Normal disclaimers: This is my personal opinion and I’m not speaking in an official capacity for KIPP Philadelphia or KIPP more broadly.
My oldest son turned five a few months ago and like many parents, my wife and I have thought a lot about where to send him to kindergarten next year. The issue of what school to send your child is a complicated, personal matter and like it is for all families, this is a difficult decision that we’ve spent a ton of time talking about. Your child only gets one shot at a great education and every parent wants to make sure their child is in the best environment possible for them.
As lifelong educators, my wife and I are profoundly aware that we have the privilege of having more options than most families in Philadelphia. Our neighborhood public school is near our home, gets solid academic results, and we know families who have had a great experience there. There are a couple of charter schools in our area that also have strong results. While neither of us would prefer to spend thousands of dollars on private school, we make comfortable enough salaries that we could rework our budget to possibly make this an option.
And then there is the option we have decided to choose: sending our son to KIPP Philadelphia Elementary Academy (KPEA) in North Philadelphia. Both my wife and I have worked at KIPP Philly for many years and KPEA is the school where I have been the principal since its opening in 2010.
While these are personal choices, as the school leader of a high-profile charter school, I know people are curious about what my wife and I decide and why we made the choice we did. So how did we make our decision? Simple – we did what all parents do and thought about what is the best school for our son. We thought about what kind of person we’re trying to raise and decided that KPEA is the school that would best help him reach our goals for him.
In particular, we thought about a few important considerations. First, we looked at the teachers and learning environment. I know first-hand that the teachers at KPEA are incredibly talented, caring, thoughtful teachers who balance high-expectations for their students with love. I know our son will love coming to school and learning each day. Kindergarten at KPEA is a joyous, fun-filled time where kids learn so much and love to learn. I would feel totally confident that our son would get a great education from any and all of our kindergarten classrooms. At KPEA, there is also a ton of small group, differentiated instruction so that students get instruction tailored for what they already know and what they need next. Our son has benefited from high-quality pre-k and coming from a two-educator household and I know he’s going to be pushed to start reading as soon as he’s ready. At the same time, he’ll also get extra help when he needs it.
Besides strong core academics, students at KPEA get a really well-rounded education. In their homeroom, students sing, dance, draw, play, and create throughout the day. They have recess, take naps, and go on frequent field trips. They study art, music, PE, and science from specialists in those subjects, with students as young as kindergarteners creating beautiful paintings and starting to learn to read music. As students get older, they create artwork that is featured in local galleries, compete in the Reading Olympics, travel to Carnegie Hall to play their recorders with a real orchestra, and a ton more. Who wouldn’t want that for their child?
The second consideration we thought about was equity, diversity, and race. It is no secret we live in a profoundly unequal country, where race still shapes all our lives in ways seen and unseen. KPEA’s student body is nearly 100% Black/Hispanic and over 90% of our students quality for free/reduced meals. My son is white and will be one of the 10% who pays full price for his lunch (assuming we can break him from his marshmallow fluff/Nutella sandwich habit). Because of our economic and racial privilege, we could send our son to a high-quality school with a predominantly white student body, but we’re choosing not to.
These dynamics of race and class are real and they will no doubt lead to our son asking my wife and me hard questions that we may not always know the right answer to, but that’s actually the point. If we really want to raise a son who is empathetic, culturally competent, and seeks to fight injustices in the world around him, we must intentionally seek ways to break out of the divisions that society perpetuates. As a young white man, it would be too easy for our son to go through life having the privilege to see our family’s cultural traditions and beliefs reflected by society at large and not see that those depictions hide a wide variety of beliefs, histories, and cultures just in our own city. We want him to know and appreciate that his black friend’s hair is different than his own. We want him to see Qamar is as “normal” a name as Joseph. We want him to understand why his friend’s mother chooses to cover her hair or face in public. And we want him to understand that the media’s depiction of race, class, and religion too often perpetuate stereotypes and discrimination. He’s going to have questions about differences and his friends will have questions for him – and that’s something to be valued and celebrated.
And of course, I know it’s different for my son to be the “principal’s kid,” but I have confidence in how this will go based on the fact that we have a handful of KIPP Philly staff who already have their children at KPEA and have had a very positive experience. When you work in education, you know intimately what families are looking for in school and it brings me a lot of pride as an educator that many of our own staff members have chosen to send their own children to KPEA. Our family is looking forward to a great year next year and I personally am excited to get the extra bonus to see my son learning up close each day.
