(no subject)
Aug. 9th, 2006 03:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_rckI'm now officially pissed off with the city of Ann Arbor.
Every Wednesday, I take Delia to a class a the community center next to our local elementary school. It's just at the edges of what I can walk when I'm not doing really well, so we haven't missed a session since we started, not even when I could hardly walk. The community center belongs to the city, and the city has allowed First Steps, the non-profit that runs classes for babies, toddlers, pre-schoolers and their parents, and a few other such groups to use parts of the building. (I think there was no rent or contract involved.)
Today, we got there, and there was a notice on the bulletin board. The city told First Steps (and everyone else in the building) last week that they have to get out. The city wants to put offices in the space. There will be no more classes there. Ever. None of us had any chance to prepare our kids for the change, and some of us are losing classes we've already paid for. There won't be an alternative location available until some time in September, and the class we normally go to is being relocated to a place we can't get to.
There will be a few classes at a school we *might* be able to reach. I need to look at a map and figure out how close we could get by bus and how long it would take. Sadly, they're all morning classes and all aimed at kids 0-3. Delia's still young enough, but she's much happier with the 3-5 group. Also, those classes don't start until September. At that point, we'll have pre-school two days a week anyway and won't need First Steps nearly as much. It's just the six weeks between now and then...
Delia gets very lonely, especially on days when I can only take her as far as the playground. Often, we're the only people there, and she plays for a few minutes before announcing that it's time to go home. If there are other kids there, she tries hard to get them to play with her (sometimes successfully, sometimes not) and will refuse to go home and try to talk other families out of leaving. (Well, actually... She'll start saying insistently, "No. You can't leave. You're not leaving.") She really adores both the public library and the Hands-On Museum. They're just not something I can manage every day. I'm trying for one of them once a week.
Anyway, I've told Delia now that today was the last First Steps class 'for a while.' I don't think she understood at all. I rather expect that there's going to be some unpleasantness about it next week or the week after that. Quite apart from the lack of social outlet...
I did make a playdate for next Wednesday afternoon with one of the other mothers in our now ended class. Her little boy knows when it's Wednesday and when he ought to be in class, so she was pleased at the idea of having something for him to do. He's also older than Delia, so I think he kind of understood when his mother told him that this was the last class. (In a way, she's in a worse position than I am. She can't attend any morning classes, so the new kind of close location won't work for her. And her boy is four, so he technically couldn't be in any of those classes anyway.)
So now I want to find the person (or people) who made the decision to take over the building without giving us any notice and beat them. Once I'm a little calmer, I'm going to try to figure out who to complain to. (I'd do it now, but I don't think that screaming or bursting into tears on the phone would increase my credibility.)
We'll get through it. I know that. I just wish life wouldn'g spring this sort of thing on us.
Every Wednesday, I take Delia to a class a the community center next to our local elementary school. It's just at the edges of what I can walk when I'm not doing really well, so we haven't missed a session since we started, not even when I could hardly walk. The community center belongs to the city, and the city has allowed First Steps, the non-profit that runs classes for babies, toddlers, pre-schoolers and their parents, and a few other such groups to use parts of the building. (I think there was no rent or contract involved.)
Today, we got there, and there was a notice on the bulletin board. The city told First Steps (and everyone else in the building) last week that they have to get out. The city wants to put offices in the space. There will be no more classes there. Ever. None of us had any chance to prepare our kids for the change, and some of us are losing classes we've already paid for. There won't be an alternative location available until some time in September, and the class we normally go to is being relocated to a place we can't get to.
There will be a few classes at a school we *might* be able to reach. I need to look at a map and figure out how close we could get by bus and how long it would take. Sadly, they're all morning classes and all aimed at kids 0-3. Delia's still young enough, but she's much happier with the 3-5 group. Also, those classes don't start until September. At that point, we'll have pre-school two days a week anyway and won't need First Steps nearly as much. It's just the six weeks between now and then...
Delia gets very lonely, especially on days when I can only take her as far as the playground. Often, we're the only people there, and she plays for a few minutes before announcing that it's time to go home. If there are other kids there, she tries hard to get them to play with her (sometimes successfully, sometimes not) and will refuse to go home and try to talk other families out of leaving. (Well, actually... She'll start saying insistently, "No. You can't leave. You're not leaving.") She really adores both the public library and the Hands-On Museum. They're just not something I can manage every day. I'm trying for one of them once a week.
Anyway, I've told Delia now that today was the last First Steps class 'for a while.' I don't think she understood at all. I rather expect that there's going to be some unpleasantness about it next week or the week after that. Quite apart from the lack of social outlet...
I did make a playdate for next Wednesday afternoon with one of the other mothers in our now ended class. Her little boy knows when it's Wednesday and when he ought to be in class, so she was pleased at the idea of having something for him to do. He's also older than Delia, so I think he kind of understood when his mother told him that this was the last class. (In a way, she's in a worse position than I am. She can't attend any morning classes, so the new kind of close location won't work for her. And her boy is four, so he technically couldn't be in any of those classes anyway.)
So now I want to find the person (or people) who made the decision to take over the building without giving us any notice and beat them. Once I'm a little calmer, I'm going to try to figure out who to complain to. (I'd do it now, but I don't think that screaming or bursting into tears on the phone would increase my credibility.)
We'll get through it. I know that. I just wish life wouldn'g spring this sort of thing on us.
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no subject
Date: 2006-08-09 07:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-09 10:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-09 10:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-09 07:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-09 08:58 pm (UTC)And I am, indeed, pissed. It's not a word I use lightly or all that often.
First Steps had already posted its fall schedule a few weeks ago. Northside was listed as a class location then. Now, it's gone. No warning. We always knew the city *could* take the building. I just assumed they'd be polite about it give more than two weeks' notice and wait till the end of a class cycle (there are new classes every two months) to make First Steps move out.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-09 07:46 pm (UTC)Hope the adaptation for Delia works out, and hope your complaints (and I'm sure you won't be the only one complaining) raise something. Good luck.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-09 08:45 pm (UTC)I hope I won't be the only one complaining. One of the other groups being kicked out uses the building as a distribution point for food for the poor. I don't know where they'll end up.
::sighs:: I suspect that part of what makes the building desirable may well be the fact that it's air conditioned. None of the other locations First Steps uses are, so far as I know.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-09 10:07 pm (UTC)I'd call Marj or Sherri at First Steps and see if you can get a credit, withdraw temporarily, or whatever, so you arent' penalized for this stupidity. It's just not blasted fair, and not your fault. Perhaps not strictly theirs either, but they should be looking out for your interests, IMO.
If you want me to inquire, I can do that too.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-09 10:08 pm (UTC)Is there any way you could hitch a ride to new place with any of the other parents?
Nonetheless, I will smite for you. *smites city officer who decided this*
no subject
Date: 2006-08-11 02:34 am (UTC)If you want to send an e-mail to Arborparents to organize a letter-writing or e-mailing campaign, I think you could do that pretty easily. The only hard part would be figuring out who's the best person to direct the letters to.
If you have contact info for some of the people in your class, I wonder if you could turn the group into a playgroup, or at least a "meets at the playground in the same time slot when we used to have a class" group.
(You didn't ask for ideas and I'm posting them anyway, which may not be OK. Feel free to bonk me over the head with an organic carrot if I shouldn't have done that.)
Man, that sucks. :(