Welcome to public school

If you get a letter a) asking you to give you your preference for your child's classroom placement along with the opportunity to explain why you think this classroom would be a good fit for your child and b) giving you a deadline of say May 12 to return this letter to the school, what would your expectations be regarding the selection criteria?

These were mine:
1) the school would make the selection after the deadline
2) the school actually cares about your opinion
3) you may still end up in a different classroom

Miss V. did not end up in the classroom we had hoped she would, which did not make us happy, but it didn't make me as upset as I am now about the school after I learned how they actually made the selection.

Basically, by the time that I handed in our letter the selection was already made based on the order in which the letters came in. Regardless of what you wrote down in the letter (and I actually put thought into it). The nice secretary could have easily told me right there and then "TOO LATE!". Why it took the school a month to send out the letter telling us they could not place our child in the requested classroom, I don't know.

When I toured (public) schools, I came upon one principal who was very straightforward about the fact that parents had no input in student placement. I didn't necessary like that but I appreciated her frankness. No build-up of wrong expectations there.

Right after we received the letter telling us which public school Miss V would go to next fall I had actually called the school to express our preference (yes, it was important to us). I was told that a note would be put in my daughter's file and that a letter would be send out soon. Nothing was said about the "first come, first serve" selection criteria.

Bah, unfortunately, my good opinion of this school is already tainted.

Welcome public school.

P.S. Today was also the due date. And I got my period over the weekend. Always a pleasure.