It’s one of those necessary evils if you live in San Francisco and private school isn’t a viable option, you have to choose which school to send your kids to. When my 3rd grade son was about to take the big leap into kindergarten I did the unthinkable, I toured one school. Just one. The one that was  closest to our home. The one we could walk to and I could see from my bedroom window. The school was clean, the Principal was gracious and dedicated, the teachers had captivated their students and the kids were nice and well behaved. The other school tours I had scheduled went by the wayside. Not only did I not want to have to ride Muni to get to my destination, I didn’t want to make my kids get on the bus every morning. Nor did I want them to get on a school bus to some location that I couldn’t easily reach should an emergency arise. I think about living in earthquake country and how important it is for me to get to get to my kids without worrying about how I am going to get there. And I definitely did not want to drive my kids to school everyday.

Now I have two kids at the school and we walk there and back every day. We know our crossing guard. We see our neighbors walking their kids. The community knows us, they see us and that’s important to me. The school isn’t a perfect school. It isn’t immersion, some of the teachers need to retire, the new principal isn’t as friendly as the old one was but she’s committed to the kids and has set a strong course for the school. And I go there a lot. I volunteer in my kids classrooms because it’s so easy to get there. When my son forgot his lunch at home the other day, it was a quick walk back to school to give it to him. We are a family committed to a carfree lifestyle and though on occasion we do rent a car for a family trip, we prefer to walk, ride bikes and take public transportation to get us where we need to go. So far it’s working out fine.

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