I'm looking to get some feedback, I'm trying to be open minded, and relatively objective about the request but i have a hard time looking past what I feel is another obvious play to move the kids lives farther away from me. (I'm sorry but I provide as much detail as i can for perspective, if you can stick it out and give me your feedback i would appreciate it.)
Backstory details: My ex and I have two kids, 10, and 7. My 10 yo daughter has Asperger's, and ADD. My 7 year old is for all intensive purposes a normal boy. We divorced in 2017. Last year at the start of the Pandemic, my ex met a dude, had him and his two sons he has half the time move in with her , put up her new home for sale, then they bought a house 30 miles away, and got engaged, and then promptly married. All in 8 months. Looking past how ridiculously fast this all happened, I'm happy she found each other. Then she wanted me to agree to change schools to a new K-5 school last year for the kids from my city, to her new one which is a different city/county. I said no. They had just moved from another school last year (2019-2020 school year) because my daughter had constant issues with other kids and even her teacher and I forced my Ex to actually evaluate this (she had been brushing it off when my daughter brought it up for months), as it was that was a massive amount of disruption in their life. I did state we could revisit this for the next year. So here we are.
She still wants to move the kids out to her school district. I want to keep them in the current school.
Pro of changing school: The other school is highly rated on websites, small class sizes and it being a higher tax bracket kinda area provide more attention for the students. The idea that my kids would get a "better education".
Cons: In general this would be another massive change/disruption in their lives in a years time. My daughter is now just getting into a swing of how things are and would then need to change her whole life again. She would lose any security she had developed with her current friends (she talks to them daily in their remote learning classes, and after school) by being removed from her current social group and thrust into another one. Then after next year cuz its a K-5 school, she would be forced to go to yet another new school after next year when she goes into 6th grade for 3 more years then go into HS. On top of all of that, the school is not art focused, and wouldn't make acceptations to it outside of my daughters IEP.
Pro of Staying in Current school: They are established there. Its a school of the arts, so they intergrade art into most of their curriculum. My daughter is fantastically artistic, she is constantly painting while listening to her teachers over this Remote schooling/quarantine school year. She has retained much more then she would if she couldn't express herself in her assignments like she has. The school has met all of my daughters needs and because they had go to this specific school for multiple summer camp years they (both kids) already know people and staff when we transferred them over to it.
Con: It is technically rated much lower then the other proposed school district. I live in the suburbs of a moderately large city, so the school has a larger student count. Which it turn means more students per class, and not all of them from extremely wealthy families like the new school would be which comes with all the social/economic problems that normally follow.
Other Notes: My Ex was the one who originally suggested this current school, as it was near her previous house and mine and after we discussed it we both agreed it would be a fine change at my daughter's request. In my state, neither one of us has unilateral authority to made major changes to the kids lifes since we both have 50/50 custody. We need to agree on changes. Hence this discussion. I will be honest, I have my own personal hang-ups that I'm trying hard to keep out of my thought process. I feel like since shes rushing into her new perfect life, shes trying to establish the kids lives over there as if I don't matter/exist and every friendship my kids have now wont matter going forward. I promised i wouldn't disappear from my kids lives like my father did to me. The commute to her house and the school is 30 minutes in the best of traffic, in my head no matter what school her and I are driving every school day to pick them up/drop them off to balance it out. Its only fair.
I did call the principle of the school my ex suggested and asked her if she could tell me about the school cuz I'm working to decide.(I'm trying to be objective) She started off telling me how the school is definitely not diverse. This was the first point after "high achieving". My heart sank to be honest, and I actively wrote it down as a con. My family is Caucasian, and her delivery of this detail came across to me as a very "privileged" thing to say. Just rubbed me really wrong.
Also, her new husband's kids would NOT be going to this new school. They go to a private school over by my house. Cuz of course they do.
I guess on one point i wrote all this out to get it out of my system. I have had so much anxiety over the last few days and I'm trying to direct this into something constructive. I think my ex is a good person, and i know she loves our kids. But I also know she would rather forget her past and just have everything over by her. Shes already moved their dentist and the kids dr over to their city.
