Thursday, February 07, 2008

We are obsessed

Everywhere I go, everyone I talk to, it's all the same: schools, schools, schools. We are in the 3-month wait between application submission and acceptance notification for Chicago Public Schools. And, as mothers, we are all obsessed. It's nearly all we can talk about. I'm planning to attend an LSC meeting tomorrow night, and a meeting about the proposal below on Friday evening.

Another school-related discussion in my world of late is CPS's proposal to transfer all the students from Irving Park Middle School to Thurgood Marshall Middle School and turn Irving Park Middle School into a magnet school with a 30% holdback for area students. We're all abuzz. I am curious to see if CPS plans to expand the local attendance boundary for the new school. If so, and it includes my area, I'm all for it. It would be an every so slightly longer walk for The Boy and The Girl to attend the new school than it would be for them to attend our local elementary, Murphy, to which I have no intention of sending my children, sadly. However, if the boundary remains what it is, I'm against the plan, because my neighborhood will be rife with bused-in junior high schoolers and I get to deal with all the crap without any benefit.

The Boy has his GEAPs test in a few weeks. We'll see how it goes.

2 comments:

kafein said...

Hi, your blog came up searching for Irving Park middle school. We also live in the area, my daughter is at St. Viator's for Pre-k, and I also sent in 21 apps for CPS Kindergarten. Any idea how they will do the applications for IP for next year?

Liz

Anonymous said...

It is called a free for all. Basically there will be only a kindergarten and 1st grade class in the first year. 18 spots in each class (30%) will be for children in the neighborhood. The rest will be lottery so there will be more applications than there are spots and every one will be trying to claw their way in. What a fabulous idea OIPA had to get us 18 spots. Why didn't they fight for the whole school!