Johnathon & Christopher,
Within 3 days of landing in India you two hopped on a bus and headed off to your first day of international school at The American School of Bombay (ASB). However, before we get to that, the adventure started the day before on Monday, August 8th when we all visited the school for orientation.
On Monday, we were most concerned about getting to the school on time since we were told by many people that the location was hard to get to if your driver hasn’t been there before. And it’s Mumbai, where traffic follows no algorithm. To help with this, the school provided landmark directions that we gave to our driver, Ajay. We still weren’t comfortable, so we left plenty early. Turned out our driver was awesome and, much to our surprise, Ajay got us there in no time, with no wrong turns and no need to stop and ask for directions.
The day was designed for you two to spend most of it in your respective classrooms with your teachers, while we headed up to the music area to sit through several presentations about the school and the year ahead. This event was really only attended by the new parents and students, and on our day and time it was limited to around 4-5 families.
The photo to the right shows the location of all the students that were attending school at ASB in 2017-2018 and the approximate country where they consider “home”. It wasn’t up for the first day of school, but we thought this was the perfect post to include it. We were asked this question a lot before we moved, and we loved the fact that you’d be attending school with people from all over the world speaking a number of different languages.
We started by dropping Johnathon off in his room where he gladly accompanied his teacher, Mrs. Forgie, to the classroom. He really spent the rest of the morning with his class and we didn’t hear a peep from him. This was expected based on our first meetings with the school. His classroom and schedule was very much like what he had in Olathe, only the classroom was a lot bigger.
Christopher, buddy, you had a little bit of a hard time when we went to drop you off. You happened to be the only student in your teachers class during that session on Monday morning and you kept asking where all your friends were. Mrs. Blundell, and her assistant Gayle, helped us get you engaged with the toys in the room and allowed us to speak with your teacher about the school year and your class structure.
We had a good conversation with Mrs. Blundell about your placement in P4 vs P3 because we felt that having a birthday in the middle of August would put you as the youngest or oldest kid in your class. We decided long ago to red shirt you for kindergarten, and we were standing firm with our plan. Towards the end of our discussion you were off and playing with the toys in your room and we were able to slip out to attend the parents presentation.
The presentation was very informative for new parents and unlike anything we had experienced at public school back in the US. Plus, Madelyn loved the food and the toys. 
We assumed that the differences were driven by the public versus private setup of the school. The main difference we noticed was the frequent communication of any and all topics related to the school and / or your classes. It took some getting used to.
After the presentation, we went upstairs to take care of uniforms, sports, transportation, etc… The process was easy and the moment of truth for the school bus signup. We decided to stick to the plan, and we signed up.
After the eventful morning we all went home and took a nap….
Mom & Dad
The Hotovec's 