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  How does one top the thrill of watching our new President be sworn in over CNN.com on a LCD projector surrounded by the awesome women one works with? Why you head to your daughter's kindergarten class!

 Oh, yes I did! 

 The morning was wonderful. My boss cried. We all laughed at President Obama stumble over the oath, which helped ease the tension in our conference room. We ate, laughed, ooh'ed, booed and cheered when we officially had a new President. Afterwards I headed out to talk with my daughter's kindergarten class.

 When I arrived I noted that on their daily calendar it said, "January 20, 2009. Today Barack Obama becomes President." My daughter & I had picked out a story for me to read to the class, but first I talked to them a bit about the White House, how long a Presidential term is, and what a Congressman was. The last one was tougher than I would have thought! The lil kids have quite a lot of good questions. 

  All of the kids said that they wished they could live in the White House and a few of them even knew that the White House had a movie theater! I tell ya, my kid's classmates are sharp ones. I shared with them my one trip on the White House tour and that yes, it really is beautiful inside. They also seemed to take pride in that the White House is the only residence of a head of state in the world where the public gets to visit. Needless to say, they were all jazzed about Barack Obama becoming President today. One of her classmates even lives down the street from where the Obamas live in Hyde Park. For kindergartners they knew a lot about President Obama. Which of course bodes well for their future political involvement in my opinion.

  After reading the story, the kids went and make Obama headbands. Strips of construction paper with a picture of Obama in the center. They were super cute. While they were cutting & pasting away, I was carving them slices of Eli's Cheesecake.

 Eli's was asked to make one of their super duper sized cheesecakes for an Inaugural ball tonight and to commerate that and the Inauguration, they made  regular sized cheesecakes for people to buy for their own Inaugural parties. Thanks to a good friend, I was able to get a cheesecake for the class! The top photo shows what the cakes look like for us. The second photo is one I snapped of Eli's staff putting the official Obama cheesecake together.

Eli’s Inaugural dessert, tipping the scales at 500 pounds, will be a patriotically themed three-tiered cheesecake decorated with red, white and blue fondant, gold stars, a wave of red and white stripes, and both the official Inaugural Seal in chocolate, as well as, the seals representing the five branches of the armed forces (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard). See attached photos. After serving the guests, the remainder of the cake will be donated to the Capital Area Food Bank. The cheesecake will be a combination of Eli’s Original Plain Cheesecake and Eli’s Apple Cheesecake, a tribute to both Abraham Lincoln’s love of apples and the strong Lincoln references present throughout Barack Obama’s campaign, transition and Inaugural festivities.

 Yes, my daughter was quite impressed that we got a peek of it. And we weren't the only ones. Did you know you can take a peek at Eli's inner workings on a tour? Yes, you can head on out to the west side of Chicago for a tour and lunch. When we were there, not only do you get a choice of cafe food and plenty of cheesecake, but there were a lot of samples of cheesecakes!

If the spirit of today's inauguration and the Obama administration is one of action and service, I have faith we can make it happen. The children I talked to today were filled with excitement and joy over this new chapter in our country. They are 5 & 6-years-old so they have a different vision than we do obviously. But I don't recall ever being this excited as a kid over inauguration day. I think that as parents we have done an excellent job, not at indoctrinating our children, but of sharing with them our own excitement over what may come. As I talked to the kids about what the President and Congressmen and women do for us, I used simple examples - more money for schools and fixing potholes. They responded with "yeahs!" They see their school in need of a facelift and hear us parents complain about having to dodge potholes on our way to drop them off each morning.

I think the awe they have for Malia and Sasha will not only make it easier for us to bring them along when we volunteer at a food bank or clean out their closets of clothes they never wear, but also to do just about anything. I've already used the "I know even Sasha has to keep her room clean!" on my daughter - successfully! 

Our children are listening and watching. They see us get excited and that feeds their curiosity. There will be one thing they won't have to be curious about - Can an African American be President? Oh, yes it can be done!

Thank you Ms. G. for letting me share this day with the class. It was my pleasure. 

