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Frugal Friday’s Workwear Report: Pull-On Ponte Pencil Skirt

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A woman wearing a black skirt and black heels

Our daily workwear reports suggest one piece of work-appropriate attire in a range of prices.

Most of the most-worn items in my wardrobe are desperately boring, but completely necessary. No one is going to get excited about a basic, black pencil skirt, but gosh, isn’t it reassuring to know that you’ve got a good one stashed in the closet somewhere?

This pull-on ponte skirt from T Tahari would be fantastic for someone putting together a work wardrobe on a budget. Add a pair of black trousers, a few blouses, and a blazer and you’ll be ready to go.

The skirt is $19.97 at Nordstrom Rack and comes in sizes XS–XL. It also comes in a pale pink, navy and “blue nouveau,” as well as a few other prints (and plus sizes!).

Hunting for more basic pencil skirts? These are our Hall of Famers:

Some of our favorite work skirts of 2025 include classic pencil skirts like those from J.Crew,* Ann Taylor, Black Halo, Calvin Klein, Theory, and this Amazon seller); if you want one with a slight flare check out this Anthropologie skirt. (Also: readers love these slip shorts for comfort with bare legs!)

pencil skirt from Ann Taylor
Ann Taylor
woman wears dark gray skirt, light gray sweater, and caramel suede heels
J.Crew (exact)
navy pencil skirt, navy top and silver shiny heels
Theory (exact)
one of the best pencil skirts for work, a high-waisted style from Black Halo - the model is styled wearing navy with black
Black Halo

Sales of note for 3/15/25:

  • Nordstrom – Spring sale, up to 50% off
  • Ann Taylor – 40% off everything + free shipping
  • Banana Republic Factory – 40% off everything + extra 20% off
  • Eloquii – 50% off select styles + extra 50% off sale
  • J.Crew – Extra 30% off women's styles + spring break styles on sale
  • J.Crew Factory – 40% off everything + extra 20% off 3 styles + 50% off clearance
  • M.M.LaFleur – Friends and family sale, 20% off with code; use code CORPORETTE15 for 15% off
  • Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
  • Talbots – 40% off 1 item + 30% off everything else (includes markdowns, already 25% off)

284 Comments

  1. My neighbor just got invited to dinner with the president and Irish prime minister next Friday (St Patrick’s Day). The dress code is business, and she’d like a dress in green, if possible. Size 14/16, I’m guessing. Can anyone suggest some brands she can look at? She’d be willing to spend up to $1000 for the right dress.

    4. How exciting!

      How about these:
      https://thefoldlondon.com/product/laviano-dress-chartreuse-stretch-crepe/
      https://www.net-a-porter.com/en-gb/shop/product/michael-michael-kors/clothing/midi-dresses/plisse-georgette-midi-dress/1647597289243993
      https://www.net-a-porter.com/en-gb/shop/product/self-portrait/clothing/midi-dresses/gathered-crepe-midi-dress/1647597303365929
      https://www.net-a-porter.com/en-gb/shop/product/self-portrait/clothing/midi-dresses/belted-embellished-boucle-and-lace-trimmed-pleated-chiffon-midi-dress/1647597303365921

    5. Hobbs London has some nice green dresses that could be worn with a white blazer.

      https://www.hobbs.com/us/product/carly-floral-midi-dress/0123-5675-9022L02-GREEN-MULTI.html
      https://www.hobbs.com/us/product/carly-spot-midi-dress/0123-5675-9022L00-GREEN-IVORY.html#navAjax=true&is=false&cgid=clothing-dresses&sz=60&start=0&isSecondPage=false&prefn1=refinementColor&prefv1=Green&pid=0123-5675-9022L00-GREEN-IVORY&pos=5
      https://www.hobbs.com/us/product/sierra-dress/0123-5916-3531L00-LAGOON-GREEN.html
      https://www.hobbs.com/us/product/rue-dress/0123-5411-9322L00-RICH-SAGE-GREEN.html#isSecondPage=false&start=0&sz=60&is=false&cgid=clothing-dresses&prefn1=refinementColor&prefv1=Green&pid=0123-5411-9322L00-RICH-SAGE-GREEN&pos=19
      https://www.hobbs.com/us/product/erin-knitted-dress/0123-9204-1185L00-EVERGREEN.html#isSecondPage=false&start=0&sz=60&is=false&cgid=clothing-dresses&prefn1=refinementColor&prefv1=Green&pid=0123-9204-1185L00-EVERGREEN&pos=22

    6. This list showed me that I need to look to Anthropologie clothing more often, so many of these are gorgeous!

    11. If she can’t find a dress she likes, a shamrock clover brooch would be a nice touch.

      LK Bennet has some Kelly green dresses that might work:

      https://www.lkbennett.com/product/DRSIENNAVISCOSEMIXGreenFern%20Green~Sienna-Green-Lenzing™-Ecovero™-Viscose-Blend-Shift-Dress-Fern%20Green

      https://www.lkbennett.com/product/DRELIZAPOLYESTERMIXGreenFern%20Green~-Fern%20Green

      https://www.lkbennett.com/product/DRTALLISPOLYESTERGreenFern%20Green%20Cream~Tallis-Green-And-Cream-Spot-Recycled-Polyester-Shirt-Dress-Fern%20Green%20Cream

  2. Some of the conversations about moving recently made me wonder what your criteria is for “good schools.” Someone yesterday mentioned being “very picky” about schools and I’m interested in what that means, and how you figure it out if schools meet your criteria.

    All I really see are rankings which are mostly test score based. I went to great schools that really prepared me for my rigorous college education but they weren’t ranked very well. They had excellent teachers / some unique extracurriculars.

    1. I want a school where my kids will be safe, taught by well trained teachers who are fairly compensated, and prepared for the future. Thats what I had and I want it for my kids.

    2. My city/ county schools often have kids in an algebra or higher level math class in a room where there is no teacher because they haven’t been able to hire one so the kids are on zoom watching canned lessons or the teacher shuttles back and forth between two classes (again, not enough higher level teachers). IDK how you learn this way but our schools won’t disclose that this is how they work or try to make fixing stuff like this a priority. And this is at a good school in my area. Every year, at least one of my kids has a grave issue like this with a long tail. IDK how much I spend on tutoring but private school would have been more efficient and less frustrating. Even at 30K a kid a year, they can’t handle even all of the alumni kids who are desperate to go there. The alternative that I’m living is grim.

      1. My kids attended a private school because the local public schools are not great. It was not perfect, but ir was very, very good. The annual tuition and fees more than doubled between kindergarten and graduation; I don’t know if I would have signed on for that if I had known, even with the good results. I recognize the tremendous privilege in having the choice (although I have lower earning friends who received great financial aid packages for their kids). Current costs are just under $40k per year in my MCOL area. Multiplied by two kids, that number buys a huge amount of supplemental resources and enrichment experiences. School decisions are one of the toughest parts of parenting, and it’s not a one-time thing, but a constant reevaluation.

    3. Oh boy, this thread might get hot :)

      My POV seems to be different than many here. My nonnegotiable is safety – no fist fights every day, gang violence, weapons popping up in school, etc. But after that, I don’t WANT the schools that rank the highest and are known statewide as “the best”. Those schools tend to be pressure cookers and homogenous (read: wealthy and white). I don’t put much stake in test scores, and prefer to talk to actual parents in the schools. My kids were in a district in NY with lots of socioeconomic diversity – people who never tried them loved to talk about how “bad” they were – but we had a great experience.

      We recently moved to Fairfield County, CT, an area with “top” suburban schools, and purposely picked a city. I want cultural and socioeconomic diversity, I want schools that are a little more relaxed about academics, and because of the size of the city/schools there are actually a lot of different niche programs and offerings.

      The issue with diverse schools is funding…people don’t want to fund schools that aren’t white. And a lot of “liberals” find excuses for why *their* kids need the best (but of course it’s republicans destroying schools!). But public education is a big value for my family, and we want to part of advocating for everyone’s kids.

      1. This right here. In my city, the “best” schools on paper are the richest and whitest. They also have the worst drug problems by a long, long way. They had the most COVID cases and a few deaths. Every year, the high school also has a couple of young MAGA chucklef*cks decking out their pickup trucks with racist crap that makes the news.
        What sets your kid apart will be you, not the school, instilling a lifelong curiosity and love of learning. The school can help with that, but whether a kid’s natural curiosity is nurtured or squashed happens at home.

      2. The local high school for my white son was 80% minority. It had a terrible reputation for violence but we did a school tour and loved the principal. We learned the bad reputation was based on one ten year old stabbing. I also saw the the reading lists were not as robust for a few of the whiter and wealthier schools. My son was very happy at his local high school and still hangs out with some of his high school friends even though he graduated from college. He has friends of all races, cultures, and religions. One of the “good” alternatives was Marjorie Stoneman Douglas where there was a mass shooting in 2017. I agree that high rankings tells me that the school focuses on test scores.

        p.s.: Obama and Jeb Bush are both neoliberals pushing for “accountability” and charters. Charters are resegregating our schools.

        1. Beyond paying my taxes, I wish there was a better way for those with no kids to actively support our local public schools. Even my liberal neighbors are all-in on charter schools. Between charter schools, Florida’s HB1 and Moms for Liberty nutballs, I don’t know how our public schools stand a chance. For a lot of folks that’s a feature, not a bug.

          1. I’m a parent and here’s what I wish non-parents in my community would do:

            1) really pay attention when voting for school board. In my community, too often whomever has the talking points that most align politically with the community gets elected.

            I too want someone who is aligned with my community’s values. However, often the community member who is more in the weeds of the school system, but less politically savvy, will do a better job of oversight than a person with the “correct” talking points using the school board as a jumping off point to other elected positions.

            Unfortunately, most people don’t put in the time to really look at qualifications and motivations and we end up with a bunch of folks on the school board who do an inadequate job of everything except ensuring that some high level policies align with community values.

            2) vote for candidates who support adequate funding of schools through taxes

            3) Given that 2) isn’t going to happen overnight, give to school foundations/PTAs of public schools that serve families with less money. It’s bonkers how much more money school districts serving well-off families get through fundraising.

          2. One great way to support: donate money to the school PTAs, especially at Title I schools.

          3. Thank you!
            I need to reach out to my neighborhood school’s PTO. Their website requires a student’s name to join, so perhaps it never crossed their mind that others in the ‘hood might want to take part.

        2. Similarly, I find it interesting to dig into crime ratings for ‘dangerous’ zip codes when I am house searching. Lots of surprises, whether it’s the overall ratings that are really similar for supposedly posh and less posh neighborhoods, or whether you dig into the details of crime stats.

    4. I’m a parent of 3 kids. I went to private, Catholic, elementary schools because I lived in a poor city where the schools were lousy (Bridgeport, CT in the early 80s). Now there are magnet and other options; in my day there either were not or my parents didn’t know about them or didn’t want to deal with having 4 kids in various places in the city.

