City Parenting Life- applying to high schools

My son is taking his high school admissions exam right now. RIGHT. NOW.

I just wrote about how I took all my big feels about this and made my family deep dish pizzas last night (which were amazing. Yay for anxiety-fueled cooking!).

recipe credit: Vegan Richa’s Everyday Kitchen cookbook and Minimalist Baker’s baked tofu with Italian herbs

When you have kids in Chicago Public Schools, this day looms ahead of you for years. Years and years and years. It is on your mind when they are in kindergarten. Yes, kindergarten. Not because you can help them prep any when they are five years old, but more that you think about your family’s lifestyle, your decision to live in a city, and you wonder what will happen. And you know that, if in 8 years you are still here, your kid will have to sit for the selective enrollment high school admissions exam.

If you are not in Chicago or another big city like New York, you don’t need to know all the crazy details about how this process all works (you can sit back and enjoy your coffee as you read this). In many major cities, there is this bizarro process where a small number of high schools are considered separate from standard neighborhood high schools. The neighborhood high schools are there for all kids. Depending on where you live, there is a corresponding neighborhood high school school for your child (same goes for elementary schools). But these large city school systems also have these special schools, known for being more academically rigorous, and also, (sadly!!!!) receiving more resources and support from the district than the neighborhood schools. They are also insanely competitive. Per CPS, our nearest selective enrollment high school, Jones College Prep, received 9825 applications in the previous cycle and made 495 offers.

On a societal level, it clearly shows the inequalities that exist when it comes to educating our nation’s children. The kids who need the most support don’t receive it. The schools that need the most support don’t receive it. The entire system needs to be flipped.

There was a very interesting article written very recently in the New York Times by a mother, journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, in Brooklyn, whose daughter got into a selective enrollment elementary school in New York City, but she and her partner made the decision to send her to their neighborhood school instead (if you live in Chicago and have a library card, you can get 24 hour access to the NYT here). Their thinking was that parents making similar choices to invest in their neighborhood schools are the instruments of change– that these systems will improve if we all make our own commitment to participating in them. But, flash forward (I think her daughter is the same age as mine), and this woman’s daughter one day was like, “wait, I could have gone to these other schools?” and actually expressed anger/frustration with her parents for not having her attend the selective enrollment elementary school where she had been offered a spot. It is worth a read. In the end, Hannah-Jones comments on how us as individuals cannot fix these very broken systems. Apparently several years ago this was also covered in this podcast series (note- I haven’t listened to this yet but need to!).

The cliffsnotes version of the selective enrollment high school admissions here in Chicago can be found here. BASICALLY- the application to high school is comprised of two parts. 50% of it is the grades that students received in the 7th grade. The other 50% is from the high school admissions exam (what my son is taking RIGHT NOW. LIKE RIGHT THIS SECOND, IF I HAVEN’T MADE THAT CLEAR).

Both of these images are taken from the CPS selective enrollment high school website linked above.

Aside from this nerve-wracking “STUFF,” I am so full of love for my son and his peers today. I felt the same way when our daughter took her high school exam two years ago. There is so much shepherding as a parent around this process. We had to monitor our son’s grades last year but in a way that empowered him more than it did suffocate him or remove his autonomy. It can be tricky AF. I wrote about my favorite parenting books recently- the book The Gift of Failure by Jessica Lahey really goes into these considerations, but in a city education system like this, you can’t leave it entirely up to your most students (we’re talking about 12 and 13 year olds needing to have the executive functioning and maturity to maintain a focus that most of us adults could not sustain, let’s be honest). Which is why these selective enrollment spots are catered to families and parents who have the capacity to be present through all these steps (who aren’t working around the clock, who have their own support, who speak English fluently, etc., etc., etc.). There is very little room for failure, and the lessons learned from mistakes are so great for these kids.

In the next few weeks we will stand in line (like, crazy LONG lines) at various selective enrollment high schools to go on their tours, and then my son and I will sit down and rank his choices on the official application website. Aside from these next steps, in just a short amount of time our son will be done with the pre-ACT exam, and, as the saying goes, “Our work here is done.” These momentous parenting steps are now done and out of our hands.

November 2024. This is outside the selective enrollment high school Lane Tech on the north side of the city when my daughter and I went for their tour during her 8th grade year. We are IN LINE in this photograph, as are all the people lining the wall of the building in the distance. Can you imagine being a kid and realizing how competitive these schools are, just based on these lines on tour days???

To wrap up- our son wanted to walk to school on his own this morning (I remember we walked our daughter on the day of her test). I followed him along on Life360 in a semi-creepy way (does it help that I was feeling so proud of him this morning, for how he has handled all of this, so I watched his little dot head down the map to his school and my heart grew three sizes, like the Grinch’s did? I am hoping that makes this somewhat less creepy). And then I suggested to my husband that he and I go out for a quick walk. We took same path our son did a half hour earlier, but turned around midway, right at the lower elementary building for our school, where kids go from kindergarten-third grade now.

Our kids went to this building every day, and then they switched to the middle school building, and now we have one in high school, and the other taking his exam and getting ready for next year. What a time, to parent through these years. Our kids are on their way, and it’s such a unique and special feeling.

And then here is the kicker, and how the universe decided to be cheeky with us. We got home, only to find out that our two cats had bust into our utility closet where we keep their cat treats. They upended the entire container over our washer and dryer (and down the sides and behind) and we had to pull them both away from the piles of treats that they scrambling to eat.

Such. Bad. Boys.

I contend that parenting pets is sometimes harder than raising humans, and I stand by this!

Plotting…