Urban Mamas

It's my favorite time of year to get all paper-y. Early February carries so much promise! I can't wait to come up with some combination of scissors, paints, hearts and paper that will perfectly demonstrate my kids' big, big hearts.

In 2010, for Truman, we cut up some of his old art work and made it into pretty little arrow/heart collages -- one of my all-time favorite combinations of a kid's art with a mama's execution. I was humming Jon Bon Jovi the whole time. Somehow this seemed festive!

Last year, for both Everett and Truman, I found a little envelope template and painstakingly (note: I find this pain fun -- endorphins? something!) printed out, cut and glued 40-some envelopes decorated with photos I'd taken. The boys got to pick between valentine heart candy and dragons, and then I had Everett draw some pictures of dragons with little funny sayings -- "I'm on fire for you, Valentine," and things like that -- and we scanned and printed a bunch of them.

Remembering at the last minute that children only love valentines if they're accompanied by candy, we ran to the store for mini chocolate bars to go alongside. This year, inspired by my Halloween epiphany, I'll be buying the organic lollipops. (I've done the math and, at less than 19 cents apiece, the organic lollipops are cheaper than the mini chocolate bars with the not-so-cruelty-free chocolate.)

Speaking of lollipops. If you too want a sweet homemade card that's not too difficult, you should check out Kristen Howerton's amazing idea. She calls it the "slacker mom" valentine, but really? She is no slacker! Four kids and valentines already done before January was out. And they're super sweet, with each kid posing with a closet rod (you could use a plastic pipe) in front of a chalkboard with the message, "Happy Valentine's Day, Love ___." The kid only has to write his or her name once -- and then the empty space above the closet rod is filled in with a real-life lollipop. Adorable.

I'd love to see your ideas about homemade valentines, or other heart-day crafts. What do you have planned?

(We've talked before about homemade vs. storebought valentines, if you want to add to that debate! And what do you do with your family for this day of love?)

Monday, Monday! Can't trust that day.

I should know by now, after having considered this topic week after week last November and January in the days leading up to the LEGO competition -- LEGO club was Mondays and Wednesdays after school, and thank goodness for the Wednesdays, because some weeks that was the only day club met.

Monroe is going to "speech group" as part of the services he receives from Multnomah County ESD. It's great; he adores his teacher and the other members of his class are sweet kids. He looks so forward to it each week. I love it, too, because even though it's 45 minutes it makes a nice routine for me -- I run during his class so I know I have a guaranteed weekly 4-some miler. No excuses possible.

But, it's on Mondays! I forgot how inauspicious this day was until PPS gave its students that extra day of break on January 2nd. Monroe missed the first day of the year and he'll miss next week, too, for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Lucky Thursday kids; they get to meet every single week in January.

So if you're contemplating which day to put your child in a class that meets according to the public school calendar, be warned: every other day (every other day!) every other day of the week is fine...

As today is the last day of PPS school before break, as usual, I stayed up late last night working on gifts. And... became mightily distracted by one thing, then another, and never really got around to finishing them. So I'll be scrambling for the next three hours to figure out, what? I have two teachers -- one first grade teacher whose outside-of-school interests are a mystery to me (I think she works 12 or 14 hours a day, so maybe there aren't many), and one early intervention specialist whose interests I think I have more of a handle on, but still -- and lots of stuff that's close to being a gift. But oh! I haven't decided.

This means my children's teachers will get jars of jam for holiday gifts. And I think I'm bringing the sweet school librarian some chocolate.

We've talked about gifts a lot in the past (and had a little interesting sidebar in our post about Halloween costumes; some parents feel, evidently, that the expectation of teacher holiday gifts creates more discomfort, even embarrassment, and shines a glaring light on cultural differences, than any costumery), and I know I have a lot of ideas. But I'm wondering: which came to fruition for you this year?

Today is the last day of classes for the week for PPS schools, and many other area schools also have Friday and one other day off for Veteran's Day. Then, there's Thanksgiving week, which we have off entirely, but for a half-hour of parent-teacher conferences per child. Not counting Thanksgiving Day, which nearly all working parents have off, that's six days off school in one month.

I love it, in the mornings at least; I'm just not a morning person, and not having to bundle kids off to school seems like a great thing -- until it's noon and I can't organize the kids to go on whatever errands I have planned. I suspect that I get more done, writing- and housework-wise, on a typical day off school than on a regular schoolday. And my evenings are so much calmer -- no worrying that I get all the homework/paperwork/clean socks/breakfast food ready for the morning.

Lots of my friends, though, hate it -- both at-home and working parents, for different reasons. The at-home parents who crave schedules and something to keep their children engaged during the day are lost; the working parents have extra responsibilities juggling alternative care.

Which camp are you in -- the love or the hate? Ignoring politics for the moment (I know we have the shortest school year on the planet!), what would you do to make it better (if you could do anything)?

My six-year-old is always hungry when he gets to school -- even if he's just finished his toast or pancakes on the bike ride there. No matter the quantity or quality of the calories, he's hungry. And as our elementary is a school with a large enough percentage of free and reduced-price lunch families, breakfast is free for everyone; so he feels that breakfast is a must. (As an aside, this frustrates his teacher to no end; he and a few other of the not-so-early risers in the class eat their breakfast at their desk, delaying her reading group schedule. I don't know what to say; I can't get him out of bed any earlier, I'm literally carrying him out of bed as it is. He insists that he's hungry. I have no good solutions.)

So today when we went through the line, I saw the no-thank-you table chockfull of yogurt, so much that the cafeteria employees had set out a bin for it. Usually, the no-thank-you table works on equilibrium; there are roughly equal numbers of kids who don't want some of the mandatory breakfast items as those who are hungry for extra. I commented on this to the cafeteria worker.

She told me that she supposed most kids don't really see yogurt as a breakfast food; they think of eggs, potatoes and pancakes as breakfast food. This surprised me, as I don't remember this ever being the case at Bridger, where Truman and Everett went last year; yogurt on the no-thank-you table was usually snapped up by kids who could eat two or three.

Our family has always considered yogurt an acceptable breakfast food but I wondered if it might be cultural; the makeup of Bridger (lots of Hispanic kids) was very different than Grout (lots of caucasian kids and East African children). Even though it has rather more sugar than I'd like, I generally approve of yogurt, especially over those "bagel wraps" and a few of the other highly-processed breakfast options.

What about your school? What breakfast options are popular? Does your child seem to get hungry as soon as he approaches the cafeteria, too?

Och! School fundraiser season is upon us, and if you want to get my blood boiling, ask my five-years-ago self to have my kid sell frozen cookie dough and cinnamon rolls in order to earn cheap prizes probably made in China. Go ahead, make my day!

But when Truman brought home the fundraising forms last week -- Delicious Delights! like the Thaw-and-Bake Blueberry Muffins ($16) or the Pizza Pail ($16, too), full, I was sure, of all kinds of ingredients I try to avoid, not to mention expensive (win a Sling Shot Plush animal! a plastic crawling bug! A Tornado Mug!) -- there was a bit of a surprise. The PTA letter that accompanied it judiciously mentioned that the school would get 40% of the proceeds from the sale of these caloric firebombs; or you could write a check and the school would get 100%.

So, I was getting ready to write a check for $20 (with "donation in lieu of fundraiser" in the memo line) when I saw a comment thread from another Portland Public Schools mom. She was lamenting the state of her PTA's fundraiser, which hadn't been accompanied by a letter like mine. Another mom on her thread said her school (in the area, I assume) had given parents a donation goal for the year -- $500, plus fundraisers.

Meanwhile, I'm helping the cross country team raise money to go to invitational meets and buy uniforms. Nearly all the money for sports is now provided by parents -- the coaches' salaries and the cost of buses come from the sports fees, and fundraisers pay for uniforms, and the Booster Club pays for end-of-season "banquets" (which are usually potlucks) and awards. Volunteers often end up paying for the privilege through t-shirts and Chinook Books and (in my case) babysitting. When I do the math, I realize that high school students who are involved in a few activities do pay $500, plus, a year for the privilege of going to public school.

