In which the school situation is resolved

I'm sure that all of you have been checking my blog with bated breath several times daily, hoping for an update on our school situation. (You haven't? Humor me, OK?) Well, to make a long story short, I was finally able to get hold of the headmistress of the school across the street on Monday, and she categorically refused to even consider having Sapphire and Ezio go there. She also spent 10 minutes explaining to me why I ought to be thrilled that they had gotten in at the French as a second language school; that they would love it; that it would be much better for them; they would be less frustrated; etc. (At least, I think that's what she was saying. Since I only caught about half of what she was saying, I could be completely wrong here.)

We looked briefly into the private schools here last week, and decided that they are only really tenable options if we're willing to buy a car, which we aren't. So we were left with two options: the French as a second language school, and homeschooling. The homeschooling option would likely mean that Sapphire and Ezio wouldn't learn very much French, so I went yesterday afternoon to meet with the headmistress at the FaaSL school, and had a very nice chat with the custodian because the headmistress wasn't there. We went back this morning and I spoke with her briefly. It's about a 15 minute walk from here, which means, unfortunately, that there's no real way for the kids to come home for lunch. (By the time I picked Cherry up, walked out there, and the walked them back home, they'd have only about half an hour to eat before we needed to turn around and head back to school.)

So, this afternoon I walked to the Mairie (town hall) in the rain to register the big kids for school lunches. It took 3 employees plus a father who was there to register his kids for school to manage to fill the gaps in my French and get everything figured out. (For some reason, pay stub was not in the list of words that I learned in my high school French class. Evidently it's also not a word they learn in high school English.) In any case, they now get to eat this for lunch 4 days a week. They go to school MTTF. Wednesday is an off day for them.

Thursday is the first day of school for Sapphire and Ezio. I'm hoping that I'll get their school supply lists at that point. I tried to get them today, but evidently the person to speak to for supply lists is the Master of the school rather than the Headmistress, (Confused yet?) so I couldn't get them. Cherry starts with a half of a half day on Friday, and is then off until Tuesday when she starts going from 9 to 12 each morning. The big kids will go from 9 to 4:30 with a 90 minute break for lunch.