Preschool
Today's project was to find a place for Jonah in preschool. We had tried several options on Monday with no luck. The public schools have no spots for 2 year olds. To get a spot in the city daycares for September, you had to apply last March. And we were reluctant to go with the nanny option, because we think Jonah would really thrive in a school-type environment with lots of other kids his age. One option that remained was the Jewish school which is about a 20 minute walk from our house. We had visited it earlier and had the impression it was quite Orthodox, but on Monday we heard it was open to all Jewish families and still had spots available for 2 year olds.
So, Tuesday morning we headed to Ozar Hatorah armed with all the necessary paperwork (other than a copy of our ketubah [Jewish marriage certificate], which is packed away in a box in Ohio). We had contacted the Rabbi who married us (Rabbi Dan from Charlottesville) and he had very kindly written a letter testifying that he in fact married us and that we did in fact have a ketubah, etc. We knew this might present a problem for getting Jonah enrolled there, as the French are sticklers about paperwork. It didn't help that on the way over, when we explained to the kids that we were going to look at a school for Jonah which was a Jewish school, Jonah took up saying over and over, "but, I not Jewish."
We arrived at the school and couldn't find an open door. We saw a woman come out of the building and the door closed behind her. We asked her if she knew where we should go to register a child for school. She told us, "just come back Friday morning (the first day of school). It will be no problem. They'll let him in" As simple as this sounded, we opted to keep trying, and eventually got someone to hold the door for us as they left so we could go in.
We showed up at the school office, and the people there were very friendly to us, despite the fact that I was wearing capri pants. After a slightly awkward conversation about how unfortunatel it is that we are sending Ella to a secular school, we began the registration process for Jonah. All went smoothly until the director asked us for our ketubah. We explained that we had the letter instead, which was fine, until she looked at the letter and saw the word "reform" in the letterhead. She declared it invalid. She agreed to enroll Jonah nonetheless, but is waiting for a copy of my parents' ketubah, to validate that I am in fact Jewish. The whole thing is somewhat silly, since Mohammed himself could walk into a Judaica store, buy a ketubah, fill it out, and present it to the school as evidence of his Jewish roots. But, we will try to appease the insatiable need for paperwork if we can.
We finshed the registration process (pending the ketubah) without further problem. As an aside, at the public school, the teacher took out a bunch of toys to occupy Ella and Jonah while we filled out the registration forms. At the Jewish school, she took out a big bag of chocolate croissants for the same purpose...
In the afternoon, we went to the Monoprix (the French equivalent of Target) to buy Jonah's school supplies (scissors, a painting smock, paper, crayons, tissues, etc.) . The only thing we were n0t successful in buying was an extra kippa - the Monoprix doesn't stock those! We also went on line to check out Ella's school lunch menu. It looks fabulous (lambchops with couscous, chicken tandoori, organic fruit, yogurts, lots of salads), for the princely sum of 5 euros a week. I wish I could go there for lunch every day!
In the evening, Abe sent off some sketches for a daycare he is designing, and I finally got a chance to use the computer for some work - sharing one computer between the two of us is more challenging than expected!
So, Tuesday morning we headed to Ozar Hatorah armed with all the necessary paperwork (other than a copy of our ketubah [Jewish marriage certificate], which is packed away in a box in Ohio). We had contacted the Rabbi who married us (Rabbi Dan from Charlottesville) and he had very kindly written a letter testifying that he in fact married us and that we did in fact have a ketubah, etc. We knew this might present a problem for getting Jonah enrolled there, as the French are sticklers about paperwork. It didn't help that on the way over, when we explained to the kids that we were going to look at a school for Jonah which was a Jewish school, Jonah took up saying over and over, "but, I not Jewish."
We arrived at the school and couldn't find an open door. We saw a woman come out of the building and the door closed behind her. We asked her if she knew where we should go to register a child for school. She told us, "just come back Friday morning (the first day of school). It will be no problem. They'll let him in" As simple as this sounded, we opted to keep trying, and eventually got someone to hold the door for us as they left so we could go in.
We showed up at the school office, and the people there were very friendly to us, despite the fact that I was wearing capri pants. After a slightly awkward conversation about how unfortunatel it is that we are sending Ella to a secular school, we began the registration process for Jonah. All went smoothly until the director asked us for our ketubah. We explained that we had the letter instead, which was fine, until she looked at the letter and saw the word "reform" in the letterhead. She declared it invalid. She agreed to enroll Jonah nonetheless, but is waiting for a copy of my parents' ketubah, to validate that I am in fact Jewish. The whole thing is somewhat silly, since Mohammed himself could walk into a Judaica store, buy a ketubah, fill it out, and present it to the school as evidence of his Jewish roots. But, we will try to appease the insatiable need for paperwork if we can.
We finshed the registration process (pending the ketubah) without further problem. As an aside, at the public school, the teacher took out a bunch of toys to occupy Ella and Jonah while we filled out the registration forms. At the Jewish school, she took out a big bag of chocolate croissants for the same purpose...
In the afternoon, we went to the Monoprix (the French equivalent of Target) to buy Jonah's school supplies (scissors, a painting smock, paper, crayons, tissues, etc.) . The only thing we were n0t successful in buying was an extra kippa - the Monoprix doesn't stock those! We also went on line to check out Ella's school lunch menu. It looks fabulous (lambchops with couscous, chicken tandoori, organic fruit, yogurts, lots of salads), for the princely sum of 5 euros a week. I wish I could go there for lunch every day!
In the evening, Abe sent off some sketches for a daycare he is designing, and I finally got a chance to use the computer for some work - sharing one computer between the two of us is more challenging than expected!
posted by M-E Family at 9:52 PM
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