[sfalone]

Marco will be starting Pre-K for 3 year olds in Sept. We are catholic and he will be attending school at our catholic school. It will be his school through 8th grade. In our welcome folder it had a year book and as I was thumbing through it I noticed right away that there is no diversity in this school (but there is not much diversity in our neighborhood). It got me thinking that maybe we should send him to our public schools where there is a bit more diversity. There is nothing wrong with our public school system it is just our preference to send Marco to catholic school so he can learn about his religion and obtain his sacraments, etc. I am part hispanic and we have close friends of all different nationalities. Will we be doing him an injustice by sending him to a school where he pretty much will be the only person of a different race/nationality?

Stacy

[cjrogers]

That is a great question and I wonder that too as I take my son to daycare and on to school, etc. Someone else may have a better answer for you. I attended Catholic schools my whole life in predominantly white areas. I can tell you that the kids who were of other races assimilated very well. I don't remember anyone in our classes picking on the one or two hispanic kids that we had in our classes. I do remember, however, (as I am darker skinned with lighter hair - often mistaken as a puerto rican when I was younger) that an old lady called me a little "SP" word when I stepped on her lawn while walking home from school.

I didn't even know what that was until my mom explained it to me.

That being said, I think it's great you will be sending to a Catholic school... I feel that will be a great foundation. As for the racism, I think it's an unknown.

If you do send your child to this school, do you have playgroups or other social opportunities where your child can be proud of his culture and know other Latino kids??

Good luck and hugs.

[sfalone]

Well I am 1/2 Mexican from my father and my sister is married to a Puerto Rican man so we have alot of culture in our family and we do belong to our area Guatemalan children play group. I think my fears are of Marco standing out and him knowing that he stands out and looks different than all his classmates. Marco is very dark complexion and he is starting to become aware of his looks. A few weeks ago he told my dh that he was black and dh was white.

Marco has been protected within our family circle but soon he will be branching out and how do we teach him to embrace himself and his differences and to be comfortable with himself?

Sorry for the rambling thoughts.

[luv2teach2]

My daughter goes to Montessori and it is like a mini united nations. I love it that way! I am also going to be very conscious of where she goes to primary school as from the beginning I didn't want a cookie cutter school

[kzwief]

Stacy, I think that you should send Marco to the Catholic school that you wanted him to go to. What better time to teach him and the other kids in his school about diversity? You can always voice your concerns with the teachers if you would like.

[bbeard72]

Personally I would want to send my child to a school that had diversity. That's how I picked my son's preschool. THey are heavy on culture. There is a lot of diversity and they actually have multi culture classes w/ Guatemala being represented too!
I mean if you live in a town where there isn't much diversity, well you can't do much about that. But if I had a choice of schools and one was much more diversified than the other I'd def. pick it. I mean if the diversified school was not up to your standards or in a bad area of town etc.. then that's a whole other issue.

[SKL]

OK, this goes back a few decades, but I attended a Lutheran school where there was never more than one Hispanic child in my class, and everyone else was white. There were ignorant kids and open-minded kids, but the biggest issue in my view was the attitudes of the teachers. They definitely treated the Hispanics as second-class citizens, including allowing / encouraging kids to disrespect them and punishing them more severely than other kids. (In case anyone is wondering, I was NOT the Hispanic kid in the class.)

I love the idea of a Christian school education, but I would want to first talk to the principal and the teachers and get a good feel for how they will look at your son. Such a meeting can also set the tone for how the "should" see him - which shouldn't be necessary, but might be anyway.

Regarding public school and diversity - I would say that greater diversity doesn't necessarily correspond with less racism. In fact, the opposite can be true. I guess I might go and watch the interaction on the playground and see how the "diverse" kids are treated, and how the teachers react to it.

Good luck with your decision!

[cattlefarms]

Its funny because this is something we had to address in are original homestudy.. Our social worker spend a lot of time asking us about diversity and where our children would go to school etc.. I thought everyone had to address this.. Any way we are very blessed that our three sons attend a christian school that is basically a melting pot.. We did not send them there for that reason, but when we started our adotpion of our daughter we became aware that this was going to be the perfect place for her as well.. There are several children adotpted from Russia, China, Guatemala, Peru.. Its is really going to be great for her, and it has been great for my son's, because it has prepared them for our adotpion.. As for our public school we have the opposite. It is all white. and no known adoptees, so the public school would have not been a good option.

Kristi

[FullQuiverMamma]

Our home school co-op has a lot of adopted kids of different colors, I hope that if/when we adopt, we will have a bunch of adopted kiddos in our social structure so as to not have them feel isolated socially or racially.

[Jensboys]

Originally Posted by SKL

OK, this goes back a few decades, but I attended a Lutheran school where there was never more than one Hispanic child in my class, and everyone else was white. There were ignorant kids and open-minded kids, but the biggest issue in my view was the attitudes of the teachers. They definitely treated the Hispanics as second-class citizens, including allowing / encouraging kids to disrespect them and punishing them more severely than other kids. (In case anyone is wondering, I was NOT the Hispanic kid in the class.)

I love the idea of a Christian school education, but I would want to first talk to the principal and the teachers and get a good feel for how they will look at your son. Such a meeting can also set the tone for how the "should" see him - which shouldn't be necessary, but might be anyway.

Regarding public school and diversity - I would say that greater diversity doesn't necessarily correspond with less racism. In fact, the opposite can be true. I guess I might go and watch the interaction on the playground and see how the "diverse" kids are treated, and how the teachers react to it.

Good luck with your decision!

This is what we did as well. I DID register my boys at a Christian school that was literally a block from my house. BUT I ended up NOT sending them. It was consdiered MY responsibility to send posters that reflected diversity so that the teachers could put them up, or they were willing to read the book "I" brought in -- but it was by NO MEANS a fundamental belief of the school that diversity be celebrated.

