School

In the US, kids are assigned to a public school based on where they live. Some choose to go to a different school, but that’s the minority. With very few exceptions, the school where you live needs to take you.

That’s not the case in the Netherlands.

Elementary school is sort of done geographically, although maybe 50% choose to go to a different school. Adelaide and Henry were accepted into the local school in town.

After 6th grade, kids go to “secondary school,” which is a combination of middle school and high school.

Which school you go to depends on your test scores and teacher recommendations at the end of elementary school. You can either go to VWO program, which prepares you for a research-oriented university, a HAVO program, which prepares you for regular university, or a VMBO program, which is sort of like a trade school. No college after VMBO, but maybe some practical education after that (e.g., mechanic, carpentry).

There are also bilingual programs where 80% of classes are in English. Usually these are at the VWO or HAVO level. All of these schools are public schools and are free (they ask for a couple hundred Euros of parent contribution, but it’s not bad).

We thought we could get JJ and Timmy into a bilingual program. I mean, wouldn’t schools love to have a native speaker in school with them?

Nope. By law, the national end of year exams are in Dutch, so schools are worried that our kids will fail and will make the school look bad.

So, we were turned down from four schools. One told us we could go there, but then acknowledged that all of their other students were refugees who were pretty far behind in their education, so our kids would struggle.

In the end we were forced to go to the international school. It is privately funded. Most people going there are children of diplomats or executives of major companies on rotation. Their parents’ work pays for the kids’ school as part of the employment contract.

That’s not the case for us. Instead, we get to come up with the 7,500 Euros per kid to pay for school. Luckily it’s just for the two of them.

They will hopefully start school later this week.