I am sorry that you had this sad news, but underneath your sorrow you are glad that at least you and yours have known such a beautiful bond. I believe that deep grief is always a sign of a deep and beautiful gratitude.

My son is about to enter 2nd grade, and I want him to start a new school also, because at the moment, the school that he is assigned to, supposedly one of the best in the city, seems to be full of "test scores and authoritarian regimes", practically discourages harmonious socializing, excludes parents from being a meaningful part of the process, and imposes a sense of "constant surveillance" at a level that I think is appropriate for the training of slaves. This is why everyday I think about my desire to homeschool him -- to safeguard his inventiveness, his curiosity, his intellect, his independent visions. I am afraid of his enslavement and dumbing down. But I know homeschooling -- in my home, at least -- won't provide the sense of community that you describe.

Numerous parents of graduates of the Montessori kindergarden where he went last year, whose kids are now scattered in 4 different elementary schools, are all frustrated, and we all want to hire our kids' old kindergarden teacher to teach again because she was top-notch AND she had the freedom to handle her own classroom without an onslaught of dictates from the principal and administration (and essentially from Bush's Federal government). There is nothing wrong with his current teacher. She is simply not free to teach or handle her classroom the way that she would want. In kindergarden he came home everyday excited about something he was learning, ang deeply attached to all (believe it or not, ALL) of his classmates. His first year is almost over, his attachments to classmates are weak and few, and I can count on one hand the number of times he has expressed excitement or interest in anything all year.

Sorry for wandering off. But I genuinely appreciated your post, not only was it heartwarming and touching, but it helps remind of a key element of education that I otherwise might be forgetting.