What is there to say about this? Sometimes I feel like the school year is one big revolving hit-up. I'm hitting other parents up for Chinook Books for cross country while they're hitting me up for Run for the Arts laps while the schools are hitting us up for snacks and boxes of tissues while my friends' school are hitting me up for Burgerville and Pizzicato fundraising nights. I remember writing at least five or six checks for field trips last year. One of the cross country runners rolled his eyes and said, while we talked about the lap-a-thon we are planning for Friday, and the book sales, and the other money-raising ideas, "why don't we just ask people for one check?" Indeed.

Why don't we? Wouldn't it be easier and simpler? At the beginning of the school year, principals could come out to us and say, "we need $12,000 per kid for what we want to do. The state gives us $10,800. Pay up (if you can)." Obviously, we all couldn't afford to make up the difference. But at least we wouldn't have our kids pushing sweets and pizza and those endless forms at us -- the kids could focus on doing arts and PE and (I don't know) reading and math and not on raising money for it.

If you ran the world (or even just your own PTA), how would you fix it?

However tempted I am to say something like, "Halloween was simpler when we were kids!"; it's just not true. When I was of trick-or-treating age, I was faced with an enormity of moral and safety concerns each October 31st. My family, very faithful Conservative Baptists, approached Halloween with great suspicion thanks to its age-old ties to the Devil himself. A few years, we went to church on Halloween for witch-free celebrations (that's where I got my first goldfish!); I always chose "good" costumes, princesses and fairies and, ok, I really only ever wanted to be a princess. Also, we had the specter of razor blades and poison, which must have happened one time ever, and yet most of our parents were sure there were razor blade vendors on every block. Beware of the caramel apples! Take heed of the popcorn balls!

This year, in Portland, we have a modern flavor on the ages-old debate over Halloween. At Buckman Elementary, costumes will be banned for the second consecutive year; the principal "says celebrating Halloween at school excludes some kids and can be very offensive." (My six-year-old's school, Grout, is allowing costumes but banning weapons and gory/offensive/skimpy "content.") This has brought up all the debates you'd think ("what's happened to childhood?" "Halloween is an American celebration" "children need to have the opportunity to use their imaginations and dress up, but I do not believe this needs to be accomplished through Halloween"), and a few new twists. A few commenters on Think Out Loud said that they were disallowed from costumes by their family due to strict religious beliefs, and they appreciated the opportunity to stand up for their beliefs (in one case) or to soak up the "normalness" of the culture around them (in another case).

I'm not very passionate either way on this one; costumes at school, for me, means I have to have them ready earlier (I'm a very-last-minute homemade costume aficionado). And I do understand that they are distracting from the learning environment, and agree that there are ample times outside of school to wear costumes. On the other hand, I disagree that Halloween costumes in particular create disparity and cultural discomfort. As one commenter said and I agree wholeheartedly: these differences are always apparent, and Halloween costumes don't highlight them more or less than any other day at school. In my experience, you can see the cultural/economic differences best in the clothing worn to school when it's cold and rainy outside. (And as someone who was once a very poor high school student and is now a high school coach, I'm telling you, the disparity issues only get worse and more obvious every day that goes by in public school.)

Want more reasons to feel ambivalent about Halloween? The candy. It's not just probably pretty bad for you and your kids (and even I let my kids gorge for a day or two on Halloween and a few other holidays; childhood, right?). It's also the product of child slave labor.

Today is the first late Wednesday arrival of the school year, and I -- a freelancing at-home mama who struggles mightily with early mornings -- am taking a deep happy morning breath. Today, my first-grader was up before me at 6:45, and got to play quietly by himself before his brothers awoke, a rare treat for the middle kid who loves occasional solitude. Now we've all had breakfast, and I have my coffee, and the boys are watching Pokemon while I typity-type-type. I even got Truman to do a little homework. When we leave, more than an hour from now, we'll probably even be a few minutes early, and I'll have a jumpstart on my writing day. No rushing required. Perfect.

I know that it's not all sunshine and deep breaths for many parents. My school doesn't even open until 9:50 (when the first bell rings), and there's no breakfast on late arrival days -- something I know many families count on. I was surprised to see the notice in my child's folder yesterday about Y morning care; it may not be the very first time anyone had heard of it, but it was the first time I knew about the 9:50 building opening. And for parents to sign up for the Y, it's not just a matter of paying $20 per late morning; there's a sign-up process and a registration fee, not the sort of thing I could manage in the midst of a week's coordination if I was working in an office. I'm sure most parents have figured it out ahead of time, but still: there have got to be parents who forget, or miss the first flyer, and struggle to pull it together.

How do you manage? Is late arrival a blessing for you, or a major coordination nightmare? If you've signed your child up for early care, do you like it? Is it a challenge to find the funds? If you could be in charge of Portland Public Schools, would you have ever instituted late arrival -- or would you have one a week?

I start every school year thinking this will be the year I win my kids over with the homemade lunches. And every year, I end up giving in to the siren song of the cafeteria (last year, it was the second week of school, when Truman came home with a bill -- he'd been getting both a cafeteria tray and his lunchbox every day). Certainly, I've loved being here in Portland, where school food is undergoing a serious revolution, and, most days, the children will have ingredients from local farms on the menu.

However, as the photo above (taken at a field trip near the end of school last year, so we've got to give them some slack for brown bagging necessities) indicates, there's a lot of room for unhealthy choices. As hard as I try at home to steer my children clear of refined sugar, preservatives, processed flours and other highly-processed foods: if Truman has a choice, it's chocolate milk every day, and, judging from this small window on school food, no one eats the good stuff like grapes.

So I'm trying to get it right this year.

It was Citymama herself who cooked up the fresh goodies at the preschool where Everett began his tenure (until she, sadly, moved away to California). Watching small children eat pasta with eggplant tomato sauce or steamed green beans or little hummus cucumber sandwiches is so affirming it made tears come to my eyes. ("They like it. They really LIKE it!") Later, I would birth a baby who would eat carrot greens out of my farmer's market bag, raspberries right off the bushes outside, and salmon salad sandwiches with fresh onions and yogurt-chive dressing (that was today).

Last month, I went to a culinary conference in Austin. There, my friend Michelle (this friend!) organized a visit to a charter school at the University of Texas where grade school-aged kids had grown and learned to cook vegetables from a garden right behind the school. The presenters asked the kids what they had learned to love that they never would have tried before. "Sorrel," said one (!!). The next four kids picked "brussels sprouts."

So when I saw the FOODday piece by Leslie Cole in this week's Oregonian, "Taking a Fresh Approach to Daycare Meals That Kids Will Actually Eat," I squealed a bit. One-year-olds at ChildRoots eating beets, black beans, and steamed grains. Preschoolers at Maryam's Preschool eating Persian rice and vegetables. Parents thrilled... but not really doing anything nearly like this at home.

After having made some mistakes and some total victories with my own kids (and having the sort of child who has a totally unique set of likes and dislikes -- my middle son, Truman, will only eat dried fruit, and only carrots if he can see the vegetable, though he will happily eat grilled fish or sardines or pate, straight), I can say that it's not just exposing kids to a variety of freshly-prepared healthy foods that aren't hidden in other things that is important in developing healthy eating habits; but also maintaining, as much as possible, a food environment in which unhealthy choices are severely limited. It's just a fact: if there is soda in the house, my kids will drink it (same for energy drinks and prepared chocolate milk etc. etc.). If candy is offered right before lunchtime, they'll eat that and skip the salmon-salad sandwiches. If even such a mildly unhealthy choice as Trader Joe's breakfast bars or those sugary yogurt tubes (even the organic ones are pretty high-sugar and TJ's bars have less whole grains and more sugar than I prefer for the kids to have), they'll disappear before the whole-grain scones I made are even touched.