      We later moved into a town with “good” public schools, and I did middle and high school there. Our high school was large but had good paths for kids and because it was so big everyone had a group/interest/club that had room.

      I married someone who went to private school K-12 because his family lived in Detroit.

      We live in a town with really good schools. In shopping for towns, what I looked for was class size, ability to support students of all types, and low staff turnover. Our kids have had classes as small as 16-17 (started with 16, one was added mid-year) and as large as 22 (4th grade). Our school has something like 40% of kids with a 504. My 1st grade kid has three adults in her classroom (17 kids total) because two kids have some pretty severe emotional and behavioral issues. I posted earlier in the year about how to approach the school about the disruptions to the classroom due to the kid(s) with behavioral issues and when I reached out, they were more than already on it. They now have full time aides for each child vs two part time aides when the year started.

      Separately, test performance is strong. I think this is very secondary. What you need is a school that can make it *possible* to learn. Then you need teachers that can teach kids that are not cookie-cutter. My kids happen to, so far, be pretty cookie-cutter and for them I need to make sure they are not stuck in the corner while the teacher manages extreme chaos.

      Our kids are bright, either by nature or nurture, as evidenced by the standardized testing. They will do fine anywhere where they can have a good learning environment.

    5. I first looked at the state funding recommendations per pupil and confirmed the district actually spent that amount. If the district is not spending the recommended rate, then what is getting cut? I passes on a number of different districts for that reason. All states have academic report cards with that information available to be downloaded. I am a researcher!

      My criteria was based upon the talents/qualities of my children. For our family, the district needed academic rigor at the high school level (AP classes in their strength areas) and solid art and athletic departments.

      1. Our problem isn’t that things aren’t offered but that there aren’t enough sessions to accommodate interest and need or that there is no teacher so the class is weak and done poorly virtually. Hard to diss out quality of what is on offer vs as advertised.

      2. Our high school has an incredible theatre department and a wonderful music program. My kids are not theatre people, but I love that their school is recognized for something other than sports (which are also pretty strong). We often see the shows as a family and enjoy them.

    6. At my kid’s great IB middle school she won’t go to the bathroom during the day because she is afraid of getting beat up. This is a magnet school, so presumably these kids wanted to be there doing higher level work. It isn’t an academic problem but still a big problem.

      1. Can you say more about this? Who would beat her up? Are there gangs of kids who regularly beat up other kids, and if so, why isn’t the administration doing something about it? Can you and other parents team up to force the school to provide single-stall bathrooms for safety?

        1. How exactly would you force a school to have single-stall bathrooms? Reconfiguring a school and doing construction doesn’t work like that even at private schools.

          1. That’s why I’m asking the question. My kids are pre-elementary so I’m not familiar. Could the parents raise money for a single-stall bathroom?

          3. This is not difficult. In a multi-stall bathroom, you add a single lock to interior of the main door. Kid goes in, locks door, unlocks it as they come out. Voila. “Single” stall bathroom for $15.

          4. The staff bathrooms are probably single occupancy. A lot of schools tried to walk a line on trans students by having them use the faculty bathroom. It’s not the correct answer for trans kids but might be for bullying?

        2. My BIL works as a dean at a school here in the Midwest and has confirmed he spends the entire day dealing with fights and very serious discipline issues. All day. Every day.

          1. My friend who teaches high school in one of the wealthier districts nearby says school is just nuts right now. The pandemic really hurt kids’ mental and social-emotional health.

      2. We specifically chose our son’s charter school because, not being connected to our overly-large, bureaucratic school district, they have the ability to expel students for violent behavior, possessing alcohol or drugs at school, etc. on the first or second offense (depending on severity). In our local school district, kids can beat up other kids multiple times and experience no consequences from it (based on stories we’ve heard from friends, as well as coverage in our local newspaper). My son’s school doesn’t have a zero-tolerance policy but it’s pretty low tolerance, and they also do a lot of work with kids on anti-bullying education, peer mediation, etc. They have expelled kids quickly for selling drugs at school (one kid was caught with meth, which I feel should be a zero-tolerance situation) and for bringing weapons – and I don’t mean pocketknives – to school.

        Our son’s charter high school has pretty strong academics but more important to us is that he feels safe there. He’s gay, and we’ve heard stories about LGBT kids in the mainstream district schools getting victimized. It’s hard to learn if you feel like you constantly have to watch your back, or you might be targeted for a beatdown for wearing rainbow socks to school (which he does, sometimes). Our districted high school has an abysmal graduation rate (under 50 percent) and has also been in the news for the level of gang activity that happens at the school, in the middle of the school day. In our area, high-performing kids who may be LGBT or are maybe a little quirky do much better in charter, magnet or private schools than the mainstream schools. My son is also neurodiverse and is on a 504 and the charter school’s been great at working with us to make sure my son’s educational needs are met, and as a result he’s doing very well, 3.98 GPA, etc.

      3. I went to a really good public school and my bullies were fellow smart kids. Just because kids fight doesn’t mean they’re dumb thugs. Middle school is hell and a holding pen until they mostly grow out of it as far as I can tell. It’s one of many reasons I don’t have kids. Being a kid sucked… why would I put one through that?

      4. The magnet and IB programs are often placed in poorer neighborhoods with the idea of bussing the wealthier kids into the area. This is south Florida.

    7. I specifically looked for schools to offer both AP’s and strong arts programs (particularly music. I want a well funded music department). It was also very important to us to have a diverse student body as I didn’t want my kids to be the only ‘brown kids’ in the class. We did look at test scores and graduation rates and teacher pay, but a lot of it was talking to other teachers and parents about their experiences.

      We also didn’t want a lottery system so we went with a town that had elementary schools ranging from ‘very good’ to ‘excellent’, rather than the district 3 miles over which has ‘rockstar amazing’ elementary schools and ‘absolutely awful, don’t go there’ elementary schools depending on lottery.

    8. Serious question: do people not actually know which schools are the good schools? Everywhere I’ve been, parents know this – the question is if they can afford the district with the good schools, or, where the parents can send their kid to any school in the county/city, if they are lucky enough to get in via lottery.

      1. I think every city has schools that people know as “the good schools,” but I think it’s subjective and labels aren’t always accurate. It depends on your children and their personalities and abilities.

        1. Agreed, I think “good schools” are very subjective and depend on your kids. For ex, does your kid need interventions or advanced placement? How do they handle behavioral issues? Are the teachers strict about following rules?
          I say my kids are “boring” as students so our local pretty-good suburban public school works for them – they’re smart enough to rarely need extra help, they don’t have behavioral issues at school, they follow rules, they don’t have any mental health issues that might require special treatment, and they tend to go with the flow overall. They may have hugely varied experiences compared to their peers in the same class who need more from the same teacher.

          1. I agree that the right school for one kid could be a profoundly wrong school for another! People are so different from each other.

            Setting aside everything that is deeply wrong with the charter school movement and privatization, I still think “more, smaller schools providing different approaches, environments, and accommodations” could be a good thing if we could figure out how to make those options exist more equitably.

          2. +2 to a great fit for one kid is a terrible fit for another. This is what stresses me out about not being able to afford private school: if the local public school is a bad fit for a kid our choices on how to adapt are really limited!

          3. I was just having this conversation with my mom. I was first in my class at one of the best public high schools in the country. I loved it. It was amazing for me. My sister, who is very bright but not as once-in-a-decade curve breaking, really really wishes she could have gone to a neighboring school that was good but less of a pressure cooker and less large. She would have been able to be a soccer star instead of being cut from JV. Both of us were extraordinarily well-prepared for college, but she might have been much happier at a different school (where I would have been a miserable pain in the butt).

      2. The point is the definition of “good” is subjective. Those “good” schools often have significant drawbacks (mental health of students, no diversity, big drug/alcohol culture, etc). Not everyone wants their kid constantly stressed out, or surrounded by people exactly like them.

      3. I know the zip codes of expensive houses. Doesn’t mean that those people use the schools. Or that the district won’t redone you if the schools are so popular that they get overcrowded. The. It a fight over who leaves and who gets to stay. It isn’t that simple. Expecialky if you don’t have $$$ or a kid with any sort of challenge, like autism, which many private schools won’t tough even if the kid has low support needs and is just quirky.

          2. The “best” schools in my city are also the most diverse. But I do think many people who talk about wanting their kids in good schools mean white schools.

          3. I live in Southern California and my daughter went to one of the best schools in the county, It was not majority white. That does not mean it reflected the demographics of the city or county – only that is had a large Asian population and a small percentage of English learners (who obviously tend to be Hispanic here).

        2. This. Good school is OFTEN code for white. There are literally studies on this.

      5. Honestly, I don’t think the conventional wisdom is very accurate. The “best” K-5 in my district is also huge, has specialized programs that aren’t necessarily high-value, and has a lot of teacher/administrator turnover. But it has high test scores so most ranking systems put it at the top. Another K-5 often considered “great” is very, very traditional and has a serious bullying problem. There are kids who won’t go into the middle school bathrooms, and my kids never seemed to mind. My eldest is in a well-respected music program at the high school which she loves, and some other kids hate every minute.

    9. Agree test scores aren’t the be all and end all. Once you get beyond basics like a safe environment, I think what makes a school great is fairly subjective and really varies by individual fit. I live in a college town and the “best” district is the one that’s almost all professors kids. But it’s not a great fit for many kids who aren’t academically inclined or have special needs (included twice exceptional kids). That said, it’s easier to transfer out than in because of the demand, so it was important to us to buy a house in the district (even at additional cost/square foot) and we’ll send our kids elsewhere if need be. So far we’re very happy and don’t feel like it’s a pressure cooker environment, but my kids are still in elementary.

    10. The association between school attendance and suicide is so strong that this is would be my main concern. Not all suicide is from an organic mental illness; in children and adults, it can be situational, and for school kids it can represent the only avenue of escape if a school environment is miserable enough. Since school attendance isn’t necessary for a good education, a happy childhood, or a successful future, it really needs to be a physically safe environment that people would willingly attend without coercion and not a net harm.

      I’m not a fan of education degree programs, so I also prefer if teachers also have a degree in what they’re teaching. Subject expertise matters a lot more to me than pedagogical trends, and I don’t think behavioristic classroom management techniques are healthy.

      1. I feel like for higher level high school classes subject expertise is important but remember that most of “good schools” is elementary and middle. I don’t care if my kids’ 5th grade teacher has a biology degree.

        What makes a good high school and a good middle school are very different.

      2. Respectfully, what the h3ll are you talking about? These are both total red herring arguments. We should all unschool so the teen suicide rate will go down? That’s a correlation, not causation. Also, in my state you must have a degree in early childhood education to get a job as a kindergarten teacher. I don’t want my kindergarten teachers to have advanced math degrees or history or music: they need to know how to teach little kids.

