I Just Couldn't Sacrifice My Son

Its test scores were unimpressive, and many students received free or subsidized meals. I worried about discipline problems and teachers who dumbed down lessons. But the scores were better than those of many other District schools. And while parents we talked to said that the principal was hard to get along with and didn't believe that parents had any role at her school, they also admitted that they were satisfied with the education their children received.

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When some neighbors considering the school called to schedule a visit, however, the receptionist was genuinely puzzled.

"Visit?" she said. "We don't do visits."

My neighbors and I kept calling. Two or three weeks later, school staff members agreed to let us in. I found the building clean and well-maintained. The classes were quiet and students attentive.

The next step was meeting with the principal. That took more letters and calls; so many, in fact, that Fenty -- then our Ward 4 council member -- offered to call on our behalf. I thanked him but said no. It shouldn't take a council member's intervention to get a principal to meet with parents.

The principal finally agreed to see us. Ten minutes into the meeting, faced with questions about the lack of a PTA and Local School Restructuring Team -- a committee of parents, community members and school staff members that is supposed to assess the school and make recommendations for improving it -- she excused herself to take "an emergency phone call."

Washington Post education writer Jay Mathews advises against sending your child to a school whose principal won't meet with you for at least a half-hour, but it was the combination of unexceptional test scores, lack of amenities such as art and music classes, and the principal's unwelcoming attitude that made my wife and me start looking at charter schools. Private schools were too expensive, and we didn't want to send our child to a school on the other side of Rock Creek Park. But we'd heard good things about the charters, and we were encouraged by their ability to operate outside the school system.

You see, we still wanted to stay in Washington.

We thought we were going to be able to when our son won a lottery spot in a bilingual Montessori charter school that was just starting. For three years, from preschool through kindergarten, we watched him thrive with the same teacher, who truly valued him. Early in his first-grade year, however, it became clear that while energy and passion were important in starting a school, they were poor substitutes for teaching and administrative experience.

The problems began when the school finally moved into a building of its own. Pepco and Verizon wouldn't start services because a clerk in the District's notoriously inefficient Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs hadn't completed the paperwork for the certificate of occupancy.

Staff members worked to correct this, but it took parents' writing the utilities (I asked Verizon's president how it would look if something happened to a child because no one could call 911) to get the lights turned on and the phones working.

There were other difficulties. My son's new first-grade teacher was at a loss when he went to read in a corner instead of doing his math, spelling or geography assignments. It fell to us to suggest that she tell him he could earn reading time by completing other work.