The Kindergarten Wars

by Alan Eisenstock

  “Money is no object. We will spend whatever it takes to help him.”

  “There is nothing like early intervention in a case like his,” Dana says. “Look, he has a lot of strengths.”

  “We are royally pissed at the preschool,” Lionel says. “They waited until two weeks before the letters went out to tell us.”

  “I don’t understand that. Maybe they wanted to be sure.”

  Lionel says nothing.

  “Again, the important thing is it’s early,” Dana says. “Do you need some names?”

  “We already have an appointment.”

  “You guys move fast.”

  “It’s our kid,” Lionel says.

  “After you have the evaluation, call me. I can be helpful in directing you to some appropriate schools and I can recommend some really good ed therapists to work with.”

  Lionel’s voice cracks. “Thank you.”

  “Call me.”

  “I will.”

  “Lionel, this is not going to be easy. You have to be prepared for some rocky times.”

  “Little different than what we signed up for.”

  “It always is.”

  Gifted and Talented

  “We are done.” Poised at the tip of her couch in her Upper East Side apartment, Shea Cohen sings the last word, holds the note for an improbable five seconds. “Yesterday was Liam’s last interview.”

  Shea scoops a handful of unsalted peanuts into her mouth from an ornate glass dish, nods, and says through munching, “It was a disaster. The worst. For some reason, everyone I know in New York happened to be sitting in the admissions office watching us being interviewed. The woman who was interviewing us was not very nice. I made the mistake of . . . Well, this is really bad.”

  Another swipe of nuts. This time accompanied by her lopsided grin. “I wanted to tell her something and I called her the name of an admissions director from another school. I couldn’t believe it. I was like, ‘I’m so sorry. Of course I know your name. I didn’t mean to refer to you as . . .’ Wow. That was terrible. Then the topper is Liam came in and he was completely disheveled. He didn’t even look like him. I don’t know what he was doing. His hair was a big mess, his clothes were all schlumpy, he looked like hell. In the background, I heard this woman I know, a soon-to-be-ex-friend, say, ‘You’d think they’d at least have him look nice for the interview.’ Nothing like being interviewed in front of all your peers who see your kid look like he’s just come out of a hurricane and you insult the director of admissions by calling her a different name. It was a private school catastrophe.”

  Shea nudges the bowl of nuts away, just out of reach.

  “Honestly, at this point, I’m sort of bored with the whole thing. I think I’m more curious about where other people’s kids are going than I am about where Liam is going to end up. He’ll have his place. He’ll have a spot in a very good school, I’m sure of that. So, yeah, I’m tired of it all. However, there is a sort of curveball. There are a few public schools in the city, one or two on the West Side and a couple downtown, who house within their elementary school something called a gifted and talented program. It’s almost like a separate school within a school. The one nearest us, Netherfield, is in fact its own independent school. You have to apply to get in. You have to take the Stanford-Binet test, which is an IQ test. If he scores like a 97 or above on that, they invite you to tour the school, then they interview you, and you have an on-site. It’s very competitive. I think they take eighteen kids.”

  Shea wipes her hands on her jeans, twists open a bottle of Evian. “Liam took the Stanford-Binet, scored well, and we’re applying to Netherfield, too.”

  She takes a swig from the bottle. “This is purely an academic program. I mean, pretty much. They have PE and music and the arts, but because it’s part of the public school system, those programs really can’t compete with what you’re going to get at Longbourne. The advantages are, number one, academically, Netherfield is incredible. The stuff I saw kids doing in kindergarten was amazing. Number two, it’s free. As in not twenty-five grand a year. All Liam has is one more group thing at Netherfield and that is it. He loved it, by the way, had a great time. He’s actually kind of sad that the process is over. Last night he said to me, ‘Is that it? I’m not going to any more schools?’ I said, ‘You’re done. You want to go to any more, you can go with your own children.’”

  The decisions arrive in the mail a week later. Out of the seven schools the Cohens applied to, Liam is accepted at two, Longbourne and one other, rejected at three, and waitlisted at two, including Netherfield. In terms of the New York City private school game, they have hit a home run.

