4 ms·
If it is an option for you geographically, look around at college town school districts where maybe there is some remaining socioeconomic diversity (e.g, the wh
by tom_b 10y ago
If it is an option for you geographically, look around at college town school districts where maybe there is some remaining socioeconomic diversity (e.g, the whole school district isn't made up of employees of the university).
My kids are in a school where more than half the kids are non-white and around half the kids have low socioeconomic status (SES) based on free/reduced-price lunch numbers despite our district being high-SES compared to other districts in our state. We have a good base of racial diversity although that diversity is mostly Hispanic (dual-language school).
A teacher at our elementary school once said that socializing across SES normally happens only if parents make a point of providing opportunities for that to happen with the kids. Kids have lots of birthday parties at local parks - I've attended several of these gatherings where the kind-hearted bilingual parents switched over to English so that I could be a part of the conversation - while my kids are bilingual, I am a typical American and only speak English.
As both a parent of participants and as a coach in youth sports, I'll say the rec leagues sometimes provide good opportunities for that mixing of different SES kids. It often falls apart though - we have youth sports leagues where the participation and lost opportunity costs due to heavy practice/travel time seem to screen out low-SES kids.
It's kind of funny, but my family basically lives in small-town America but has wound up in a better school district in our state that also has some racial and SES diversity in the population. It's working as both a good school district and opportunity for kids of different SES and race to grow up together. Longer term, problems with affordable housing are probably going to blow some of these opportunities away.