Thank you to Eli's for making me the coolest mom for the day. Anytime you have an extra cheesecake, they kids asked for another one!

Veronica writes at her personal blog, Viva la Feminista.You can also follow Veronica at Twitter.

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A welcome note to any of my daughter's classmates parents who have found this blog. First, rest assure that I won't be blogging gossip here or anything I think is inappropriate for a blog so darn public. If you're the teacher, I will always bring my concerns to you before I ever write about it here. That said, back to our regularly scheduled blog...

Ah, Friday of the first week of kindergarten. I think we are all exhausted from this week. My daughter especially so. So how is she doing? She took to kindergarten like a fish to water...at least from my perspective.

Tuesday was insane. Almost every kindergartener had at least two adults with them in the lunchroom. I think we caught a few kids who also brought grandparents...very cute. Our daughter sat at the table looking a bit stunned, yet eager. We all walked over to her classroom once the teacher showed up at 9. The room was a nice size, cubbies for their coats, and the big tables were all set with their first coloring project. Once we got all her items put away and the girl was settled in a seat, she gave us that look. "OK, you can go now." We hugged her and went in for the good-bye kiss. DENIED. Overnight, our loving & kissy girl grew into a 16yo teen. Pick up was equally insane as class after class of different grades flooded into the lunchroom and kids had to sort themselves out between pick-up and bus. One teacher did have a bullhorn, but we could barely hear it over the chatter of tweens. Our babysitter came to get acquainted, thank goodness we planned it like that cause it really was a madhouse for a few minutes. But the kid found us and looked happy. She took a nap on the way home.

The rest of the week we left her in the lunchroom a few minutes before the teachers show up with a few of her classmates and the teacher's assistant. Each morning she acted as if we were the most embarrassing people in the entire world...And I wasn't even singing! That is an issue we will be working on, let me tell you!

The funniest thing is that on Wednesday she saw the kids who were going to eat breakfast line up and go in line. She got a breakfast ticket and ate breakfast...her second of the day. All without paying for it. She just followed the group. Her daddy did talk to someone the next day to pay for breakfast.

She also reported to us one day that one boy told her that he didn't like girls. Today I saw him calling for her at pick-up and patting the spot next to him on the bench. There's more to that story, but it's best told in person over a cuppa something. :)

Her teacher looks like she's going to be great. The kid loves her already.

I'm pretty hopeful for this year and this school. It was quite a leap of faith to apply to this school. I haven't written about kindergarten in months because I was waiting for us to figure out where she would go and then I didn't want to jinx what did happen. We didn't get into the lone private we applied to, but we did get into one magnet school and one gifted school. We're at a gifted. We are clearly aware of how lucky we are. Seriously. We decided to apply to this school solely based on the principal who appears to not take any BS. She stated some very high standards at orientation and while the coursework is intense for kindergarten, I think everything will work out.

This was cross-posted from my personal blog, Viva la Feminista. When Veronica isn't trying to get her daughter to act like a 5yo, she also blogs at WIMN's Voices, and Work it, Mom! You can also follow Veronica at Twitter.

NOTE: To comment on this or any blog here at Chicago Parent, you need to register & log in at the top of the page. It's easy and you won't get spammed!

When I'm not freaking out about my daughter's entry into kindergarten, I'm trying to do our back-to-school shopping little by little. While I do fondly recall hitting the stores for bargins and I *love* back-to-school shopping, I just don't want to do it all at once this year.

This week's Chicago Parent prize is a pack from Mabel's Labels. GO AND ENTER NOW!

I was lucky to get a sample pack of sticky labels in spring 2007. I wanted to give them a good trial before writing them up. I'm an office supply junkie. I've seen labels say that they survive anything that peel away within days. 

My daughter's swimsuits, leotards, dolls, backpack, water bottle, tennis shoes and a few other things I can't remember have been labeled using Mabel's Labels. How many fell off? NONE! Not even the label on her water bottle fell off! I really thought this one would since, well, it got wet a lot. Water condensing, getting washed, etc. It was still there when I finally tossed the bottle for a Kleen Kanteen.

