January 14, 2020
Second day of school and we learned the nouns for clothing. At only one hour of class a day it is not too difficult, although there is some memorization involved. Holly packed a lunch for us and we ate it in the school courtyard. After lunch we took an Uber to a local International School we had heard about. Unfortunately it was way on the other side of town deep in a residential neighborhood full of fancy houses but terrible roads and no public transportation.
We got to the school and they were very nice showing us around. It was a small school with only one classroom per grade level. They had a decent playground and good news, the maximum class size for first grade was 20 students and there were only 19! The instruction was mixed Spanish/English with mostly Spanish immersion. There was no problem with Olivia coming in halfway through the school year. The price was good too, about US$400 for admission fee and book then only $200 a month for school between 8 AM to 2 PM. They even have a bus that picked kids up! Oh NO! The bus was full. This meant we would have to pay an Uber about $4 each way to drop Olivia off and pick her up. $16 a day, 20 days a month, an extra $320 a month just for Ubers. Even worse Uber was a bit hit or miss, usually we could get an Uber but not always. We could drive but that would mean having to move Rover every day and go over the bumpy roads, not good. In the end, even though we liked the idea of full time school it would be very expensive and difficult to get to the school.
As it was it took a good 20 minutes to for an Uber to arrive at the school to take us back to the Hotel San Ramon. As we waited Holly chatted up one of the other Mom’s standing outside the school waiting to pick up their kid. The lady’s name was Deya, she spoke excellent English, she seemed very nice and she gave Holly her number. We spent the rest of the day doing more homeschooling for Olivia and studying Spanish for us. I asked Olivia what she learned at the Spanish school and she showed off a bunch of coloring and said they played Jenga. What? No way! I am not playing daycare, I am paying for Spanish lessons. I resolved to talk to Olivia’s teacher the next day.