  “So it’s Longbourne,” Shea says. “It’s funny. Donald and I both feel that no school is perfect. We love the school and Liam’s best friend is going so that’s a big plus. But the caliber of kids there strikes me as just a level below some of the other schools. There are a lot of bright kids there, don’t get me wrong, but I think Liam will really stand out. I think he’ll shine. And since he’s not an athlete, he needs to find his place. Our biggest hesitation is Netherfield. If need be, I think we’d forgo a deposit. It is such a good program. I’m not holding out tons of hope for that, though, because it’s very tough. But we did well. This is a very competitive market and this was an extremely tough year. It really was all about Liam. We have no connections. We’re not big donors. He’s a good kid. He did a great job. So . . . Longbourne.”

  Shea says it slowly. Trying it on for size. “Unless something else materializes between now and May first. That’s when we’re on the hook for the whole tuition. Look, I feel very lucky. We got into two schools. I know several people who got shut out. Didn’t get in anywhere. Or they got waitlisted everywhere. Or they only got into their last choice, a school about which they said, ‘I would never send my kid there,’ and now that’s their only choice. At least we have choices.”

  Board Power

  Thanks to her friend Susan, Lauren Pernice found herself obsessed with the math.

  “Susan keeps telling me not to dwell on the numbers because the numbers are inflated,” Lauren murmured in a monotone. “According to her, you knock out twenty to thirty families right away and an equal number of kids because they’re just not appropriate. The result is a kind of fuzzy math because the same people apply to the same schools. Therefore, the applicant pool becomes somewhat diluted. And so I’m doing the dishes or something and my mind wanders . . . If there are three hundred applicants and fifty are eliminated because of family and another twenty-five are siblings, we’re down to two hundred twenty-five. Many of those prefer Darcy or Meryton or some other school, thus reducing the applicant pool perhaps another, I don’t know, hundred or so. Now we’re down to a hundred and twenty-five. Okay, not great, but better odds than three hundred for twenty spots.”

  Lauren sighed. “This is ridiculous. It just speaks to how irrationally important getting into Pemberley has become to us. It’s insane how much time it takes up and how it detracts from your life.”

  Lauren sank into the middle of the overstuffed sofa in the family room. She gazed at the hill of Killian’s toys tucked into the corner of the room, a castle made of Legos, a set of plastic golf clubs, a teetering pile of board games. She lowered her freshly coiffed hairdo into the folds of her hands, then peeked up and blinked twice at the ceiling. She’d tried not to look at this process as a game, at least not at first. She insisted on going through it as aboveboard and honorably as possible.

  Then she realized that she wanted Pemberley.

  She thought about Dana and how she dealt with the onslaught of power people who would be contacting her directly or indirectly on a daily basis. People with big names or more money than God who are in her face, screaming, “Pick me!” Actually, Lauren figured their representatives were shouting, “Pick them!” Lauren knew that it existed that way. You’d have to be naïve to think that it didn’t. She vanquished the thought, refused to join that crowd. It implied
stooping to a level that she felt was somehow beneath her.

  And then she realized that she was being a fool.

  This is a game and there are rules and there are standards. There are also those things that are unspoken but understood. It is not an even playing field. And yes, bottom line, as February closed down and the calendar flipped into March, Lauren knew that she would do anything to get into Pemberley.

  She called up a mom she knew at Pemberley and asked, “Do you have the list of the board of trustees?” She had looked online and couldn’t find it. The mom read the names over the phone and Lauren typed them out while the mom was talking to her.

  That night, she and Craig went over the list. Craig nodded slowly and said in a soft, matter-of-fact tone, “I’ve done deals with some of these people. I know three people on the list.”

  The first person on the list was someone Craig knew casually. He decided to try that person first, sort of feel him out. He was happy to talk to Craig. Craig was direct. He simply said, “Look, we want Pemberley. What can we do? Can we give money?”

