As the rain is drumming on the windows, I am thinking about school and education system. Today is the day. The day that my kids will not go to school because there is no education system in place: no teachers!

I grew up in a so called Third World Country back then.Yet, now that I think about it I realize how simple the education was and yet how effective. At that time we had only public education. There were not so many flavors of private schools or non-secular schools to choose from. There were only local, public schools available. The kind of schools that you could walk to from home. They were maintained by government properly and they were always staffed. Plus, no body had to fundraise money for school to have PE or arts or such.  Granted, they were not done that greatly but at least they were available to everyone.

The teachers did not have a high paying job but they had an almost decent salary with pension and health benefits and a 3 months of summer paid vacation and all other benefits that made teaching attractive especially for women.

I know at that time, I was probably one of the people who mocked this system.  Why don’t we have choices? Why aren’t there more options available to us?,  I would ask.

Today as LAUSD teachers  go on a strike with 3000 teachers refusing to teach , I feel may be simplicity is a GREAT thing. As a matter of fact, I as a parent crave for simplicity

Ever since my kids turned school age in LA, I have faced an unbelievable shock.

The saga of finding a decent school was overwhelming when Ava was ready to go to Kindergarden. Our condo back in the day was zoned for Grandview. Looking at the sites evaluating the schools, sending Ava to that school felt like a big NO NO in my brain. The school was rated like a 2 out of 10 in academic and several other aspects. On the other hand, the houses on the other side of street were zoned for Beethoven elementary  which felt a much better choice at least on the paper. How can you have that kind of zoning was beyond my comprehension, of course.

When we had bought our condo, our realtor thought about school system for our kids.Our brains were not optimized for understanding what a convoluted system we will face when we have kids, we simply disregarded that aspect.

We changed our house and landed in a place zoned for Walgrove elementary. By this time, I had set trusting websites aside and was going to rely on what I saw in a school when I toured the schools. With a  full time job and a child in preschool, do you think it is easy to spend half of your day touring different schools?

I bought Tanya Anton book on a guide to elementary schools and went on numerous meetings to learn about magnet and charter and all the available options.

Some really felt good. Some felt just confusing . I had gone on a  tour of our neighborhood school  when Ava was like 3 and I was so disappointed. The principal back then could not even articulate what her vision was.

I was conflicted. In a country where the head of any company small or large had to articulate his vision clearly and every level of management had their own manifesto of running their departments or they would lose their jobs, how could the educator seem so inefficient?

With a very dubious heart, I toured Walgrove again. I was very touched with the sense of community. It became a choice on the list. The private school I liked said that they can not accept Ava because she was born Sep 6 and their cut off was Sep 1st. They were not even willing to test her and see if she can have a chance of exception. Right there, their action was contradicting their philosophy of catering to the individuality of a kid?!

The citizens of the world charter was being born that year but it was still a name and an idea floating around. Touring Catholic schools reminded of how my idea of being spiritual and not necessarily religious for my kids can get jeopardized so I had to drop the ball. So, after spending xillion hours on research, tours, talking to parents, confusing myself we opted in for our neighborhood public school.

A school with a soul and resources and community that I learned is run by the money gathered by parents. I learned that school funding only pays for infrastructure and not all the amazing possibilities that could be made available to kids! shocking point. Fundraising is nowadays what makes or breaks a public school as far as I have seen.

Today, it is 7 years years we are with LAUSD. I feel so so GRATEFUL for teachers going on strike. Why?

• Because, let’s support public education and make it stronger.
• Because I want the people who are brave enough to teach my kids love their jobs , the same way my teachers did.
• Because I live in a California and this state has enough money to make the education of kids a priority.
• Because I have always found it ridiculous that parents have to work so hard to raise money for the necessities of the school like teaching aides, PE, arts,etc . It all should be budgeted for.
• Because having access to therapists, counselors, psychologists at school should be a right and they should not be a scarce resource! Kids need such resources. Parents need such resources. We all want to have well-rounded kids in this society.
• Because walking to school is AMAZING. Having to drive your kid to school or half way across the universe every day is a DISASTER. It takes a toll on kids, parents, friendships, traffic, etc.

And I am going back to the SIMPLE model I experienced growing up. Hoping LAUSD catches up with 20th century and builds some new ways of looking at education and human learning.

Let’s hope LAUSD and UTLA reach a real agreement soon!

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