Of course now that the kid is headed off to the world of kindergarten, where I won't pick her up each day and get to make sure everything she is bringing home is hers AND that she has everything I dropped her off with, I am in desperate need for some new labels. And I could really use that prize pack, but alas,  can't enter. But you can and you really should. 

Veronica can be found at a coffee shop crying on September 2nd, perhaps even blogging at one her sites: Viva la Feminista, WIMN's Voices, and Work it, Mom! You can also follow Veronica at Twitter.

First, welcome to any new readers who saw my last post highlighted in this month's issue of Chicago Parent!

Next...the wrap-up for the first weekend of training for the Progressive Women's Voices program. It was a blast and so tiring! Sadly Carmen & Kristin had prior commitments and had to miss the opening weekend. But the women who were there were great and uber-supportive. We spent our two days working on messaging and 30-second snippets. We practiced on camera, which is always very hard for me to do. 

While I was eager to meet Kristin because I know she's a fellow mom voice and Carmen, whom I'm still unsure about her mom status, but runs an awesome parenting site, I found out that there was at least one other mom in our group.

According to our bios, you would suspect that Kristin, Carmen, & myself were the only moms in the class. Now we all wrote our own bios, so I have no idea if mom status was stripped out of the stealth mom's bio or not. But it reminded me of a panel I was at some time ago. I can't recall who was speaking, perhaps Linda Hirshman, but they were being critical of the pro-mom movement...Rather giving it a reality check. The woman said that even the most accomplished moms don't list motherhood on their resumes. So why don't we? Should we?

I remember back in my science days seeing a post-doc's CV and noticing that he listed his wife and kids on the top of his CV under personal information. This floored me because I was already aware of maternal profiling, despite the term wouldn't be coined for another decade or so. I wondered then if I'd ever be able to list my famliy on my resume or CV without fearing that it was just a way to tag me straight into the circular file. Now that I have added writer to my list of identities, people want to know where I write, so the whole mom thing is unmasked.

But if I didn't do all this writing, or rather wanted it reflected on my resume, would I list it on my resume? Then again, I still don't like MOM as a job title and I don't have a blurb at the top of my resume that says, "Progressive feminist mom in search of writing opportunities..." either. I allow people to assume it from where I write, which is bad because I know not everyone who writes on parenting issues is a parent themselves. 

So what's a progressive mom to do? Especially one who views being a mom not central to who I am, but very much a large part of my identity and my work. That question will need to stay unanswered...at least for now.

When Veronica isn't clarifiying hastily written posts she blogs at Viva La Feminista, WIMN's Voices, and Work it, Mom! You can also follow Veronica at Twitter.

My daughter loves to read "And Tango Makes Three," although we haven't read it in quite some time. She loves penguins and thinks that lil Tango is "oh, so cute!" Through the book and other real life interactions I believe that she has a good grasp on the idea that families come in many different varieties. But I've been intentional in this part of her life. What if I hadn't been?

The reality is that she might have grown up to expect all families to look the same. A momma and a papa. Maybe even living in the same home too. Of course there's nothing wrong with that - That's how our family is crafted. But not my colleague Keesha's family. 

Chicago Parent recently profiled her family and the bullying that her daughters have faced. It's a bit ironic that this bullying happens in Chicago. A city where I feel like I escaped to from suburban living where I grew up not thinking that families looked different or that other religions existed among my friends. One reason we stay in Chicago is for all the "diversity."

In the profile, Janean, Keesha's partner suggests that schools incorporate diverse families into the curriculum. Of course, the more conservatives among us will yelp that teaching kindergarteners about "alternative lifestyles" is a horrible idea. It's amazing how predictable some people are...A decade after "Heather Has Two Mommies" and we're still worried about teaching our kids that difference is not to be feared.

Instead of classes, I suggest that school libraries stock up on books that feature same sex parents, text books show same sex couples parenting, and even story books that don't focus on *** or gay parents, have them in the background. I've noticed how often a kid in a wheelchair pops up in the backgrounds of my daughter's books. Essentially I don't think we need to address same sex parents directly - at least not in the early grades - just have them be there, all around. Once we start to see things on an every day basis, we aren't so fearful of them. Once we start to talk to kids about s-e-x, we can include same sex couples without advocating for "alternative lifestyles."