This piece is fantastic inspiration to keep me offering fresh peas and cherries instead of Starbucks treats and yogurt squeezers. I love that more preschools and elementary schools are offering kids whole grains and fresh vegetables prepared in delicious and visible ways (no wink-wink hiding black beans in brownies). I think parents (and here I include my own thoroughly fallible self) could do a better job of supporting these institutional chefs by putting a variety of recognizable vegetables and fruits and whole grains in front of our kids and keep the packaged snack food and sugary treats and breakfast food out of our cupboards. Not every child is going to become a brussels sprout and quinoa lover. But we should give them lots, and lots, and lots of chances -- and they just might end up surprising us.

The countdown began a couple of weeks ago, when my six-year-old was moping about each morning, telling me, "I'm sick!" when he was only, variously, tired, cranky, or wishing he could stay home and play with his little brother. "Only 14 more days of school," I'd say, "you can make it!"

Today, with the retirement of a beloved kindergarten teacher approaching and the skittering knowledge that going back to Bridger is an impractical choice that would likely result in ill attention for my rising first-grader's rising needs -- he's been diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder, something that just can't be supported in a neighborhood classroom of 38 first-graders, and now that his big brother isn't going to the school, he no longer gets the "tagalong" status allowing a school bus to take him the 3.5 miles from our house -- I'm saying so long to a school community I'd really grown to love. There are too many people to whom to say goodbye.

I'm not the only one among the urbanMamas who is saying goodbye. I'll let Olivia tell her own story, but her Facebook status last night about an exchange with her graduating oldest daughter had tears in many of our eyes. There are littler goodbyes -- preschool graduations, neighborhood moves, and the like. I chatted yesterday with a life-changing therapist, one who'd worked with Everett in an unusually empathetic and knowing way. All of the mental health professionals -- all of them, except for one school psychologist assigned to each school (often on a half-time basis) -- are losing their jobs. Those with seniority will be re-assigned, maybe as school counsellors. The special ed director has decided that children's mental health shouldn't be supported by schools. (More about this later.)

It's a sparkling, celebratory time for many children, but even those like Truman who spent considerable energy trying to stay home will miss the friends and teachers they loved. A bittersweet time of release from schedules and change in environment. A hope for warm sidewalks and bare feet and ripe strawberries from the garden. The feeling is in the air and in the skips of students through the streets.

How are you feeling as school gets out? What are your happies and sads? To whom are you saying goodbye this June?

Sometime between Valentine's Day and the following Friday, I decided to home school Everett. Now eight-and-a-half and having just passed his third-year special education re-evaluation (still qualifies under the eye-rolling educational diagnosis of "severe emotional disturbance"), I had been thinking (along with the teachers and administrators) all the way into January that things were getting better. Never the sort of kid to have enough good days in a row for successful extracurricular involvement, I'd signed him up for LEGO club, which he participated in through to the end commendably. We'd agreed to do "Battle of the Books," and I was the team parent, and had read the books with him. The assembly where he and his team would compete for a chance at regional tournament was coming up on the 18th.

What's more, he was generally getting along with his teacher, though he'd been through four that year; one permanent teacher who took a job elsewhere; one long-term substitute; one new permanent teacher; then the last one, the day after new-permanent-teacher took over. We all decided it would be best to move him to the older class (the only third-grader in the behavioral classrooms at Bridger, he had been the oldest in K-3 and was more appropriately served, we thought, as the youngest in 3-5). At first, things went great.

Until they didn't. One bad day turned into a week-long bus suspension (shortly after we'd gotten the paperwork done for both boys to take the bus) and then suddenly, he and a friend were suspended. On Valentine's Day, we had a re-entry meeting and, after handing out his dragon valentines, it became obvious that he wasn't emotionally ready to re-enter. Not on Wednesday, either. We missed the Battle of the Books assembly -- the one we'd been reading for since October. On Friday, the counsellor came by and I told her how I felt about this right now: that home schooling might be a better option. About the same time, Rebecca invited me to Get the Scoop on Schooling, "an Evening of Information, Inspiration, and Clarity about Educational Options for Our Children" (Monday February 28 at The Warehouse, 6:30 p.m.). I responded "yes" immediately.

After years of considering this option, and many times typing or saying to someone in the heat of emotion, "I'm THIS close to homeschooling!", the balance had tipped. I felt it was inevitable and that continuing in public school had no possible good ending.

Last year around this time (and every year around this time, for that matter), parents around Portland start thinking about schools.  It's Round-Up time.  The Portland Public School district offers "school choice", allowing any student in the district to apply to attend any other school in the district.  There are lotteries, magnets, charters, focus programs, mandatory information sessions.  It is dizzying.  We are lucky if we have the time to consider all of these options.  Many of us do not.

Here are some resources to get you started:

• PPS Round-Up Calendar (*pdf).  We've started adding all of the round-up sessions to the urbanMamas calendar, so look there, too.
• urbanMamas School Connections forum, where parents have been connecting & sharing resources regarding specific schools
• PPS January 2011 announcement on the upcoming transfer season, including dates for info sessions and deadlines.
• an archived very heated) discussion on charter schools, school choice, and neighborhood schools.
• perhaps you are thinking of starting your child in kindergarten early or young?
• perhaps you are thinking of holding your child back another year?
• perhaps you are considering a non-neighborhood school and wonder about the sense of community?
• there is so much in the urbanMamas schools archive.  Have a look.

If you have a child transferring/entering school next year, have you started to consider all the options?  Or perhaps forgo considering the options and attend the neighborhood school?

Some districts started in the last two weeks, but most students in PPS and surrounding districts have the first day of school today, with kindergarteners coming to class later this week. I dropped off my third-grader, Everett, this morning at Bridger School, where he's in the behavioral classroom. We were a few minutes late; evidently, I'm not as speedy a bicyclist as I remember being last spring. We passed by a few schools on our bike ride; I recognized mamas and papas I knew ushering kids out of cars at Atkinson, and there were so many pedestrians we had to wait at a crosswalk with our bike just for them to clear the corner. Eagerness, first day photos, and cool outfits were everywhere!

Everett was eager for the first day of school, but it's tempered for both of us with concern. He's had a hard time these three-going-on-four years in grade school, and I was a little apprehensive about his move into the classroom -- literally inches away from his old K-2 classroom last year -- because I wonder whether the teacher's style will work for him. But, he was excited to be with the older kids, and separated a bit from some younger students who had challenged his coping skills the year before.

We walked into the classroom to blank faces. "Oh, Everett's going to be next door!" she said. No one had alerted the special ed students to the fact that "the numbers worked out" for third grade to be added back together with K-2. I think the teacher may be nice for him, but he really struggles coping with situations where his expectations do not match reality. His face, as he sat in a seat very near his seat last year, looked crushed.

Last week, I listened to a Planet Money piece on a financial crisis in Barbados in the 1970s. The country had to borrow money from the IMF, and in doing so, were told they needed to follow some rules in order to reduce spending -- rules that meant they'd have to reduce social services, or reduce wages. After a few of the protests you'd imagine, magically the business leaders and the labor leaders came together and, through difficult talks and careful negotiating, agreed to reduce wages instead of laying off workers or cutting important social programs. Many businesses instituted productivity bonuses and other incentives to help increase worker loyalty.

Decades later, Barbados' economy had improved, wages were much better, employment was stable and -- amazingly -- a deep sense of trust had developed between business and labor interests. Jamaica had experienced a similar crisis and dealt with it differently. In Jamaica, the economy was still bad.

Listening to this story in the background of news from the past few weeks -- in Oregon and around the country -- is sobering. I wish we were as strong and community-focused as Barbados was in the 1970s; I wish we could come together and agree on belt-tightening and shared support for the things that matter to us: people, one by one, jobs, one by one, students, one by one. But no.

In Portland, PPS superintendent Carole Smith has proposed a series of budget cuts meant to reduce the expenses by $19.1 million. In order to be "equitable," she plans to require all schools to make similar cuts. These will, if her proposed budget is approved, be to PE and library employees (126 full-time-equivalent, or FTE, positions); ESL and special education employees (52 positions); and central support and operations (25 positions).

Here in the PPS, today is the last day of school; other school districts finished up last week, and some finish tomorrow. I have to say that I am looking so forward to summer; the back-and-forth drudgery of taking kids to and from school, especially with my husband off to the other side of the world, has taxed me greatly. For those of you who work in an office, summer may be even more stressful than the school year, what with juggling camps and summer travel.

