Montessori or Public K?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Montessori K was the best possible thing I could have done for my son. That year gained him so much confidence and independence. I love montessori as a whole, but the third year in the cycle was wonderful. Mornings were whole group, but afternoon was just K, so it was a very small group with the teacher and he was able to just fly.

The downside was that 1st and 2nd were all review. I wish we'd had the money to continue Montessori through elementary school, or at least until AAP started.

Our oldest stayed in Montessori for K, while our younger moved to public for K. I would say that this sounds like a situation where it's unlikely you can choose wrong! My kids are also just different kids, so it's hard to tell how much actual impact either decision had. But my kid who stayed at Montessori is leaps and bounds ahead in math and just has such a strong math foundation and deep intuitive understanding of numbers. But struggled more with reading and writing. He spent a lot of time deeply invested in the math materials in K. My younger who went public k (and just first two years Montessori) has stronger reading and writing but does not seem to have the same strong foundational number sense.

We didn't find the transition difficult either year. And there were lots of new kids in 1st regardless. They're in 2nd and 4th now and I have been generally thrilled with both of their experiences.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:WWYD: we are not in our forever home and want our next house to be our long term home. Our problem is we don’t think we can get our house ready to sell this spring/summer and our eldest starts K this fall. The eldest is currently in a Montessori daycare (that we no longer like) with their youngest sibling. Would you a) find a new Montessori daycare and have eldest complete K there, or b) send eldest to public K and change schools when we move next year?

If you can afford private or Montessori I would do that. Kindergarten in FCPS ignores developmental needs. Children at this age still learn through play, music, and art. FCPS is very rigid and scheduled. A lot of kids do not do well with this highly structure at 5. Do your research and see if you can sit in a kindergarten class to see if your child is ready for so much sitting quietly at 5. This also depends on the teacher but most teachers are being ruled by gatehouse policy who does not care about developmental stages and what is appropriate and necessary for children's learning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:WWYD: we are not in our forever home and want our next house to be our long term home. Our problem is we don’t think we can get our house ready to sell this spring/summer and our eldest starts K this fall. The eldest is currently in a Montessori daycare (that we no longer like) with their youngest sibling. Would you a) find a new Montessori daycare and have eldest complete K there, or b) send eldest to public K and change schools when we move next year?

If I could do it again my kids would go to private schools. FCPS seems to get messier every year and most parents I know have tutors. My kids are older and don't want to leave friends/sports but if they were younger we would pull them out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WWYD: we are not in our forever home and want our next house to be our long term home. Our problem is we don’t think we can get our house ready to sell this spring/summer and our eldest starts K this fall. The eldest is currently in a Montessori daycare (that we no longer like) with their youngest sibling. Would you a) find a new Montessori daycare and have eldest complete K there, or b) send eldest to public K and change schools when we move next year?

If I could do it again my kids would go to private schools. FCPS seems to get messier every year and most parents I know have tutors. My kids are older and don't want to leave friends/sports but if they were younger we would pull them out.

thanks for sharing this. I’m a little concerned that we live in one of the better school districts in the country and people are dissatisfied. Gives me pause. I can’t imagine paying for private school with the HCOL here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WWYD: we are not in our forever home and want our next house to be our long term home. Our problem is we don’t think we can get our house ready to sell this spring/summer and our eldest starts K this fall. The eldest is currently in a Montessori daycare (that we no longer like) with their youngest sibling. Would you a) find a new Montessori daycare and have eldest complete K there, or b) send eldest to public K and change schools when we move next year?

If I could do it again my kids would go to private schools. FCPS seems to get messier every year and most parents I know have tutors. My kids are older and don't want to leave friends/sports but if they were younger we would pull them out.

FWIW we did private for K-2 and were equally displeased. I think we threw away nearly $100k and didn't get anything we couldn't have gotten in public, except less screen time. We moved back to FCPS for 3rd.

I do think benchmark has kind of ruined upper elementary language arts, as there are no more book clubs/novel groups, it's all just paragraphs from a textbook which has killed my child's love of reading...but I'm not sure it would be different in private school, we didn't make it that far.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WWYD: we are not in our forever home and want our next house to be our long term home. Our problem is we don’t think we can get our house ready to sell this spring/summer and our eldest starts K this fall. The eldest is currently in a Montessori daycare (that we no longer like) with their youngest sibling. Would you a) find a new Montessori daycare and have eldest complete K there, or b) send eldest to public K and change schools when we move next year?

If I could do it again my kids would go to private schools. FCPS seems to get messier every year and most parents I know have tutors. My kids are older and don't want to leave friends/sports but if they were younger we would pull them out.

