By JODY McMASTER, Times Staff Writer
Published August 29, 2004 Situation: Times copy editor Jody McMaster has a son at a fundamental school - a school they picked a year before the choice system began.
(This article originally appeared Sept. 14, 2003)
The pressure was on.
My son was going to start elementary school, and once we chose, that would be it for the full six years. Stability and all that. Sepia-toned memories of my childhood public neighborhood school, the wonderful teachers and lifetime friendships forged there, and my golfer-mother waiting at home every day didn't help.
Cue the violins. And thank God for cheap chardonnay.
The liberal side of me was raising a kid mostly on her own. The conservative alter ego wanted for my kid what I had as a kid. Choosing a great school would be a good first step, even without a skilled hunter-gatherer helping to pay the mortgage.
Because I didn't think we had true neighborhood schools in this county - you could live a stone's throw away and not necessarily get in - the next best thing, I thought, would be to move near whatever school my kindergartener landed in. So I began scouring both schools and their surroundings (staying open to diverse, even funky, areas).
I considered South Tampa schools, and one in Plant City that serves my mother's gated community. (She had been lobbying for me to move there, but I ultimately realized that a gated-manicured-shiny-happy-yuppie existence would remove all interesting remnants of my personality.) Insane home prices and congestion put a damper on South Tampa.
Private school was do-able if my son's dad and I cut out most of the things that make life worth living. We opted to enjoy life.
A charter school in North Tampa, with Cracker-style buildings set on several acres and a nature-based curriculum, appealed to me greatly, but the area - near horrendous congestion - did not. Ditto for some of the other high-rated North Tampa schools. North Tampa is so popular, it makes my head ache.
Also checked out Sarasota. In a nutshell: great schools, too-expensive homes.
Back to Pinellas and my main sources of information:
Internet (for size of school; FCAT grade, despite my vacillating feelings about that; and general income level. A word on that: Despite my desire to live in one big, harmonious society, truth is, learning tends to correlate with income, and income correlates with stability and education level of parents, and so forth. Racial makeup of a school, per se, did not matter to me. Still, judging a student body by its wallet is inherently elitist, and for that there was some guilt.)
Word of mouth
This newspaper's yearly School Search
I started in north county because of the schools' well-earned reputation for achievement. Funny how anti-establishment one can be until procreating.
On weekends, I got a feel for Dunedin, Safety Harbor, Ozona, Palm Harbor and Oldsmar. All had what seemed to be high-rated, true neighborhood schools, charming homes in my price range, and a sense of community. But any of those would mean a hellish commute to and from downtown St. Petersburg, where I earn our daily bread.
It came down to south Pinellas. After checking some statistics on a few area public schools, it came down to magnet or fundamental.
My son appeared to be drawn to science more than art. He was more Bay Point than Perkins (magnets), even though, like so many parents, the idea of artsy Perkins enchanted me. So we went to each of those schools and signed up for the school lottery.
The reputed structure at the fundamental schools turned me off, but the back-to-basics theme and parental involvement did not. So we signed up at Pasadena and Lakeview for a chance there.
He got in to Pasadena Fundamental. We moved close by, to dichotomous Gulfport. Although it has felt like boot camp at times - for him and me - I'm convinced that he will get an excellent education, learn discipline, have a truly diverse blend of friends, hone character and begin to thrive in this ultracompetitive world. If he's really lucky, he might even forge a couple of lifelong friendships.
Situation: Times copy editor Jody McMaster has a son at a fundamental school - a school they picked a year before the choice system began.