When I walked into the school my boys (at the time) ended up attending - there were many pictures on the walls reflecting children of all colors. The books and lessons were already inclusive and the teacher seemed to have half a clue about racial issues.

It ended up "not enough" over time and we decided to homeschool (at least they arent the only black kid in the class at home ) but for the start of their education, it was very good.

Strangely enough, NOW 2 of my boys are going back to the original school in the fall. There has been a new principal, a bunch of new teachers and an influx of new students. TODAY its a far more diverse environment.

I would warn those though who will have diversity but ALL the kids are adopted -- it sets up a WEIRD expectation or belief in our kids that all kids that look like them are adopted. Its important for them to have SAME RACE ADULT relationships too!!

We changed churches over that issue as our pastor is the same race as our sons.

[VReed]

I believe this is a very important issue for all of us. As grandmother to 2 Guat. angels and counselor in a middle school, it is huge for me. My school is very racially diverse; about 40% white, 45% black, the rest primarily Hispanic although we have many, many countries represented. Our city does have a large number of illegal folks here just trying to make a better living for their family. I see discrimination daily at my school especially against Hispanics which, of course, can set me off. We just had our Hisp. students put together a cinco de mayo celebration which the entire school attended and was very well received. We had all students and many of the teachers doing the salsa in the gym and having such a good time. Not to be confused with the "bumping and grinding" I see at most of our middle school dances. We are doing more and more of this thing. I believe we all need to continue to step up and explore how we can make our city or neighborhood or school receptive to all nationalities and cultures. A very good discussion...

[Wonk]

I am white, from North Dakota where diversity is being German among the Norwegians. I worked for an African-American mayor in a major city and got to see, just a little bit what it is like to be of a different race. The stories I heard, say after day, from people of other races would make you think they were lying except you heard it from all over all the time. Discrimination is alive and well out there and if you don't believe it, you should go ask some of your friends who are of a different race. If you are white, without a some friends who do not look like you, I can tell you, you have no idea. If you don't have any diverse friends, ding ding ding, you have a problem.

I remember the story of the black boy who asked his parents when he was going to turn white because everyone he knew was white and he must be like them. The mother of a 13 year old boy who had to explain to him why he got followed in the store even though he is a great kid. The black kid who only knew one other black person, someone who made sandwiches at the sandwich shop, so he thought that was the only job we would have when he grew up because it was the only job he saw people like him doing. For Hispanic kids, it is worse because there are virtually no Hispanics on TV, no Hispanic Bill Cosby or such to model successful adults that look like them. People are going to judge your kid but your kid is also going to judge him or herself by the environment that you show them. If there are successful Latino role models, they are going feel good about themselves. If there are kids like themselves around them, they are going to feel part of a community and not an outsider.

For us, diversity was a big part of the decision to place her in a daycare. Our daycare not only has a diverse population of kids, it has a diverse population of teachers. We passed on a religiously-based daycare because the kids and the teachers were all white. Now, our kid is a room with a head teacher from the Philippines, a second teacher who is Hispanic. The kids in the room are of all races. And we feel that is good, especially at these early formative times.

I apologize to anyone that I have offended in this post. I feel pretty passionate on this issue and frustrated by the number of white parents who do not understand or acknowledge their privileged position and that their kids won't have it.

[loveajax]

I live in a pretty white community and my daughter is biracial (AA/cauc). Although I didn't plan it and had to find a spot for her in a crunch, I started sending her to the YMCA preschool. I am THRILLED with how diverse it is (both in terms of students and teachers) and am thinking about leaving DD in there until kindergarten (when I may face the issue of not feeling like our local public school is diverse enough...though the Y does do after school programs which I will need to send her to since I work 4 days/week).

I was SOOOOO stressed trying to figure out the preschool situation....Whatever you decide, I am sure it will be fine.

Just FYI, my best friend is biracial and her DD is the only black kid in her preschool. This DD is the most popular kid in the school (by far) and my friend feels fine with it (but then again, my friend herself can be a great model, as can family members, etc.).

Good luck!

[JosieWales]

We live in a small Midwest community where nearly all the kids are CC. Owen's babysitter keeps all white kids, except for him. So far, he doesn't notice, and the other kids don't either. My mom pointed out that if he continues to grow up here, he's more likely to just be accepted as Owen, where everyone knows his story & accepts it, and where everyone knows our family. There is an AA boy who is in 8th grade now who was adopted as an infant from Haiti, and we just know him as Zach--no qualifiers. There is racism, don't get me wrong, but it could be tougher if we moved into another small town where they don't know us.

THAT SAID: I feel very strongly that DS needs to hang out w/other Hispanic kids (hence Guatemala get-togethers/play groups) and know Hispanic adults to serve as role models. So if we end up staying in this little community, we will continue to take him to St Louis, meet up w/other Hispanic families/kids w/Hisp. families, etc.

GL!

[Saya]

Anabel is going to start next fall going 3 days a week to a pre-school that is very diverse - and in fact has a stated pro-diversity admissions policy. Diversity was REALLY important to us. There is also a very diverse teaching staff.

(Of course we are very lucky in that we also very much agree with this school's teaching philosophy, and we think it's an excellent quality school in general.)

We are also in a situation where while our community is pretty racially mixed, our closest friends - the ones we see regularly - are cc. So we're hoping that through this school we'll also be able to network with a broader group of parents.

All of that said, if she starts in September and it ends up being NOT the right fit for her, I think we would be open to transfering her to another pre-school that might be less diverse. In otherwords it's important to us, but not our only criteria.