“Fiasco” is one of Andrew’s favorite words, I think.  He always uses it when you get into one of those situations where everything goes wrong, to the point of being laughably ridiculous.  According to dictionary.com, a fiasco is “a complete and ignominious failure” (or, according to definition #2, ”a round-bottomed glass flask for wine, esp. Chianti, fitted with a woven, protective raffia basket that also enables the bottle to stand upright”.  Oh, is that what they call those?).  It’s always fun to have to look up the definition of a word when you are trying to understand the definition of another word, so in case you didn’t know, ignominious means humiliating, disgraceful, or shameful.  So, now that we’ve covered our vocabulary lesson for the week, I will go on to describe why I connect such a word with preschool.

As I discussed about a month ago, Lily has been attending a preschool in the mornings.  I mentioned there was a bit of a long story there, which at the time I didn’t get into.  I will now tell you lucky people all about it, because apparently the story was not yet over.  Since I had assumed we would be moving soon, I put off the preschool search for far too long, and by the time I started looking August, it was very difficult to find an opening at a school I could afford. The preschool that Parley and Brianna went to was full, and to make things more difficult for myself, I was determined to put Lily in a three-day program, rather than a two-day (we both need that extra day, I think).  I also really was particular about getting a morning program if at all possible, so that I could have some time for exercising, which is more annoying to do in the afternoon after you’ve already taken a shower and gotten dressed.  Anyway, on my first search attempt, I called many preschools in Riverton, and finally talked to a lady whose curriculum sounded perfect, and the price and the schedule were right.  I pretty much reserved a spot over the phone, but I wanted to come in and meet with her and see the classroom before I finalized it, of course.  However, she said that she was remodeling her classroom that week and wondered if I could wait a few days before I came to see it.  Fine, no problem, I thought, but when I called a few days later, I didn’t get an answer.  I called and called and called, and got no response.  I didn’t want to give up on her at first because she was the only morning class I could find.  Finally, about two weeks later, she finally picked up the phone, and told me that she had been out of town, but had fallen and injured her knee pretty badly, so she would be unable to start her preschool until mid-October.  Ooohh, I was so ticked off.  I didn’t blame her for injuring herself, but it was very unprofessional of her not to call and notify me immediately, rather than waiting weeks to let me know.

So, this was the first week of September, after many preschools had already started their school year.  I tried a few more places, none had any openings, and then I finally found one who said she would squeeze me into her morning class, despite the fact that she already had twelve kids in there.  This lady actually has three classes a day, which end up overlapping each other (9:30-12, 11-1:30, 12:30-3:00), which sounded kind of weird to me, but she assured me that she had other teachers that helped her out, and that the kids rotated to different “centers” so that the two classes were separate from each other.  I took Lily in the very next day to check it out, and I will admit, after seeing the setup, I had my misgivings about it.  She had it in her basement of course, but instead of having a large open classroom area when you walk in, as you would expect for a preschool, she had a small living room-type area, with an oversized beanbag and couch and TV, and a couple of computers.  Behind it were several fairly small rooms, one set up with desks, one with a circle of chairs, one with a kitchen area. They all circled around the stairs, with a narrow hallway connecting them.  The space seemed really small, especially with kids pulling toys out of a hallway closet and playing with them right there in the hallway.  It just seemed like there were kids everywhere and nowhere to step, and that there was absolutely no supervision.  However, I was so eager to get Lily started that I rationalized that it was like that because I was just occupying the teacher’s attention and distracting her.  How bad could it be, I thought?  As long as she learns her letters and gets to play with other kids, I shouldn’t be too particular about the details, right? So, I went ahead and signed her up. 

She had a hard time the first few days, but that’s just because she’s Lily and has a hard time with new things.  However, each day when I dropped her off, the situation was pretty much the same as it was on the first day.  The teacher was rarely there at the entrance to greet the kids as they came in, and it seemed like they all just played with little or no supervision.  Sometimes I would see the teacher sitting one on one with them on the sofa, reading, which is good for the one she’s sitting with, but pretty much leaves the rest of the classroom to their own devices.  I also was suprised to hear (from Lily, not the teacher) that the kids were taken to a nearby park for most of the time on Fridays.  I never saw a lesson schedule, or any crafts coming home.  The more this went on, the more my misgivings increased.  It began to seem more and more like I was just paying for really expensive daycare three times a week.

Two things finally made me realize we needed a change.  The first was that they were supposed to have a fieldtrip last week at Wheeler Farm.  It was on the calendar she gave us at the first of the month, but the only additional information or reminder that she gave us a month later was the day before as we picked up the kids, when she told us what time to meet and to bring a sack lunch.  When we got there, rather than taking everyone around in a group, with the teacher or someone else actually doing some sort of teaching, we were pretty much just on our own.  We saw the teacher again briefly at lunch, when she came by to take some pictures, but that was it.  After that I made a few phone calls to preschools in South Jordan, having exhausted all the possibilities in Riverton, and went to visit one or two of them.  But Lily expressed a reluctance to change schools, and over the weekend, I wondered if it was worth it to put her through the transfer.

However, the final straw was on Monday.  My other kids are off-track this week, and just as I was loading up the car to go pick Lily up, I realized that Brianna had disappeared. We finally found her at a friend’s house, which she got in trouble for, since she didn’t tell me she was going, but she made me late to pick up Lily.  By the time I got there, everyone else had been picked up, and the teacher had taken Lily inside.  I went down into the basement to find her, and found the 11:00 class going on.  Now, this was after 12:00, so that class had been going for more than an hour.  And you know, what?  They looked exactly the same as Lily’s class had, in complete chaos.  I don’t how they could possibly fit twice as many kids in that area when they overlapped the classes.  i think that would have to be against the fire code or something. I decided that was going to be her last day right then and called back one of the ladies I talked to earlier to sign her up.  This lady only has four other kids in her class, and they don’t do field trips or programs, but she really impressed me with how excited she was about all the things they were learning. She has a little garden in the back that they help her plant, she does yoga with them, she teaches them about rules vs. choices, and about character development.  It just sounded much more in line with my idea of what a preschool should be.  I can take Lily to the park or to Wheeler Farm on my own time and get just as much out of it as we would with that other school.

So, hopefully, this will end up being a good situation for Lily.  It’s a little more inconvenient for me, because I ended up having to put her in an afternoon class, but I think it’s more important for her to have a good experience than for me to have a perfect schedule.  She starts tomorrow, since it is a M/T/TH setup (no Fridays because the big kids get out early on Fridays in our school district). There is, of course, one more test of my patience, since the teacher is taking Monday and Tuesday off next week to spend more time with her oldest son who is leaving on a mission on Wednesday, but I figure that in the end, this will be a move for the better. I really hope that this situation is not a true fiasco, in that it will have a happy ending!

Whew.  Can you see why this has been such a pain for me?