You guys can interrupt as much as you want to, I love reading it :-)
To answer some of your questions :
too bad about the drive - ELP sounds so yummy. I wonder if you can find a car pool? Still 2 hours of driving a day is a lot on a child. Can he at least visit to see if it would be worth his while?
As I have mentioned earlier, ELP is really a lost case for Ghost. Even if he had the highest scores in the entire state, he is still an out of district student and there are kids within the district who are waiting for accomodation. If the ELP program was something like 20 min. drive from us, I would be fighting like a lion. I would move heavan and earth for him to attend it. But it is an hour drive, and I do not want to take almost two hours a day away from him just yet. We will probably have to do it for HS, provided that he is accepted into the program. But by this time there is going to be a commuter train connecting our satellite city with SLC, so
1. the commute will take less time
2. you can do more on a train than you can in your car. There is going to be WI FI on it, so Ghost will be able to do homework or study as he commutes
3. he will be older
There are other people here who are interested , so a carpool occasionally will definitely be possible.
Ghost will go to an information sesion next year. Or maybe I should take him this year, so he understand better what it is all about? What do you think?
These seem like excellent options! Are these free public schools?
My kids are attending free charter school, chartered with Spanish. The HS I am considering for Ghost to take some classes as an 8th grader is also a free charter school, only about 0.3 miles from his middle school. The HS with an IB program ( they have been doing this program for close to 20 years now) is a regular public, huge HS. In the 70, erly 80 it was the worst HS in SLC area. The district decided to start a very selective IB program at this location as means to attracting better students. It worked. So today the school is home to the very bright young people as well as regular HS students. The GC told me that kids at this school speak 47 different languages !
The hour commute is something I couldn't handle, with 4 involved kids and a busy husband who can't help with carpool, but I applaud you for finding the best options (and for being willing to make those sacrifices).
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Yes, I know it will be tough. But:
1. The train station will be very close the the middle school my daughter wil be at.
2. After two years both of them will be commuting (provided my daughter will choose the same school)
3. Their violin teacher is almost in SLC, enroute home.
4. Same goes for fencing - it will also be enroute home.
My husband can't help either, he travels a lot for his work. I do work but my schedule is so, I can always take care of the kids.
I also know that when the time comes I will be complaining about the whole situation. But I do feel that I have to provide what is best for them. When I went to HS I also had to commute close to one hour one way.
It sounds like a terrific plan. I particularly like the year abroad (are you all going or is this something he'd do independently, like an exchange program?).
This is only in our dreams so far, but we kind of have two options. Both of them involve Europe. He can either go and live with our family and study the language that he is already fluent in or he can go to Spain and become fluent in Spanish. We do have friends in Spain that would be willing to look into it for us. In both situations it would be a totally private endeavour - not a formal exchange program.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, you're lucky Ghost lets you help him. Do it while you can,
Yes, he listens. Not to everything, but overall he trusts me. He is a huge procrastinator but just the other day he told me that he wants to be taking HS level courses now because he realizes that he is capable of it and also realizes that he needs to push a little harder to acomplish something. I think that he knows that he would not be where he is today without us advocating for him.
But he is still a child. Sometimes it bothers him that he does not know what to do with his life. He knows that he wants to own a plane and would like for his future job to involve flying. But he does not want to be an airline pilot because it is boring he says. He also loves to cook !
I do not think that going to a different school than his friends will bother him. He currently has a very good, close friend at school but others are in the neighborhood or at scouts. He is an individualist. Likes to be popular but will not go out of his way for it.
Ania
