Schooling for foreigners
Every few months I wonder if we made the right decision to homeschool Myles instead of sending him to a formal school here in China. There were a lot of factors that went into the decision, including our need to have flexibility to have our holidays (like Christmas) and seize opportunities to travel around China. Since I come from a family of public school teachers, it hasn't been the most popular parenting move I've made. I must admit that I never did was actually visit any of the local schools in Changping before I dismissed them as unable to accommodate us. We had already decided we needed to homeschool, so I wasn't motivated to make contact.
A new American family has just relocated to Changping for a year while the mother is enrolled in a special program at one of the local universities. Her kids are ages 8 and 9. She was actually very interested in her children attending local schools as part of their one-year adventure. A Chinese linguist herself, she was really looking forward to her own kids' basic Mandarin improving this year. When she arrived in late August she started contacting local elementary schools, believing she could enroll her kids just in time for the first day of school on September 1.
She came to Changping with what looked like a comprehensive list of the public elementary schools in this part of Beijing. She had email addresses and phone numbers, though when she tried any of them she either received no answer or the numbers and emails were out-of-date. I asked the father of Myles' friend if he had a current number for the school his son attended. I passed that along to the new American mom. She got nowhere with that number, too.
Then she started visiting some of the local schools. She went to the offices to try to make appointments. One school she visited with her kids was a newer construction. She and her kids were rather impressed and really thought it would work, but at the end of their visit, they were told that the school probably could not admit foreigners. It had never been done before, and with only two foreigners (and not more), it wasn't likely they could start. (Previously the law in China was that public schools with an international division were the only public schools permitted to admit foreigners. This was changed a few years ago so that any public school may admit foreigners. May, not must).
In the meantime, we both started asking around to other non-American foreign families with school-aged children. Neither of us could find anyone whose kids attended a Changping public school. Most of them, like the Pakistanis and the Sudanese, commuted daily to the schools at their embassies. On a good day this would be about an hour's drive each way. This was also not a solution for the new American family.
As a last resort she called a private boarding school in Changping, in the off-chance that there might be room to negotiate the cost because her kids would not board nor eat three meals a day at the school. Unfortunately, there was absolutely no room to budge. Tuition, room, and board were required of all enrolled students, even if they went home at night. She declined to visit the campus.
For now, she has hired an unemployed teacher a few hours a day to focus on their Mandarin speaking and reading. The kids are enjoying this, and their Chinese is quickly improving.
I wish she could have found a school in town that could admit her children. However, now I can say with much more confidence when asked (sometimes aggressively) why Myles isn't in school, "Changping schools won't admit foreigners."
A new American family has just relocated to Changping for a year while the mother is enrolled in a special program at one of the local universities. Her kids are ages 8 and 9. She was actually very interested in her children attending local schools as part of their one-year adventure. A Chinese linguist herself, she was really looking forward to her own kids' basic Mandarin improving this year. When she arrived in late August she started contacting local elementary schools, believing she could enroll her kids just in time for the first day of school on September 1.
She came to Changping with what looked like a comprehensive list of the public elementary schools in this part of Beijing. She had email addresses and phone numbers, though when she tried any of them she either received no answer or the numbers and emails were out-of-date. I asked the father of Myles' friend if he had a current number for the school his son attended. I passed that along to the new American mom. She got nowhere with that number, too.
Then she started visiting some of the local schools. She went to the offices to try to make appointments. One school she visited with her kids was a newer construction. She and her kids were rather impressed and really thought it would work, but at the end of their visit, they were told that the school probably could not admit foreigners. It had never been done before, and with only two foreigners (and not more), it wasn't likely they could start. (Previously the law in China was that public schools with an international division were the only public schools permitted to admit foreigners. This was changed a few years ago so that any public school may admit foreigners. May, not must).
In the meantime, we both started asking around to other non-American foreign families with school-aged children. Neither of us could find anyone whose kids attended a Changping public school. Most of them, like the Pakistanis and the Sudanese, commuted daily to the schools at their embassies. On a good day this would be about an hour's drive each way. This was also not a solution for the new American family.
As a last resort she called a private boarding school in Changping, in the off-chance that there might be room to negotiate the cost because her kids would not board nor eat three meals a day at the school. Unfortunately, there was absolutely no room to budge. Tuition, room, and board were required of all enrolled students, even if they went home at night. She declined to visit the campus.
For now, she has hired an unemployed teacher a few hours a day to focus on their Mandarin speaking and reading. The kids are enjoying this, and their Chinese is quickly improving.
I wish she could have found a school in town that could admit her children. However, now I can say with much more confidence when asked (sometimes aggressively) why Myles isn't in school, "Changping schools won't admit foreigners."
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