Oh the adventures in Dutch bureaucracy! Seeking to fulfill my employer's requirements for a three-month "home service leave" with the entire family, we submitted an application for our six-year-old to miss his last seven weeks of kindergarten, way back on the 29th of January (I can recall the date with such specificity because it's stamped on top of the centimeter-thick stack of related papers that have accumulated throughout the course of the last several months).

Within a week or so, I had an appointment with the government official whom I've affectionately dubbed our "Compulsory Education Bureaucrat" (a literal translation of his Dutch title: leerplichtambtenaar), and after talking for over an hour-and-a-half together, he gave me a massive homework assignment -- translating GCM employmee manuals, submitting a detailed travel schedule, filling out an education plan for Elliot, and more. I estimate that I spent approximately ten hours completing these assignments and turning them back in for inspection and approval by the Compulsory Education Bureaucrat.

Then over the following few weeks, I'd guess I had another (cumulative) two or three hours of telephone conversation with our Compulsory Education Bureaucrat. I didn't necessarily enjoy these conversations, but in a strange way I came to admire the conscientious dedication of this public servant and the rigorous system for which he was working. Of course, the whole process has been frustrating! It's highlighted a number of European/American differences in the philosophies of education and government. Still I have to be impressed with the system -- because it seems to genuinely reflect the will of the Dutch People. Just about every Dutch person with whom I've spoken about the situation has repeated for me the stories about the Turkish and Morroccan immigrants who took their kids out of school for weeks at a time, causing the taxpayers to shoulder the burden of offering special education to get foreign children back up to speed after they had so wantonly disregarded the system. Just about every Dutch person (even those who are sympathetic to our cause) has knit their forehead together when I tell them how long we're requesting that Elliot be allowed to miss school and said, "Well, seven weeks is a very long time for him to be missing school, you know." Through the whole process, I've come to more deeply understand and appreciate the differences between the two cultures which dominate my existence.

But still, I've been stuck: between the requirements of my local Dutch government and the requirements of my American-based employer (not to mention my own personal desires to allow my family a greater opportunity to connect with our American roots) on the other hand.

Anyway, after a long drawn-out process -- throughout which the Compulsory Education Bureaucrat repeatedly warned me that he was inclined to deny our application, only to allow me to spend a few more hours preparing and submitting another piece of evidence that might be able to sway his decision -- we learned about two weeks ago that our application was definitively denied. In spite of our hours and hours of conversation and administrative aerobics... in spite of impassioned pleas by Elliot's teacher and school principal (who have been a great help and encouragement to us in the process)... in spite of our (and maybe even your) dedicated prayer for a favorable ruling -- our request for a leave-of-absence was rejected.

We initiated the appeal process right away -- which starts with a hearing before a Commission of Compulsory Education Bureaucrats (our guy's colleagues), and which could eventually move to a court within the regular Dutch legal system (if the Commission upholds the original ruling and we still desire to press our appeal) -- however, the first stage of the appeal process could be up to eight weeks... And our predetermined travel dates fall within this time period. Which is to say: It's entirely possible (and probably even likely) that we could have no official ruling on our appeal until after the time has come for us to leave! So we inquired about the possible penalties for disregarding an official ruling -- and it turns out that we would be looking at a minimum of €250 per week (or a total of €1750 = $2800 USD) plus probation and a maximum of €500 per week (or a total of €3500 = $5600 USD), potentially even including jail-time for "serious offenses!" Obviously, even the minimum penalties would be too much for us to afford... So we had to reluctantly start looking into developing a "Plan B" for our trip back to America -- seeing how doors had been slammed (or were poised to be slammed) on all of the legal channels that we had pursued.

And then we found a back door.

After reading the actual statutes relating to the enforcement of Dutch compulsory education law (not exactly the kind of reading material that you'd like to take with you to the beach), we started to wonder if there might be some room for accommodating our situation based on the issue of school enrollment.  When we asked a Dutch friend to take a look at the statutes for us, to offer some help in interpreting the legalese, he basically finished by asking us the same question:  Well, why don't you just unenroll Elliot from the school system?  So, a couple of days later, when I was working with our Compulsory Education Bureaucrat on the appeal process, I basically asked him the same question:  "What would happen if we simply unenrolled Elliot from the school system?"

Upon hearing my question, the Compulsory Education Bureaucrat paused for a second, audibly shrugged (if you know what I mean), and replied, "Hmm -- yeah, I guess you could do that" with the tone of voice you might use to decide to go to the movies after dinner instead of going to the library.  I'm not sure if he had ever thought of it before -- but his response was definitely not negative, and though I need to be careful not to read too much into his response, I basically got the feeling that he might have even been relieved that we had discovered such a possibility (since, as I mentioned, all along he was only doing his duty to meticulously follow the provisions of Dutch compulsory education law -- not to meanly and deliberately antagonize us).  Of course, it would have been nice if we could have had this conversation a couple of months ago!  But better late than never, I guess...

Following up on the conversation with the Compulsory Education Bureaucrat, I consulted with a trusted businessman and a lawyer -- and it basically turns out that the ultimate consequences of unenrolling Elliot amount to a loss of less than €150 (total) from tax-related considerations... and, well, that's it.  The lawyer that I consulted suggested that we may want to talk with the school administration at the Frankendael School (where Elliot is currently enrolled) -- just to make sure that there would be no complications with waiting lists to re-enroll in the fall or bitterness about them losing some tax funding in the process.  So last week I talked about it with the principal at Elliot's school, who smiled when he heard our solution and nodded reassuringly that Elliot would be welcomed back "with open arms" to the Frankendael School in the fall.

So, officially, Elliot will be moving to the United States this summer!  He will be un-enrolling from school for the last seven weeks of the school year, he will be written out of the city register (but not the national register, thus leaving his residency status unaffected) -- and then he will be moving back to Amsterdam in August and starting the new school year with the rest of his old classmates.

Crazy, huh?  Talk about adventures with the Dutch bureaucracy... I wish that all of this could have been settled earlier.  But I'm glad that we have been provided with a solution in the end.  We've got a lot of work to do now in the coming month (organizing vehicles to transport us and houses in which to stay), to get everything organized for our three months of home service leave.  But at least we're finally on the right track!  Thanks for your prayers.