  The guy discouraged giving money up front. He said that the Pernices probably couldn’t or wouldn’t give enough to make an impact.

  Craig called the second guy on the list. He was less helpful. He offered no advice, was somewhat curt and evasive. Craig didn’t feel comfortable asking him to speak on their behalf.

  Craig knew the third guy on the list the best. Before talking to him, Craig decided to hold off a day. He wanted to take some time to formulate his approach. The next morning Craig had a golf date with a friend, a guy who does in fact have more money than God. This person, Mr. Money, has a son who is applying to kindergarten next year.

  This is when you know you’re in a different league: Meryton, Darcy, and Pemberley have already contacted him. A year before he’s even applying!

  Mr. Money told this to Craig while they were walking up the first fairway.

  And the person from Pemberley who had contacted him?

  The third guy on the list.

  Craig called Third Guy that night. He was very friendly. Craig never revealed the details to Lauren but she conjured up a conversation laden with implied negotiating. She imagined Third Guy thinking, If I put in a good word for the Pernice family, then the Pernice family owes me and I will ask them to help me recruit Mr. Money.

  I scratch your back, you scratch mine, we both scratch Mr. Money’s back. Everybody’s itch gets scratched.

  Third Guy said he would be happy to speak to Dana on behalf of the Pernices. He would make it abundantly clear that Pemberley was by far their first choice. In return Third Guy said, “You’ve got to volunteer and you’ve got to contribute financially.”

  It would be a Pernice team effort. Lauren promised to be a presence at Pemberley and Craig assured Third Guy that they could be counted on to provide hefty annual giving and capital campaign checks.

  “I feel that if our connection gets us in, we have to pay him and Pemberley back,” Lauren said. “I want to, anyway. Our goal is to be good citizens of the school, and we will be.”

  Third Guy called Craig a few nights later. He had met with Dana personally and communicated to her that Pemberley was their first, second, and third choice.

  “I think we’re in a good position,” Lauren said quietly. She closed her eyes, massaged her forehead, and sank deeper into the sofa.

  When Lauren Pernice picks up her mail on Wednesday, March 23, she is surprised to find among the bills and magazines a letter from Pemberley School. Not a packet, she realizes, her hands trembling, a letter. Her heart literally thumps as she tears open the envelope and reads:

  Dear Lauren and Craig, Thank you for your patience concerning Killian’s application to Pemberley School. Killian has been placed on the waitlist. The number of candidates to whom we would like to offer admissions far exceeds . . .

  “Shit,” she says aloud.

  She quickly scans the rest of the letter, four paragraphs in all. The second paragraph indicates that families have until April 13 to accept “our invitation.” The third paragraph states that Pemberley is “very conservative in our acceptance numbers, so we typically do have the opportunity to draw a few students from our waitlist. The waitlist is unranked. We ask that you complete and return the enclosed card.”

  “Great,” Lauren mutters. Her stomach flips as she reads on, a closing paragraph thanking them for their participation in the Pemberley admissions process. She rereads the second paragraph, which ends by saying that Pemberley will “extend invitations for unfilled openings as soon as possible.”

  She heads into the kitchen and calls Craig on his cell.

  “We’re waitlisted at Pemberley,” she says the moment Craig answers. “I just got the mail. They sent the letters out early.”

  “Huh,” Craig says.

  “Are you with a client?”

  “Yes.” A pause. “I’m surprised.”

  “Somehow I’m not. I actually thought we’d get on the waitlist. But expecting it and seeing it in writing—”

  “I’m very surprised. I thought we’d get in,” Craig says.

  Lauren sighs. “Oh well. So now what?”

  “We’re gonna have to talk about this later,” Craig says.

  “Pemberley never takes anyone off the waitlist,” Lauren says. “They’re kind of known for that. This sucks.”

  “I know. Thanks for letting me know.”

  Lauren hangs up. Her mouth suddenly feels very dry. She opens the fridge, stares for a moment at an open bottle of chardonnay, reaches in and grabs a Snapple. She sits down at the kitchen table and reads the letter several more times, entering, as she will later describe, the first of her five stages of mourning.

