First Day of School

Today is the first day of school for our boys, ages 11 and 8. Relocating with school-age children adds extra layers of worry and decision making to the whole process. It only starts with public or private? Does the city/town/neighborhood you want to live in have good schools? Are they easy to get to? Do we want full language immersion? Do they have strong academics? In the case of private schools, are they easy to get into? Would we want a Spanish private school, religious school, or international school? 

After nearly two decades of working and being a parent in both the U.S. public and private school systems, I had a pretty solid handle on how school works in the U.S. but no idea how things worked in Spain. 

Fortunately, one decision was easy to make, as Christopher was adamant that the boys attend public school, and I could not fault his reasoning. He wanted them immersed in the Spanish language and culture and to have opportunities to make Spanish friends. After that, we learned the other decisions weren’t really up to us. We had to go to the School Department with our forms requesting our top three schools and then wait to hear about our assignments. And this is where we hit a wrinkle.

Both our boys were born in the second half of the year – November and July, respectively, so we chose to give them extra preschool/pre-K years in the U.S. before sending them to kindergarten. This meant that when we arrived this summer, 11 was a rising 6th grader (in Spain, 6th grade is the final year of primary school) and 8 was a rising 2nd grader. In Spain, however, school year is determined only by birth year, regardless of month, so here they were going to be assigned to 7th grade (the first year of secondary education, called Educación Secundaria, basically middle school) and 3rd grade. 

Thankfully, we got some great advice from a local friend of Christopher’s, who urged us to make our case at the School Department to have the boys placed in 6th and 2nd – after all, not only were they going to be trying to keep up with the academics, they were going to be doing so in another language! And we knew about a Spanish/English bilingual school a four-minute walk from our house, so we could make a good case for that being our top choice! 

In the end we got half our wish – 11 was allowed to be placed in a 6th grade classroom, but 8 was being assigned to 3rd grade. The second wrinkle – there weren’t spaces in those grades for both boys at our first choice school, so only 8 could go there. Unbeknownst to us, however, there was another Spanish/English bilingual school an eight-minute walk from the house, and 11 was assigned to that school (but they didn’t have space in 3rd grade), even though it wasn’t in our top three. 

Both boys are excited and nervous, as are their parents! Both are most excited about the fact that school doesn’t start until 9 and is over at 2, a big difference from the typical 7:45-3 U.S. school schedule!

What would your priorities be in choosing a school for your child or children? Comment below to let us know!

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