Getting to School

ONE PARENT'S THOUGHTS ON DRIVE TIME

My son attends Creative Science School. My family lives in Southwest Portland. Anyone, looking at the map, would think, "Gee, they must be nuts to drive their kid so far to school." Why do we do it?

If you're like me, you're looking for the best school for your child. You want a school where your child will thrive. Maybe you're considering the Arbor School, in Tualatin. Possibly you're looking at The Gardner School, north of Vancouver in Battle Ground, Washington. Perhaps you're considering choices within the Portland Public School district, like Emerson, Buckman, Winterhaven, or Metropolitan Learning Center. I considered all those options as well.

I talk frequently on the local playground with neighborhood moms. I rave about CSS, and how much my child loves to go to school. When the parent I'm blabbing to asks where it is, and I reply, "Outer Southeast," the response I inevitably get is, "Oh, I could never drive that far."

But let's look at the options with the commuting angle in mind.

Arbor School, in Tualatin, is a lovely facility, on rolling green hills. If you're lucky enough to get admission for your child you're facing what, from my house, is about a 30 to 35 minute drive. The commute back to town after morning drop off would put me heading northbound on I-5 in the worst of rush hour traffic. I can't estimate how long that would take to drive.

The Gardner School, in Battle Ground, is similarly beautiful. Again, the drive from my house is about 35 minutes or so. Again, the return trip to work would happen on I-5 in the worst of rush hour. Even more complicating here is that there's only one way to get over the Columbia River: the Interstate Bridge. There are no surface road options in the event of an accident or slow down.

Emerson and MLC are more centrally located in Northwest. While the schools are closer to my home, drive time would still be about 20 minutes due to local traffic and the schools' distance from major highways. And then there's parking to consider. There isn't much near either Emerson or MLC. That might mean that you drop off or pick up your child at the door, engine running, missing out on time you could spend chatting with their teacher or getting to know fellow parents.

Buckman and Winterhaven are both located in close-in Southeast. Again, even though they're closer to my home, they would take as long to get to because of their lack of proximity to highways, and local traffic patterns.

Creative Science School is 12 miles from my home. It takes me 20-25 minutes to get there. It's a reverse commute, so the only traffic we hit is a brief snarl inbound on 26 during the morning commute. I can tell you a really great short cut from I-84 to the school. If there's an accident, there are a myriad of surface road alternatives. And oddly, I discovered that I love the drive time. On the half of the journey where I don't have my son in the car, I catch up on the news on the radio. When he's with me, we talk, or he reads me Calvin and Hobbes, or we listen to his current favorite audio book. He snacks. Drive time is down time, where we can discuss what might happen or what did happen in school that day.

Is the drive worth it?

When my son was in Kindergarten, he had to have a root canal. He was crying the night before the procedure, and crying after the procedure. Why? Not because he was afraid of pain, or actually in pain afterwards. He was crying because he was afraid that the dental procedure would prevent him from attending school that day. What did I do? I drove him to school, and he attended after having had a root canal.

I asked him one day why he liked school so much. He answered, "Because, Mom, I just love to learn. I want to learn, and learn, and learn."

How far would you drive to hear your child say that? My answer? I'd drive twice as far. Luckily, I don't have to. Come tour the school and find out why we're worth the drive time.