I am loving, though, the urban agrarian version of why-they-originally-devised-summer-vacation, and have my first flat of strawberries arriving tonight (through the very awesome new Know Thy Food buying club). I'll be making jam tomorrow; I'll be ordering some "living compost" in a few minutes so I can (finally) plant beans and corn. I'm planning any number of jamming parties and (hopefully I can convince some of my boys to join in) garden-ins. I want to get together with some other neighborhood mamas and dads to do some fruit foraging from neglected trees and bushes and overgrown alley vines; I hope to take part in some Portland Fruit Tree Project volunteer harvestings.

For the kids, I'm plotting swim lessons with Portland Parks & Rec [pdf link] -- maybe we'll even score some of the free lessons (though you must be up early this Saturday, the 19th, at your neighborhood pool to register, in person only -- 8 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.). Other than that, I'm hoping lots of trips to farmer's markets, you-pick fields, and neighborhood jaunts will satisfy their thirst for social interaction.

What's on the schedule for you this summer? What are your hopes and dreams? Are you excited, or stressed, about the last day of school? School's out!

How could we not but hold our collective breath? All of those of us who have children in Portland Public Schools got the auto-call sometime Friday evening; a second-grader from Skyline Elementary in Southwest Portland, Kyron Horman, was lost to his family and the school sometime between a science fair before school opened, and his arrival at class. His stepmother visited the science fair with him; classmates saw him headed towards his room; when she met the bus at 3:45, he wasn't there at all. Police, FBI, and other agencies have no idea. There is no evidence of foul play.

I had wondered why the automated call I always get around 10:30 a.m. if my child is absent, hadn't triggered concern -- but the latest news from today's press conference with PPS superintendent Carole Smith is that it was such a small school, teachers usually know students and parents and the reasons for absences, and didn't have a dialer. All schools will now be getting automatic dialers (although the timeline for that change wasn't announced). It was just a slip, through a crack no one even thought to concern themselves with. And why? A safe neighborhood, a small school, a sweet child. What could go wrong?

The unthinkable. I've been thinking a lot about such typically unthinkable happenstances over the past few weeks, as I came across the news of writer and prolific mommy blogger Kate Granju's oldest son, Henry. He died several weeks after overdosing on the drugs to which he'd become addicted, and being beaten badly. And earlier today, I came across another mother searching for her 16-year-old daughter, last seen in Seattle. These things happen in lovely, loving families just like ours, and they chill to the bone and have me looking around instinctively every few minutes to make sure my boys are safe.

They are, and according to the FBI, violent crimes were down 5.5% last year and have been falling for several years. Free Range Kids creator Lenore Skenazy points this out in her blog, with great little tidbits like this one from a pediatric ICU nurse: "the real dangers are overlooked. Lock your second story windows, make sure your kids understand car and bike safety. Model safe behavior. Don’t talk and text while driving... I can tell you that I have NEVER once taken care of a kid who was assaulted by a stranger."

What is there to be done? Who is to blame? I don't see failings in security or parental care; I think the best answer is to be vigilant, to pray for these other family's awful predicament and the continued safety of our own, and to hug our children tight as much as we can and thank heavens for them.

I've been watching Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution (along with a lot of you, I know) and I can't tell if my blood is boiling hotter than my tears are stinging, or vice versa. During the third episode last Friday, I was in need of a good noseblow by the end. I think it was the stunning failure of Oliver to inspire anything like interest in real food in the kids in episode two that hurt the most, and it was the chicken nugget bit that had people talking. I wrote about it: "When he showed children how chicken nuggets are made -- grinding up the least desirable parts of a bird, gloppily straining out the bones, and adding flavorings and fillers -- he expected them to refuse to eat them. Instead, after having cried 'ewww!' and 'gross!' they each asked for a patty, answering his bewilderment with: 'We're hungry!' ...

"Though part of Oliver's stunt was pure fiction -- 'Thankfully, chicken nuggets in this country are not made this way,' he clarified before heading off to cleave a carcass into pieces -- it's part of a wider movement that's calling out processed fake food by name and calling for it to be eliminated from children's diets." What surprised me was how many of the people I know (and plenty I don't) started talking about how chicken nuggets were now off their family's menu.

There's a lot not to like in Oliver's show. There are the cafeteria workers, who grumble and complain when Oliver dares to bring real chicken and potatoes in need of a peeler into the kitchen, where the comfort food comes in a box and needs only to be heated up. There are the rules that say Oliver's many-vegetable pasta "isn't a cup and a fourth" of vegetables (he has to serve fries with his healthy fare to make it up) and that every meal needs to have "two breads" even if those breads are both halves of an extremely processed, nutrition-bereft pizza crust and that schools need to have "two kinds of milk" which often means milk that's been colored pink and sugar-added. There is all that sugar, so much sugar that Oliver himself has been making special note of it. In that post on Moms Rising, he writes, "Ask a pediatrician (or a teacher for that matter) to identify the biggest enemy of child’s health and they will answer,” sugar”. You put beautiful little kids in school, 180 days of the year, from four to 18 and nearly every choice offered to them is some version of junk food."

And there's the grocery store, where the aisles are packed with sugary treats disguised as healthy food. There's the "Froot Loops" and the happy-dippy commercials stacked five solid in our kids' favorite TV shows, the ones that say cheerfully, "part of this good breakfast!" (I tell Everett, overhearing one, "you know, that's not really a good breakfast..." "I KNOW, mom," he replies.) There is the yogurt (even the organic stuff), whose makers feel it necessary to pack it with so much sugar that one eight-ounce serving is as much sugar as the AHA recommends kids have in a day. There are the "fruit snacks," the lemonade which has no lemon juice, the trail mix with so many ingredients I have to look twice to see if there are really raisins and peanuts.

There are our kids, who eat a bunch of candy on Easter or when a well-meaning aunt or uncle stops by, or we ourselves let them go crazy at Starbucks' pastry counter, and then proceed to act horribly, fighting over Froot Loops and Skittles and Petite Vanilla Bean Scones until we cover our ears with our hands and scream, "no more candy, EVER!" (Is that just me?)

In all this craziness, I'm happy to see that more scrutiny is being placed on the harmful quality of junk food, poor quality meats, white bread and the abhorrent state of the "reimburseable meals" provided in our schools. It seems hopeful. It also seems crushing: how many cafeteria ladies will have to be convinced that kids might eat broccoli if we keep offering it to them? How many hard decisions will have to be made -- no chocolate milk, french fries once a week, a re-categorization of "food" in the food stamps even -- how will we pay for it?

"I'm destroyed," she said. I had been hanging out on the Bridger playground yesterday just before the school's out bell, watching Everett and Truman play while Monroe slept on the bike. I'd seen her and her friend first on an "unimproved road" on the way to school; they and their daughters, each in their own wagon, had been walking while we biked past. She'd called out something friendly; I'd smiled and responded.

Now we were talking about her upcoming, impending, oh-my-god-it's-Friday decision: where to send her daughter to school. Should she go with her neighborhood option, Bridger? She had a few other great ones on her list: Creative Sciences, Buckman, maybe even Atkinson. We chatted for a few minutes, I owning up to not having a great handle yet on the school; I've only been hanging at this playground for two-and-a-half weeks, Everett's in the behavioral program, we didn't pick this.

The decision, she said, was too much. And Friday! Two days to make the decision that would seriously change the course of her and her daughter's life. Who could know how it would develop? What the future would hold?

As she was talking I realized I wasn't, after all, ready to send Truman to his neighborhood school, Grout. How crazy would that be, after all, next year? We'd be on the bikes at 7:45 to get Truman to his school; then head the other direction, past home, to get Everett to Bridger. Monroe and I would have four-and-a-half hours before it was time to pick Truman up, then slog the four-plus miles to Bridger, home again home again. Forget volunteering or staying after to read to my kids. With two on either end of southeast Portland, and me on my bike, I'd be torn between my children.

