Paying Tuition

I called the kids' school, today, to double-check if they'll be having class every day.  Since the answer was "yes," I've cut a huge check.  No, I'm not looking forward to that money leaving my hands.  Yes, I am looking forward to sending the kids back to school.  They've been home since the third week of March, and they're getting as sick of it as I am.  

No, we're not going back to normal, yet.  The idiot in charge of my city has declared that everyone will wear a face panty, and so many businesses have jumped on the bandwagon that it isn't even funny.  And it is a bandwagon--a frenzy, a hysteria, much along the same lines of the Beanie Baby craze or the tulip bulb craze, but far more destructive.  The face panty mask ordinance comes up for renewal about a week after the kids go back to school.  I really hope it's not renewed.  I miss Sam's Club.  Especially early enough it's not open to any but the plus members. 

I had doubts that I would be paying tuition, this year.  I wasn't sure the kids' school would be holding classes daily, since it seems that several of the other local schools aren't planning to.  I had back-up plans, for if that would have been the case, but it would have involved buying the curriculum their school uses, and spending all of my energy wrestling the kids through it.  In a way, yeah, it costs less (cash); in another...it would have been a hell of a lot more expensive (my energy).

So far, the school is doing daily in-person classes, and they will be offering lunch service.  They're still trying to work out how, but they will be.  Elementary kids will be having lunch in their classrooms, most of the time,* so peanut butter sandwiches on the days the kids don't want what the school is serving are out.**  I'd do lunchables, but they're too damn small for my kids' appetites, and too damn expensive for what they are. 

Funny thing, though.  When I took the check in, I swung by the superintendent's office on the way out, to look into something.  The kids have been at their school for...six years, now.  And in those six years, they've had three superintendents.  This newest one...his name was very familiar.  So I went in and talked to him.  He was my 8th grade science teacher, and one of my absolute favorite teachers, period. 

Small world.  I'm glad the school's opening up as normally as current political realities will permit, so that I could pay tuition this year. 

*The school's going to "bubble classrooms"--the kids will stay in their classes, and the art, music, and Spanish teachers (as well as the other special classes) will come to them.  The only exceptions will be PE and recess (with their specific classroom only--which sucks for my pixie, since her best friend is a year younger).  And lunch, once in a while, apparently, to keep the kids (and likely their teachers) from going absolutely batshit. 

**Peanuts and tree nuts are banned in the classrooms.  Just not the lunch room.