        1. I didn’t say we should all unschool, and I’m not only talking about teens. I said it was an association, but the fact that pandemic lock downs lowered the K12 suicide rate the same way school holidays have always done has made people look into this more, since the pandemic was otherwise so stressful for families. There’s additional research on the effects of school on kids, and there’s evidence for potential harm from some environments and educational approaches, so my priority is to avoid harm. I think it’s not safe if there’s physical violence happening, if there’s relentless bullying from students or staff, or if it’s just a completely miserable place to be. I also worry about behaviorist techniques becoming increasingly popular at understaffed schools that need to maintain control.

          As for degrees, I think it helps if teachers, in addition to knowing how to teach something, also know something that they can teach. So it’s just a good sign to me if a lot of teachers have some degree or background in what they teach or in something other than education.

          I have also seen this proposed as one explanation why some countries had stronger math education (it can help to have early childhood teachers with a stronger background in math).

          1. note that, as I learned on this board, the exception to this statistic is at-risk teenage girls.

      3. Elementary school teachers should have education degrees, but in advanced classes I’d definitely prefer the teachers to have specialized subject-matter degrees.

        For example, in my high school most of the English and history teachers were former lawyers. They were great at getting us to present well-researched, well-thought out, well-developed, and well-organized arguments in our papers. Most of the science and math teachers formerly worked in industry and had at least M.S. degrees, if not PhDs. I do think at higher levels, that is important.

      4. You’re “not a fan” of education degree programs? How the heck else do you expect people to learn about pedagogy, learning styles, etc.?

        1. In required classes on those topics, but not as the sole thrust of a degree program. Someone upthread said teachers need both knowledge of how to teach and also of something to teach. FWIW my parents, both public high school teachers for 60+ years between them, agree with this.

    11. I was lucky to go to a really, really good private school. My dad taught there and my parents paid a nominal fee (I think $1,000) for us to go there. The actual tuition when I graduated was close to 30k, and now is closer to 40k. It breaks my heart knowing that my future kids will never have the education that I had.

      Some things that stood out from my experience there:
      – Small class sizes. In lower school our classes were approximately 16 kids per classroom and in middle school and high school classes ranged from 10-17, except some more specialized classes that were even smaller (for example, my AP French class was a class of 6).
      – Every student has to have at least one extra curricular. Just about everyone has multiple things they’re involved in. It’s cool to be involved and care. It’s also cool to care about school (parents don’t want to pay that tuition for kids to screw around). The “stoners” from my class went to our state’s flagship university.
      – Very safe. No fights, no drugs in school, there was no one that anyone was afraid of.
      – Each summer teachers revisited and re-tooled the curriculum as necessary. Teachers were constantly innovating (there was a whole department focused on innovation in the classroom). A loft of collaboration between departments for interdisciplinary projects.
      – High standards, but a lot of support for students who needed it. My dad’s 10th grade students are writing college-level essays. But, he only teaches 62 students (4 sections of 15-16 per class), so if a student needs extra help he has the capacity to really work with them. There’s also a writing center and a math center, like many colleges have, to work with students who need help. There are 3 librarians just for the upper school and they work one on one with students on their research, if needed.
      – Critical thinking and application of what we learned were baked into the education. We had Harkness tables for history and English classes and teachers leaned into the Harkness method. Students really engaged with the material beyond the surface level. There was no regurgitation of facts, it was all applying that knowledge. The instruction was really “hands on”; no worksheets, nothing was self-taught, no videos.
      – Teachers had the freedom to adjust on the fly as needed or be creative with their instruction. There was no state test, so they had flexibility. If a great teaching moment came up, they’d totally pivot (I know in my state public school teachers are held to the lesson plans they submit).
      – I’m now in my early 30s and go to trivia with friends each week. The amount of answers I know because I was taught about XYZ in school that my friends have never heard of is staggering to me.
      – The school was 130 students per grade in upper school, which I thought was a great size. Big enough (and let’s be honest, well-funded enough) to have plenty of options for classes and extra curriculars, but small enough that there was an option to try everything (didn’t have to be an all-star athlete to play sports, didn’t have to be a theater kid to do theater). I knew all of my classmates, as well as all of the kids in the grade above and below me. Everyone had the opportunity to shine at something, no one got lost in the crowd.

      I recognize that I was incredibly fortunate to have this experience and unfortunately this style of education is not available to most. I also recognize that obviously there are several public schools doing these things and providing a great education. I’m just sad that given my profession (I am a social worker, which was definitely influenced by my school’s commitment to service), my future children will never have the education that I was lucky to have.

      1. And obviously, I would love it if all schools had the funding and resources to be like this. And I would happily pay wayyyy more in taxes to ensure all students have access to safe schools and a high quality education.

        1. The thing is, private schools can select their students. Public schools have to take them all.

          1. Oh for sure. One thing I would say that was nice about my school (and many others like it) is that students weren’t kicked out for academic issues. So, if someone who was admitted as a 5 year old really struggled in school as a 15 year old, the school worked with them rather than say “this isn’t the right fit” and ask them to leave.

            Kids were kicked out for disciplinary issues, but that was also somewhat rare (pretty much only for violence, drugs, or other illegal activity but this was also rare. I knew two kids kicked out for having weed in their lockers, there really were not fights at all). Other things were handled in house. The private school had the advantage of being able to kick out students if needed, as well as mostly involved, engaged parents, and having a long-established precedent of consequences (one of the many reasons that things didn’t escalate to fights was that if a student talked back to a teacher or some other “minor” offense, they were held accountable (detention, meeting with the parents, etc). My friend’s kid’s schools don’t even have any disciplinary system aside from ISS, so more minor disciplinary issues are completely unaddressed which I don’t think is appropriate).

            While I don’t have a solution for fights, drugs, or other major issues in schools, I do think it’s interesting that school is really one of the only scenarios where this can happen without major consequence. If this happens at a job, you are fired. If you fight someone in a bar or restaurant, you are banned from that establishment and could face charges. Why are public schools really one of the only places that dont have a way of keeping other students safe from students who fight? Obviously, reform school or juvenile detention aren’t good solutions either. But, this is behavior that isn’t tolerated elsewhere and we expect 15 year olds to go to school and learn in an environment where fights are breaking out?

          2. Part of the reason is that some of this behavior stems from trauma, which a large fraction of our population experiences as children. We don’t throw our kids out of school or give up on them just because they haven’t learned to regulate their emotions yet or are acting out fear or pain that isn’t resolved at home.

          3. Which is not to say this isn’t hard. Just teenage boys literally don’t have the self control we expect of adults. Their executive function/ pre frontal cortex doesn’t fully mature until around 25. And that’s in kids without exposure to traumatizing or stressful situations. We need a way to help those kids become fully formed people, not just throw them out. And the current amount of funding to support that is… abysmal.

      2. I wish more junior high and high schools mimicked small liberal arts college. It sounds like this school was able to do this in a lot of ways (small class sizes, teachers who have the autonomy they need, adequate buy-in from students, class discussions, and academic and research support).

        1. Yes – it was an awesome way to learn and I’m grateful that the school was able to provide this. I totally agree that I wish more schools were able to mimic this!

      3. I went to a fancy high school (after attending a public middle school where I was extremely bored) and I’m grateful for the quality of the education I received, which was significantly better than in the public school – similar to anon above. I felt very well prepared for college academically. There were no fights in my high school (they would have been expelled immediately), but there were a ton of drugs – rich kids have money and freedom to buy drugs. I didn’t do drugs, but wouldn’t count on elite environments being drug-free. There was also a lot of unhealthy drinking.

        1. Clarifying that there were definitely kids who used drugs, but drugs on campus were really, really rare (and the two time it happened the kids were expelled immediately). I’d also say the drug use was minimal; only certain groups of students smoked weed and I didn’t know of any kids doing anything harder than weed or adder all while in high school. And, for reference, I know a lot of these kids went on do do cocaine in college / our 20s. It just wasn’t a thing in high school.

          If you were caught having drank alcohol or used drugs outside of school, the school did reserve the right to suspend or expel you and that did happen on occasion too. There were still parties, drinking, and drug use but it was much more contained and not as intense as the parties my public school friends went to because we were all afraid of the school finding out and us getting in trouble there too!

        2. This was my experience too.

          The richer the school/kids, the more drugs/drinking/partying. The money was there. While there wasn’t as much violence as many schools have, there was a lot of bullying/peer pressure/social isolation stuff. The deepest divide was by class (poor / rich) as the school was very diverse.

      4. I had a similar experience growing up and have put my children into similar schools. That being said, I recognize that schools are a continuum, and while not every school can be excellent (as mine was), many can be good or very good, and they don’t have to have the resources that my school had in order to be good/very good.

        1. Did you really have small classes with discussion based instruction, teacher autonomy, and assignments focused on critical thinking, innovation, and interdisciplinary connections in public school? Because if so, I’m all in on your public school.

          1. Not the person commenting above, but the answer is yes, and my kids do now. The difference is that in the early 1990s it wasn’t unique and now we moved states to ensure that the tests in the state weren’t the be all and end all for the education that my children would receive. Our jobs are far, far worse, but our kids’ lives are far better.

          2. I’m the OP on this thread and I actually did in my public school, which is sort of why I asked the question.

            I grew up in a town that borders a stereotypical “good schools,” pressure cooker, high test scores town where people pay $2M+ for homes to access the district. Great college placement. One of the most desired school districts in the state.

            The town where I grew up prepared me to go to an extremely academically rigorous Ivy League school, had some great sports teams and ALSO some great non-sports extracurriculars (heavy emphasis on music and theater, multiple options for kids interested in debate/government/politics, etc. where we ranked at the state level). It was not a pressure cooker environment at all. Many of my peers in my 250 person graduating class have been very successful – PhDs, doctors, lawyers, accountants, special education teachers, starting their own businesses, sales execs, going into a union and subsequently taking on significant leadership roles in the union, etc. College placement wasn’t Harvard/Yale/Stanford because kids were middle class and needed scholarships, and the guidance department was great at helping kids find a school match where they would receive a lot of money.

            But I grew up there, so I know what the schools are like. I don’t know how you figure out things like “schools are excellent prep for the real world” when you are moving somewhere new! This thread has been very interesting.

          4. My daughter’s public IB program has all of these things. The rest of the school does not.

    12. Obviously, safety is non-negotiable for me. I don’t want fights, violence, drugs, weapons, or the like in my kids’ schools.

      Beyond that, small classroom sizes and engaging with the material beyond the surface level. Critical thinking, good research, writing and communication skills. Learning how to apply your knowledge vs. regurgitate it. I don’t want videos or worksheets doing the teaching. I don’t want my kids memorizing facts. I want them to be challenged to think critically and engage with the material.

      1. I do have to chuckle at some of this. I went to a very good public high school that was in an upper middle class are ans we absolutely had fights and drugs and I was at a party where someone got shot. These are rich kids with free time. It was still safe (I did drugs and got into one fight which was seriously NBD, teens are teens) and I was more than well prepared for college.

