When do you decide this isn’t working out and apply to another school?

[Anonymous]

Seeking some input. We have an athletic child who is pretty average in school. He’s pretty sensitive, not a good test taker with a very mild LD, no behavioral issues and has average social skills. Due to covid, we couldn’t tour classes in person last year and only got in to one private school. He loves the teachers at his new school and the activities and campus but isn’t making many friends and it’s bothering him. He wants us to save our money and send him to public school with his friends but the public school is not the best and wouldn’t support him academically. Do we start our search for a new private school again for next year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Seeking some input. We have an athletic child who is pretty average in school. He’s pretty sensitive, not a good test taker with a very mild LD, no behavioral issues and has average social skills. Due to covid, we couldn’t tour classes in person last year and only got in to one private school. He loves the teachers at his new school and the activities and campus but isn’t making many friends and it’s bothering him. He wants us to save our money and send him to public school with his friends but the public school is not the best and wouldn’t support him academically. Do we start our search for a new private school again for next year?

How is he doing academically?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seeking some input. We have an athletic child who is pretty average in school. He’s pretty sensitive, not a good test taker with a very mild LD, no behavioral issues and has average social skills. Due to covid, we couldn’t tour classes in person last year and only got in to one private school. He loves the teachers at his new school and the activities and campus but isn’t making many friends and it’s bothering him. He wants us to save our money and send him to public school with his friends but the public school is not the best and wouldn’t support him academically. Do we start our search for a new private school again for next year?

How is he doing academically?

Our DS is the same. It’s hard to know because it was so competitive the last few years, it isn’t like folks had many options to choose from.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seeking some input. We have an athletic child who is pretty average in school. He’s pretty sensitive, not a good test taker with a very mild LD, no behavioral issues and has average social skills. Due to covid, we couldn’t tour classes in person last year and only got in to one private school. He loves the teachers at his new school and the activities and campus but isn’t making many friends and it’s bothering him. He wants us to save our money and send him to public school with his friends but the public school is not the best and wouldn’t support him academically. Do we start our search for a new private school again for next year?

How is he doing academically?

Our DS is the same. It’s hard to know because it was so competitive the last few years, it isn’t like folks had many options to choose from.

PP here. Our DS is all As. Enjoying academics but socially it’s a bust.

[Anonymous]

Public school plus tutoring

[Anonymous]

What grade? How many kids in the grade?

[Anonymous]

Devil's advocate: he can still be friends with his public school pals even if he continues to go to this school. If friendships are the only issue right now, I would not be switching schools. The pandemic has made everything social less so, and our kids aren't hanging out with new families. They are with people we know and trust.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seeking some input. We have an athletic child who is pretty average in school. He’s pretty sensitive, not a good test taker with a very mild LD, no behavioral issues and has average social skills. Due to covid, we couldn’t tour classes in person last year and only got in to one private school. He loves the teachers at his new school and the activities and campus but isn’t making many friends and it’s bothering him. He wants us to save our money and send him to public school with his friends but the public school is not the best and wouldn’t support him academically. Do we start our search for a new private school again for next year?

How is he doing academically?

Our DS is the same. It’s hard to know because it was so competitive the last few years, it isn’t like folks had many options to choose from.

PP here. Our DS is all As. Enjoying academics but socially it’s a bust.

Op here. He’s doing well academically-As and high Bs and is in middle school. I hate to go through the application process again but I think we don’t have another choice as he says he isn’t happy.

[Anonymous]

Was he in public before and wants to return to same public? If so, I'd send him back and get some tutoring or outside help instead.

Do not underestimate the social situation, though in this case, I'd just do nothing now - it's only November and he might still make friends. If not, then move him to public- but that decision can be later - after contracts due at current private.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Seeking some input. We have an athletic child who is pretty average in school. He’s pretty sensitive, not a good test taker with a very mild LD, no behavioral issues and has average social skills. Due to covid, we couldn’t tour classes in person last year and only got in to one private school. He loves the teachers at his new school and the activities and campus but isn’t making many friends and it’s bothering him. He wants us to save our money and send him to public school with his friends but the public school is not the best and wouldn’t support him academically. Do we start our search for a new private school again for next year?

We're in a similar boat, DD wants to return to public for the same reason. Academically she's doing well and the new school is large enough that there should be enough people to connect with, but she's super shy and it's not happening. She thinks life at the public MS would be so much better. We've been surprised by the sort of "out of sight, out of mind" attitude by many of her ES friends and it looks like she's initiating most of their contact which makes me wonder how good of friends they actually were and are they worth making another change for?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Devil's advocate: he can still be friends with his public school pals even if he continues to go to this school. If friendships are the only issue right now, I would not be switching schools. The pandemic has made everything social less so, and our kids aren't hanging out with new families. They are with people we know and trust.

Quite surprisingly this piece isn't playing out as we'd assumed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seeking some input. We have an athletic child who is pretty average in school. He’s pretty sensitive, not a good test taker with a very mild LD, no behavioral issues and has average social skills. Due to covid, we couldn’t tour classes in person last year and only got in to one private school. He loves the teachers at his new school and the activities and campus but isn’t making many friends and it’s bothering him. He wants us to save our money and send him to public school with his friends but the public school is not the best and wouldn’t support him academically. Do we start our search for a new private school again for next year?

We're in a similar boat, DD wants to return to public for the same reason. Academically she's doing well and the new school is large enough that there should be enough people to connect with, but she's super shy and it's not happening. She thinks life at the public MS would be so much better. We've been surprised by the sort of "out of sight, out of mind" attitude by many of her ES friends and it looks like she's initiating most of their contact which makes me wonder how good of friends they actually were and are they worth making another change for?

I think you can be sincerely good friends but not be able to sustain a friendship the same way when you're no longer seeing each other regularly. You absolutely need to put in a ton of effort to maintain relationships with people you don't see often, especially as a child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seeking some input. We have an athletic child who is pretty average in school. He’s pretty sensitive, not a good test taker with a very mild LD, no behavioral issues and has average social skills. Due to covid, we couldn’t tour classes in person last year and only got in to one private school. He loves the teachers at his new school and the activities and campus but isn’t making many friends and it’s bothering him. He wants us to save our money and send him to public school with his friends but the public school is not the best and wouldn’t support him academically. Do we start our search for a new private school again for next year?

How is he doing academically?

Our DS is the same. It’s hard to know because it was so competitive the last few years, it isn’t like folks had many options to choose from.

PP here. Our DS is all As. Enjoying academics but socially it’s a bust.

Op here. He’s doing well academically-As and high Bs and is in middle school. I hate to go through the application process again but I think we don’t have another choice as he says he isn’t happy.

What made you switch to private? How necessary is private in your mind?

[Anonymous]

My DS in private that came from public has now lost all his public school friends.

No one's fault and he definitely kept them the first few years, (elementary) but when he got to middle and high school, those kids stopped hanging out in the neighborhood and with no regular times to see each other, they grew apart.

I'm sure they'd still be friends if they saw each other in school, but boys just are friends with kids they see all the time and both have moved on to new friends.

[Anonymous]

Good luck. Depends on where your public middle school is and not sure I would give up a spot that is working academically because my middle schooler wasn’t connecting socially. Maybe new kids will start next year that he could connect with? If Dcps, heck no would I return there as I have heard it’s chaos and fights all over and likely his elementary friends are scattered out in different middle schools anyway. If Virginia or Maryland public middle school, bigger class sizes and I can’t speak to how those middle schools are