  “I’ve been through the denial, the disbelief, and the anger,” Lauren tells a friend over the phone. “My first reaction was shock. I was blindsided. I didn’t expect to hear until Friday.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Well, I’m going to check the box and mail back the card. That’s number one.”

  “Are you going to call Dana?”

  “I’m going to have Craig do that.” Lauren hesitates. “And we’re certainly going to call the people we know at Pemberley.”

  There is a long pause. “Frankly,” Lauren says, her voice blanketed now in sadness, “I’m not holding out much hope. I know people who have gotten in off the waitlist at Hunsford and Evergreen. But I don’t know a single soul who’s gotten in off the waitlist at Pemberley.”

  Lauren pauses again. A joyful child’s scream punctuates the silence.

  “I started this whole line of internal questioning. Second-guessing,” Lauren says, her voice rising. “What did we do wrong? I should’ve volunteered more at Killian’s preschool. I should’ve spoken better at the interview. I should’ve made Killian happier before his visit. I did about thirty minutes of this. I think I’m past that stage now.”

  “What stage are you in now?”

  “I’m in the maybe-it-was-meant-to-be stage. You know, it’s all for the best. I probably wouldn’t have fit in with the parents at Pemberley, anyway. Oh well.” She sighs heavily. “We haven’t heard from Wickham yet, but we’re not getting in. We didn’t even try that hard. The silver lining, if there is one, is that our public school is supposedly very good, although whenever I check it out, I don’t love it. But if Killian ends up there, so be it. It would’ve been so great. Kindergarten through twelfth grade covered. I hate thinking about going through this again in six years. I am truly dreading that. This was our way out of that.”

  Another long pause. Lauren’s silence feels like a deep dark hole.

  “This is such a lengthy emotional process,” she says finally. “And how about the hope? That was the thing. For all these weeks, months, you’re hanging on to this hope. I had this significant . . . not an expectation, that’s for sure . . . but, yes, this hope. The longer it dragged on, the more I would think, Yeah, we might get in. I don’t know. I think the odds
are strongly against us at this point.”

  Her call waiting beeps.

  “Oh, hold on, just a sec.” In a moment Lauren is back, her voice now a different color, full of heat, closer to her normal high energy level.

  “That’s my friend Susan. She just got her letter from Pemberley. She got rejected.”

  “She didn’t get on the waitlist?”

  “Nope. Rejected,” Lauren repeats. “She’s upset but not devastated. Darcy is her first choice. I’m going to get back to her. Compare notes.”

  “I’ll talk to you. And I’m sorry.”

  “Thanks. Damn. Now I’m thinking about being put on the waitlist. Maybe there is, oh no, that word again, hope.” She moans slightly. “This is my worst nightmare. Because it’s not over.”

  We’ll See You Soon

  One Thursday evening, three weeks before the admissions letters are to be sent out, Katie Miller drives to Hunsford School to attend a coffee for prospective parents. In the words of her husband, it’s Katie’s last chance to kiss some serious ass.

  “I’m not sure what the purpose of the coffee is,” Katie says, pulling into the parking lot. “Maybe it’s just another part of their weeding-out process. They see the people who show up as really serious. Or it could simply be a final opportunity for them to take a closer look at people they’re on the fence about. I can’t imagine that they need to sell themselves.”

  After finding a parking space, Katie checks her appearance in her rearview mirror, then strides onto the Hunsford campus as if she owns the place. She swings open the blue door leading into the multipurpose room and encounters a group of about thirty people, nervous and nametagged, most holding Styrofoam coffee cups and paper plates dotted with Pepperidge Farm cookies. As Katie comes into the room, she spots Brianna standing in the far corner engaged in lackluster conversation with a heavily coiffed woman in a pinstriped suit. Brianna seems barely awake as the woman drones on. Katie decides to grab a cup of decaf and head over there, interrupt if need be, and get to work. Halfway across the room, Miranda Gary, president of the Parents’ Association, cuts her off.