    13. Safety as tablestakes but frankly I’m fortunate to not be in a position where that is a variable among our option set. Family engagement and a system that welcomes parent volunteers as part of the learning community. Small class sizes (particularly in elementary, ideally in the low teens). Breadth of resourcing – including gym, art, library, band/orchestra, sports – I would not want a school that gutted those. In high school: still safety first with growing emphasis on mental health and avoiding suicide clusters, graduation rates, test scores, college placements. Presence of a second option vocational high school associated with a town would also be a plus and in that case would be looking at the career paths covered and if they were sufficiently accrediting to set 18 year olds up for career readiness.

    14. My mom was a lifelong public school teacher and taught exclusively in Title I schools. Unlike a lot of people with public educator parents, my family did not have (and I do not have) a philosophical commitment or emotional attachment to public education; based on my mom’s experiences in a school system that was deeply corrupt, I tend to view the public school system fairly cynically and as generally having all the flaws and challenges of any government agencies. My parents sent me to private school (making significant financial sacrifices to do so), in part because I was highly gifted to a degree that even our “good” local public school (which wasn’t one my mom taught in, btw) could not meet my needs at all.

      My husband and I send our three kids to private school. The schools we send them to are both incredibly expensive and incredibly well-resourced. For example, every teacher in my son’s preschool has a master’s degree. My older kids’ school offers a breadth of extracurriculars and enrichment opportunities similar to that of a college. Our local public schools are actually less diverse than our kids’ private schools, both in terms of race and socioeconomic status, because we live in a very white, very wealthy area and our kids’ private schools have exceptionally generous financial aid programs; our preschool is also associated with a research facility and is a magnet for kids from across the city with specific learning needs (part of the program is that kids who have special needs and kids who don’t attend together).

      That being said, there are a lot of schools that are good that don’t offer what my kids’ current schools offer. Personally, I care a lot about the school’s philosophy on the role of parents in education; I do not want to be viewed as an adversary or an outsider, but rather as an integral part of my child’s educational life. In general, this inclines my husband and I more toward private or charter schools, simply because market economics mean they have to be more attentive to and receptive to parents. I watched my mom try to help parents advocate for their kids against the vast machinery of her public school system for too long.

      1. Private school poster above, and +1 to the increased diversity (racial and socio-economic) at private schools that are committed to providing it. I’d say about 1/4 of the students at my school were on scholarship and there was a vested interest in ensuring that all sorts of students were represented at the school. We had inner-city students from all sorts of neighborhoods, recent immigrants from several countries (the school provides interpretation on parent-teacher conference day because several parents do not speak English), and all sorts of family structures.

        People hear private school and assume rich and white, and while yes there were a ton of rich, white kids there there were also a ton of kids who were not

        1. Interesting point…but do the rich kids view these other kids as charity cases? Is it a “white man’s burden”, tokenism, pat-on-the-back for helping THOSE people, sort of mentality? My husband went to a similar sort of private high school and as he’s thought more critically about it in adulthood he sees these undertones. The bussed in black kids all sat together but hey, diversity!

          1. There was a little of that, but not as much as you may expect. I remember being at some meeting for kids on scholarship and being surprised at who was there and who wasn’t there, so it wasn’t obvious for all of the scholarship students. There were also plenty of white kids on scholarship and BIPOC kids paying full freight. I think the school worked really, really hard to ensure everyone felt equal and no one was singled out as a scholarship student.

            There were a few “success stories” that the school definitely liked to promote, which was gross.

            There were also kids who were jerks to scholarship students but also were jerks to kids whose families paid full tuition but scarified to do so (which was also very common. Lots of families who lived in small houses / less desirable towns, never took vacation, drove old cars, etc. in order to afford tuition).

      2. +1 to wanting to be an active participant of my child’s education. Not in a helicopter way and not in a complain about the teacher or grade kind of way, but I want to be engaged. If there’s an issue I want to be roped in early and be an active participant in finding a solution. I want to be able to enrich what’s happening in school at home.

        I also prefer the flexibility of my kids’ private school. There isn’t tracking the way that my public school tracked (which was all or nothing). So, my one kid is in AP and honors history, language, and English classes but is in normal track science and remedial math. My other kid was in normal track everything but had straight As and so was able to move up a track in English mid-school year and will move up in math next school year. When making these decisions, it was a four-way decision by the teacher, the administration, my husband and I, and our kid. We had a series of meetings to discuss if this was the right choice and everyone had a say. The school probably dedicated 10+ hours of teacher and admin time to make this decision. I really appreciated that.

    15. We all know people who are in “the best” public schools and still got sexually harassed, bullied, had tons of access to drugs.

    16. I’m with you that rankings don’t mean a lot, as they are often an indicator of socio-economic status of the parents rather than the quality of the school.

      Like many posters, I want safety too, but gangs aren’t really a deal breaker. My high school was fabulous for me, but did have a gang problem. I learned about the gangs from my anthropology teacher and the Washington Post and didn’t personally encounter gang problems. I benefited so much from having caring teachers who taught a rigorous curriculum (International Baccalaureate, with some APs as well), in an environment that was flexible in meeting my needs.

      For me, I want to know about the experience my kid will have–will the school be a warm, welcoming place where they will thrive? For my kids who are in elementary school, factors include:
      -diversity (my kids are mixed and I want enough kids who look like them that they won’t have to deal with stereotypes and I won’t have to deal with other parents making assumptions based on how we look)
      -warm, caring environment
      -plenty of experienced, skilled teachers (some early career teachers are fine)
      -strong parent community
      -reasonable class sizes
      -specialist teachers like librarians and art teachers
      -supports for teachers, like aides
      -not too much screen time in class
      -kindness and prioritizing student well being (do students get enough time to eat? are staff generally kind or do they spend a lot of time yelling at children?)
      -safety of the surrounding neighborhood
      -school has processes in place to effectively handle problem behaviors
      -I don’t put a lot of stock in test scores, but I’d be concerned if they suggested that the majority of kids weren’t on grade level
      -if necessary, does the school have the ability to meet needs that differ from those of the typical child?

    17. This may be a dumb question, but I don’t have kids yet so I don’t know. Are there really fights in schools? Like kids being beat up in the bathroom (as mentioned below?)? Or is this an exaggeration?

      No kids yet and I grew up in a small, rural community where everyone knew everyone and my graduating class was 50 kids, so urban or suburban schools are not something I’m familiar with.

      1. I went to a rural high school (grad class 120) and we had fights, but they weren’t random. Usually over romantic entanglements. My mom subbed there until last year and it seems like fights are slightly more frequent now.
        I would take the other commenters at their word that there are fights.

        1. Anon at 11:49 here – we had 2 fights but they were all after hours in the parking lot type things, and as you said not random. So, I wasn’t sure if random fights in the hallway actually happened.

          1. I got into a fight in the senior locker area when I was in high school (honor roll band kid FWIW).

      2. I remember a couple in my rural schools (my grad class was about 200). The most memorable was actually in middle school, but nobody was seriously hurt.

      3. Both high schools I went to had intermittent fistfights – one was a Department of Defense Dependent’s School overseas, so well-resourced and fairly stable families (@800 kids, everyone had a parent with a job) and the other was a 1100-ish person general public school in an exurb (less funding and a very homogenous student body). It was almost always boys beefing with their friends/teammates, no one I knew well, and the fights got stopped quickly.

        My kids’ urban, Title 1 high school has had a spate of fights over the last few months, culminating in a week where there were multiple fights at lunch every day. This finally got the attention of the Powers That Be after some fed-up parents started contacting the local news. I’m not particularly worried about my own kids’ safety, but I do think it’s only a matter of time before a kid gets seriously hurt (either as a bystander or a participant). They have an administrator crunch and I’m hoping they can do some hiring that will end this nonsense.

        The DoDDS school was a pretty bully-free but my exurban high school was basically Heathers/Dazed and Confused/Mean Girls without such attractive people. My kids’ school is a pretty bully-free place, but I don’t mind that my kids tend to stick with a small group of friends and don’t have much contact with the kids who are consistently getting in trouble.

      4. Yes, it’s a real actual thing that happens.
        It also happens in all locations, not just urban and suburban ones. It even happens in tiny everyone-knows-everyone towns.

        1. I misstated my question – we had some “parking lot after school fights” but I truly hadn’t realized there were hallway or cafeteria fights during the school day.

      6. I went to a rural high school with a 200 person graduating class and there were fights in the hallways and bathrooms with some frequency!

    18. Greatschools rankings are particularly unhelpful IMO. They weight a lot on “equity”, i.e. how low-income students perform relative to their peers, which I’m sure in some academic sense impacts whether a school is “good” as in effective but doesn’t tell much about the student experience for non-low-income students, which probably is the category for most kids whose parents post here.

      It also dings schools for having (in the case of my kids’ school) Hispanic students who don’t perform well on the state standardized tests. Well, I’d rather be at a school that HAS Hispanic students who are in ESL, rather than an all-white school where everyone speaks fluent English and thus obviously does better on tests that are given in English.

      I think Niche scores are more indicative of the factors that posters here would be looking for: surrounding neighborhood, overall % of kids who are proficient, diversity, student teacher ratio, teacher pay.

    19. Good education for my kid means learning how to be a person in the world with other people, including people who aren’t as wealthy, white, or typically abled as they are. I obviously care about safety too, but “safety” concerns I would have at a fancy private school could include eating disorders, fancy drug use, pressure-cooker environments, etc. And since I actively don’t want my kids to go to ivies (not that I’m making any assumptions that they’d get in) I don’t see a lot of downside to going to public schools that don’t have that as their specific aim.

      1. As a self-identified snob, I think it would be really hard for me not to send my kids to a fancy private school if I had the money. That said, I do think that going to a not-so-great public school made me better able to interact with people outside of my social circle. While I have some lovely friends and colleagues who never darkened the doorstep of a public school and can get along with anyone, I’ve also met some people who were so sheltered and cossetted that they have trouble even imagining how the other half lives. Also, as someone who went to an elite college, I was more intimidated by the professors than people who had gone to prep school, but I wasn’t unprepared and I did really well academically with so-so preparation. So I’m skeptical that I’m not doing right by my kids by sending them to an OK public school instead of a “rigorous” one.

        While my kids’ friends at their very diverse urban public school are generally members of the same social class (UMC professionals), they have more racially diverse friends than I ever did *and* they are comfortable with a much wider variety of people than I was at their age. They also see up close people with pretty modest circumstances who have big dreams for their kids, whereas I grew up in a place where poor people were expected to “know their place” and leaving your hometown was a betrayal of your birthright. They don’t need that sh*t.

        1. If an all-expenses-scholarship to, say, Cranbrook, dropped in my lap, yes it would be a no-brainer. My hypothetical kid would be on the next plane to Detroit.
          If an all-expenses-scholarship to my city’s best private school, which is a legacy segregation academy who is academically no better than the public schools and a social snake pit of PTA mom and dad mean girls/boys? NOPE.