So now, I, too, am destroyed. I have until tomorrow to make the decision and I'm pretty sure I know what it will be: not my neighborhood school. It's not the way I thought this would go. Are any of you, like this mama and I, feeling destroyed right now?

An urbanPapa friend and I engaged in a lively philosophical debate via chat yesterday evening while I should have been cooking dinner. At issue, the looming opening of school choice transfer applications for kindergarteners -- this Friday, January 29, at 8 a.m. schools throughout the district will begin accepting them, as well as registration forms for neighborhood kindergarteners. Should he apply for transfer, or just accept the fate his home purchase a decade or more ago had set for him?

I told him I thought Atkinson, his neighborhood choice, was a good one; he wondered about the test scores there, which were not what you'd call a "home run." Atkinson got a grade of "satisfactory" in the District's report cards [pdf link] (you can find other Oregon district report cards, with data on individual schools, here.) He asked what was partly a rhetorical question: "do test scores matter?" 

My perspective was this: test scores are a snapshot that tells you how well third, fourth and fifth graders in your district take tests. It has much to do with demographics; students who are minorities typically do worse, as do those for whom English is a second language. Yes, we know this, he said, but white students in Atkinson weren't doing great, either. This, I said, was again a snapshot of demographics; poorer students do worse, on average. This tells you nothing more than "the majority students in my school are not, on average, students with the high level of parent involvement that guarantees better results on standardized tests." It is not a reflection, I said, on teacher competence or whether or not your child will thrive there. It's just a demographic snapshot. Unless your neighborhood school is a war zone (I'm not saying we don't have any of those in Portland, just unless), your risk of a bad educational experience is equally great at a great neighborhood school, a poor neighborhood school, a charter school, or a private school.

Sidebar: Kindergarten roundups [pdf link] actually started last week: you've missed the dates for Arleta and Ainsworth -- sorry! Atkinson was this morning at 9:30 a.m., but has another at 6 p.m. Feb 4. Astor is tonight at 6:30 p.m. Forest Park and Rieke are tomorrow at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m., respectively. The rest start next week. If you decide you love a school other than your neighborhood school, you must list it as first choice to have a chance in the lottery. Also: if there is choice between half-day and full-day kindergarten in your school, you will want to turn your application in right at 8 a.m. if you want the full-day option; they fill up fast. We have a growing resource in our schools forum, which provides at least a little information and a chance to connect with parents for each school in the PPS, many private schools, and those from some surrounding suburbs and towns. Last year, we talked about kindergarten roundups and school choice, although most of the comments there do pertain strictly to 2009.

He countered, saying, "there is no question that educational reputation affects people's lives. I can't say it affects whether they are happy, but it does affect what kind of jobs they get. For example, top competitive positions at corps and in government are filled predominantly by people from about 5 or 10 universities. Ivy League plus a few others. Shouldn't I give him that opportunity if it's there for me?" He acknowledged that stating this was a departure for him; he'd just as soon give a screed on how owning land should be illegal.

Yes, I said, but there are so many unknowns for a kindergartener, and the test results of kids who are now in fourth grade -- who won't interact with your son at all -- are hardly likely to influence this much.

It seems that each week brings a new bit of evidence or an old-but-new-to-me essay inspiring me to work even harder to ply my children with nutritious, slow, fresh, whole, inconvenient foods. This summer, I've been making progress, involving the kids in the magic of the garden and cooking foods they (supposedly) love in the slow, slow way. A few weeks ago, Everett harvested two pumpkins and brought them inside to me to make his favorite food: pumpkin pie. I did so, in a crust made of whole wheat flour and lard I rendered myself (I believe in high quality animal fats, but that's for another time), using that pumpkin from our front yard garden, eggs from our backyard chickens, and honey from the People's Co-op farmer's market. I worried that it wasn't sweet enough. Was too lumpy. Wouldn't be like that pie at the annual Thanksgiving feast at his school.

He loved it, and offered a piece to a friend who came to visit, saying, "my mom made this, and it's really good!" There were tears, fat and heavy, in my eyes. I'd just finished reading this article about how a young man's diet is the best -- by far, far better than socio-economic class or community or parenting situation or playing violent video games or anything -- the best predictor of criminal behavior. Eat mostly junk food, you're more likely to go to jail. Period.

And yet, here we are, about to head back to school, where the lunchtime fare at most public schools is decidedly junk food. At Everett's school, it's particularly bad, and the teachers there will back me up. The vegetables that are available are so burned by refrigerants, or spoiled, they're inedible. The rare fruits and veggies that survive the weeks (or longer?) from harvest to lunch tray are doused in chemical preservatives and, often, sugar. The meat is from the lowest possible quality sources; the baked goods are thoroughly packed with processed ingredients. Whole foods are cut up and wrapped in plastic. The best thing there is yogurt, and that's full of sugar. Each meal surely exceeds the new recommendation from the American Heart Association that we severely limit our daily added sugar intake. The real food at Everett's school is rare (and he insists on eating school lunches; he's struggling mightily with other kids making fun of him, so I don't dare put my foot down).

It could be better. Slow Food USA is working to to advocate for this. Today, right now (I should have written this earlier!) in conjunction with the awesome Time Based Art festival, is a Slow Food Eat-In picnic as part of the National Day of Action to get real food in schools. I am going. I am bringing a salad I made of green beans (cut in half crosswise and cooked about six minutes in boiling water) sauteed with cherry tomatoes (cut in half) and crushed garlic -- all from my garden -- in a little bacon fat, and tossed with salt and feta cheese. It's real food and I harvested it today. I know this can't be the lunch at Everett's school tomorrow. But it should be, some day.

And I'd love to share some with you if you can make it to this event. There's one in NE Portland, tonight, too. Or tell your real-food-in-schools story, here.

Operating hours at our public schools, depending on the program and grade, can range from 9:30 to 11:30 AM to a more average schedule of 8AM to 3PM.  For the full-time working parent, especially in single parent households, these schedules would obviously require both before- and after-care.  We've previously listed out the before- and after- daycare providers at PPS schools.  PPS Childcare website states:

The Portland Public Schools Board of Education passed a Childcare Policy in December of 1997 that provides for safe, affordable, educationally appropriate childcare for all elementary school students before and after school hours. Childcare is not only a parenting issue, or a workplace issue, but also an education issue.

We recently received an email from urbanMama Tia, who writes about her challenges with PPS aftercare:

My five-year-old son is about to start kindergarten at our neighborhood school, Peninsula Elementary.  My four-year-old daughter will remain in day care near my office in Hillsboro.  Since I am a divorced mom with a hefty commute, before- and after-school care has been a major concern.  I thought my son had a reserved spot in the on-site day care program at Peninsula, so was pretty well dumbfounded a few weeks ago to learn (mostly by accident) that the program has been terminated.  PPS has made no arrangements to replace it.  This affects nearly all the other schools in the Kenton/St Johns area, because Clarendon/Portsmouth, James John, Ockley Green, and Rosa Parks had all bused children to Peninsula for the child care program.  Sitton apparently has an entirely different provider, and a new provider is launching an on-site program at Chief Joseph -- but there are no plans to transport children from the other Kenton/St Johns schools to those locations.

... Nancy Hauth, the childcare coordinator for PPS, has been sympathetic but unable to remedy this gaping North Portland hole in the before- and after-school program.  When I last contacted her I realized that my list of grievances with PPS is already alarmingly long.

I'm worried that there may be other affected parents in the neighborhood who don't even know yet that there's a problem.  My political hackles are up, too, over the fact that PPS' failure here is localized to a big swath of North Portland.  Can you help me get the word out, and maybe spawn some activism on this issue?  I am a total newbie at dealing with the school district and, if nothing else, would love to identify PPS-veteran mentors.

Have you been in a situation left without before- and after-care at your school?  Have you been affected by this change in the North Portland PPS area?  How do we address this need and lack?

The end of summer vacation is closing in on us quickly.  Last weekend, I took my rising fourth-grader and her classmate to the store to acquire all the items on their supply lists.  The stores (we opted for Fred Meyer's and Walgreens) were overwhelming with all their back-to-school displays, reams of paper, and boxes of Pee Chee folders.  Of course, they were all out of No. 2 pencils!  We carefully chose our items and surprisingly ended up with a bill that was half of what it had been in previous years.

