THIRTY-ONE EASY STEPS TO ENROLLING YOUR CHILDREN IN SUMMER SCHOOL
(IN BEDROCK, MISSOURI)

(Clarification: You are enrolling Ten-year-old, Five-year-old, and Oldest Son in summer school classes. Oldest Son just finished his junior year in high school and HAS to have two more PE credits to graduate. He refuses to take PE during the school year due to the humiliating school policy of making kids change clothes together in the locker room. He can take one class online next year, but he needs one this summer.)

1. Get the summer school class schedule. Note that you can now enroll kids online. Think, this is neat; I don't have to mail in the forms any more. Enroll Ten-year-old and Five-year-old online.

2. Forget to enroll Son.

3. Remember that you forgot to enroll Son when his friend's dad calls and wants to know if they can take the same class, since Friend also refuses to take regular school-year humiliating gym classes.

4. Have Friend's Dad call your husband with the info for the class he signed Friend up for, so you can put Son in the same class. Have Husband lose note regarding class. Forget to do anything about this for a couple of weeks, since you can now enroll online and it will be easy when you do get around to it.

5. Remember. Find note. Go online. Find, to your dismay, that the class is showing as "full." Find another similar class at a different time. Sign Son up for it online.

6. Get Friend's Dad's email address. Email him asking if he can switch Friend to the non-full class. Apologize for being late.

7. Receive email from Friend's Dad saying that he has received Friend's class confirmation in the mail, and behold! they happened to put Friend in the class that you put Son in, because the other one was full. Ah. Good.

8. Reconsider. Son wants to know if there is anything available other than the basic PE class you put him in, because he already took that once. Go online. There is also golf (and aerobics and swimming, both of which Son rejects, saying he will simply not graduate at all if it comes to that).

9. Hear from Son that he would rather take golf, and can you go ahead and put him in it because he doesn't think his friend cares what class they take. Do it. Email Friend's Dad suggesting golf, telling him there is still room in the class and that he can switch Friend's schedule online without any trouble, because the online registration process is easy.

10. Get email from Friend's Dad. He called the summer school office to make sure his online switch went through. It didn't, because, it turns out, the online information is not current. When you register online, you don't really register online. You essentially email the summer school office that you want your kid in a class. Then they add it to their piles of online applications, mailed applications, faxes, and applications dropped personally at the office, and work their way through the pile until they get to you. Not until then are you guaranteed a spot in the class. And anyway, golf is full, although it doesn't show up that way online. So is the first class you thought you registered Son for, although Friend is still in that class because Friend registered earlier by mail (for a different class, which was full, so they put him in this class). All classes are full except aerobics and swimming. And even if they weren't, you can't enroll Son for anything today because, even if you call the summer school office and talk to a person sitting at a computer terminal with the ability to register Son, they won't do it. They have to receive Son's application and get to it in order (after the backlog of other forms) first. However, Friend's Dad can switch Friend to another class on the phone, because once they have the application, they can switch or add classes by phone.

11. Pause for moment of despair and confusion.

12. Remember that there was a PE "Wellness" class at a local fitness center that appeared on the paper schedule but that you did not see online. Call summer school office. Ask. They still have four openings in it.

13. Print off paper application and drive to summer school office to present it personally.

14. Email Friend's Dad with update. Can he switch to Wellness too?

15. Get email from Friend's Dad saying that he called the summer school office again. He could switch Friend to the Wellness class by phone. However, Friend would rather stay in the basic PE class UNLESS Son gets in the Wellness class, in which case Friend wants to switch. Son will, however, not be assured a place in the Wellness class until the office gets to his application. If Friend's Dad switches classes, he gives up Friend's place in the original class, and then Son might not get in the Wellness class anyway. Friend's Dad asked the office if he could conditionally put Friend in Wellness, while hanging onto Friend's original spot in the other class in case Son does not get into Wellness. Office said they don't do that.

16. Wait a day. Call summer school office. They supposedly send out snail mail class confirmations, but by calling, you can catch it as soon as Son gets into the class, contact Friend's Dad, and have him call to get Friend in the class if there are still openings, thereby saving time and hopefully snaring two spots in the class before it is full.

17. Be told by person in office that they haven't gotten to Son's application yet.

18. Repeat steps 16 and 17 for the next two days, twice a day.

19. Make usual morning call to summer school office. Ask if Son is signed up for a class yet. Be told that Son is in "Band."

20. Pause for additional moment of despair and confusion. Decide that this is probably the band camp that all band kids take in July, and that the band teacher must have signed up all the band kids for it, since you didn't.

21. Say okay, but I was wondering about the PE class.

22. Be told that no, Son is not yet signed up for PE, but since he is now signed up for a class ("Band") they can add a class over the phone instead of waiting to get to his application.

23. Beat head against wall. Say okay, put him in Wellness. Ask if there are still openings. There are. Email Friend's Dad, who has been checking his email several times a day in case you email him that Son got in.

24. Get email from Friend's Dad that he did, indeed, get Friend switched and they are both in Wellness.

25. You're not done yet . . .

26. Receive phone call from summer school office telling you that the class you had Five-year-old in has been canceled. You have to move her to another school, where they have openings because they added a class. The other school does not have a class available for Ten-year-old. You will now be driving these two kids to two different schools at the same time.

27. Receive snail mail confirmation on all kids' classes. One is missing. Call summer school office. Be told they are "not surprised" that you didn't get one, because "some of them didn't print off." Confirm child is, indeed, in class you thought she was in.

28. Notice that Son's class time on confirmation is listed as "10-1," although you thought Wellness started at 10:30. Email Friend's Dad asking if he knows correct time.

29. Receive email from Friend's Dad chronicling his phone calls to the fitness center, the summer school office, and the teacher of the class. Class starts at 10:30, not "10." Summer school office says "some of the times printed wrong."

30. Send Son off to first day of class, which turns out to start at, technically, 10:35.

31. Move to Tahiti. Homeschool children.