          1. In LA, there are plenty of normal well-off people with kids at the private schools, and then there are the kids of the ultra-famous and ultra-wealthy. Some people seem to manage this just fine, but I wouldn’t relish telling my kids that pretty much *everyone* at their school is incredibly well-off and privileged, not just the people whose parents had their own private planes or got an Academy Award.

            That said, I know kids (with doctor/lawyer) type parents who attended those sorts of schools and they’re…fine? They don’t really seem to have better college or career outcomes than the UMC kids I know who went to local public schools.

          2. Yeah, what I was trying (badly) to say is that there are tiers of private schools, so to speak, and I don’t think most provide a better education than a decent public school. I am a proud public school alum, and am grateful for the truly excellent education I received.
            Having known people who were able to attend the Cranbrooks, Mt Hermans, Exeters, etc, those sorts of schools, for better or worse, exist on a whole different plane and do end up opening doors for students that simply don’t exist at my local level. That’s the distinction I was trying to make.

      2. I’m not sure about this. Schools were not historically designed to be inclusive and still really struggle with accessibility. I also wouldn’t say that being a school kid in school with other school kids ever seemed all that much like being a person in the world with other people to me. If school puts everyone together in an environment that favors one subset of kids while creating a lot of stress and difficulty for other subsets of kids (who may melt down or otherwise struggle), are those fair lessons?

    20. Multiple generations of my family have had the motto “we can’t give you much, but we’ll give you an education” so for us it’s finding the best school for each kid and then figuring out how to pay for it and the logistics later … which is challenging but I had a really great education and I am thrilled I’m able to do the same for my kids. We manage to pay for private school so we live in a small house, shop at Aldi and TJ Maxx, drive old cars, and take basic vacations (which are prioritized because I think there’s a large educational component of travel).I have a friend whose husband quit his job to take a maintenance job at our kids’ school to get the break on tuition.

      Currently, our kids are at the same school but we are keeping our options open, as it seems like my oldest might need a different fit for high school.

      Being at private schools, we don’t have to consider safety as that’s not an issue. Some things we do consider though:
      – class size
      – curriculum
      – other “expectations” of the school: is there a uniform? do they require sports or extra curricular activities? is it religious and if so, how religious is it?
      – parental involvement opportunities beyond the school day
      – teaching style. We prefer a discussion based or harkness style (that’s what I grew up having too and I think it was a really good method). We like project-based learning and a focus on critical thinking and applying the knowledge.
      – teacher engagement

    21. I posted about this a while ago when I was struggling with taking my kids out of their diverse public school and putting them in less-diverse private because my daughter did not feel safe, was being sexually harassed, and her older brother was getting into literal fist fights defending her (and the completely overwhelmed administration wasn’t doing anything about either issue). For me a “good” school meant first and foremost one that is safe, where my children could go to school every day and not worry about their physical safety. I added to that low teacher turn-over, a wide variety of classes, including AP classes at the high school level, and a solid arts program. For my son, I also wanted a good athletics program at the high school level because he is definitely the (only) jock in the family. (Which by the way is so weird!)

      I want to push back a bit on the idea that private schools have rampant drug use. I obviously cannot speak to all schools everywhere – but at my kids’ public school the amount of semi-open drug use at the middle school level was shocking to me. Poverty is a major driver of drug use; lower income people are much more likely to die of drug overdoses than more affluent people and – again solely in my experience – that was evident in the schools.

      And finally, the school we selected was less diverse, but it had was hardly a bastion of whiteness. I tried to look up the actual demographic statistics but it is hard to know the actual numbers since the largest group was “two or more.”

      1. +1 to your comments on drugs and whiteness.

        I went to a fancy, expensive private school and graduated ten years ago. While I know plenty of classmates who eventually tried hard drugs in college or our 20s, nobody used hard drugs in high school. Drug use was pretty uncommon and was limited to smoking pot on the weekend and was really limited to a handful of kids. Drug use was an immediate expulsion, and nobody wanted to risk that. We were also mostly athletes (yes, lacrosse and crew were among the most popular sports) and mostly academically focused. Even the “hard partiers” I knew stuck to alcohol in high school.

        And yes, while drinking was more common, most kids didn’t start drinking til they were maybe 15 or 16 and were careful about it. I also had plenty of friends who didn’t drink at all in high school because they didn’t want to risk getting caught and suspended or expelled. Drinking was usually done in a smaller group in someone’s basement rather than a huge party. The minimum punishment for getting caught drinking was a suspension and losing eligibility for all extra-curricular activities and so people really wanted to avoid getting caught.

        As for diversity, it was majority (2/3s) white but there was more racial and socioeconomic diversity than people expect when they hear private school. My mom still coaches there and says it’s considerably more diverse than when I went there, which is encouraging. I think it’s roughly 20% of students on scholarship, as well. And, according to my mom there is not a huge correlation between racial and socioeconomic diversity: plenty of racially diverse students paying full freight and plenty of white students on scholarship so it’s not perpetuating the “rich white” stereotype as much.

      2. Wow, I’m sorry to hear about your daughter having to face that. Sounds like you have two very brave kids.

      3. Poverty is a driver of drug use? More like the other way around.
        I and everyone else I know who grew up in poverty couldn’t afford drugs. We could barely afford food.

        1. There are literally studies about this. A lot of studies Whether it was the crack epidemic of the 1980s or the opioid epidemic now, both were overwhelmingly centered around people with lower socioeconomic status. And while deaths do not completely overlap with use, we can reasonably assume there is some correlation.

          https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6968850/
          https://aspe.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/private/pdf/259261/ASPEEconomicOpportunityOpioidCrisis.pdf
          https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7129e2.htm

          And while we are at is, poverty is strongly associated with teen suicide (rather than the pressures of high achieving parents):

          https://answers.childrenshospital.org/poverty-and-suicide-in-children/

      4. I’m not disputing that globally poor people use more drugs than rich people, but the culture surrounding the drugs matters. At big public school, the kids who are using drugs (at least, drugs harder than pot) tend to be the kids who aren’t doing especially well in school and aren’t seriously involved in extracurriculars. To be blunt, kids who don’t really have much of a future, at least not outside of a low wage job in their hometown. At elite private high schools, even the varsity athletes, theater nerds and academic superstars are using drugs. That’s the difference, and it’s a pretty key one if you have “good” kids who will be on the responsible student/athlete/arts track. I went to an Ivy and the kids who came from Choate and Exeter had waaaaaaaaay more experience with drugs (and sexual assault, although it’s probably not unrelated) than the kids who came from average to good suburban public high schools.

        1. “At elite private high schools, even the varsity athletes, theater nerds and academic superstars are using drugs.”

          May I ask your source for this? Because absolutely every study I have ever read says the exact opposite.

          1. Literally everyone I knew in college who’d gone to fancy prep schools? Northeast, Miami and California schools especially, but definitely some in the Midwest too, including Cranbrook which was mentioned above as a “good” prep school (funny because you couldn’t pay me to send my kids there based on the Cranbrook alums I met in college). Every single prep school kid I met was drinking regularly in high school and had at least experimented with cocaine or pills. My friends who went to other elite private colleges had the same experience. These kids were all admitted to HYP, Stanford, MIT, etc. so obviously very bright and accomplished kids, typically distinguished in both academics and one or more extracurricular activities. But it didn’t change the fact they’d at least experimented. In contrast, my Midwest public high school had “druggies” but they weren’t people my honors classes friends and I hung out with and in hindsight I’m fairly sure they just smoked pot. I heard about kids drinking, but it wasn’t big in my circles – people were too busy studying or with extracurriculars to be binge drinking. Drugs like cocaine require pretty serious amounts of money, and there wasn’t really a critical mass of wealthy kids at my high school. I’m sure the lack of adult supervision in boarding schools is a big factor too.

            I don’t think studies contradict this at all. The widespread prevalence of drugs at elite prep schools (especially boarding schools) is pretty much a cultural cliche at this point. I quickly searched and found several things saying wealthy teens have higher rates of drug use.
            “Those students living in affluent areas and attending elite schools tend to have higher risks of using ecstasy, cocaine, and cannabis, according to researchers from Arizona State University.” https://oceanhillsrecovery.com/californias-elite-private-schools-protect-against-drug-abuse/
            “Teens who attend high-achieving schools in well-to-do communities may be more vulnerable to drug and alcohol problems than their less well-off peers, a new study from the Northeast U.S. suggests.” https://www.livescience.com/59329-drug-alcohol-addiction-wealthy-students.html
            The fact that poor *adults* use drugs more than rich adults doesn’t mean the trends are the same for kids.

    22. I am far from an expert but “good schools” to me mean teachers that stick around in the district and want to teach there, decently sized classrooms, learning support options, AP and STEM class availability, play-based kindergarten, and no reputation for fighting, which is genuinely a problem at some schools in our area. Our district has a good reputation and is not the whitest around (a little less than 60%), but the student body is all relatively upper middle class and is not very socioeconomically diverse.

    23. My kid isn’t school-age yet, but I know my criteria will ben informed by my own experience. I went to a very well respected magnet in my region, which had excellent test scores and academic opportunities, but not much diversity. I’m thankful every day for the strength of my education, but being a bright kid of color who visibly stood out did a number on my confidence for years. And over the years, I’ve come to see the real harms to my classmates as well. I have many friends who have never really branched out and made new friends out of our immediate social group, and who I think would struggle to connect with someone of a different background. I also have many, many friends for whom I was their first (and last) friend from my racial background, which is pretty unbelievable to me.

      I think test scores are important, but they aren’t everything. It is more important to me to find a place that will cultivate a genuine enthusiasm for learning, and a lot of that frankly needs to happen at home rather than school. I worry that our current college application process encourages schools to produce students that can present well and accrue the right kinds of accomplishments, but with nothing of substance beneath that. I taught an undergraduate literature seminar during graduate school, and I cannot tell you how many kids I met from “fancy schools” who were confident and articulate enough to contribute to a discussion section, but when it came time for an examination or a final essay, clearly hadn’t done any of the reading.

  3. Happy Friday! DH and I are doing a quick trip to NYC this weekend for my birthday. Planning on lots of wandering around and shopping in Soho – I’m so excited. Would love your suggestions for coffee shops and stores! I’m not on a designer budget but I do like to window shop, check out unique places, etc.

    1. The Hungarian Pastry Shop across the street from St. John the Divine on Amsterdam at 110th. Yelp it. It’s worth the (pretty straight shot) subway ride.

    2. Not designer, but I loved going into & Other Stories and Sezane- both in Soho. Both are brands I had liked online and getting to go into a store and try on helped me figure out what size and styles I liked from both brands.