Somewhere in all the school supply craze, I know I've seen signs for school supply drives.  I can recall only one organization, though: Schoolhouse Supplies is a nonprofit organization helps schools by providing free supplies, donated by businesses, to teachers of classrooms in need.  Their school supply drive started on August 1st, but there's still time to contribute before drives end on Labor Day.  Details on locations and participating businesses on the Schoolhouse Supplies website.

This year: where are you shopping for your school supplies?  Have you heard of community school supply drives that could use additional support?

A few years ago, when I was first understanding my son, Everett, and his behavioral difficulties, I read Ross W. Greene's The Explosive Child. Now that he's at the Pioneer School, a special school geared toward children who have major trouble adapting in the general education environment, and many of the members of the schools' staff have been through Greene's workshops. His approach for dealing with challenging kids, called "collaborative problem solving," is now taught in workshops and MESD-sponsored book groups around the city.

I was surprised, then, when I told several of Everett's teachers that I had just ordered Greene's newest book, Lost in School, a follow-up to his previous books that lays out a framework for how parents and schools can work together to help challenging kids succeed. They hadn't yet heard of it. (What, do you people not have GoodReads?) I've read a few chapters of Lost in School, now, and I already recommend both books to anyone who has a child with behavioral challenges, whether they're like Everett's or more strictly diagnosed (the autism spectrum and ADHD are also maladaptive disorders and can be approached with Greene's philosophies). When adding the new book to my GoodReads shelf, I decided to review the The Explosive Child; I've copied the review after the jump.

It wasn't even midnight before day one of snow days when I looked at the forecast for the week and had to ask: will they have any school before January? Portland Public Schools isn't known for making children and staff get to school when there is any ice on the roads or sidewalks, and I know from long experience that snow + frozen temperatures + Portland, Oregon means zero relief from icy conditions. (I am just old enough to remember the great ice storm of 1979, which kept my Taylor Street home sparkly and slick and kept me home -- though my elementary school was only a block-and-a-half away).

So I worried over the forecast, freezing temperatures all week, more snow on Wednesday and Thursday, and expect that our kids won't go back to school until school's out for the holiday. This had me frantic with rather inconsequential anxiety. What about those last-week-before-Christmas craft fairs and art projects and holiday concerts? How will I get the teachers the brilliant gifts I'd planned? (A few tokens for the Portland Farmer's Market along with a card listing my favorite vendors and the schedule for 2009.) Will the last farmer's market of the year even happen? (I know, nothing to do with school, but it's my fear nonetheless.)

Then last night, a surprise: the east-siders were going to school today, so my little one was packed off on his very early bus (no west-siders to pick up). Of course, my teacher gifts weren't yet ready so I'm now hoping for beautiful (cold) weather on Friday. [Update: PPS announced no school tomorrow, Wednesday, December 17.] One of the teachers on my Twitter stream announced only about half of her students were in class today; so many parents are calling this week a snow week, regardless of PPS openings. Do you dread or yearn for an extra whole week of vacation? What do you think of the east side / west side division (as if we weren't already divided enough)? What silly anxieties are you harboring? And are you as tired of bundling and un-bundling as me? (I have a blog post going on about that topic in my head...)

Are you ready for something healthy and sustainable after that talk about childhood obesity? Remember: today is the Local Lunch at Portland Public Schools cafeterias all over town. I'm heading to Pioneer School today to eat lunch with Everett (and pay penance for having screwed up the dates and missed his annual Thanksgiving Feast parent lunch yesterday, ouch!). The menu appears to have changed slightly and is now "Oven Roasted Glazed Chicken featuring Draper Valley Farms Natural Chicken." Either way, I'm looking forward to having lunch with my little boy; as Aliza Wong wrote so eloquently in her entry on Culinate, eating lunch with your child is good no matter what the ingredients.

We've had a lot to say about the sorry state of our schools' cafeterias, both here and on Activistas, and the criticism is certainly not limited to the Portland Public Schools boundaries; it's a terrible issue nationwide. Movement is slowly grumbling toward a better way, though, and last year the addition of Harvest of the Month (one ingredient per week from local farmers -- this month it's sweet corn on the cob) was, while a small step, still: progress!

This year's small step forward is the Local Lunch: a whole menu, once each month, featuring local foods (defined as Washington, Oregon, and California up to San Francisco -- a generous "local"). The first offering, last Wednesday, was quesadillas with Tillamook cheese and Don Pancho quesadillas. November's offering is barbecued chicken with Draper Valley Farms natural chicken -- yum! I encourage those of you who send lunches with your PPS students to have them buy lunch on these days; or go have lunch with your child. Whole list of dates and menus after the jump.

International Walk and Bike to School day is coming up on October 8th, this Wednesday. This is a one-time, state-wide event in which many schools participate. 90 schools throughout Oregon are signed up to promote healthy lifestyles by walking and biking to school. For more information on the program, see the Walk + Bike web site.

Are you in?

We know you want change in our school food system; I'm only one of millions of moms desperate to improve its current state, although admittedly I'm extra loud and whiny about it. Portland is even one of the lucky ones; our Farm to School program is a model nationwide. Now if we could only expand it to more than one ingredient a month...

But you've got to start somewhere. As part of Ecotrust's Western Regional Assembly today, Rebecca Gerendasy of the Cooking Up a Story video project will be interviewing Deb Eschmeyer from the Farm to School Network, "about farm to school, policies being made toward this, how parents are getting involved, what needs to be done toward bringing fresh, clean, good food to our kids in school..." Her interview will be broadcast on Ustream starting at 12:15, and she'll be taking questions from the online audience. If you have a webcam and a microphone, you can participate. The recorded video is after the jump.

When my sister mentioned she was red-shirting her son who has a July birthday, I thought nothing of it.  She felt he wasn't emotionally ready for kindergarten and waiting would allow him another year of maturity.  Andrea recently sent us this thought provoking email on delaying the start of kindergarten:

I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about kindergarten for my kids. My oldest is only 3, so I'm still wrapping my mind around preschool. But a friend of mine is a kindergarten teacher, and she recently told me about a growing trend where parents purposefully hold their kids back from starting kindergarten until they're closer to 6.  It's called "red-shirting", and I guess parents are doing this with the idea that their kids, if a little older, will be better able to handle the academic and physical rigors of kindergarten, and therefore outperform their peers. 

A number of issues around kindergarten are explored in this article from last year's NY Times Magazine.  One of which is the shift in our expectation of what children should achieve in kindergarten.  At one point in our not too distant past, kindergarten was geared mostly around play, and was only half-day to boot.  Now, we expect kids to start learning to read and write in kindergarten.  Play is all but disappearing from their school day.  In this sense, delaying your child's start to kindergarten makes sense.  If kindergarten is now what first grade used to be, it makes sense that kids would do better if they were closer to six when they began.  However, this is difficult if it is not uniformly applied.  One of many challenges with red-shirting is that teachers are forced to accommodate the skill differences reflected in the growing age divide of their students.  Another is that red-shirting is only really an option to those with the means to delay their child's start in school.  If you have the money to pay for another year of preschool, or the opportunity to stay home with them for another year, you can ensure they'll have a leg-up in kindergarten.  If you can't, you have to enroll them in a class where they are learning alongside children more than a year further along in their development. 

In response to red-shirting, and more general ideas about the benefits of delaying the start to kindergarten; a number of state's are contemplating changing their cut-offs, delaying them, so that their kindergarteners will be older, and later test scores more competitive with states with later enrollment dates.  I wonder, why is it that we changed our academic expectations of kindergarteners in the first place?  Only to now work on delaying when they start because they're not ready to meet those new expectations. 

Doesn't this represent a major shift from our previous conversations about this, and from the thinking when we were kids.  Until recently, it seemed more common for parents to fight to enroll their kids earlier than the age cut-off.  Sure that, even at the later end of 4, they were prepared to start school. 

