Our Guest Blogger Tours The "Gooey & Precious" School

The Fertile Crescent

Great Expectations: When School Tours Go Awry. Everyone has expectations about the private schools they’re considering for their child. When I was researching schools for my daughter, I spent plenty of time remembering what Anna’s preschool head had said regarding different schools. I read lots of online material. I chatted with friends about their experiences. And then I dove in and took the tours.

 

Expectations, though, are funny things. They come back to bite you. Like the time I marched into a tour convinced of certain things about the school, and walked out of the tour clutching my vitals. How, I wondered, could I have gotten it so wrong?

 

I was fully prepared to like this nameless, not to be identified school. I really wanted to like it, since I’d heard great things about its academics and approach (its location didn’t hurt, either). So, I entered the tour in a very friendly state of mind, as did my ex-husband and my significant other; a veritable threesome of good vibes, we were.

 

It was a lovely new campus, almost an oasis in the middle of surging suburbia. We were greeted and deposited in a modern library, complete with snacks and various giveaway items emblazoned with the school’s name. Fancy. And then the AD got up to speak. And speak. And speak.

 

Here’s some of the things said that gave me a headache:

▪    A gushy, mushy, corny rant about how our children are so special to each of us, and what good care they take of them. Well, for the price I’d be paying, good care is the least I should expect.

▪    A constant bragging about the wonderful middle schools the kids matriculate into. One mention is enough. More than that seemed to point to some insecurity.

▪    The headmaster telling a completely phony, self-serving story about some new kindergartner wanting to go to the school on a Saturday. Maybe the kid was just confused, not enthusiastic.

 

And then there was the very self-congratulatory community service program. The school hosts a “sister school” type program once a year for physically challenged kids at a public school in an underprivileged neighborhood. For these kids, the AD said, the visiting day to such a beautiful campus to play games “was like going to Disneyland.” Huh? The sister school is in an underprivileged area, not the Third World. There was even a video of wealthy kids pushing the poor kids’ wheelchairs around, with one of the pushers on camera, disingenuously saying, “This is the my favorite thing I’ve done all year.” I’m all for community service, but I didn’t like the tone.

 

What was even more bizarre was when they brought the elderly founder out to discuss his educational philosophy. It was very interesting, but it bore almost no relationship to what was going on at the school at present. This juxtaposition, in fact, was a bit stunning.

 

After about an hour of that, we finally got to the tour. It was given by two 6th graders, who were perfectly adorable (if perfectly canned). There was a lot of emphasis placed on an outdoor area with a silly name (I’m going to call it “The Fertile Crescent”). Such a verdant area was nice, although given the economic make up of the student body, how big a deal was it, really? After all, I’m sure all the kids had trees and flowers at home. Is it so important to have them at school? Just wondering about the need to point out the “Crescent” constantly during the tour.

 

In fact, the emphasis on The Fertile Crescent seemed to encompass the whole problem I had with this school and its tour approach. The staff kept emphasizing self-esteem and feeling good, yet then would do a double take and describe it as an academically rigorous environment. And to its credit, when I saw the academics, they looked good. The math class I saw was fascinating and stimulating. But just when I was getting good and interested in the academics, they’d ruin it with mush. There also seemed to be a bit of denial about how children behave. My significant other asked the Vice Principal about whether the school had a behavior code (a relevant question, and one that’s particularly important for our child, who will manipulate a system unless there are very clear boundaries). The VP seemed a bit stuck. He did point out a somewhat haphazard code, but he seemed to dismiss the question with the attitude of “we don’t have those problems here.” Please. Every school has those problems.

 

The capper, though, came toward the tour’s end. We walked into the music room, and a group of 1st graders “spontaneously” burst into singing “We Are the World.” Oh no. I thought the three of us were going to double over laughing. And yes, I realize that, to a less jaded little group, this musical display might hold appeal. Just not for us.

 

As we limped away, we all agreed that this school was wrong for Anna. She doesn’t need more coddling and self-esteem; she needs boundaries and discipline. We couldn’t get a real handle on the academic situation. And thus, we canceled her interview and tour almost immediately. One more school crossed off the list. Expectations dashed.

 

What was so disappointing about this experience is that the school had really shot itself in the foot. There was nothing wrong with the academics there. The staff seemed so well meaning. But the school was caught between what it really needs to be in order to survive in a competitive private school market, and what it felt the parents “needed” to hear. I guess we were the parents who just fully rejected the message as marketing, and that made us suspicious of its motives.

 

About a week after the tour, I received a little envelope from the school. It was a packet of sunflower seeds, the outside of the envelope stating it was from The Fertile Crescent. Needless to say, I didn’t plant them.

 

Thank you to our guest blogger, Jenny Heitz, for sharing her story. Jenny’s daughter Anna attended preschool at Montessori Shir-Hashirim. She attended 3rd St. Elementary School and will enter Mirman School for 4th Grade this fall (see Jenny’s post from 7/28/10…”The Gooey and Precious School is a reference from this post). You can find Jenny blogging at www.findatoad.com a fabulous, well-edited site for adult and kids gifts under $200.

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Christina Simon: Los Angeles, California, United States I'm the mom of two kids who attended The Willows School in Culver City and Viewpoint School in Calabasas. My daughter is a graduate of Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism ('23) and my son is a sophomore at UPenn/Wharton ('26). I live in Coldwater Canyon with my husband, Barry, and our dogs. Contact me at csimon2007@gmail.com

7 thoughts to “Our Guest Blogger Tours The "Gooey & Precious" School”

  1. What a great read. Now I'm curious to see if I'll encounter this school on my tours. Thanks for the information.

  2. Wow! You could not have captured Laurence any better. After returning from my tour, I took the application and promptly put it in the wastebasket. Having known the families from our preschool who chose to send their kids there, I wasn't wild about the parent community to begin with but the nail in the coffin was meeting the administration.

  3. Very interesting that the author felt so put off by the administration at Laurence – enough to deny that education for her child – and yet ended up at Mirman. Having toured both schools, I thought there was no contest – putting aside the race to nowhere aspect of Mirman, the administration was far more cloying and self-congratulatory than that at Laurence.

  4. Yea, I'm gonna have to agree with you 100% about this school. I had the exact same reaction/experience there. And for an added touch, the founder (?) told us, the parents, that for those of us that attended public school…. just think where we could be in life had we attend Private school… pretty insulting. And funny.

  5. We had a similar experience touring this school, including the odd and somewhat condescending presentation from the founders. Where we differ are our reactions: as off-putting as parts of the tour were,we are still considering applying. As much I listen to my gut, I also want to look past the marketing and evaluate a school based on its approach and curriculum. Those elements at this school appear to be very strong. I wish there were a way to know for sure – I guess you can't really until you get there…?

  6. Hi Anon, 2:54. I think your comment is very perceptive because in my experience parents have to be able to look past the admissions director or the person leading a tour to the school's teachers, programs, diversity, athletics, and other elements that can't always be evaluated based on a negative impression of one or two people representing the school. I toured schools where the kids gave the tours (not exactly super-informative).

    However, I know several families at the school Jenny wrote about in this post who love it there. And, if you don't like the admissions director, you probably won't see that person much once your child is at the school, unless the AD has a dual role. On the other hand, you have to think about why a school presents itself in a way that gives some parents, like Jenny, such a strong reaction. I'd try to speak to current parents at the school to try to get a better feel for the school.

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