      1. I’ve been itching to go to the Sezane store in NY. I went to the one in Paris and it was a delight.

      2. While you’re near there look at Coclico — expensive shoes but they are amazingly comfortable and pretty and well made.

        1. Is it OK to make another plug for a great restaruarnt on Bleeker Street? If so, I would recommend this person travel north of So-Ho to Bleeker where there is a fabulous Italian restaruant that has some great Northern Italian food, and yummy waiters that serve and honor song requests! Myrna took me there and we were laughing the whole meal through! I very much recommend this to anyone who wants good food and great service from cute waiters and busboys! YAY!!!

    3. If you have time for a museum, and get to midtown, go to the MOMA or the Historical Society. They have a great exhibit on NY Delis, when you could get a corn beef sammich for less then a DOLLAR! I love Pastrami also, and that was even less money! Now it is more expensive, but I love good deli like my Dad, who went all the way to Europe to get real Deli and he also sampled lots of pretty women over there b/f he married mom!

  4. Getting together with some friends tonight for chili and wanted to make a casual, easy dessert to go along. I made blondies last time and they were a big hit, but don’t want to make that again, but something along that lines (but more creative than say, chocolate chip cookies or brownies). Looking for something that can be set out and grabbed, not something that needs to be plated and served. Suggestions? TIA!

    3. Buy a premade oreo pie crust, fill with chocolate pudding (ideally devil’s food flavor), add a layer of crushed oreos above the pudding, then top with whipped cream.

      1. I’ve lived in Illinois or Indiana all my life and I only heard of this recently, about Nebraska. Is it other states as well?

        1. Parts of Kansas, often for school lunches. DH doesn’t understand it, because it didn’t happen at his school, but he agrees that the combination works well. Something about the sweet & cinnamon playing well with the salty and heat in a good bowl of chili.

          1. I lived in Ohio growing up and didn’t hear about it until I moved to Indiana. Our school lunch chili was always served with a PB sandwich, which was weird to me but other kids liked it!

        2. People in Indiana eat peanut butter with chili which I think is disgusting, but I’ve never heard of cinnamon rolls.

  5. Have any of the lawyers used Brief Catch? If so, reviews? I haven’t tried it, but it looks tempting. My practice involves a lot of writing, and I believe I’m a pretty good writer. I envision the tool being helpful for me and also, perhaps more so, for young lawyers.

    1. I have access to it at work, but never find it very helpful. Most of the suggestions are not relevant, or I don’t think actually improve the brief.

  6. I wasn’t familiar with Me + Em until it came up in yesterday’s comments but I have fallen in love with one of their dresses. Does anyone have experience with them? The sizing chart is quite confusing to me…I see the model is listed as a size 8, which through my size 8ish, non-model-sized self for a loop haha. Any comments on quality or length of time for delivery to the US?

    1. I’ve ordered from them. Sizing is typical of most British brands, runs slightly small compared to US sizing. Their delivery is quite fast and they have free returns (from what I recall).

      Their model is probably a UK size 8, which is a US 2. US8 = UK12. When shopping on the “US site” the sizes should be listed as US sizes, though.

    3. they use UK sizing! UK 8 is about a size US 2-4 (probably closer to a 4). The size charts are accurate in my experience, and I have found most of their items true to size.

      1. Glad you mentioned the US site…the dress in question was quite a bit higher than I expected in US dollars. Low 300s instead of mid 200s. I’d best hold off and wait for a sale! Thank you all for the comments on sizing/shipping/quality.

    4. I am 5’6″ 120 and wear a US 4 in pretty much everything. Occasionally a 2 in some of the more generously sized brands. For Me + Em I am a solid UK 10 which equates to a US 6.
      So you would need to pick a US 6 if normally a 4 in US.
      No vanity sizing in the UK!

  7. I’m bored with my typical breakfasts. I usually try to focus on fats and proteins and my go-to’s are egg and a yogurt or cottage cheese with avocado and everything but the bagel. Any ideas?

    1. Mexican tofu (or egg) scramble with cheese, peppers, onions, side of beans, salsa, a tortilla to scoop it up with.. whenever I find store bought versions of this (Amy’s used to have one and I was devastated when they discontinued it) or at a restaurant I scoop them up, because I’m usually too lazy to make my own. You can make everything ahead, though. Sometimes I’ll even just have a black bean quesadilla for breakfast since it’s delicious and filling.

      1. Amy’s still makes this!! It is just hard to find – like my Target doesn’t but a local grocery chain does!

    2. I really like making apple pie oatmeal bowls: 1/2 cup oatmeal cooked with cinnamon, topped with plain greek yogurt, chopped apple and more cinnamon. Sometimes I add some nuts. You can microwave the apple with the oatmeal if you want it warm.

      1. Also on this note, I do oatmeal with frozen strawberries, cocoa powder, and a hint of sugar.

    3. TJ’s frittatas are good – I like to cut them up and put them in a low-carb tortilla with a bit of salsa for a no-mess breakfast burrito.

    4. I think I have posted this here before but it has been a bit.

      Breakfast casserole – Healthy
      6 eggs
      1/3 pound sausage cooked and drained of fat
      Whatever veggies you want – cooked and as much water as you can forced out. I usually use an onion, a pound of chopped broccoli and pound of chopped green pepper (the recipe starters from the grocery store frozen section)
      1/4 cup nonfat milk
      1/4 cup reduced fat sour cream
      salt and pepper
      Before you start sauteeing and cooking, put a dish on the low rack of your oven with just water at 350 so your oven is steamy.
      mixed together
      poured into a baking dish. 9×13 works but if you have one that’s slightly smaller that’s even better. 9×9 or something is great or 7×8 (it’s an ikea size)
      Baked at 350 with on the higher rack. It takes between 20 and 25 minutes. Pull it out when it is set in the middle.
      I cut the casserole into 6 pieces and eat it all week.

    5. I’ve been doing Ina Garten Irish oatmeal. 2 c steel cut oats, 6 c water, 2 t salt, boil 2 min then stand off heat with lid on for 2 hours. It makes several servings I just keep in the fridge in a Pyrex and I heat up one serving at a time (around 8.5 – 9 oz). I microwave 2 min and top with ground flax seed, chopped pecans, a teaspoon of brown sugar (not packed), a tablespoon of half and half, and a big handful of fresh blueberries.

      Very filling and keeps me going longer than my previous breakfast of an egg on toast.

    6. Do you like smoked fish? It’s pricey but I love smoked salmon and cream cheese.

    7. A favorite of mine is scrambled eggs, cheddar cheese, salt and pepper on whole wheat toast, heavily buttered. *chef’s kiss*

    8. Shakshuka (red or green)
      Eggs on greens with or without a meat
      Eggs on beans
      Canadian bacon with egg or cottage cheese
      Hummus and veg with yogurt
      Consider looking at other cultures and being open to foods you don’t think of as breakfast. One of my favorite meals on vacation was fish and beans in Belize.

      1. ha..

        My favorite breakfast ever was a freshly caught squid feast in a small seaside fishing village on the coast of Hokkaido, Japan.

  8. Just wanted to say thanks for the k-drama and other TV recs yesterday! I’m glad I have a list for when I finish Crash Landing on You! Saw even the late ones and copied them into my notes!

  9. Is anyone familiar with the brand Louben? It came back for a google image search of a blazer I was interested in. If foreign, any fit issues in how it is cut for a flat-chested pear-shaped woman with a short torso?

    1. It’s a Canadian brand, and the source of all my favourite suits. I’m 5′, size 14, and Louben petites tend to be the blazers that require the least alterations. They run big, but they’re well cut and well made.

  10. Weekender bag question – is the lo and sons Catalina bag bigger/hold more stuff than the cuyana weekender? I have the cuyana weekender and somehow (maybe user error on my part/inability to know the worst way to pack this bag) I always end up needing to bring an extra bag. I just really prefer the look of the cuyana weekend. This is for car trips only.

  11. Recs for egg replacement proteins? Not looking for fake eggs, just ideas on what other sources of protein I can consume. I usually eat 2 eggs a day and it’s a big part of my diet. Removing egg from my diet to see if my baby’s skin will improve (breastfeeding).

    1. Mix some nut butter into oatmeal with fruit. Are you a tofu fan? I cut up uncooked tofu into cubes and dip it in soy sauce as a snack.

    2. Scrambled tofu is a good sub for eggs. I do just what one of the posters above does with onions, peppers, salsa, and beans in a tortilla.

      I also eat lots of beans and peanut butter.

    5. Agree with tofu.

      My local Co-Op has a bunch of interesting prepared tofu dishes in the fridge you can buy in bulk. They have a simple tofu “egg salad”, that essentially is flavored simply like egg salad and it is just delicious. I could eat it every day easily as an egg replacement. Otherwise you may have to search to find your simple/tasty way of having tofu. I am a little lazy so I also buy those pre-marinated packaged tofu that you can keep in the fridge and take a piece and either eat it cold or quickly saute with your choice of items to add a little flavor. I get my flavored tofu packs at Trader Joes, or there’s more choice at Whole Foods.

  12. My passport shipped overnight! It’s arriving today. It was like my paying for expedited delivery caused something to shake loose in their system.

  13. My 6th wedding anniversary is tomorrow and I forgot to get DH a gift! Ideas of things I can pick up today or have delivered in a day? Traditional 6th anniversary gifts are iron and wood, but it doesn’t have to be one of those (and we already have a cast iron skillet and griddle).

    2. Chessboard
      Waffle maker
      Baseball bat if he plays
      Wooden serving tray
      Personalised bourbon, scotch, or wine barrel head

    3. I don’t know if you have a yard, but my parents often buy each other bushes or trees to plant in the yard. A fun play on wood!

      I don’t know your budget, but going along with the yard idea, wooden Adirondack chairs or a fire pit (to burn wood in!).

    5. I’m thinking about something NSFW along “wood”, maybe a quick trip to some adult toy store if that’s your thing?

      (Yes, it’s Friday, and I just downloaded some naughty romance novels onto my Kindle because that’s the only excitement in my life right now, lol.)

  14. Dumb but helpful tip here: if you are a chronic phone misplacer like I am, buy the brightest case you can find. I’m no longer forgetting my phone or losing it in my bag or on the kitchen counter because it is neon orange and cannot be missed!

    1. Related dumb tip: each person has a single bright color for cases for phone and ipad, which must be different from the bright color used by every other member of the household. If it’s purple, it’s mine!

      1. my parents used to do this color coding for toothbrushes when we lived in a single bathroom apt when I was a kid. everyone had an assigned color so my sibling and I wouldn’t accidentally use the other person’s toothbrush.

    4. haha I’m feeling personally attacked by this post. I just bought a black case for my new phone because I refuse to learn my lesson and stop leaving my black phone on my black night stand when I leave home! I swore I’d get a different color… yet here we are with another black case.

