I Thought Changing Schools Would Be Simple

Once we had been living here for a while, things became clearer.

We knew our neighborhood.

We knew our routines.

We knew how long it took to get everywhere in the morning.

And eventually, we realized that there was another school much closer to our home.

Not necessarily because the school she was attending was bad.

Simply because this one made more sense for our family.

• · Less driving.
• · Less time in the car.
• · A shorter school run.
• · A school that was actually part of our immediate neighborhood.

It seemed like such a simple thing.

So I assumed that changing schools would be simple too.

I was wrong.

On September 3rd, when schools started opening again after the summer, I went to the school we were interested in.

I explained our situation.

My daughter was already five when we moved from the United States, we had arrived too late for the regular enrollment period, and she had been given a place at another school because that was where there was availability.

Now we wanted to move her to a school closer to home.

The answer was essentially:

No. She is already enrolled in a school in your area. You'll have to wait for the next admissions process in March.

And I remember leaving thinking:

Oh. I hadn't realized that once your child is already enrolled, changing schools could be so complicated.

Especially when the reason isn't that something is terribly wrong.

Sometimes you simply realize that another option would work better for your family.

This experience made me think about something bigger than school.

When you move countries, you often spend the first year simply trying to establish the basics.

• · A home.
• · A school.
• · A doctor.
• · A routine.
• · Friends.
• · Paperwork.
• · A sense of normality.

You make decisions with the information you have at that moment.

But six months later, or a year later, you may see things completely differently.

The neighborhood that seemed convenient when you first arrived might not be the one you would choose today.

The school you accepted because there was a place might not be the school you would have chosen if you had arrived during the normal admissions period.

And that's one of the realities of starting over somewhere new:

Your first choices aren't always your final choices. Sometimes you're not really choosing. You're simply making the best decision available to you at the time.

If you're moving to Spain with children, one thing I would tell you is this:

Learn about the school admissions calendar before you arrive, if you possibly can.

The timing matters.

If you arrive outside the regular enrollment period, you may not have the same options as families who apply during the ordinary admissions window.

And if your child is already enrolled somewhere, changing schools later isn't necessarily an informal process of simply asking another school if they have a place.

There are rules, deadlines, admissions criteria and, depending on the circumstances, different procedures for extraordinary admissions.

I wish I had known all of that before we arrived.

Not because it would necessarily have changed where my daughter went to school.

But because I would have understood the system better.

And I wouldn't have assumed that everything worked the way it had worked for us in the United States.

My daughter is still at her current school.

And for the moment, we're making the best of it.

Maybe a place will become available.

Maybe our circumstances will change.

Or maybe, when March comes around, we'll apply for the school that's closer to home and see what happens.

I'm learning that moving countries means becoming comfortable with a certain amount of uncertainty.

You can plan.

You can research.

You can ask questions.

But sometimes you also have to wait for the next window to open.

And perhaps that's one of the hardest parts of building a new life somewhere else:

Realizing that not every decision can be made when you're ready to make it. Sometimes you have to work with the system you find yourself in. And then, when the next opportunity comes, try again.