What do you think?  Is there a "right age" for kids to start kindergarten? 

A little birdie told me that 'tis the season to be hearing back from school lotteries, for those families who are opting to exercise the PPS school choice.  Did you participate in the lottery?  Have you heard back yet?  What did the lottery have in store for your child(ren)?  Happy with results or resigning to your spot on the waitlist?

Lottery or not, now's a chance to connect with other families at your schools.  Use the urbanMamas School Connection forum to do so!

The auction season is well on its way, as the recent Portland Public School e-newsletter alerted us.  We have two children at separate schools, and we have already worked the events, scoured businesses for donations, wined & dined at the event.  Have  you?

Our two schools are very different in nature: one more established institution with a large group of well-connected parents that brings in the school enough money to buy a small house (in some parts of the country) and one newer school whose auction this year was only its 3rd and still has much more room to grow.

Well, here are some things I never knew about the world of PPS auctions:

• Auctions helped schools raise over $1M in 2007
• The Portland School Board allows a school to keep the first $10,000 raised.
• A third of anything above the $10,000 raised is given to an "Equity Fund" at the Portland Schools Foundation for distribution through grants to schools across the district.  "It’s one way for schools to spread the wealth."

Says PPS:

The school district and foundation are sensitive to the fact that some school communities have the resources to raise money, while others don’t. But years of budget cutbacks have left all schools scrambling to maintain academic support for students and programs such as the arts, PE and library. Half of PPS schools receive federal Title I funds because they serve higher-than-average shares of kids from lower-income homes. Title I revenue is far greater than any amount raised at auctions, but those schools have greater needs, and still have trouble maintaining their programs.

Auction season is unique to Portland (and perhaps Oregon) schools.  It is a sign of our inability to fund complete programs at our schools.  Friends with children at schools in the Bay Area, New York, or New Jersey say that auctions are uncommon.  Some schools with endowments (!) will have auctions to fundraise to maintain and grow their endowments.  But, here in Portland, schools established or not are raising funds for enrichment programs, to build libraries, to fund improvements at their schools.  On some days, it makes me angry.

Other days, I do appreciate being given the opportunity to contribute time and effort to my school community, and to get to know other parents in the process.  Auction planning can be fun and auction-going  can be funner.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on auction season.  Do you get involved?  Do you go?  Do you know what programs or improvements at your school auction proceeds fund?  Have you had your auction yet?  Or, have always seen signs for the auction but cannot / don't want to go?  Does your school have a non-auction major fundraiser?

Hey!  We're chatting about PPS food over on Activistas.  Got opinions?  Experience to share?  Involved in improving it?  Join the conversation, we're learning a lot.  Like how little money there is to spend on food (when was the last time you ate lunch for $1??). Plus, there's a bill before the legislature this month that you might want to support.  Read on, weigh in, and call your legislator in Salem.  All over on Activistas.

As much as I love the sight of puffy white stuff coming from the sky, I dread how it can have an effect on our schedules.  Today, a Saturday, is a great day for a snow day, a day to stay inside and watch the flakes come down.  But, if the weather is like this on Monday, a school day, and if our school is closed (see HERE for the PPS inclement weather e-hotline), what are we to do, if it is supposed to be a work day for us?  If you work outside the home and have a "snow day" school closure, what do you do?

In our informal gathering of parents who discussed their experiences with Portland Public Schools and the choice that goes along with it, we heard that many mamas and papas would like the opportunity to connect with other parents at other schools.  Parents are interested in hearing from other parents: how do they like their schools?  How do they not like their schools?

We have created the urbanMamas School Connections forum, in an effort to connect parents at schools.  Have at it and share as you always have.  We haven't started threads on all the schools yet, so if you want to hear about a specific school, shoot us an email and we'll have it up asap. 

** UPDATED ***

8:19AM:  All West-side schools and all schools in the Roosevelt cluster are closed on Monday.  All other schools are on 2-hour delay.

6:24AM:  In case you haven't heard yet, PPS is on a two-hour delay today.  For future reference, here is the PPS inclement weather website.

It's that time of year for us parents of 4 and maybe 5 year olds...  Time to check the listings for Kindergarten Round-up dates if we're enrolling our children in the neighborhood school.  This can be a nerve-wracking time for many parents, but I know that our neighborhood school has a strong community and parental involvement level, which is why I'm so excited to register my child there.  Erica, however, is trying to look into ways of connecting with other parents at her neighborhood school to strengthen the parental and community and involvement.  She writes:

My daughter will be starting Kindergarten in the Fall 08'.  We are thinking about having her attend her neighborhood school, Vernon Elementary.  We are just amazed that only 42% of the Vernon neighborhood kids attend their neighborhood school.  My husband and I would like to set up a meeting with other Vernon families.  We would like to work with other families in the neighborhood to encourage more parent involvement at Vernon Elementary.  That seems to be the biggest problem with this school.

So, if there are any other parents thinking of sending their kids to Vernon, maybe drop her a line.  I bet she's not the only one out there looking to work on this project...

My, my.  And I thought the debate about all-day kindergarten in PPS was about issues like equity, learning opportunities, and working parents' schedules.  Turns out it might just be illegal!  Yikes.  And while that seems, at first glance, like a bad thing, maybe it's not.  Maybe the silver lining is that this issue will finally get a good, hard, realistic look here in Oregon.  Read more over on Activistas and, of course, chime in!  How has the full-day kindergarten option affected your family?  Got any ideas about solving this conundrum?   Stories from the trenches?

New ones opening, existing ones bursting at the gills.  What's the story?  Charter schools are all the rage.  Should they be?  Are they the best thing since sliced bread in the educational world?  Have a kid at one in Portland?  Head on over to Activistas to read a bit more on the topic and share your thoughts & experiences with other mamas.  And while you're there, you can learn a thing or two about Multnomah County in our Activistas 101 'How To' series.  Who's your county commissioner?  Don't know?  Plug in over on Activistas. 

uMamas, We've received another question from an Arizona mama hoping to move to Portland soon.  Beyond our previous 'planning for kindergarten' discussion, can you share more of your experiences and insight about the September 1 cut-off and experiences with having a child tested for early entry into kindergarten?  Any experiences moving to Portland mid-year and finding a spot at a school?

We are considering a move to Portland.  My daughter is already in Kindergarten here in AZ and thriving at it.  The problem is that her birthday is October 3rd, so she is a month and 2 days shy of the Oregon birthday cutoff for Kindergarteners.  She's a young K-G'ner here as well, and goes to a charter with a looser admission rule than our local elementary district. She has been in school for 3 years and I like where she is at, academically and socially.  What I would like to know is whether any of your readers have been in a similar situation.  Will  many schools let her test in to Kindergarten mid-year?  Are they likely to have the space for her?  Thanks for your help and I look forward to being one of your future readers!

This Wednesday, October 3, is the 2007 Bike & Walk to School Day.  In an effort to get in our faces, grab our attention, and/or shame us into walking or biking, a Willy Week editorial reads, "Driving is Lazy".  With Portland Public Schools offering school choice wherein many families opt for schools beyond their neighborhood schools, it may not be as easy to just walk or bike to school.

There are 37 or so participating schools in Portland, both public and private.  Is your school on the list?  Even if it isn't, will you be able to walk or bike to school?  Carpool or take the bus/MAX? 

Meg poses an interesting question and seeks some wisdom from urbanMamas:

I am a high school teacher and I teach a course called environmental issues.  As part of the on-going guiding question of “How do you impact the environment and how can this be measured?” I wanted to do a weekly bit on healthy eating; healthy for the planet and healthy for the student.  My idea was to get a local farm or grocery store to donate organic fruit that was all locally grown.  I approached my administration with this idea and was told that I could only serve prepackaged food in class…. In other words, soda, chips, pizza, doughnuts, candy are all a-ok, but not organic fruit.  What are your experiences with what is acceptable to serve in the public school classroom?  Are there any loopholes I could squeeze through?  I know I can’t cook anything, but I thought raw foods were ok.  What would be the best way to go about changing this policy in a time efficient manner?  Lastly, does anyone have any connections with Washington County organic farms just in case I get this off the ground?