  15. My office is depressingly dark. I have a window but it faces a brick wall so I get about 10-20 minutes of sunlight a day. The overhead fluorescent lights are depressing, and turning them off means it’s totally dark even midday. The walls are painted blah beige. This is government so I can’t change any of this BUT I can bring in some lighting. Anyone have ideas for what would work? Is there any particular color light or wattage I should look for? I’m going for a daylight but not too bright look — dark and cozy would make it impossible for me to focus on work.

    I have low light plants (pothos, ZZ, snake plant) that are doing ok, a beige leather couch and artwork and diplomas on the walls and it still feels like a dungeon in here.

    1. I once saw a similar office (windowless cubby) that had a LOT of mirrors on the walls. The woman kept the fluorescent lights off, used natural light bulbs in her lamps, and had a lot of plants.

    2. In an old similar office we got filters to put over the fluorescent lights to make them less harsh and it helped a lot.

    4. Honestly, I would get one of the Happy Lights at Costco for my desk, and keep it on during the morning/early afternoon. And try to get out once in the afternoon for a touch of natural sunlight.

    5. A UV light made a huge difference for me when I had a windowless office. I would run it for maybe 10 minutes at a time.

    6. Multiple light sources at different physical levels and different levels of illumination. For example, a floor lamp with a three way bulb where the top setting is quite bright, plus a desk light with a soft glow. Or vice versa. IKEA and big box home stores such as Home Depot are good sources that won’t break the bank. Signed, another government lawyer with a semi blocked window and a north facing office.

    7. I have a very tall floor lamp with dimmable LED daylight spectre, big surface. It glows downward, and is super for dark nights.

  16. Suggestions for a moderately priced hotel in Baltimore? Looking at doing a few days over spring break and will be visiting someone in Baltimore then will do a day in DC (I’ve taken the train from Baltimore to DC and am fine with it).

    We need 2 rooms so I’m looking for something price conscious, ideally with an indoor pool. I am looking at a fairly wide menu of Mariotts/Hiltons/Hyatts/Hampton Inns and wondering if any are particularly good or bad.

    1. I’m assuming you’re looking in the downtown tourist area? I’ve been to a conference at the Hilton Inner Harbor. The building was MASSIVE, stylish, and very clean.

    2. We stayed at the Hyatt Regency Inner Harbor for a wedding a few years ago – didn’t use all the amenities due to wedding schedule but liked it. From a quick search it looks like prices vary wildly by date, from around $150 to nearly $400 Mother’s Day weekend.

    3. What part of town do you want to be in? I don’t know about indoor pools, but agree with the recommendation of the Hilton if you would enjoy being right next door to Camden Yards baseball stadium. But it’s a little off the beaten path. A better option might be the Marriott Waterfront which is located by the harbor in swanky Harbor East. https://www.marriott.com/en-us/hotels/bwiwf-baltimore-marriott-waterfront/overview/?scid=f2ae0541-1279-4f24-b197-a979c79310b0
      The Inn at Henderson’s Wharf would be a great place to stay on the waterfront in Fells Point. And Harbor Court, by the Inner Harbor, used to be lovely but I haven’t been there for some time. Would suggest that you avoid hotel that are more than a couple of blocks from the primary tourist areas because things have been getting pretty quiet after dark since the pandemic. And some hotels advertise they have an inner harbor location and they are actually several blocks away.

    5. The more bustling part of downtown Baltimore is now Harbor East rather than the Inner Harbor area. You can fall out of a Harbor East hotel and there will be people/stores/things to do. It’s more of a walk, possibly an Uber ride, if you are taking the train out of Camden station rather than Penn station. The Hyatt is much closer to Camden station. If you are taking the train to Washington, the MARC commuter trains are the cheapest way to go, but these are limited hours and I think weekdays only. Penn station is a ride from either location. The Hyatt is closer to the Science Center, American Visionary Arts Museum, and maybe slightly closer to the Aquarium.

  17. My mom is going on a bucket list trip to see the cherry blossoms in Japan this month. She’s going with a tour group, so the itinerary is set, but I would love ideas on what to pack. The only insight the tour group has given is to bring layers. Any other tips or helpful insights? Also, any ideas on best souvenirs? My mom loooves a tourist tee and I am trying to gently steer her towards consumables or artful things (esp from Japan!).

    1. if your mom loves a tourist tee, why push her to buy other things? (personally I’m with you, our souvenirs are always food, but it’s her trip…)

      1. Oh, good point – she buys the tees for me and my kids and we dont end up wearing them. Totally fine, but I just wanted ideas on Japan must-buy items so I could make some suggestions.

        1. oh I would ask her for Japanese candy then. Like the unique Kitkat flavors or those Pocky sticks.

      2. +1 this whole post came across a little condescending to me. Your mom is an adult, let her pack what she wants and buy what she wants.

      3. My dad LOVES a good tourist tee. I’m always on the lookout for him, and I’m tickled when I see him wearing one in a snapchat (my dad is v cool).

    2. I have some little ceramic plates I bought from a random store in Kyoto – I treasure them but its just a random find. Different KitKat flavors are a fun thing to get from Japan.

    3. Hi! Kitkats in other flavors like matcha! Japanese drugstore skincare and makeup also cool and affordable. Saw cherry blossoms there a few years ago- so festive! Also food and some drinking at various famous viewpoints (parks, along rivers). Hope your mom enjoys!

    4. I’m a little confused about your question about what she should pack — does she need a packing list because she’s uncertain what kind of clothes to take or how many? Or is she concerned with wanting to look stylish and isn’t sure how to do that? Or some other concern?

    5. Also, they have massive grocery/drugstores called Don Ki (short for Don Quioxite). That’s where I load up on these souvenirs. And if she’s leaning towards food, highly recommend Ichiran (famous ramen shop brand) dry ramen kits, furikake (seaweed sprinkle for rice/etc.). Finally, Japanese skincare face mask!

    6. I would just encourage her to take photos, eat everything, and maybe bring home a beautiful pair of chop sticks and a “noodle bowl”. I bought a couple of lovely hand painted bowls for my parents, who ate “big salads” all the time and liked bowls of a certain size. So the Japanese bowls became their salad bowls.

      But a tourist tee sounds perfect for your Mom! I can imagine she’ll see wonderful ones.

      Or are you concerned she will buy you something you wont like as a gift…..? ;)

      Your gift to her when she gets home would be to have a Japan night where you take her out to dinner to a Japanese restaurant and let her sit there with her photos and go through all of them and tell you about the trip.

    7. Are you saying that you don’t want her to get tourist tees for herself or that you’d like her to get you something other than a tourist tee?

      If its the former, let her get the souvenir she wants.
      If its the latter, ask for something very specific that you’d like her to bring back for you.

    8. I went to Japan for cherry blossoms years ago! They are definitely right about layers, the temperature was very variable and I was happy to be able to put things on and take things off during the day. Definitely bring walking shoes. There were also several days of drizzle so a light packable rain jacket would be helpful. She should pick up a clear umbrella at a convenience store while there. I brought mine back to the US and it lasted about 4 years.

      In terms of souvenirs, I bought a delicate necklace at a department store there that I have worn every day for then last 9 years. I’m sure she’ll find plenty of amazing things to buy if she wants to!

    9. I have several lacquerware pieces (chopsticks, bowls, desk organizer) that I bought in Japan or were gifted to me by a Japanese friend when she would visit me that I think make lovely and useful souvenirs.

    10. Origami paper and other stationary makes for great souvenirs. Japan has the cutest stickers in the most adorabl packaging!

      1. Yes! I had a Japanese professor in college who would give us little sticky notes and fun highlighters and things. I still have some (and some of them are all over my cookbooks).

    11. I went at this time of year to see the cherry blossoms a few years ago and it was surprisingly cold! So definitely bring a reasonably warm coat. I only had a light trench and even with sweaters layered under I was cold. I wish I had brought a light puffy coat, or wool long underwear. Also a knit hat and an umbrella or great raincoat because it was a bit rainy.

    12. For the tourist tees – ask her to get cute cartoony ones, kawaii style – very Japanese, cool for the kids, fun for her.

      Bento lunch boxes, vintage kimonos, little ceramic or laquer bowsl, fun candy, skincare…

      For packing – look at the Uniqlo clothes – Japanese minimalism and style, light layers, light colors.

      Shopping: tell her about 100 yen stores and Muji.

    13. As far as what to pack, the bloggers theViviennefiles dot com and UneFemme dot net ( Une Femme d’un Certain Age) are the experts on packing, especially efficient packing for foreign travel with layers. Even with a tour group, I personally would only bring one carryon suitcase and a personal item like a tote or backpack.

  18. I have this skirt, in black; it’s nice quality ponte, not very heavy. I did have to have it hemmed considerably to get it jut above the knee on 5’4″ me.

  19. Looking for an easy at-home hobby or activity. I have hobbies but they’re more intensive, I want an activity or something fun / engaging / relaxing I can do for 10 minutes here, 30 minutes there at home on the evenings. Something that doesn’t have to involve going somewhere, coordinating other people, or taking a lot of time.

    I feel like the common solutions to this are reading or puzzles. I absolutely cannot stand puzzles (apparently hated them as a kid too!) and I read all day for work / school so it’s more of a chore than a fun activity for me, unfortunately.

    My other hobbies are pretty active: hiking, biking, playing club soccer, involve other people: trying new restaurants and bars, or more intensive: knitting, painting, cooking but as “projects” as opposed to something I can just pick up for a few minutes.

    I live alone and so I find myself spending way too much time (for my preferences) watching TV I don’t enjoy or scrolling on my phone. I want something I can do easily by myself at home that will be enjoyable.

    I also live in a studio, so ideally something that doesn’t require a ton of equipment!

    1. Someone once gifted me a “Mandalas for Meditation scratch off” kit and I liked it as a relaxation thing I could do part of 1 page at a time or a full page at a time. my other chill hobby is propagating house plants but then I run out of jars to put them in or give away to people…

      1. Oh I forgot about Hue. It’s addictive!
        I’ve talked about it before but my main hobby is linocut printmaking. Might be too close to painting for you, but it’s something you can stop/start/do in small time increments. You can fit most of the supplies you need in a 9×12 tupperware (cutters, paper, lino or rubber, ink)
        I’ve not tried it before but quilling looks cool, and doesn’t seem too space-intensive.

    3. Drawing/sketching, embroidery/knitting
      I used to have a book instagram that I kept up not because I wanted to become insta-famous but because I liked the scrapbooking aspect of it, maybe something like that.

      Would crossword puzzles be any different?

    4. I’ve been enjoying embroidery, using kits I find on Etsy or Amazon. It’s engaging enough, was pretty easy to learn, and doesn’t take up a lot of space. Of course, what to do with the ends results is another question, but I enjoy doing it enough that I really don’t care.

      Maybe crochet or knitting?

    5. If you want something active, there are tons of 10 minute yoga, Pilates, barre classes online. I use the peloton app but I’m sure YouTube is just as good for this.

