A Tale of Two Dens
Engineering advantages for me but not for thee
In a particularly beautiful section of the forest lived two fox families in adjacent burrows, separated only by a shared oak root. In the eastern burrow lived the Ashford-Foxes and their kit, Pembroke, who was born in late August six years ago. In the western burrow lived the Sterling-Foxes and their kit, Oliver, born exactly one year after Pembroke.
Mrs. Ashford-Fox, eager to send Pembroke to the same private school she had attended as a child, delayed her child’s kindergarten entry by a year. “He needs the gift of time. It will be better for him if he’s more advanced than his classmates. He’ll feel more confident if he’s the oldest in the class rather than the youngest. I will give him an extra year to grow and develop.”
At the start of kindergarten, Pembroke towered over his classmates, both physically and cognitively. He read decodable books while others struggled to sound out simple CVC words. He traversed the monkey bars while others worked on climbing the playground’s ladder. Mrs. Ashford-Fox beamed with pride, pleased with her decision to redshirt her son. It was clear he benefitted from being the most developmentally advanced kit in the room.
Meanwhile, in the burrow next door, Mrs. Sterling-Fox prepared five-year-old Oliver to start kindergarten at exactly the same time as his six-year-old neighbor. He would be going to the neighborhood public school, which was strict about kindergarten entry dates and absolutely did not permit redshirting. When Oliver’s classroom placement was announced only two days before the first day of school, Mrs. Sterling-Fox was dismayed to see that Oliver had two teachers.
“ICT?!” she shrieked into her phone at her husband. “Oliver is a normal student! They just assigned him to ICT because they needed to fill the gen ed seats!”
“What’s ICT again?” Mr. Sterling-Fox asked, distracted.
“Integrated Co-Teaching! It’s where they mix special education students with general education students! He will be in a room with kids who have disabilities, so a regular teacher and a special ed teacher lead the class together!”
“That sounds... better? Two teachers? One with additional training?”
“It’s a special education classroom, Gerald! Our son doesn’t need special education! This is what happens when you insist on public school!”
She’d wanted private school. Begged for it. But her in-laws, who controlled the trust fund, had put their paws down.
Mrs. Sterling-Fox hung up the phone as she watched Mrs. Ashford-Fox return to the burrow. She felt her tail bristle with jealousy and resentment.
“You’ll never believe it,” Mrs. Sterling-Fox called to her neighbor. “Oliver got assigned to ICT!”
Mrs. Ashford-Fox looked up, her expression carefully calibrated between sympathy and condescension. “Oh no. That’s... unfortunate. Did you request to switch classes?”
“Of course I did! But they won’t budge. They said they thought I’d be happy with two teachers, better differentiation, and more small-group instruction. Can you imagine? As if that makes up for—” She lowered her voice, glancing around. “—the environment.”
“Well,” Mrs. Ashford-Fox said delicately, “I suppose they have to find typical children somewhere. Otherwise who would the special ed students model appropriate behavior from?”
Mrs. Sterling-Fox seized on this. “Exactly! Oliver is going to spend his kindergarten year being a peer model. He’s going to get bored. I want him in a room with kids who are more advanced than him so that he can be appropriately challenged!”
Mrs. Ashford-Fox nodded sympathetically as her smile turned pitying. “I totally get that. Nobody wants their kid being held back by peers who are less advanced. Well. I’m sure Oliver will be fine. They do say the ICT teachers are very... dedicated.”
By June, both Pembroke and Oliver wrapped up the year with academic skills that were at or above grade level. And they both continued to be strong students as they progressed through school, though any gap that existed between them and their classmates became less and less noticeable as time went by.
***
Devastating!!!!!