On a regular day in August 2005, I made the third-best
decision of my life.
It was about 2:00 in the afternoon. I was leaving the house
with our three kids, ages 6, 3, and 1. We were going to meet Braden’s
kindergarten teacher at Rockrimmon Elementary. He was eager. The evening
before, we had walked over to the school and hidden a special rock on the
playground that he could go find on his first day of school. I had physically
laid my hands on the warm brick building and prayed for the administrators, the
teachers, and the other kids we would soon meet. He would start school just a
few days later.
As I remember it, we were literally walking out the door
when the phone rang. The home phone. A phone we answered anytime it rang. It
was 2006, remember. The call was from the TCA registrar. She had an open spot
for Braden. Would we like it? We had 24 hours to decide.
The first answer in my head was no. We’d put Braden on the
TCA waitlist on a whim. He’d been 5, and we knew there was little chance he
would get in. I’d stopped thinking about it as an option. We were committed to
Rockrimmon. We had prepared him for it—and more importantly, I had prepared myself
for it. TCA wasn’t even on my mind at that point. But I knew enough to take the
24 hours to think, pray, and talk about it with Kevin.
He was indifferent and if anything leaned toward keeping the
plan and sticking with Rockrimmon. I was so unsure and so desperate to hear
from God on this that I fasted for the first time in my life. This felt big.
Not so much for Braden, who was barely 6 at the time, but for our family. The
TCA spot was at East Elementary, a good 20 to 25 minutes away from our house. It
was an afternoon spot, which I never would have chosen. Our two girls napped
from 2 to 4 each day, right when Braden would need picked up. I was still
trying to juggle my work at The Navigators with raising three young kids, and
we were considering having a fourth. Sending our kindergartner across town
instead of to the school in our neighborhood seemed absurd.
I remember agonizing, mostly alone with God, over the
decision. In the end, it came down to our little girls. I knew they would
follow Braden wherever he went, and for some reason, I thought TCA was a better
choice for them. We took the spot, and the next thing I knew, Braden and I were
at Sears at 6 p.m. the day before school started madly searching for navy blue
and khaki shorts and red, white, blue, or green polo shirts.
Twenty years later, how do I look back on that decision?
Well, obviously, pretty fondly if it was the third-best choice of my life. But
I didn’t recognize it right away or even very quickly at all. That kindergarten
year was rough. Braden’s experienced and beloved teacher was only there about
six weeks before her husband got a job across the country and she had to leave.
Her replacement was an older first-year teacher who flubbed the phonograms and
couldn’t keep Braden and Brady (Bouldin) straight in her mind. Anytime I was in
the classroom, I watched in horror as my son repeatedly corrected the teacher
with, “I think you mean…”.
My least favorite part of the day was having to park the
minivan and walk three kids into the kindergarten classroom—because that’s what
people did at TCA! There was no dropping off at the curb, not of an afternoon
kindergartner. Inevitably, Addison would need to use the bathroom in the
kindergarten modular, while Brooka wanted to race through the classroom leaving
a tornado in her wake. The whole affair felt exhausting, and that was before I got pregnant in November. The one thing that
kept me from despair was that Kevin began leaving work to pick up Braden every
day. He continued to do afternoon pickup nearly every day for 10 years, until
Braden got his license. Without that, I don’t think we would have made it at
TCA.
After that kindergarten year, we requested a transfer to
Central campus, and though we were told it wasn’t likely to happen, Braden got
a spot in Mrs. Miller’s first grade class at Central. The drive time was cut by
10 minutes. The school was in an actual building, not a modular, and we could
drop off without having to walk in. And though Braden was still with Brady, they
had an experienced teacher who mastered their names early on, and a principal
named Mr. Stump. Things were looking up.
It would take another three years before we found our place
at Central. Kevin and I had been married a dozen years at that point, but we
still didn’t have “our people.” We had his family in town, and I had many
Navigator friends, but we didn’t have anything that felt like community. That
began to change when Braden was invited into a small-group Bible study with
several other families. We didn’t know any of them well. We didn’t really
understand what this was or why we’d been included. But again, we knew enough
to say yes. And that right there may have been the fourth-best decision of our
lives. I will forever be grateful to David and Lynn Bullock for their vision,
initiative, and leadership of that first Boys Group. The families we met at TCA
Central, both through that group and through the classmates of our daughters,
are still our closest friends. We have gone through the parenting trenches
together, including the jittery move to junior high at North, COVID lockdowns, graduations,
more graduations, engagements, marriages, and, as of about a week ago, welcoming grandchildren into the
world. In all the highs and lows of raising kids, we have been surrounded by a
community of like-minded families. I cannot imagine the past 20 years without
them.
