Today is Austin’s last day of Pre-K 4. He has had an
incredible two year’s under the tutelidge of shy but super sharp Mrs. Mukendi and with her heroic
assistant, the indomitable Mrs. Keeno. These two were beyond our expectations. In
their classroom, Austin has learned and flourished. At the parent teacher
conference a few weeks ago, Mrs. Mukendi didn’t have much to report other than
that “Austin has been a dream to have in the classroom.” She showed us his
development curve – from writing his name in the beginning of the year to
reading and writing on his own by the end of the year. He is a sponge and
soaked up every single moment thrown at him: from games in PE with Mr. Robinson
to neighborhood walks with his class to share time on Wednesday’s.
Miner has been a haven for Austin and a place where he has
thrived. His best friend Robert left in January, but his other good friends
remained, including D’Zae, JaMarcus, Meko and Kamora. He knows everyone in the
school and they know him. “Good morning, Austin” rings out as we walk through
the halls. They had a Pre-K graduation that literally played pomp and
circumstance as the kids paraded in to receive their “diplomas,” and we had
inspirational speeches from Principal Jackson and other school leaders.
We haven’t told him that he’s not returning. We thought it
would be awkward and confusing to do so before the end of the school year.
Plus, we are still processing it ourselves. He got into Mundo Verde through the
DCPS lottery. Mundo is a very good, Spanish immersion school. It’s an opportunity
that in the end we decided we could not pass up. This has brought about deeply
conflicted feelings for both of us.
I have been attending Kindred discussion group for the past
two months. This group has facilitated discussions about racial and socio-economic
inequities and how those impact the dynamics at Miner. It is the group I have
been waiting for. It has been incredibly eye-opening. I could and should blog
about it. We had a true mix of parents, from 20-something black women who live
in the projects to upper middle class white couples who travel the world. We all came with an earnest
interest and attempt to unravel this extremely difficult issue and made progress. The Kindred group helped the
(notoriously white parent-dominated) PTO form an Equity Committee and a single
black mom has been elected vice president of the PTO. Progress!
Anyway, the pace of progress at Miner is good, but
ultimately we decided that Austin needs more. He was way out in front of most of
the students in his class. He is very smart and needs to be challenged. I hope
Mundo doesn’t take it too far in the other direction…
Last month, I picked Austin up from aftercare and Ms. "T" had
him and two others playing reading word games. That evening I picked up a Bob’s
book and asked Austin to read it. To my surprise, he read the whole thing. It
was slowly and with some prompting, but he was officially reading! Yesterday,
we said goodbye to Ms. T, a young woman who decided to take matters into her
own hands and design her own curriculum for aftercare (which previously had very light
instruction and mostly free play.) Each day when we picked up Austin, Ms. T gave
a report on the day (again, my guess this was through her own initiative and
not required.) “We practiced our writing today.” “Today, friends made smoothies
with blueberries, strawberries and spinach.”
We hugged her. We hugged Mrs. Mukendi and Mrs. Keeno. We
will miss them and remember them always. Now, however, it is off to Kindergarten!
