Those with 8th grade grads this year - was it worth it?

[Anonymous]

My child just finished PreK at a private school and I am still having doubts. The school is great and I loved it but I am still nagged by the "am I wasting my money? would public be ok?"

Looking ahead, I wonder for anyone whose child is "graduating" from 8th grade this year, did you feel the investment you made in private school was worth it? Looking back do you think it was more important at the elementary years or the middle school years or both? Finally, did you continue with private for high school?
thanks!

[Anonymous]

We were highly satisfied with our son's experience and growth at the Langley School. He is continuing on to a great private high school.

[Anonymous]

Parent of a 6th grader here -- quite satisfied.

A few comments:

1. Yes, public school would be "ok." Could certainly be even better than ok, depending on your DC's personality and the public options available to you.

2. Are you wasting money? Do you have something better to spend it on? What do think you get from sending your DC to this particular private (compared to your public option(s))? Is that benefit worth what you're paying in tuition?

Our answer re what we're getting would be serious science and foreign language in elementary school, as well as lots of writing from an early age.

The payoffs -- DC has a great accent. She'll enter HS with a love for and exposure to a wide variety of sciences. She also enjoys rather than dreads writing. And she reads like a writer. None of this is stuff I got from the (really excellent) public elementary/middle schools I attended. Nor would DC get it from DCPS. So it's worth it to us. Might not be worth it for us if our economic situation were such that we had to make hard choices to afford private.

That said, even without hard choices, a private school that did not offer these things probably would not have been worth it to us. I suspect that DC's reading and math skills (at this stage) would be comparable regardless of whether she went to public or private. Arguably, if we lived in the burbs and she went to a public school, her math skills (in the standardized test sense) might be even better because, in the absence of science and foreign language, she'd have channeled more energy into math.

3. At the PreK/K level, I wondered whether private made any difference. And, in fact, it made me a little nervous that everything seemed so easy for DC. But as she's progressed, I've seen both how far she's come at such a young age and how those early years laid the groundwork for where she is now. So I ended up questioning my own "no pain, no gain" assumptions about education. What's wrong with learning that feels effortless? (My first answer was, "well, what happens when something DC wants WILL require effort?? Short answer (from repeated experience, at this point) -- she'll be eager to put it in -- in part because she expects to succeed/that her efforts to be repaid.)

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the feedback.

Thus far, I love the atmosphere of the school and the support for the development of the child but I am looking long term and I wonder how much that will matter once these early years pass.

[Anonymous]

It matters all the way through. If you can swing it, do private. We did public then private for Grade 7 on. Saved a bundle but wished we'd switched to private earlier.

[Anonymous]

PP. Would you elaborate as to why you wish you had switched to private earlier?

Anonymous wrote:It matters all the way through. If you can swing it, do private. We did public then private for Grade 7 on. Saved a bundle but wished we'd switched to private earlier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It matters all the way through. If you can swing it, do private. We did public then private for Grade 7 on. Saved a bundle but wished we'd switched to private earlier.

We were public from K thru 6th, then switched to private in 7th. I'm glad we saved money on those early years. DC's doing excellently in school, so it didn't make a difference for us. But families are different. I can't say that what worked for us will work for others. As a child, I didn't switch to private until 5th grade, and it didn't hurt me at all. A lot depends on whether the child has strong support at home, which I had and my DC had, too.

[Anonymous]

we did k-8 in a private and are switching to public high school next year. I think it was worth it in the early years because the foundation is so good in writing, math, critical thinking that navigating public high school, where there are tons of great opportunities for a motivated student, should be fine.

[Anonymous]

I definitely have asked this question over the years. I felt the money was worthwhile after receiving my 8th grader’s ISEE and SSAT scores (last year). You’re asking public vs. private. We’ve done private since PK. If I had it to do over, I would have spent the early private school years in less expensive private schools than the PK-12 schools we selected. Generally, the PK-K,1 and PK-8 schools are less expensive in the early years than those grades in a PK-12 school. I think paying the early grade prices in a PK-12 school are only worth it if you plan to stay.

[Anonymous]

PK - 8 less expensive? Sheridan and Lowell? No by much!

[Anonymous]

19:44 here. I wish we'd done it earlier because quite frankly the curriculum is better. We were in DCPS. The drama of that school system was so intense I went through withdrawal when we switched to private. However, the one downside of private is the lack of socioeconomic diversity. Even with strong FA programs, the schools tilt affluent to wealthy. DC notices this, misses public for that reason, thinks private don't represent the real world.

[Anonymous]

privateS don't

[Anonymous]

My kids switched to a private for middle school. Overall they had a fine transition, but if all things were equal, I may have switched them over around 4th grade; easier to get absorbed into social life at school, easier to get to know the other parents for me, and slightly better prep for middle school. Our DC public school is good but weak on skills needed for more advanced work. OTOH, I love having a good neighborhood school and I would have preferred the community at our local middle school.

[Anonymous]

PK-8 schools used to be less expensive - that was definitely part of the draw. That reality is changing - not sure why, but it does appear to be the status quo now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kids switched to a private for middle school. Overall they had a fine transition, but if all things were equal, I may have switched them over around 4th grade; easier to get absorbed into social life at school, easier to get to know the other parents for me, and slightly better prep for middle school. Our DC public school is good but weak on skills needed for more advanced work. OTOH, I love having a good neighborhood school and I would have preferred the community at our local middle school.

You sound several years ahead of us but with a similar outlook. If you don't mind me asking, do your children still spend meaningful time playing with their neighborhood friends from their DCPS, or are they pretty fully into the social scene at their private school? Similarly, do you still socialize much with the neighborhood DCPS parents? (We're trying to weigh the lasting benefit of attending a neighborhood elementary school as we debate "move to Chevy Chase / AU Park so our kids can have the neighborhood-elementary experience vs. stay in Adams Morgan -- which we *love* -- and go private from the beginning." Our oldest will start pre-K in 2011, so decision time is nigh.) Many thanks in advance!