Our kids grew up alongside the best community of people we
ever could have found. And I’m convinced that they got the best K-12 education
they could have gotten. About five days into college coursework, our three
oldest kids suddenly understood what a gift their education was. They watched
the other college freshmen struggle to write papers, make arguments, solve problems,
and prepare for tests, and they realized how well prepared they were.
TCA is not for everyone. Even in my idealism, I realize
that. But we have four pretty different kids, and it was the absolute best
choice for all of them. They would each attest to that. TCA was a place where
Braden could find other kids who loved Latin and physics and calculus and
teachers who inspired him to become an engineer. Braden needed TCA for Mr.
Knuth and Dr. Wilson, Mr. Reed and Mr. Kueck. Addison learned courage, confidence,
discipline, and perseverance through all things band and decided to make a
career of it. She needed TCA for Ms. Soper, band, and the band community. Braden
and Addison, both so comfortable and proficient at the game of school, needed
the structure and rigor of TCA.
Brooka packed fun and joy into every day of her 13 years at
TCA and learned that at her core, she’s a girl who loves to be part of a team. What
affected her most, though, was reading Brothers Karamazov with Miss
Swank and putting together her senior defense. Brooka needed TCA to teach her
that she’s deeper than she knew. Camryn’s TCA journey looked a lot like her
siblings’, but she found ways to make it her own. So much so that she left
North after her sophomore year and made her own way at College Pathways. She
knew what she wanted out of high school, and she made it happen, even when it
required juggling classes at three different schools. Camryn needed
flexibility, and TCA gave it to her.
TCA was, of course, our kids’ school. But I call it “our
school.” In a sense, I feel like it was my school even more than it was
Braden’s, or Addison’s, or Brooka’s, or Camryn’s. They had 13 years at TCA. I
had 20. During that time, “I” had just about every teacher at Central and
North. I also had about 200 parent-teacher conferences, dozens of field trips,
24 curriculum days, 28 field days, countless poems, and four trips through the
phonogram flashcards. I also had Landsharks, Girl Scouts, Sea Perch Robotics
Club, Science Fair, National History Day, Choir, Marching Band, Jazz Band,
Concert Band, Horn Choir, Art, Speech and Debate, Football, Girls Basketball,
Volleyball, Track and Field, Cross Country, Softball, Musical, One Acts,
Improv, Student Council, National Honor Society, Junior Classics League,
All-State Choir, All-State Band, College Pathways, three Baccalaureates (one
online), three cappings, and four graduations (one a very memorable
drive-thru).
I have been so blessed. And, to be honest, I wonder what
will fill the TCA-sized hole that’s going to show up in my life mid-August.
What on earth will we do on a Tuesday night at 7:30 without a school meeting, a
concert, a sporting event, an English paper to proofread? I’ve watched most of
my friends go before me, and they make me believe that we’ll figure it out.
I also see God’s sense of humor in placing me where I live
and work. For years, I have avoided Garden of the Gods and 30th
Street. Memories of my 14 years at The Navigators are too tender. I still drive
by Glen Eyrie and find tears pooling in my eyes. But God says to me, “We’re not
doing that with TCA.” I can’t really go anywhere without driving by TCA Central.
And any time I go into work at CBS, I’m right next door to North—and often
stuck in carpool. I am well positioned to remember. And to watch a new
generation of little girls in plaid jumpers swinging on the playground and
sweaty high schoolers having PE on the football field. For a while, this will
be my beautiful sad, a phrase I heard for the first time recently. It’s the
perfect description, I think, of how I will feel next August, and maybe for a
long time after that. Then I will adapt, as human beings are so good at doing,
and I’ll move on. But for the rest of my days, I will treasure my memories of
TCA and the role it played in the life of our family. Thank you, God, thank
you.
