Which school is best for your child?

A friend of mine drives her son across the Salt Lake Valley each morning so he can attend an east-side junior high school rather than a failing neighborhood school on the valley’s west side.

When she first started doing this, she was met by a chorus of protest from friends and neighbors who said she lacked “west-side pride,” that she was being elitist and that taking her son out of his assigned school would only make the school’s demographics and test scores drop further. They said she owed it to the other children to keep hard-working students like her son in the school.

Of course, some of those same people were begging to join her car pool once their kids hit seventh grade.

My friend did not make her decision lightly. She studied it out, looked at alternatives and waited until junior high to make the switch. In the end, she decided it was her job as a mother to get the best education for her son. She was accountable to him, not to the neighborhood or to the never-ending east versus west rivalry.

She felt parents were more involved in their children’s educations in the east-side school and that it offered more courses and after-school activities that fit her son’s needs. The school’s higher test scores didn’t hurt, either.

I’m glad I’m not making this decision for my daughter anytime soon, because my friend took her share of criticism for her choice. I do agree, however, that a mother has to do what she thinks is best for her child. Only she can know what her child needs. I think I would do whatever it takes to get my child her best education.

But I also understand that if every involved mother with a high-achieving child took her kid out of the nearest failing public school, those schools and the kids who can’t afford to drive to another school would suffer.

What do you think — if parents have the chance to put their child in a higher performing school, should they do it?

Erin Stewart is a regular blogger for Deseret News. From stretch marks to the latest news for moms, Stewart discusses it all while her 4-year-old daughter crams Mr. Potato Head pieces in her little sister’s nose.