FWIW we did private for K-2 and were equally displeased. I think we threw away nearly $100k and didn't get anything we couldn't have gotten in public, except less screen time. We moved back to FCPS for 3rd.

I do think benchmark has kind of ruined upper elementary language arts, as there are no more book clubs/novel groups, it's all just paragraphs from a textbook which has killed my child's love of reading...but I'm not sure it would be different in private school, we didn't make it that far.

I think this is why a lot of people are homeschooling these days if they can. It is sad because FCPS was once a solid and reliable county. And I'm PRO public schools but the FCPS system is broken.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WWYD: we are not in our forever home and want our next house to be our long term home. Our problem is we don’t think we can get our house ready to sell this spring/summer and our eldest starts K this fall. The eldest is currently in a Montessori daycare (that we no longer like) with their youngest sibling. Would you a) find a new Montessori daycare and have eldest complete K there, or b) send eldest to public K and change schools when we move next year?

If I could do it again my kids would go to private schools. FCPS seems to get messier every year and most parents I know have tutors. My kids are older and don't want to leave friends/sports but if they were younger we would pull them out.

FWIW we did private for K-2 and were equally displeased. I think we threw away nearly $100k and didn't get anything we couldn't have gotten in public, except less screen time. We moved back to FCPS for 3rd.

I do think benchmark has kind of ruined upper elementary language arts, as there are no more book clubs/novel groups, it's all just paragraphs from a textbook which has killed my child's love of reading...but I'm not sure it would be different in private school, we didn't make it that far.

can you explain more about benchmark and how it’s ruined language arts and your child’s love of reading?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WWYD: we are not in our forever home and want our next house to be our long term home. Our problem is we don’t think we can get our house ready to sell this spring/summer and our eldest starts K this fall. The eldest is currently in a Montessori daycare (that we no longer like) with their youngest sibling. Would you a) find a new Montessori daycare and have eldest complete K there, or b) send eldest to public K and change schools when we move next year?

If I could do it again my kids would go to private schools. FCPS seems to get messier every year and most parents I know have tutors. My kids are older and don't want to leave friends/sports but if they were younger we would pull them out.

FWIW we did private for K-2 and were equally displeased. I think we threw away nearly $100k and didn't get anything we couldn't have gotten in public, except less screen time. We moved back to FCPS for 3rd.

I do think benchmark has kind of ruined upper elementary language arts, as there are no more book clubs/novel groups, it's all just paragraphs from a textbook which has killed my child's love of reading...but I'm not sure it would be different in private school, we didn't make it that far.

In private, your kid would be reading whole books since first grade

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Biggest regret I have is doing Montessori K and then moving to public school in FCPS. 1st grad was so disappointing and it has never improved. My child got a great foundation in Montessori- was reading, writing, etc… and then got thrown into the terrible reading curriculum in FCPS and it was like moving backwards. Awful awful

My kid regressed and lost her love for reading and writing.

It wasn't until late 2nd/3rd that she started approaching were she was in montessori K.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WWYD: we are not in our forever home and want our next house to be our long term home. Our problem is we don’t think we can get our house ready to sell this spring/summer and our eldest starts K this fall. The eldest is currently in a Montessori daycare (that we no longer like) with their youngest sibling. Would you a) find a new Montessori daycare and have eldest complete K there, or b) send eldest to public K and change schools when we move next year?

If I could do it again my kids would go to private schools. FCPS seems to get messier every year and most parents I know have tutors. My kids are older and don't want to leave friends/sports but if they were younger we would pull them out.

FWIW we did private for K-2 and were equally displeased. I think we threw away nearly $100k and didn't get anything we couldn't have gotten in public, except less screen time. We moved back to FCPS for 3rd.

I do think benchmark has kind of ruined upper elementary language arts, as there are no more book clubs/novel groups, it's all just paragraphs from a textbook which has killed my child's love of reading...but I'm not sure it would be different in private school, we didn't make it that far.

In private, your kid would be reading whole books since first grade

He didn't in 1st or 2nd, that's part of why we pulled him back to public. In 3rd-5th there were lots of novels and book clubs, but in 6th this year it's been only benchmark.

[Anonymous]

I would keep her in a good Montessori if you could. We moved DD from Montessori to FCPS in first grade. She did great in school, but would come home distraught that she was not learning anything. To show her teacher that she could do more than add two and two and come up with four, she would show that she could do 2 x 2 and get four, or 8/2 to get 4 or 16 different ways to do it, but her teacher did not acknowledge what she was trying to do (not that I blame the teacher; there were kids in class that did not recognize numbers or letters or knew the names of shapes or colors).

