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Guest Blogger Jenny: A Public Elementary School Shunning In Calabasas

January 5, 2012February 21, 2012 admin 14 Comments

A Group Of Parents Petitioned The School Board To Have A 5 Year-Old Removed From Class
At Bay Laurel Elementary In Calabasas

Editor’s Note: Beyond The Brochure is a blog about private elementary schools. But, when we learned about this issue, we felt compelled to write about it.

If you’re a parent of a school aged kid, you’ve doubtless had to deal with problem kids. Sometimes they’re your kid’s friend, sometimes just a classmate, and sometimes simply the subject of amusing dinner conversation.

But what happens when a small group of parents at a public school decide they don’t “like” a particular kid, start a petition for the kid’s removal from the classroom, and then take the matter to the press? That’s precisely what’s happened at Bay Laurel Elementary School in Calabasas.

The child in question is barely five years old, and is in a transitional pre-K program to help evaluate whether younger kids should be kept an extra year in kindergarten or moved forward at year’s end to first grade. The child has been accused of numerous types of “violence,” ranging from throwing chairs, kicking teachers, and screaming fits, all of which is hearsay and all of which is reported quite freely as fact in The Acorn, a Calabasas area newspaper.

The result of this is a modern day version of villagers storming the castle and demanding the “monster’s” head. Mind you, there have been no injuries, the child in question is being evaluated for behavioral disorders, and the school district is trying to refute the allegations, especially since it’s installed two aides to help the child adjust. Indeed, the district has no choice but to try and accommodate the child, since the obligation of the public school system is educate everyone, not just those without problems.

So how could this have been handled differently? First off, it could have been handled internally. These sorts of issues are best handled by the individual school’s administration, not by petitioning the School District at a public meeting and then giving the information to the press (the organizing parent for the petition was particularly quotable in the article; this is not a compliment). Usually, problems with a single child can be reasonably handled by having the teacher, parent of the child, principal, and school psychologist meet and discuss strategies.

I had a similar situation happen in my daughter’s second grade year at Third St. Elementary. There was one child in the class who was so disruptive, even the 17 year pro of a teacher couldn’t handle him. After countless incidents, including this child whacking mine in the middle of class for coughing, the child was switched to a different classroom. In this case, it was, of course, a stop-gap measure: the mother refused the free assessments the school was offering, instead citing racism (the child was African American) as the reason for the complaints. Under the circumstances, the situation was handled fairly gracefully; the one who truly missed out was the “problem” child, since his parent refused to have him evaluated for behavioral issues.

While I understand the instinct to try and “protect” your child from violence or disruption, perhaps demonizing another person’s child in a public forum is taking instinct too far. Many parents seem obsessed with the idea of equality and “fairness,” but the public system is a far more complex balancing act. If these parents in Calabasas are so anxious to protect their progeny and handpick classmates, perhaps a private, rather than public, school might be a better fit. In the meantime, The Las Virgenes District School Board now not only must deal with angry, scared parents, but a potentially costly public relations problem. And in these times of tiny budgets and dwindling resources, that seems like a real waste of time and money. In the end, all the kids, including the one being thrown in the stocks in the town square, get nothing.

Jenny Heitz has worked as a staff writer for Coast Weekly in Carmel, freelanced in the South Bay, and then switched to advertising copywriting. Her daughter started 4th grade at Mirman School last year. She previously attended 3rd St. Elementary School. Jenny has been published recently in the Daily News and on Mamapedia, The Well Mom, Sane Moms, Hybrid Mom, The Culture Mom and A Child Grows In Brooklyn. She now writes about gift ideas and products on her blog, Find A Toad.

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"Salt & Nectar" Talks With Christina Simon of "Beyond The Brochure"

January 3, 2012January 20, 2012 admin Leave a comment

I’m so honored to be interviewed by the beautifully written blog, Salt and Nectar, for their series, “Sweet Talks” about private elementary schools in Los Angeles, writing a book, being a mom blogger, my favorite TV shows and more! Salt and Nectar is a blog about the salty and sweet, the ups and downs of modern motherhood.

To read the interview, click on Salt and Nectar

Did We Apply To Enough Schools?

December 29, 2011January 20, 2012 admin Leave a comment

If you’re wondering whether you’ve applied to enough schools, there are schools with January 2012 application deadlines. In Beyond The Brochure, we discuss this issue in detail. Obviously, there’s no perfect number, but if the schools you’ve selected are super-competitive, consider adding one or two more to your list. Here are a few schools with January 2012 admissions deadlines:

Campbell Hall: The deadline for all applications is Friday, January 27th, 2012.

St. James Episcopal School. Submit your application to the Admissions Office with the $100 non-refundable application fee as soon as possible, but no later than January 13, 2012. Late applications received will be considered after April if space is available.

New Roads: January 20, 2012. Deadline for completed applications

Pilgrim School– Jan. 31s, 2012.

