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SO: Where do I need to turn?

Me: Make a right on Martin Luther King Jr.

Mui: I know Martin Luther King Jr.

Me: You do? What do you know about him.

Mui: He’s black.

SO: He is. What else do you know about him?

Mui: He was killed.

Me: Why was he killed?

Mui: He stopped the people from fighting.

SO: Why were the people fighting?

Mui: Because the blacks wanted to sit down and they couldn’t.

SO: Why couldn’t they sit down?

Mui: Because the whites wouldn’t let the blacks sit with them.

SO: And is that ok?

Mui: No. That’s not nice.

Me: And then what happened?

Mui: The blacks and the whites can sit together now.

I am impressed with Mui’s school. It’s difficult to explain civil rights and racism to a 5 year old. Although they did not explain racism, per se, she got that black people were not given the same rights as white people and that it wasn’t right. She got that black people were, literally, fighting for their rights. And she got that MLK was about non-violent protest. All I remember learning at the cloistered Chinese Christian Schools was that dinosaurs didn’t exist and that you can get AIDS from people spitting in your soup. I prefer Mui’s education.

It is open enrollment time for the Utah schools. In Utah, your are assigned a neighborhood school based on where you live, but your child does not have to go there. You can apply for your child to attend another school in the district provided you are willing to do drop off and pick up yourself.

Mui will be starting first grade in the fall and her friends from the neighborhood go to Oakridge Elementary, not Oakwood Elementary, our assigned school. Oakridge has an outstanding reputation and the highest test scores in the state. However, the only afterschool care that busses from that school costs the equivalent of a mortgage payment.

Mui’s current day care busses from Oakwood (our assigned school). However, Oakwood does not test as high as Oakridge and is located across the street from a youth center for troubled teens.

What is a parent to do? You want the best for your child, but it must be tempered with reality. We can’t afford another mortgage payment and I can’t leave work early everyday to pick her up. So we are compromising. She will be going to Cottonwood Elementary, a school that tests higher than Oakwood, but not as high as Oakridge, is in a residential area, AND she will be bussed by her current day care afterschool. Unfortunately, her little friends don’t go to Cottonwood, but she’ll make new ones.