do you like your k-8 school

[Anonymous]

MY DD attend a K-8 school, she is now a high school sophomore, and I thought it was good idea, but others think differently. What are the pros and cons of a k-8 school?
PRO they will only go to 2 schools if they never moved
They get to know everyone, you watch grow, they might never be in a same building for 9 years.
Cons- maybe the oldest kids might say something bad.? older kids vaping or smoking or talking about it on the bus?

[Anonymous]

Why is this in the public school forum?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why is this in the public school forum?

we have couple k-8 schools in PG.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MY DD attend a K-8 school, she is now a high school sophomore, and I thought it was good idea, but others think differently. What are the pros and cons of a k-8 school?
PRO they will only go to 2 schools if they never moved
They get to know everyone, you watch grow, they might never be in a same building for 9 years.
Cons- maybe the oldest kids might say something bad.? older kids vaping or smoking or talking about it on the bus?

Being together for 9 years can be a drawback if the social dynamic is toxic. There is a lot of benefit to starting over in middle school with a larger group of classmates. DKFI only has ~60 kids per grade in middle school and for Hoyer it is only 25. One mean girl/boy can ruin another kids experience in a cohort that small.
K-8 schools don't always offer the same extracurricular activities, sports opportunities and specials that a larger middle school can support. For example, I don't think that DKFI or Hoyer have middle school basketball teams.

[Anonymous]

I haven't heard a lot of complaints about the Cons you listed in the OP.

[Anonymous]

We aren't in PG county - but kids did K-8 and it was very positive for us/them. Thankfully, they didn't have issues with mean kids/bullies and they built very strong friendships that lasted. We were worried about transitioning from an 8th grade class of 75 to a 9th grade class of 550, but they were fine. We did have to find middle school sports outside of school, but kids did theater and robotics as part of school clubs. They did rec soccer and club swimming. Those sports expanded their social circles.

We really liked it (as parents) because we knew a lot of the kids/families and knew the majority of teachers.

Kids are now seniors and we don't regret it.

[Anonymous]

We’ve only been at our K-8 since 4th grade and kid is now in 6th. We are happy and she is happy. I like the uniforms and love the small class sizes. DD is bright but not gifted and I think would be under the radar in a larger school. She gets a lot of individual attention where she is now. They have PE once a week and recess every day ( mcps doesn’t in MS) and they have sports teams.

[Anonymous]

Our kids are in a k-8 in PGCPS. I like that as siblings they will be in the same school together longer so it simplified drop off and pick up.

I have not seen any complaints about the older students, on the contrary there are some great buddy programs where middle schoolers read to the younger kids and the older students seem really kind to the younger ones.