But we should also be teaching our children to never bully or taunt other children no matter what. Now that I think we should all agree on from pre-school at the very least.

Veronica clearly recalls her 5th grade teacher lecturing her on bullying and teasing and vows to make sure her daughter doesn't repeat that mistake. Veronica also blogs at Viva La Feminista, WIMN's Voices, and Work it, Mom!

In January of 2006 Newsweek put four white boys on their cover with the headline "The Boy Crisis." Inside they told the tale that was so shocking that the myth grew so fast that the factual evidence that quickly came out was ignored. What was this myth? That boys were being left behind.

By almost every benchmark, boys across the nation and in every demographic group are falling behind, reports Tyre in the January 30 Newsweek cover story "The Boy Crisis" (on newsstands Monday, January 23). With boys' standardized test scores and college enrollment rates dropping, and diagnoses of learning disabilities rising, educators are searching for new tools to help tackle the problem. In the last two decades, the education system has become obsessed with a quantifiable and narrowly defined kind of academic success, experts say, and that myopic view is harming boys. 

Adbusters and others quickly came to the defense of the public school system and girls. They called into question the validity of the statistics, but the myth was born and if fed into a a deep seeded feeling that many in this country are unable to admit to - That girls were getting smarter and making our boys look bad. It wasn't just girls making boys look bad, but the media as well. Boys were lazy. Boys don't have ambition. I was appalled by this monster myth for two reasons - 1) I knew better. Having worked in education my entire adult life, I knew that boys were far from being left behind and 2) This was horrible for boys and girls in terms of a gender frame work.

For both boys and girls, the stories played up stereotypes. Boys slack because they have a sense of entitlement. Girls sit nicely in class. Yet I'm sure that each of us can think of one high strung go-getter boy and one trouble making girl. Stereotypes sell, they don't solve problems. Yet, the data was still not parroting the party line.

Yesterday, the American Association for University Women (AAUW) released a study covering 35 years of educational data from grade school to college to look for that so-called gender gap. Well folks, it's there...only it's not what we've been told:

Girls’ successes don’t come at boys’ expense: If girls’ success comes at the expense of boys, one would expect to see boys’ scores decline as girls’ scores rise, but this has not been the case. Geographical patterns further demonstrate the positive connection between girls’ and boys’ educational achievement. In states where girls do well on tests, boys also do well, and states with low test scores among boys tend to also have low scores among girls.

On average, girls’ and boys’ educational performance has improved: From standardized tests in elementary and secondary school to college entrance examinations, average test scores have risen or remained stable for both girls and boys in recent decades. Similarly, both women and men are more likely to graduate from high school and college today than ever before.

Understanding disparities by race/ethnicity and family income level is critical to understanding girls’ and boys’ achievement: Overall, educational outcomes for both girls and boys have generally improved or stayed the same. Girls have made especially rapid gains in many areas,
but boys are also gaining ground on most indicators of educational achievement. Large discrepancies by race/ethnicity and family income level remain. These long-standing inequalities could be considered a “crisis” in the sense that action is needed urgently. But the crisis is not specific to boys; rather, it is a crisis for African American, Hispanic, and low-income children. (emphasis mine)

In the end, there is a crisis, but it is far from as simple as boy versus girl. Rather it is a problem that this country has been struggling and ignoring for many years. How do we ensure a quality education for all? For the rich, the poor? For whites, for minorities? For boys, for girls? For all.   
 

When Veronica isn't pouring over education reports, she blogs at Viva La Feminista, WIMN's Voices, and Work it, Mom!

    Dear CPS Community,

    We're very excited about five new elementary magnet schools and a new regional gifted center that will open this fall, expanding school options for students in a variety of neighborhoods.

