The Quest for High School

Today I take Sam down to one of our city high schools to audition for their music program. He has been preparing for this for two months or so. His piano teacher has been very gracious in taking their lesson time to get him ready with sight reading, music theory and other things that she thinks he will need for the audition. Of course, she told me she was remembering what her college auditions were like so she was shooting for that. I don’t think these will be that rigorous, but it can’t be a bad thing to be over prepared.

Our school district does things a bit oddly. They try to balance out the races throughout the city by offering certain things at each high school. The high school Sam is auditioning for has the International Baccalaureate program as well as the Visual and Performing Arts. How the system seems to be set up, is that you attend your high school in your neighborhood, but if you want to attend a different high school for something else you have to “Open Enroll” your student. Lots of kids want to open enroll into the International Baccalaureate and Arts school so that is more complicated than getting into the school in my neighborhood. That school is noted for having armed police officers in the hallways and a gang rape behind the school a few years ago. Lovely. Needless to say Open Enroll into that school and you’re sure to get in because no one wants to go there and most of their students come from the neighborhood.

I still haven’t given up the idea of homeschooling Sam through high school and he doesn’t have deep desire to go to school or to stay home. He’ll pretty much do whatever I want him to do which is maddening in a way. I wish I he could give me a nudge in one way or the other.

So how we’re leaving it is, he will audition, we have sent in our Open Enrollment forms and we will wait to hear whether they accept him or not. In the meantime, I am preparing for homeschool next year. And we’re praying for God to give us a peak at the plan!

In other Sam news, I took him to practice last night at a new music group forming in our church. This is a group of high school kids that will be playing for mass on June 2. Sam walked in and asked the director (the same director of the children’s choir) if he should sing and she said, “Hey Sam, you’re the pianist!” He has a stack of new music to learn before June 2. He and I are also working on a duet for his piano recital and he has a solo piece and a duet to play with Gabe! He is really getting immersed in performance opportunities. I know God has a plan for him, I just hope I am guiding him in the right direction.

Noah, (age 9) on the other hand, told me that he is going to become a priest. He said:
“I got tired of trying to decide whether I wanted to get married or be a priest so I just decided and being a priest won! Now I don’t have to think about it any more.”

sigh…

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