From the horrors that is our county school system, that is.
It is with great pride, pleasure, and a feeling of jumping off a cliff that I announce my son will be attending private school this year. Literally right around the corner from our house is a boarding school, established in 1912. They also accept day students, and this past school year, they began accepting K-6. Prior to that they were just 7-12. They don’t board the younger kids.
I have never been happy with our local schools, and I decided after a crisis my son had at the end of his 8th grade year that I would work as a stripper if I had to to get them out.
Calmer heads prevailed (plus an adamant NO from Ivylad) and while both of our children were accepted as day students, finances dictated that we send our son first, as he is closer to graduation.
Comparisons: Public High School, grades 9-12, 2600 students, 35-42 kids in a class. Private school, grades k-12, 300 kids, 9-12 kids in a GRADE. 100% go on to college. The administrator was quite frank in that while they are not at the level of an Ivy League prep school, their graduates have been accepted to places like Temple and George Mason.
So, if Ivyboy gets good grades, he gets a scholarship for next year, which means Ivygirl can go next year.
Woo! Congratulations. Is your son excited? And if it’s a boarding school, is he going to commute since you just live around the corner? Or is he going to stay?
It sucks that the public school systems just don’t seem to improve. (Far be it from me to make suggestions, because I don’t have any, but someday I would like my kids to be able to go to a public school.)
He’s going as a day student. No point in boarding him, as it’s less than a two minute drive away. He’s excited, I think, but also anxious. I’m sure he will do fine.
I know there are good public schools out there. We just don’t happen to live near them.
That is great news. I only have 2 left in school. (Middle and High) and the public school systems sucks. Each year the school is graded with overall SAT tests and F-Cat scores and you soon learn if your child is in a A school or an F school. If it turns out it is an F school you can use a magnet program to send them to anothetr school out of your district.
The overcrowding is ridiculous. They have 42 students to one teacher in AP Honors Math Class. Jeb Bush (the Govenor of Florida) was sad to learn that the people passed the law this year that there be smaller classrooms. He claims it is going to cost millions to accomplish this. But I ask you what can a kid learn in a room of 42 students? You know the students have their own agenda and many are not there to learn and play nice.
If I could afford to send my sons to private school I would.
Congrats, ivylass. My oldest son (the only school-aged one of the lot) has always attended private school. There’s a noticeable difference between his reading/math level and those of his public-school attending counterparts.
There are areas of Baltimore County where the public elementary schools are as good as or just slightly below the private schools. If I lived in those areas (we plan to buy a house in one of those areas in about eighteen months) I’d seriously consider sending the kids to public school. Until then, it’s private school all the way!
ivylass, you are to be commended for being so concerned about your children’s edumahcation. Instilling the habit of life long learning is a precious gift that cannot be replaced.
I will brag a bit more…my children are voracious readers. My son is reading at a post-high school level…and we have to get on our daughter because she’ll leave books laying all over the house. She’s a I’ll Read Whatever Book Happens to be in the Room I’m In or What’s Laying Around in the Car reader.
They get that from their father and me. I read in the paper about children who can’t read…I simply do not understand it.
So…let the budgeting and the fretting over bills begin!! (At least, if we pay for this now, hopefully we won’t have to pay for his college.)
You go, girl. Part of what I’ve figured out is that every school is not for just everybody. I’ve been home-schooling my 15 yr old for a year now and his grades are the best they’ve ever been.
OTOH my daughter sailed right thru public high school (student body population: 2000 !!!).
Well, you may be about to find out. My daughter goes to a really high-functioning public school. The difference between her school and the one a few neighborhoods over where they are really struggling is that at my daughter’s school the parents work their butts off to make it a good school.
We provide all the “extras”–Spanish language instruction, computer lab, art classes, discretionary supply money for the teachers.
In places where parents can’t or won’t do this, you find schools that aren’t working.
Private schools have a couple of major advantages:
They don’t have to accept anyone and have much more leeway in getting rid of “problem” kids.
They can pretty much require a certain amount of “volunteer” work from parents.
My two children that are school-age are in private school…I too, shall brag a bit -
My daughter, going into 6th grade, on her CATS test, is reading well above her grade level, and her “language mechanics” (sentence structure, etc.) is in the 97th percentile for kids her grade (considered to be grade 12+ equivalent).
My son, who is going into 4th grade, on his CATS test, is reading at a grade 8.5+ level, and above the 80th percentile for his grade-level overall (math concepts are at grade 9+).
Am I proud? Yes! And I’m careful to make them aware that their accomplishments are THEIRS, not mine or their mother’s.
FWIW, we dispensed with our cable subscription about 6 months ago, and the kids are reading everything they can get their hands on…
And yes, we had some VERY bad experiences with our local public school with the first child, when she was in first grade…couldn’t leave her in that environment, and didn’t want to chance it with the son…
Baltimore County varies a lot, Juanita, so be careful. I was lucky in that the elementary school my kids go to was very small. My son had 17 kids in his 1st grade class last year.
My daughter’s high school is pretty big, but they just put a huge addition on, and they have plenty of teachers.
Oh, I forgot to brag.
My son will be 7 next week, will be in second grade this fall and is making his way through the second <i>Harry Potter</i> book. It’s slow-going, but he’s doing it. He’s even is able to figure out most of the made-up words.
My daughter will be in 10th grade in the fall and is also a voracious reader. She got all A’s and B’s in English and Science. (Just don’t ask me about her Math grades. She is her Mother’s daughter.)
Boy, I was upset because there were 25 kids in my daughter’s class this past year (1st grade). To be fair, they had a full time teaching assistant along with their regular teacher. The overall student/teacher ratio is 13:1 or less, with most classrooms averaging about 20 students. This is public school in Ohio. The situation in Florida is one of the reasons we won’t move back there. And the FCATs are a joke. They “curve” the grade up based on improvement versus baseline instead of using a standard measure. Even Georgia seems to have a better system.
If people voted for smaller classrooms in Florida then Bush and his cronies should make it happen or resign.
JuanitaTech, I seem to remember some privatization in Baltimore County schools a while back. Is that still going on? Did it work?
I attended four public schools and one private school. The private school was exceptional, and I will forever be grateful to my parents for the sacrifices they made so as I could have that education.
Like Ivylad, I was switched from public to private schools. I was in 5th grade at the time. Actually I was well ahead of the private school kids in Math. I also found the small class size and overall small school size to be a source of constant emotional distress. Basically there was no way to hide if you felt embarrassed or something and everybody knew everybody else’s business. The school I switched to was k-8 and the kids who had been there since kindergarten considered themselves the cool kids and tried to make sure the newcomers feel like outsiders.
I hope none of this happens your kid but don’t assume that private/small class size means better.
I too went to private school. I did not have a good time. Not the learning side - there I thrived - but the social side. My brother, however, went to another school and had a wonderful time.
Presumably it’s also an additional cost. However, I’d urge you to think very carefully about sending him as a boarder. As a dayboy he will be missing out on a lot of the social side of the school. And the extra discipline.
Just so it’s clear, the class size thing that I was talking about was a Florida voter referendum. I’m not aware of the national bill authored by Kennedy. Remember that a dimmer Bush burns in Tallahassee.
qts, you raise a very good point. I would agree, but I think that living just two minutes away will be a good thing for him. He will near enough to them to participate in all social activites, but he will always be able to go home. I don’t see any reason for her to spend more money. Presumably, he can hang out there with his friends who are boarders, and when they get sick of being there all the time, they can go to his house for a change of scenery.