PS #1. Still accepting applications for Fall 2012.

Children’s Community School. Deadline is Jan. 27, 2012.

Laurence School. Deadline is Jan. 15, 2012.

See previous posts about: School tours and A-List School Tours, My school tour process, What If We Don’t Love The Schools We Toured? and Apply to the schools you like

Creating A New Family Tradition To Honor My Late Mother: Hoppin’ John For New Year’s Day on MomsLA

December 28, 2011January 1, 2015 admin 1 Comment

Hoppin’ John Ingredients

When my daughter was born 11 years ago, I felt strongly that I needed to create a new family tradition to honor my mother who died when I was nineteen. But, what could I do that would be a tribute to her at the same time it celebrated our new family? Food immediately came to mind.

Once I decided to use cuisine as a way to remember my mom and introduce her heritage to my children, I needed to find the perfect dish that would accomplish this complicated goal. My mom was African American, born and raised in Joplin, Missouri. She was Southern, but loved Los Angeles, where I grew up.

To continue reading click on MomsLA.

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Guest Blogger Jenny: Mommy Online Referral Groups Are Paradise for the Parsimonious

December 26, 2011February 21, 2012 admin 4 Comments

I am a “member” of an online mommy group. It’s a group that, by virtue of a very efficient moderator, has been stripped of any political, humorous, or timely posts. Instead, it has become an online referral source, sort of like a no fee Angie’s List, that seems to be the country of “cheap.”

Now, before you decide I’m some crazed spendthrift, let me assure you that I’m not; I enjoy a bargain just as much as the next person. I do, however, try to keep the bargain buy phenomenon in perspective. I believe in paying for quality. I believe in passing down gently used goods when it’s appropriate. But, I draw the line at looking for bargains when it comes to people.

You know what I’m talking about. There’s a constant search on these online groups for nannies, housekeepers, gardeners, and handymen. The demands are heady: adjectives like “flexible” (in terms of schedule, we assume, not physically), “trustworthy,” “CPR trained,” “licensed,” “compassionate,” and “self motivated” are rife within the posts. But, the other adjective (and synonyms thereof) found accompanying this laundry list of requirements is, invariably, “cheap.”

Now, “cheap” is not an adjective one usually associates with quality. “Cheap” is something shoddy, second rate, cut rate, or even promiscuous (probably not the right definition in this case, but you never know). How this adjective gets paired up with such a lofty list of other requirements is amazing to me, a kind of domestic cluelessness.

Because, you see, the people hired to help you run your home, care for your children, and maintain your home’s physical integrity and exterior décor probably shouldn’t be “cheap.” By hiring “cheap” or underpaying domestic help, it demeans the important jobs these workers perform, and it seems to imply that those who want “cheap” labor don’t really value their homes or children (something that I’m pretty sure is not the case).

Yet, the people I’ve recommended to the group, per requests, have usually had negative experiences. Things like a housekeeper being offered fifty dollars per “day,” a “day” being described as from 9-2, cleaning a four bedroom, four bathroom house and cooking a reheatable dinner. That’s a lot of work for more than a half day for inadequate pay; a really bad deal for any housekeeper. And when the potential employer called me for a reference, her question to me was : “Is she going to trash my house?” Yeah, sure, I felt like replying. That’s why I employed her for seven years.

One time I recommended a really wonderful handyman. This guy has done tons of work for me, plus he’s just great to have around, so trustworthy. All of us have hung out and our kids and his niece and nephew know each other. But every time he went to consult with a potential job gotten though the group, it always ended with an argument over the price and a decision to either put off the work or do it themselves. In other words, it was always a waste of his time, and he won’t do referrals for the group anymore as a result.

Why is there this fundamental lack of respect for household help? Why is it so undervalued, so thought of as cheap labor? Since when is hiring someone to perform a job an expectation for getting something (actually, quite a LOT of something) for next to nothing?

I have written about these issues before. One commenter accused me of being “anti working mother” because I dared to criticize (indeed, parody) the request of one mother looking for the going rates for both legal and illegal nannies. First off, as a semi-working mother, I most certainly would never criticize the real concerns of other working mothers. In fact, I’m so pro-working parent that I even consider the nannies, housekeepers, and handymen I hire to be working parents, too, deserving a living wage to better their children’s lives. Yeah, that’s right, they have families too.

In the end, I think the quest for “cheap” actually cheapens the poster, the group, and the referral pool. Why should I refer someone I deeply value and respect, only to have them be humiliated? Plus, although this group is relatively large at around 750 people, I have a feeling a large percentage of them aren’t in the poorhouse. If you’re looking for domestic help to begin with, you must have extra money to spend, so why be a cheapskate? By hiring someone at a good wage, you not only let the employee know that you respect his or her time and talent, but that you respect your own space as well. And that would be keeping it, in the immortal words of Will Ferrell, “classy.”

* Originally published on The Twin Coach

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