      For something more sedentary, I like adult paint by numbers, diamond “painting” which is sticking little plastic jewels on a sticky sheet of paper to make a picture, embroidery kits. Adult coloring books can be fun too, though I find painting to be more engaging. I’ve tried to get into knitting but I guess it’s not my thing, I never seem to reach for it.

    6. I guess I’d like something that I don’t have to “set up”. I could easily knit or paint for 10 minutes here and there, but by the time you get your supplies set up / put away it doesn’t feel worth it to me?

    7. Sketching or drawing? I like to use a random art prompt generators and sketch whatever random thing comes up, or there are tons of 30 day art challenges online.
      Also journalling or writing? I have a blog where I post random thoughts. I know blogging is not cool anymore, and nobody reads it except my mom, but I like writing there.

    8. I think…. you sound like you could use a relaxation activity, no? Your post sounds like you are already a bit busy (over-extended?) and somehow feel guilty just doing things that are low energy/relaxing.

      How about learning mindfulness/yoga/stretching?
      Or using the occasional break to breathe, and make a phone call to a family member/loved one, or write a letter.

      Sorry if I am TOTALLY off base.

      And I’m a little surprised when you said knitting / painting were too intense to relax for a few minutes. My artist friends often pick up their knitting for any brief episode, listen to music, and just…. breathe.

    9. How do crosswords strike you? There are apps, but if you want to be off your phone, you could always get one of those paperback books of them.

    10. I knit like this…I have small projects like scarves that I can knit on for 10, 15, 30 minute stretches while I’m watching tv. They’re not complicated patterns, usually just a single stitch repeated until I have a scarf the length that I’d like it to be.

      Stretching isn’t a hobby, but it’s a good use of short chunks of time and I always feel better after stretching.

      1. I knit hats for charity. I can knit for 10 minutes or the length of a movie depending on how much time I have. The patterns are easy to memorize and I don’t really have to think about them or where I was when I put it down. The best part is I give the product away at the end.

    11. I do cross stich for this. I bought the Stitch People book and stitch hilarious portraits of my friends and family for their life milestones (e.g., marriage, engagement, having a baby). My friends get a kick out of them and many have them framed in their homes, haha.

    12. I do cross stitch. I like geometric patterns so I only have to count a little to find a starting point and then its easy to fill in a section in a color. I can do a couple of minutes or an hour at a time. I find it meditative.

    13. How about video/computer games? If you have preferences (lifestyle, shooters, storyline, open world, etc) I’m sure people can suggest something.

    14. I play Scrabble on the ISC.RO site and they have 3 to 20 minute games per side you can play.

    15. Japanese clothes mending? Can’t remember the name off, but a way to mend or embellish textiles.

      Lego sets? As long as you mark your place, you don’t need to finish in one go.

      Knitting blankets constructed from smaller pieces – work on a little square while you’re watching your mindless TV.

      Do small pieces of volunteer work in transcribing historic texts.

      Learn a new language and do little 5-10 minute lessons on duolingo or some youtube in your chosen language.

      Learn knots or other small scout style handy things.

    16. Just to throw out a completely different idea, I love playing animal crossing pocket camp on my ipad. It’s easy to spend 10-30 minutes a day on, and it’s relaxing because it’s cute and easy and nothing bad ever happens. You gather fruit and fish and give them to animals, who give you materials to build items to decorate your campsite. There’s room to get super into it, but it’s enjoyable as a really casual player too. There’s tons of other “cozy” games like that, I just happen to like this one because there are no ads (except for in game events and items), and you don’t have to spend money to enjoy it (of course you can spend money, but it’s easy not to). When I started, I had never really played games before and found googling my questions led to a Reddit post that explained whatever I was wondering about.

  20. This may be a long shot but…anyone in the Twin Cities have a dermatologist they would recommend? I have had ongoing eczema that I would like to get looked at, and I also am overdue for a mole check.

    1. Jessica Morell, Dermatology Consultants. Takes appointments in St. Paul and Eagan.

  21. Anyone here familiar with family law matters? A friend wants to call another friend as a character witness in her custody hearing. The potential witness would not and cannot be a fact witness, he’s never even met the babies so it’s not as if he can testify about how great a mom she is. Potential witness plans to be on a prepaid vacation for a milestone birthday at the time of the hearing. A bunch of other people are going on the trip too. Friend is leaning on potential witness to cancel the trip for her hearing. Everyone around her is an echo chamber, even though she says her lawyer doesn’t care about the potential witness one way or the other. Meanwhile, everyone going on the trip is up in arms. Birthday friend is a bit of a doormat and will probably cave. Is this a legitimate need in family law cases? I’m a lawyer so everyone’s looking to me for my opinion, but I don’t do family law so I’m not sure where to land on this one.

    1. I’m not a lawyer but I wouldn’t touch this with a ten-foot pole. “It’s not my area so I can’t advise, sorry!”

      2. I AM a lawyer and wouldn’t touch this with a ten-foot pole. Not my area. But the friend with the hearing sounds ridiculous. Surely she could find another character witness. Birthday friend should keep the trip without guilt – clearly never having even met the children, it’s not like this is a ride-or-die BFF critical ‘be there’ type of thing….

    3. Absolutely not, this will not matter AT ALL. IANA family lawyer, but my understanding is unless the character witness is going to provide some unique evidence for why the OTHER parent is truly unfit (observed criminal behavior, basically), their testimony will make basically no difference and the judge will default to 50/50 custody.

    4. This doesn’t add up, which makes me think there must be all kinds of complicated relational or emotional dynamics going on here. Why would someone not close enough to her to have met her kids cancel a milestone group vacation to do this for her, when her own lawyer doesn’t care whether he’s there?

    5. I sit on the family court bench and would not want my limited court time wasted with this witness.

    6. If the witness says she convinced him to cancel his birthday trip and ruin it for a bunch of other people to be there, that won’t speak well of her character, no?

  22. Has anyone successfully enrolled their kid in an out-of-district public school? There is an elementary school very close to our house, an easy walk and really easy drive. However, the zone for that school cuts off down the middle of my street; one side is in the zone, and the side I live on is in another school’s zone. That other school is a 10-15min drive depending on traffic, and not at all walkable. I think the one that is closer to me is considered “better”, but that’s not why I want to send my kid there. Kiddo is still a baby so it’s still a ways off. I’m not sure where to start? Any advice?

    1. You need local advice as what is possible will vary widely. If you can’t find anyone local to ask, I would see if there is a parent coordinator or PTA person at the school you want to go to that you can ask for advice. I’m in NYC and people can and do get their kids to elementary schools out of zone (within the NYC DOE) all the time here, but how easy it is depends on the level of demand for the specific school. For middle schools, there is a larger geographic boundary, the district, that is important but if you are in an elementary school within a district you continue to be treated as a resident of the district it is in, in addition to the one you actually live in if it is different (mostly). Confusingly, we live in one district but are actually zoned for a middle school in a different district. But since our son attends an elementary school in the first district he can access middle schools in it as well. So TL; DR, you need to ask people in your specific area.

    2. Agree that it’s area specific!

      At least in my area, you can do this but you have to pay the same amount that that district pays per student. I live in an area with good public schools, so it ends up being at least 25k, which at that point you might as well pay for private school (which is better than our still-very-good public schools).

    3. Honestly? I wouldn’t spend energy on this until your child is 4 at the earliest. So much can change in 3-4 years. The district lines could change. You could move. You could change your education plans, including considering private school or a local magnet school. Learn from my mistakes: my husband and I spent SO MUCH time and energy on making school decisions that were going to be “forever,” only for life circumstances to change and have them apply for a year or less.

    4. Contact the district and ask. Where I live it’s pretty pricey to do that, so finding out the cost could steer you toward private school instead.

    5. Yeah, it varies a lot by state and district. In my state, there are transfer procedures but 1) you may have to pay tuition (in my area, it’s nowhere near $25k, but still not nothing) and 2) the district can say refuse transfers if they’re full. However they can’t say no to you because they don’t like you, the way a private school can. I commented above but we chose our house based on being in the hardest district to get into. We can transfer out if we want to. But it’s not clear we would have the option to transfer in if we wanted.

    6. You can talk to other parents and perhaps the school now but likely you’ll have to wait until your child is 4 or 5 for a better answer.

      We did it for our son to attend a gifted/IB combined program only available in the other district. When he applied, he had to pass an entrance test but they had space and he was admitted. By the time he graduated, they no longer allowed out of district enrollment. There was no tuition – the new school received the “per head” state money instead of it going to the original school.

    7. Cosign that this is very locally specific + worry about this in 4 years. By then you may have made friends at the new school, or found that it’s a better fit, or the school that was more flexible is now overcrowded and can’t allow non-zoned kids in, or…. any number of things. If you think about this the september before your kid is to start, you may be able to get helpful info.

    8. Does your area have school of choice? Mine does and this is a no-brainer reason to try for it. For the really desirable schools there is either a legacy angle, lottery, or first-come basis for getting in. The rest of the schools it’s just a routine paperwork process.

  23. Googles: Is my bank FDIC insured? How does FDIC insurance work?

    Not to raise 2008-level alarms by any means whatsoever (SVB is unique in many ways), but watching what’s happened to Silicon Valley Bank in the last 24 hours (less) is an incredible lesson on the banking market and how it all works. Anyone who finds this intellectually curious and needs something to fill their Friday afternoon, this is something to look in to. The news coming out of this bank since Wednesday to present are insane.

    1. Banking veteran of 40 years. I hadn’t heard about this, being retired. But, wow, yes they were closed “an hour ago” per the WSJ by the FDIC.

      1. Oh, and I worked in the building that was the headquarters of Washington Mutual Bank on the day of its closing in 2008. Crazy times.

        1. I was across the street on my first day as an associate at Davis Wright when WaMu closed!

    3. You can Google your bank and FDIC insured to be sure, but every commercial bank should be. Just as a reminder you’re only insured up to $250k per depositor per bank, but that should only probably affect businesses.

      1. I didn’t realize until today that credit unions aren’t FDIC insured! Where I live everyone uses the local credit union. That seems…risky? (I use a bank from my hometown that’s FDIC insured.)

        1. Credit unions have a different governing association, NCUA, which is the National Credit Union Administration and funds are insured and protected up to $250,000. Just make sure your credit union is covered and you’re all good! It’s the at bottom of the website for mine.

  24. What was the thing you did today / recently?

    I submitted a paper to a journal! (I have more things that need to be done but this paper has been weighing on me for years and I feel so light that it’s on a desk that’s not mine!)

    1. Woo, that’s awesome! I rearranged two appliances to make better use of dead corner space, and won a precious half square foot of counter space in my most used dinner prep area.

    2. Today has been an entire punch list of things I’ve put off all week. I’m rather proud of myself!

    3. I cleared a bay windowsill in our bedroom of all the stuff piled on it (clothes, and clothes). It is a lovely seating area but has been unusable for the last 6 months.

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