has told me many times "Kids grow up so fast" - and looking back on the past 2 years, I have to agree.
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