Press & Media

There are some tremendous resources in Los Angeles for parents struggling with education issues. Whether looking for a tutor for your child who is currently enrolled in school, or trying to determine where to send your child to school, finding the right resource can be a challenge.

If you live in a small town, finding a preschool might be a no-brainer. Perhaps there are only a few choices, or you love the one right down the block. However, if you live in a big city, or even a small city, there might be so many choices that it’s overwhelming, so much so that there are books devoted to this topic. In Michelle Nitka’s book Coping With Preschool Panic, The Los Angeles Guide To Private Preschools, she provides a comprehensive list of factors to consider before you visit a preschool.

Requesting the Pope, Donald Trump, or Bill Clinton write a recommendation for a 5-year-old, hiring a handsome actor to portray your husband throughout a school admissions period, and sending 1,000 cupcakes to the admissions office. What sounds like the premise for an episode of a primetime sitcom are actual realities for many parents, revealing the lengths they go to—bartering, bribing and brownnosing—to secure a spot at a top-tier private kindergarten.

When I was pregnant with my first child, I was one of those mothers. You know the type, reading all the pregnancy books, taking the birth-education classes, sharing pregnancy symptoms with the other mommies-to-be during prenatal yoga class. 

Once my son was born, I continued on that path. I breastfed. I made his baby food. I enrolled us in a well-rounded roster of baby classes because I had read how many neurons were firing in his little head during those first few years of life.

We've all heard the stories. The friend of a friend who wrote a $50,000 check from the maternity ward to secure Junior's spot in the high school graduating class of 2030. The couple that built a library/parking structure/music room as a well-meaning gesture after they toured the school and "saw a need." Then there's the one about the admissions director who pointed to two stacks of paperwork on her desk and said, "This is the pile of candidates we're considering. Yours is in the other one."