Road to higher education

The 2011-2012 star testing results are out. Good news for folks already in the Warm Springs area. A little tough if you want to buy a house in the Warm Spring area now.


Leitch Elementary -  987
Warm Springs - 967
Horner Middle School - 923
Irvington High - 874

All scores improved this year.

Finally...

When school started in September 2009, my child was 25/26 on the waiting list.
After the initial week she was 5/6/7 on the waiting list. We thought that her number would come really fast... maybe in a couple of weeks. However, once folks settle down the list moves super slow.
She finally got the call in the month of April.

For 8 months, my child attended Grimmer. We had mixed feelings in moving to Leitch. We did not want to be on the waiting list when school starts for Grade 1. Simple put, the teachers in Grimmer were awesome and we did not feel like moving school so late in the year. Here are some of my thoughts about Grimmer and being overloaded:

• the teachers Ms T and Ms R are really good. They had the respect of the class and ALL students listened/obeyed/loved the teachers
• most of the class in grimmer was overloaded from warm spring. Several folks from warm springs are going to grimmer. It was easy to carpool
• Parking is easy in Grimmer. (this may be because the number of students is less)
• Flexible: parents can check out the class, how the kids are in class and talk to the teacher after school.
• I saw several younger siblings also interacting with the teacher.

As you see,  Grimmer was a very positive experience for us. I hope Leitch leaves us with the same.

skewing the results.

The test results are out and this what the results look like from schools in the area..

school	2009 score	2009 Asians	2008	enrollment
grimmer	800	-	762	38/243
Hirsch	846	921	836	83/236
Leitch	959	980	956	132/178
mission sj elem	993	999	988	442/486

Looks like asians in the area skew the results quite a bit.

School starts

Sept 2, 2009 is first day of school for Fremont Unified School District.
My daughter got overloaded to Grimmer Elementary. The school is located 3.2 miles from James Leitch. She got into the afternoon batch. The school and teachers look good. Time will tell about the education. There seems to be a good mix of ethnicity in the class. I wonder why the API scores are low for this school. The school was well prepared for my daughter. Her name was on the roster and the class teacher had made nice name signs for all her students.

We got a letter saying that we were 22 in the wait list for James Leitch. When the first list was out we were 24th on the wait list. Another parent called and we figured that a few students had dropped and we should be 17 on the wait list as of today .i.e. first day of school.

The schools will get a clearer picture of the wait list after 3 days of school + labor day.

July 2009 update

July 2009 update - i.e. no update.
Tried the open enrollment lottery. Applied May 1st week... and based on our superior luck - got back a letter saying that we did not get in via lottery. Wonder where and how they decide - or maybe I need to take keen interest in the process and go to the place where they select the lottery winners.
Anyway, its July and we have no information about the school. Meanwhile a few houses in our neighborhood are sold and more are purchased. i.e. they are still building new houses at the edges of the school district.
June 14: a placement test was conducted. The teacher says that my daughter would make a good KG student... ya ya ya... we are sure too.. give us the spot...
Looks like class size will increase to 30 - that too district wide.

Will have to wait and watch.

hmmm.. what do we do now?

So we were among the unlucky 20% who did not get admission to Leitch.
20% as 119 kids of 150 are confirmed.

We are 143 on the list.
Here are the options:
- try open enrollment in Weibel
- private school
- move.... but market really sucks to sell, but is great to buy. If I had the downpayment, I might rent out the current house.

Think and take action.. or let go..

Form submitted

4th March 2009 was the day to submit forms. I reached James Leitch school at 7.45 am. This is when the school opens. Figured out it will be a large crowd as street parking looked full.

On reaching there one had to take a number. I was number 85. folks had been waiting for a long time.
My turn came around 10.45. Nothing much in terms of giving the application.

Here are some numbers and thoughts:
- there were only 2 ladies taking applications. The time it took to process each persons application seemed to vary. Sometimes 5 mins - sometimes 15 mins. There was a slow period initially - but later (around 10 am) things started speeding up.
- I guess there are 200 seats for KG. for 2009-2010,
- 80 spots for siblings were submitted.
- a total of 250 applications packets were given
- at 10.45, the number of people to fill applications was 150 (i.e. I was 85)

All the best - lottery results to be announced on Friday, March 6