For this mother, sending her children to public instead of private school is about investing in her community, and working to make it good for everyone — at least, that’s the idea she would like her kids to grow up with.
Back to (Public vs. Private) School
By Ruth Conniff 

Our oldest child is going to kindergarten this fall, and we are caught up in the back-to-school frenzy. We have to get school supplies, and I notice one telling change since we were kids: The list now includes not just supplies for our child, but a share of the pens, crayons, scissors, and glue the whole class will need this year. I guess budget cuts have reached the supply cabinet. We have to make doctors’ appointments, fill out forms, find out who the teacher will be, and talk to our neighbors about finding the bus stop. It’s a thrilling, poignant, nervous time.

I’m proud of the parents who are keeping their kids in our community school, and who have decided that the best way to help their kids get a great education is to work to support the staff and help make the school as good as it can be.

“Will I be scared?” my daughter asked yesterday, when we stopped by the school building to pick up some forms, and she tried out the playground equipment and peeked in the disassembled classrooms. Maybe at first, I said, but you’ll like it. I’m sure that she will. Her friends from the neighborhood will be there. And I’ve heard enough good things from other parents — many of whom volunteer in the classroom, go to meetings, and otherwise stay involved — that I have a comfortable feeling of community support for my daughter’s big leap to kindergarten.

But as I stepped over a condom wrapper on the playground and looked past my beaming five-year-old showing off on the monkey bars and noticed the spray paint on the slide, I had my own little twinge.

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