Deciding to Change Schools — How We Made the Call

We spent a genuinely embarrassing amount of time agonizing over this decision. Pro and con lists were written and then rewritten, and then roughly written again on the backs of receipts and paper bags and anything else I could use for deliberations. I asked my husband so many times if it was the right decision, even though I already knew the answer.

The Signs We Kept Ignoring

If you read my post about working in my kids’ school, you know it was a real, wake-up call. a red-alert, not-to-be-ignored WAKE UP CALL!

With my older one’s ADHD, the fit between kid and environment matters enormously. A school that works great for a neurotypical kid might be genuinely wrong for him. That took us longer to accept than I’d like to admit. And we are realistic that this issues may persist in his next school, but we KNEW these issues were the case at school one.

What We Actually Weighed

Logistics: Safety. The initial school was consistently sent new kids with high needs, and they didn’t have the staff. My Oldest son, on multiple occasions was sent to an empty hallway with zero adult supervision. He was regularly harassed by the same two awful kids (I blame their parents, but I also blame the school for enabling it by creating an environment with zero f%$king consequences), and I wasn’t notified. It literally wasn’t until I saw it when I worked there. No one would have ever told us.

Red flags were there. Before I worked at the school, my son would constantly cry and scream the second he got in the car. Painful, visceral, awful… every f%$king day.

Academics: The new school was rated VERY high in our state, and the highest ranked in our city. The principle was kind but not bubbly… not trying to be besties with all of the children, and that was a draw for me, because in my mind, it increases my chances of hearing back if there’s confrontation.

Socially, this was a fresh start. My neuro typical child didn’t need a fresh start, but he had a bunch of friends by day 4, my ADHD child is at a school with no history of his tears or outbursts. I hope things continue to go well, we’ll about 6 weeks in to this new school year.

Our gut: honestly, after all the practical stuff, our gut was the deciding vote.

The Moment It Became Clear

We emailed the principle at the new school, there were openings for both kids, and I got a response quickly….

For a kid who’d been resistant to the whole idea, ‘actually okay’ was practically a standing ovation. We enrolled our kids immediately.