BF Day Elementary

Fremont’s public school…100 years old and still counting. It is called the family school and they encourage a sense of family and community. All the teachers seem to like each other and the kids too. There are always vollenteers helping out as it is required to have 15 hours a year. All the kids seem to know each other and the teachers know the kids names too. I am happy to have my daughter go here and look forward to many more years being part of the family.

NOT CLOSED, people! Not at all!
When I moved my boys and me northward from Portland to Seattle, I had researched the «cluster» school system (never was a name more appropriate for a system or situation), though my research was clearly insufficient. Because I made certain that I moved into what I thought would be the perfect cluster for my kids’ schooling needs and profile… I just failed to realize that would make no difference whatsoever to where they went to school.
My boys are half hispanic, and I wanted very much to continue with the Spanish language education I only sporadically inflict on them at home. So I moved into the Laurelhurst-​ish «cluster.»
What Seattle did not advertise is that its school zoning situation is not just a cluster, but the mother of all godforsaken clusters. They found no availability in any ONE school for both my boys. That’s because clusters at the time were only «suggestions» of where kids could attend schools. Suggestions that were largely completely ignored, and no matter where you lived in Seattle, your kid could be bussed into nearly any zone at all. So you can basically move your family onto a tent settlement ATOP a particular school, and not be allowed to enroll in it until the 300-​child wait list of kids from a school 15 miles away takes their priority. W, as the kids say, TF.
So the last years have been a constant cluster indeed, with my boys in two different schools and and in and out of several. Having tried or toured quite a few schools in the area now, I can say, this one is my favorite elementary school in Seattle so far. My son has a wonderful teacher, Miss Jackson (and yes, it is so punishingly hard not to say, or at least think, «If you’re nasty!» every time I say her name) who despite being forced, as all teachers are, to teach to a strict test curriculum imposed by the lowest-​common-​denominator-​encouraging «No Child Left Behind» legislation, is still highly dynamic, wildly flexible, and very encouraging of creativity in all its manifestations. I absolutely love her, and I love the diversity of the students and the parents – a graceful blend of the privileged and the struggling, chaotic and the orderly, the über-​hippies and the über-​hipsters who all somehow manage to be very empathic and very likable.
It also sits at just the right notch on the spectrum of academic rigor. We tried John Stanford International with Nico, and he called them «The Von Trapp Family Singers.» Whistles to encourage hallway lineups? No talking in the corridors? Boys’ and Girls’ lines for 5^th graders? No dark sarcasm? In the CLASSROOM?! Yikes. Plus every mom I met there without a single exception kind of gave me the impression that the only hard decision she has to make in any three-​week period is whether to give her cook, nanny and housekeeper massages or Lush bars as holiday gifts.
I’m extremely grateful for this school and for how happy Maximo is to attend it. Teaching excellence here is clearly valued, as is parental involvement. If you’re in the area AND in the market for an elementary school, stop in and say hi. They’re great people.