Thoughts / Feedback / Opinions? I'm trying to be open minded.
Backstory details: My ex and I have two kids, 10, and 7. My 10 yo daughter has Asperger's, and ADD. My 7 year old is for all intensive purposes a normal boy. We divorced in 2017. Last year at the start of the Pandemic, my ex met a dude, had him and his two sons he has half the time move in with her , put up her new home for sale, then they bought a house 30 miles away, and got engaged, and then promptly married. All in 8 months. Looking past how ridiculously fast this all happened, I'm happy she found each other. Then she wanted me to agree to change schools to a new K-5 school last year for the kids from my city, to her new one which is a different city/county. I said no. They had just moved from another school last year (2019-2020 school year) because my daughter had constant issues with other kids and even her teacher and I forced my Ex to actually evaluate this (she had been brushing it off when my daughter brought it up for months), as it was that was a massive amount of disruption in their life. I did state we could revisit this for the next year. So here we are.
She still wants to move the kids out to her school district. I want to keep them in the current school.
Pro of changing school: The other school is highly rated on websites, small class sizes and it being a higher tax bracket kinda area provide more attention for the students. The idea that my kids would get a "better education".
Cons: In general this would be another massive change/disruption in their lives in a years time. My daughter is now just getting into a swing of how things are and would then need to change her whole life again. She would lose any security she had developed with her current friends (she talks to them daily in their remote learning classes, and after school) by being removed from her current social group and thrust into another one. Then after next year cuz its a K-5 school, she would be forced to go to yet another new school after next year when she goes into 6th grade for 3 more years then go into HS. On top of all of that, the school is not art focused, and wouldn't make acceptations to it outside of my daughters IEP.
Pro of Staying in Current school: They are established there. Its a school of the arts, so they intergrade art into most of their curriculum. My daughter is fantastically artistic, she is constantly painting while listening to her teachers over this Remote schooling/quarantine school year. She has retained much more then she would if she couldn't express herself in her assignments like she has. The school has met all of my daughters needs and because they had go to this specific school for multiple summer camp years they (both kids) already know people and staff when we transferred them over to it.
Con: It is technically rated much lower then the other proposed school district. I live in the suburbs of a moderately large city, so the school has a larger student count. Which it turn means more students per class, and not all of them from extremely wealthy families like the new school would be which comes with all the social/economic problems that normally follow.
Other Notes: My Ex was the one who originally suggested this current school, as it was near her previous house and mine and after we discussed it we both agreed it would be a fine change at my daughter's request. In my state, neither one of us has unilateral authority to made major changes to the kids lifes since we both have 50/50 custody. We need to agree on changes. Hence this discussion. I will be honest, I have my own personal hang-ups that I'm trying hard to keep out of my thought process. I feel like since shes rushing into her new perfect life, shes trying to establish the kids lives over there as if I don't matter/exist and every friendship my kids have now wont matter going forward. I promised i wouldn't disappear from my kids lives like my father did to me. The commute to her house and the school is 30 minutes in the best of traffic, in my head no matter what school her and I are driving every school day to pick them up/drop them off to balance it out. Its only fair.
I did call the principle of the school my ex suggested and asked her if she could tell me about the school cuz I'm working to decide.(I'm trying to be objective) She started off telling me how the school is definitely not diverse. This was the first point after "high achieving". My heart sank to be honest, and I actively wrote it down as a con. My family is Caucasian, and her delivery of this detail came across to me as a very "privileged" thing to say. Just rubbed me really wrong.
Also, her new husband's kids would NOT be going to this new school. They go to a private school over by my house. Cuz of course they do.
I guess on one point i wrote all this out to get it out of my system. I have had so much anxiety over the last few days and I'm trying to direct this into something constructive. I think my ex is a good person, and i know she loves our kids. But I also know she would rather forget her past and just have everything over by her. Shes already moved their dentist and the kids dr over to their city.
Thoughts / Feedback / Opinions? I'm trying to be open minded.
