Our family made a decision for us to seek an alternative to public schools as an introduction to education for our kids before our first son was even born. As Mexican indigenous people we felt The Circle School honored diversity and would be a good place for our children to feel included. WE had friends whose kids had attended and felt they had a good grasp on education so we were interested. I taught afterschool enrichment while I was pregnant with my second child and felt that I was considered part of the Co-op community since we had also put our son on the waiting list since he was 1 and a half. The first "shady" coincidence was that he was somehow taken off the waiting list because they called when he was 3 and I mentioned since he wasn't fully potty-trained yet, and we wanted to wait until the following Spring. However, no one called me by January of 2016 and we had been on the list since 2012. When I called to check, they were very apologetic and added us back on, it didn't seem like a big deal at the time. We came to their open house, even though no one sent an email reminder or anything (like they said they would), I basically found out about the open house because I happened to call the week before it actually took place. At the open house I ran into several people I knew and it was very exciting for my son to see the classrooms and kids he already knew there. The staff still remembered me from the previous year when I taught their after-school classes so again it felt like there was some mutual acknowledgement. All of the parents that were there were invited to come visit the classes on a drop in basis if we wanted to have our kids get a feel for the school day, so we did and met the pre-k teachers trying to get an idea of what grade level he could start in, and we were told several times someone would contact us about our application for an interview. We anxiously waited for our "interview" and NO ONE ever called!!! The only reason we found out selection had been made was because we heard from friends who applied that their children were accepted. Obviously we were highly interested in the coop school approach but we were never even given a chance!! I really don't know what could possibly have made them decide we weren't good enough to even been given the time of day for an interview but in my opinion it could have been either one of two things. 1. They were either highly unorganized in their selection process and somehow our application fell through the cracks, which I highly doubt because we were definitely highly visible and proactive in the pre-selection process or 2. They decided not to select us without even given us an opportunity to interview, which just come off as a farce being they encourage inclusivity of diverse cultures and backgrounds. I guess they only have room for a couple token children of color to be their poster children for diversity inclusion. I even talked about it to a teacher form the school and she mentioned she would bring it up to their staff but there was no effort to remedy this situation. So very disappointed!!! read more