Time and time again, we receive emails from mamas and papas moving to Portland and seeking advice on neighborhoods (would you recommend yours?).  To that end, parents moving to Portland wonder about our schools.  Which schools are top-ranked and would you try to find a home close to those schools?  There are the Oregon School Rankings, which is so daunting to me with the graphs and reams of data.  There is also GreatSchools.Net, which ranks Portland public schools based on the 2005-2006 Oregon Statewide Assessment for reading, math, and science.

A friend is considering moving to Portland from Brooklyn writes:

I was wondering if there was a site that ranks schools in a way that is fairly easy to understand.

Mamas, share your wisdom and insight on Portland Public Schools!

If you haven't noticed my eldest son, Everett, is starting kindergarten in 10 days, well, you probably have noticed. I'm terrified and excited and nervous and thrilled all at once. A friend a few neighborhoods over emailed, hoping to get together with some other prospective kindergarteners at Abernethy to quell her son's fears -- but Everett's going to Grout! I'd love to meet some to-be-newbies in my own neck of the woods. I wonder how many other mamas are equally nerve-wracked.

Is your oldest child starting kindergarten this fall? Or are you a recent transplant with a child entering a new school where you know next to no one? Or are you the parent of a transfer student? Please pipe up if you'd like to meet other like-minded fellow mamas and kiddos; where is your little one starting school this year?

Many of us are gearing up for the start of school in a few weeks.  A question came in from Jess about where families can get affordable school supplies:

I just registered my five year-old for kindergarten.  Wow!  Who knew the list of school supplies...for KINDERGARTEN would be so extensive?  It seems the school wants multiple packs of everything from sharpies to kleenex to dry erase markers to glue stix to additional money for a canvas bag students will be decorating (sans a backpack).

Now, I teach in a public school and am very PRO public school, but my wonder-hubby recently quit his job to attend nursing school full-time.  To say we do not have two pennies to rub together after mortgage is paid and food is purchased is not much of an understatement.  We want to provide the teacher with all of the (multiple packs) of items on the list.

Does anyone know the cheapest place for said school supplies?

Portland Public Schools kicks off the 2007-2008 school year in just three short weeks.  Will your child be going to school for the first time?  What sorts of things have you been doing to get ready for school?  Stocking up on the back-to-school suppply list that the school sent you?

We caught wind of a new product by Portland-company Blue Lake Children's Publishing.  It's called the Kindergarten Countdown Toolkit, and it comes with a DVD, a stack of Tessy & Tab magazines, and a kindergarten checklist.  The checklist has great tips for building up to the first day and week of school: visit the school, prepare for riding the bus or commuting to school, routinize the sleeping schedule, make a list for things to bring to school, and -- my personal favorite tip -- plan a special "first day" family dinner.

Another great idea is to start to get to know new families at your new school.  We've already been invited to our daughter's new school's end-of-summer picnic, and we already have our older daughter's back-to-school picnic on our calendars.  Sarah C recently posted that she belongs to a google group for her daughter's school, Beach Elementary.  We are figuring that there are many school  yahoo/google groups out there -- like Alameda Elementary, Creston School, Arthur Academy -- are there more?

Kindergarten is truly one of those first milestones you will definitely not forget.  Megan's daughter will be starting this fall, she asks:

Stella is starting Kindergarten (too soon!) at Vernon, and I'd love to find some other families to have some playdates so she might have a familiar face or two on her first day of school.  Do you guys know of anyone?

Are you in the same situation as Megan and would like to meet others from your school?  Start posting in the comments and let's see if we can help any of you connect! Any other ideas on how to prepare for the next school year, especially for those who are just starting their first days?  Three weeks will be gone before we know it!

In the most recent "Cities Ranked and Rated", a study of 400 metropolitan areas ranks Portland at number 3.  Even the Places Rated Almanac shows Portland at the top of list, as number 4.  Here at urbanMamas, we know we have a great thing.  We've had numerous conversations here about sense of place and our neighborhoods.  Many of us have lived in different cities and have made the decision to move to and stay in Portland.  Simply put, Portland's 'da bomb'.

Many of us know what it's like to research online to find the perfect neighborhood, school, and community.  We've received a few recent emails from folks moving to Portland, asking specific questions and seeking your input, advice, and suggestions. 

Amy and her family are moving to Portland from the Bay Area:

My husband and I are finally carrying out the dream we've talked about for years: Moving from the Bay Area to Portland.  I grew up in Southern Oregon, and came to the Bay Area for grad school, as did my husband.  Then we just kind of stuck around here. Now, we both work from home, have a toddler son, and we're ready to move. We really want to live near shops, good public schools, and parks —after commuting an hour each way every day to work for eight years, I'm done with driving for a while! Here are the neighborhoods we like:  Irvington, Alameda,
Beaumont, and Laurelhurst. (We want to live really close-in, even Mount Tabor and Multnomah Village felt a little too far for us). Does anyone have thoughts on those neighborhoods, in terms of being family-friendly, close to things, safe, and having good public elementary schools?  Also, some friends recommended we check out the west hills area and NW, but I was unsure after driving around there if young families live there and couldn't tell if the vibe was as friendly
as NE?  Seems like Chapman and Ainsworth are good schools, but I really want to be close to other families and good stuff to do with my son (libraries, parks, museums, etc). Any thoughts would be much appreciated!

Tomorrow, May 8, is National Teacher Day.  We know so many of us are privileged with wonderful, inspirational, patient and nurturing teachers in our lives.  Do you have something planned to celebrate your teacher tomorrow?

The other evening, our daughter's school held a community visioning meeting, to talk about where the school is headed. I was in a room of about 50 or so concerned, insightful, and empowered(ing) parents asking prodding questions about our schools direction, sharing meaningful input, showing tremendous support for what our school does every day with our children. It was great energy; I felt like many of us were inspired to do more to improve the school and to grow the school. I thought to myself, "We are part of the bestest school community EVER."

When I thought about what other parents from other schools have shared with me about their respective school communities, it occurred to me that we are ALL part of the bestest school community EVER. I know we are not alone in thinking that we have a wonderful school community and that we have the opportunity to affect change. Not to get all warm and fuzzy -- but, parents do have a tangible role in each school's administration and policy.

Curious about learning more about how parents can be change agents at your local PPS? The 6th Annual Parent Leadership Conference is coming up, hosted by Community & Parents for Public Schools.

Come network with parents from across the District, learn how other schools are increasing parent involvement, and get ideas you can use at your school and home. At the end of the morning, dialogue with PPS superintendent Vicki Phillips about what support parents need to help their children succeed. The event is Co-sponsored by Portland Public Schools & the Portland Schools Foundation, this event is free. Childcare and translation services are available if you pre-register.

Saturday, April 21, 2007
8:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Benson High School, 546 NE 12th Avenue, Portland, Oregon

Some ideas from the other evening that we are pondering - a vegetable garden to be used to make hot lunches for the children, partnering with arts and other institutions to broaden the children's exposure to learning about new disciplines, fully utilizing all that the city has to offer in the way of public parks, public transit, public facilities. Do you have a wonderful program that your parent community is instituting or has already instituted at your PPS school?

An urbanMama and an urbanPapa would love to hear from you.  They are considering a PPS charter school, of which there are now five (for lower elementary grades) in the Portland Public School district.  In specific, they are looking at Arthur Academy:

We're hoping to hear from people whose children have attended one of the Arthur Academy charter schools.  We know they use Direct Instruction, which we've read up on extensively. We're still trying to decide what we think about it. But more importantly, we're interested in the experiences - positive, negative, neutral, anything, that parents whose children have attended can offer.  Did your child enjoy school and learn?  What concerns did you have?  Was the lack of usual school amenities like libraries, cafeterias, auditoriums, a problem?

So many people (perschool teachers, parent friends who have experience in teaching who are considering it for kindergarten, etc) tell me it is a wonderful program but I have yet to hear from any actual parents with kids who have attended or do attend. Any feedback at all would be much appreciated!