Well, the whole school but I really only cared about kindergarten. The school itself was lovely- it's a charter that operates on a lottery so we'll apply in a few months and I really do hope that DS gets in.
But man, there was some wonderful judging of the other parents on the tour.
1. The humblebragger. This woman irritated me because she marched in at 1 pm (when it started) and was all "my husband will be here but he can't find a place to park!!!" So they waited and her husband came in like 5 minutes later. For the record, this school isn't that big. There are 90 kids in each grade and it's K-12. There were plenty of parking spaces, just not ones close to the front door. So basically this dude drove around waiting for one closer instead of just parking farther away and walking for a minute.
Anyways, at one point in the tour we are wrapping up and people were asking about other programs. So she asks if there is a gifted program. They said no. Story time from this woman who points out her preschooler is reading at a first grade level and the teachers have already told the mom she needs to be in a gifted program at school or she's just not going to be challenged. The woman leading the tour tells her that gifted programs can be a misnomer as some kids are gifted but not high achieving and some kids are high achieving but not necessarily gifted, so lumping kids like this together can be a disservice and they prefer to have the teachers (there are 2 per class) work with kids to challenge them individually. Man that mom looked so put out like they had just told her her daughter was dumb. Her husband was there with sort of dumb grin on his face.
2. The Rich People. Mom is carrying an expensive bag, Dad has douche jeans on and those weird clown shoes. They stated that they cannot by law give preference to anyone, only give people priority (like siblings). There are no guarantees on getting a space, even if you donate a million dollars. Ha ha ha, we all laughed because if we had a million dollars to donate we wouldn't be sending our kids to a charter school, we'd send them to the exclusive private prep schools. Not these people, they had the sadz and started whispering to themselves.
3. The numbers of parents who answered cell calls during the tour and pretended to have "important" work was too damn high. Yes, I'm sure you all having very important doctoring and lawyering and Facebooking that must be done now.
4. One dude walked into a classroom to say hi to a girl he knew. It was...weird. I'm assuming it's a family friend or something. His wife was with him and was surprisingly okay with it. The lady leading the tour didn't see, and I didn't see the teacher's face.
Confession: I bawled like a baby in the parking lot when it was said and done. Just watching the kids sitting there learning and shit, they all looked so old. And then I realized that in less than a year that will be DS. Whether it's here or somewhere else. So I cried and then I called DH and cried a little more and he was like, it will be fine and assured me that I will never have to drop him off at school because I can't emotionally handle it. I may be on my period and needing a higher dose of antidepressants though.