        * *Disney II Magnet School*
          3815 N. Kedvale Ave., will offer a fine/performing arts and technology integration curriculum.
        * *LaSalle II Magnet School*
          1148 N. Honore St., will provide a world language program that allows students to learn one of four different languages.
        * *Sir Miles Davis Magnet Academy*
          6730 S. Paulina, a brand new facility, will offer the district's first-ever children's engineering program.
        * *Joshua D. Kershaw Magnet School*
          6450 S. Lowe  Ave., will offer the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme for children in kindergarten through fifth grade and the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme for students in sixth through eighth grade
        * *Oscar Mayer Magnet School*
          2250 N. Clifton Ave., will offer the Montessori Program for students in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade and the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme for sixth- through
          eighth-graders.
        * John Coonley Regional Gifted Center, 4046 N. Leavitt, will receive a new regional gifted center for academically advanced students.

    These schools will offer a variety of highly coveted academic programs in neighborhoods that haven't always had access to these kinds of high-quality education options.

    The CPS Office of Academic Enhancement will accept applications until April 25 for the 2008-2009 school year. The magnet schools will not require academic testing, but will accept students from the neighborhood and through a citywide lottery. Students will have to test into Coonley Regional Gifted Center.

    For an application, please click on the school name (Coonley applications will be available in the fall for the 2009-2010 school year); to read the press release about this project, please click here: http://www.cps.k12.il.us/magnet_pdf/magnet_schools_final_release_letterhead.pdf

    Sincerely,

    Arne Duncan

Veronica wishes you the best of luck in almost all the lotteries. She won't say which one her daughter's entering. Veronica also blogs at Viva La Feminista, WIMN's Voices, Chicago Moms Blog and Work it, Mom!

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We all know that the Chicago Public Schools are in a state of um, flux. They are trying things that other school systems don't do or maybe even, don't need. One of the experiments that seem to work in some schools is the Local School Council:

Local School Councils (LSCs) are elected bodies at nearly every Chicago Public Schools (CPS) elementary, middle and high school. The LSC has 6 parents, 2 community members who are not parents of students at the school, 2 teachers, the principal, and, in high schools, a student member. The parents and community members are elected by the parents and community residents around the school. Teachers are selected by the school staff. These members serve for a two-year term. High school student members serve for one year. By law, the LSC chairperson must be a parent representative.

The LSC's major responsibilities are to approve the school budget and annual strategic plan (called the school improvement plan), to evaluate the principal every year and to decide every four years if they want to renew the principal's contract or hire a new principal. This is the strongest site- based management system in the nation.

The LSC system is well known in my home as my husband served one term as a community member just before our daughter was born. He didn't run for a second term because we moved out of the school area. He learned a lot from being on the LSC and quickly became connected to some of the community organizations that work on education issues. He learned a lot about CPS and how political things are even at the local school level. It was an experience that he relishes. It's 1) The only campaign he has worked on where he was on the winning end; 2) Loved the campaigning - meeting parents, talking to kids about what they wanted (recess!); and 3) Even if it was a lot of work (more than just the monthly meeting) he did have a good time. Some days he might debate that last point, but I know him. He had fun.

Monday is the last day to file for the current LSC election cycle and according to PURE, 38 schools are in danger of not having enough people to fill their LSC!

Look at this list. Look for your school, for other schools in your community, your relatives' schools, schools located near your place of worship or community center. See if they need one or two or three people to step up and volunteer.

Consider becoming a candidate yourself. With such little competition, you might just win! And there's a lot of help on this web site and elsewhere to support you as an LSC member.

Nomination forms must be submitted at the school by 3 pm Monday March 24. Forms are available on the CPS web site. You can also drop your forms off at the PURE office up until 2 pm Monday.  

Take the weekend to assess if you have the time, energy, and passion to make a difference in the lives of the young people of Chicago. I know that once our lil one hits kindergarten next year, I'll be well known on the PTA/LSC circuit. But remember, you don't have to have a child there! Community member slots are just that, for those in the community.
 

Veronica is still obsessed with CPS and blogging at Viva La Feminista, WIMN's Voices, Chicago Moms Blog and Work it, Mom!

NOTE: To comment on this or any blog here at Chicago Parent, you need to register & log in at the top of the page. It's easy and you won't get spammed!