After more than 2 years and 300 articles, I’m stepping away from the keyboard.  Philly School Search was always about documenting my process of searching for a school for my son.  As you may know, my son started kindergarten last September.  Since then, I have written about our transition into kindergarten, but I feel like I have gotten to the point where I have run out of new things to say.

I intend to leave Philly School Search up for future generations of Philadelphia parents.  I’ll try to keep publishing the open house calendar and school selection reports submitted by parents.  Other than that, don’t expect much new here.

If you are a parent embarking on the school selection process, you should begin at the Start Here page.  There, you will be able to see a school search timeline and links to key articles and resources for parents considering Philadelphia-area public, private, or charter schools.  Of course, if you have a specific topic or school in mind, you can use the search box or peruse our site tag index.

I do want to leave the door open in one way–I have a lot of great ideas for how an organization can expand upon my original vision for this blog.  If your organization is interested in taking over Philly School Search, please contact me.

Who knows…  In eight years maybe I’ll resurrect this blog and write about the process of applying for special admission high schools….

Acknowledgments

If you thought that this has been the effort of one crusading dad, you are mistaken.  There are a lot of people without whom this blog would not have been possible.  First and foremost, my wife has been a saint tolerating the time I have dedicated to this project and the inevitable lack of privacy that it has brought on.  She has been a great editor, preventing me from publishing certain posts that I am sure I would have regretted.  After her, I’d like to thank, in no particular order:

• The parents of ECP class of 2011.  As the parents of the closest friends of my to-be-kindergartner, their (anonymized) stories have been frequently and unabashedly co-opted for this blog.  My conversations and interactions with them inspired probably half of the posts on this blog.  Most directly, they inspired Birthday Party Retrospective, and No Room for PC in School Choice.
• Anil Bridgpal, for opening my eyes to some simple and effective ways to modify the presentation of the blog to make its content more accessible and user friendly.  This nice layout and the “popular posts” widget among many other enhancements were thanks to his input and encouragement.
• To the contributing authors who so generously shared their own experiences and expertise.  They are Barbara Klaus-Blackeney from ADVIS, Lisa Machiano, Marta Rowh.  We also had numerous anonymous contributions as well.
• Miriam Hill and Kristen Graham of The Philadelphia Inquirer.  From articles about and links to this blog to advice on topics and writing, their input was tremendously influential in the style and popularity of this site.
• To the parents at Rodeph Shalom, Judy, Deborah, Brett, Holly, Kate, David, Jamie, Andy, Colleen, Lysa, Sarah, Vicki, Ivy, Matt, and several others who encouraged my public speaking and gave me lots of ideas and referrals.
• Catherine Collins, for basically letting me build on much of the work she already created for the Mount Airy Parent’s Network
• Ryan Bowers of Frontline Solutions and Philly School Match, for spending so much time brainstorming ideas with me.
• The many folks who fed me story ideas, especially Amara and Ellen, who really kept me on my toes.