On Tuesday, the same day that Benjamin had his first day of school, Marty and I had our first school parent night at JFK. We had no idea what to expect. They have broken down the parent nights by grades and Tuesday was just the 5th and 6th grades. Julie was kind enough to come over and watch the kids so Marty and I could go to the meeting. We pedaled our bikes there and it probably took 3 minutes. We normally go to and from with kids and it takes a few minutes longer but we were both shocked at how quick it felt when we were solo.
The first part of the meeting was in the "aula" - auditorium with all of the 5th and 6th grade parents. There are approximately 25 kids per class and 5 sections of 5th and of 6th graders so roughly 250 kids represented. The auditorium was PACKED. As full as I've seen any Fairmount Park parent night that is typically for the entire 500 student body population. There were probably just as many men as women.
The American and the German principals each talked about some basic school stuff. When the American principal spoke there was a power point with the basic information in German and vice versa when the German principal spoke. They really do try to incorporate both languages into everything. Side note: this was another reason this school intrigued us as this is not the case with a typical International school. Most international schools, at least here in Berlin, only have a small percentage of native German speakers, some native English speakers and then a whole slew of other languages. Making English the language of choice for nearly everything.
After the talk in the aula we were invited to go to Josie's Partner Tongue teacher's classroom. It was a teeny tiny classroom with about 10 desks and chairs. Josie had told me her German class was very small but I had no idea how small. The teacher did the entire presentation in German (even the part where she asked if "there is anyone here who doesn't speak German please raise your hand" which was obviously a pointless question because as a non German speaker I can tell you that I did not know to raise my hand until Marty told me to) but no matter, she just continued right on in German. For about 15 minutes when another mother got quite irate at the fact that she was only speaking in German. That was an interesting interaction to say the very least.
Then we met with her Mother Tongue teacher and the parents of the kids who are in her class. She was very kind. A teacher from Indiana. After about 20-30 minutes with this teacher we then head to Josie's homeroom teacher. This was the best part of the entire night. Her teacher really is lovely. She knows her stuff and loves her job you can tell. She tells us that this is supposed to be her final year of teaching and that she is "being forced to retire" but since they do a looping system at JFK, (teachers stay with their students for two years) she has asked if she can stay one extra year so that she can be with her 5th graders for their 6th grade year as well. I have known and seen a lot of teachers and other professionals who are on their final year before retirement and very rarely if ever have I seen someone ask to be allowed to stay on one extra year. We feel really lucky to have her as Josie's teacher!! She introduces herself and says that we should all go around the room introducing ourselves. Her teacher tells us that she has adult children and one of them lives in Seattle (!?!?) We are next to go and we say that we are also from Seattle. The woman at our table says she is from Bellevue (we had met her before because she is one of the school secretaries so we weren't so shocked) But then the woman next to her says she is from Mercer Island?? A few more parents introduce themselves and then there is another set of parents who say that they lived on Pigeon Point for 2 years - for those of you that don't know this is part of West Seattle where we live! Right next to that family is another set of parents that said they vacationed in Seattle this summer and another set of parents who had some tie to Seattle. It was really mind blowing. We have met other Americans, certainly, but to have so many ties to Seattle in Josie's homeroom was truly crazy. Turns out that the family that lived on Pigeon Point knows some of the same people we know. Small SMALL world.
Marty and I hop on our bikes, lights on because it was dark by then, and head home. First Back to School Night in the books. We have Benjamin's on Monday.
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