School Daze

Well, the inevitable has happened -- I am officially home schooling Alexandra. I didn't see it coming.

About 9 months ago, my husband and I decided to move our kids out of the school they had been attending. Several contributing factors hastened the decision, not the least of which was the cost for the three of them to attend the school.

The school was and is a good school, but when the new tuition schedule came out right before Christmas break (as in, Merry Christmas, F*&% You!), we found that our per term cost for tuition alone had doubled from $350 per kid to $700 per kid. Here's the simple math: 3 kids at $700 is $2,100 per term; 3 terms in a year is $6,300; taxi or cost of driving per month on average is $240 for 9 months is $2,160. A Grand Total of $8,460. And that doesn't include lunch.

So, as soon as we made this decision, we began our search for a replacement school. One that had the high standards we expected, closer to our house, and with a reasonable tuition. We looked high and low, searched the neighborhoods, checked online, asked for referrals and recommendations. And, then believe it or not, we found it! Right in our neighborhood.

SOS School is less than 3 miles from where we are now, and will still be only about a 20 minute drive when the house in Dawhenya is finished.

Sly and I drove to the school to check it out. It took 7 minutes to get there. Oh, my! The campus is big! There's a football pitch (soccer field to you Americans), a track field and a basketball court, a good sized library and a computer lab with computers for every student, and there's even a canteen... the kids won't have to buy their lunch out of the back of an Opel Astra station wagon any more. Oh, glory.

We quickly bought the application forms from the school and completed them right then and there, then listened politely and quietly to the nice lady at the administration office who gave us the tuition costs (Eeeeekkk! It's only 1/3 of what we're spending!) . She warned us, though, that there was a waiting list. Oh. How bad could it be, we naively thought, as we drove home. But it worried Sly way more than me, so off we went back to the school to talk to someone. We saw the nice administration lady, Gifty, who told us we should speak to the Headmaster

We added our name to the list to see the Headmaster, and a tall Ghanaian man came out of the office, looked at the list, and spoke aloud to my husband. "Zigah," he said, "do you know me?" Well, Sly wasn't 100 percent sure, but said the only thing he could say, "You do look familiar." And well he should, because apparently they were school mates in Tema Secondary School. "Bingo. We're in," I thought. Uh huh.

Then in late July we got a phone call from the school, telling us to bring the three kids in for exams the next week. Told ya, we're in! Sly still looks dubious. I convince him (and myself) that the test is merely to determine which class the kids were going into, A (the smart kids class) or B (the not-as-smart kids class). The kids go in, pens at the ready, pencils sharpened, erasers unused, minds alert, what could go wrong?

Most schools in Ghana start on September 11th. By September 7th we hadn't heard anything. Worried. Okay, maybe a little bit. Sly calls up his friend. The headmaster tells him that the exam rankings are posted on the bulletin board outside the school. Sly rushes out to check. Sean ranked 4th among the kids he took the exam with; Mike ranked 7th, and Alex ranked 6th.

I was so totally wrong. That waiting list was the reason for the test. They were taking the top contenders ONLY -- 4th, 7th and 6th place just ain't gonna cut it. The headmaster tells Sly that parents have until September 21st to decide if they will take an open spot, so there's still a chance for the kids to get in. So, we wait and wait and wait. September 11th comes and goes, and to take our minds off it, we go fishing (yes, again... it's habit forming!).

On September 14th, we get a late afternoon call: Mike's invitation letter is ready. YIPPEE!!!! Monday morning, we get our money order in place, find passport pictures, buy exercise and notebooks, and two uniforms. Mike's now in the school data base, and will be good to go for the next day. Tuesday morning, off he goes to school. One down.

On the morning of September 19th, we get another phone call: Sean's invitation letter is ready. Double YIPPEE!!!!! We're off to the bank within minutes for the money order. Same procedures repeated... money order, passport pix, books, uniforms. Thursday morning, Sean is off to school. Two down.

Here it is, September 26th. There is still no invitation letter for Alexandra. The headmaster has "hinted" to Sly several times that Class 2 has no openings. We thought he was kidding. Not. Alexandra is home with me, and we've decided to keep her home until she eventually joins her brothers at SOS. We'd thought about putting her in another school, but hate to have her go through an upheaval like that, only for us to pull her out again (hopefully) soon.

So, in the meantime, we've pulled out all of Mike's old books from Class 2 last year. We've bought half a dozen new school books and workbooks from EPP, the local bookstore to keep her current. We're quizzing her on multiplication tables and plurals of irregular nouns, we're going to teach her French and science, and about the environment, and even RMA (Religious and Moral Education) which will probably lean less towards religion (since we're both homilophobic) and more toward morality. And then we're going to pray very hard that that invitation letter comes soon.