She successfully lobbied to go back to Montessori ("My brain is rusting when I am in school. Why am I going there?") half way through the school year, and she stayed there until she got into AAP in 3rd grade. Her first assignment when she got back to Montessori was to write a research paper on a dinosaur, to go with a diorama.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WWYD: we are not in our forever home and want our next house to be our long term home. Our problem is we don’t think we can get our house ready to sell this spring/summer and our eldest starts K this fall. The eldest is currently in a Montessori daycare (that we no longer like) with their youngest sibling. Would you a) find a new Montessori daycare and have eldest complete K there, or b) send eldest to public K and change schools when we move next year?

If I could do it again my kids would go to private schools. FCPS seems to get messier every year and most parents I know have tutors. My kids are older and don't want to leave friends/sports but if they were younger we would pull them out.

FWIW we did private for K-2 and were equally displeased. I think we threw away nearly $100k and didn't get anything we couldn't have gotten in public, except less screen time. We moved back to FCPS for 3rd.

I do think benchmark has kind of ruined upper elementary language arts, as there are no more book clubs/novel groups, it's all just paragraphs from a textbook which has killed my child's love of reading...but I'm not sure it would be different in private school, we didn't make it that far.

can you explain more about benchmark and how it’s ruined language arts and your child’s love of reading?

Benchmark is like an old school textbook with tons of excerpts but no full stories. They read 3 paragraphs about person A and a poem about person B and then have to write a comparison essay. Or they read an excerpt from book A and an excerpt from book B and have to explain how the characters show xyz trait. The teacher has been trying to give them summaries of the books to give them more background info, but DS is just frustrated that they don't get to read a whole book and are writing full 5 paragraph essays based on a grand total of 5 paragraphs of source text.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would keep her in a good Montessori if you could. We moved DD from Montessori to FCPS in first grade. She did great in school, but would come home distraught that she was not learning anything. To show her teacher that she could do more than add two and two and come up with four, she would show that she could do 2 x 2 and get four, or 8/2 to get 4 or 16 different ways to do it, but her teacher did not acknowledge what she was trying to do (not that I blame the teacher; there were kids in class that did not recognize numbers or letters or knew the names of shapes or colors).

She successfully lobbied to go back to Montessori ("My brain is rusting when I am in school. Why am I going there?") half way through the school year, and she stayed there until she got into AAP in 3rd grade. Her first assignment when she got back to Montessori was to write a research paper on a dinosaur, to go with a diorama.

that’s very impressive! I thought FCPS had AAP to offer more challenges in-class for those who qualify from k-2.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WWYD: we are not in our forever home and want our next house to be our long term home. Our problem is we don’t think we can get our house ready to sell this spring/summer and our eldest starts K this fall. The eldest is currently in a Montessori daycare (that we no longer like) with their youngest sibling. Would you a) find a new Montessori daycare and have eldest complete K there, or b) send eldest to public K and change schools when we move next year?

If I could do it again my kids would go to private schools. FCPS seems to get messier every year and most parents I know have tutors. My kids are older and don't want to leave friends/sports but if they were younger we would pull them out.

FWIW we did private for K-2 and were equally displeased. I think we threw away nearly $100k and didn't get anything we couldn't have gotten in public, except less screen time. We moved back to FCPS for 3rd.

I do think benchmark has kind of ruined upper elementary language arts, as there are no more book clubs/novel groups, it's all just paragraphs from a textbook which has killed my child's love of reading...but I'm not sure it would be different in private school, we didn't make it that far.

can you explain more about benchmark and how it’s ruined language arts and your child’s love of reading?

Benchmark is like an old school textbook with tons of excerpts but no full stories. They read 3 paragraphs about person A and a poem about person B and then have to write a comparison essay. Or they read an excerpt from book A and an excerpt from book B and have to explain how the characters show xyz trait. The teacher has been trying to give them summaries of the books to give them more background info, but DS is just frustrated that they don't get to read a whole book and are writing full 5 paragraph essays based on a grand total of 5 paragraphs of source text.

ok, that sounds absurd! What a broken system public education is

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WWYD: we are not in our forever home and want our next house to be our long term home. Our problem is we don’t think we can get our house ready to sell this spring/summer and our eldest starts K this fall. The eldest is currently in a Montessori daycare (that we no longer like) with their youngest sibling. Would you a) find a new Montessori daycare and have eldest complete K there, or b) send eldest to public K and change schools when we move next year?

If I could do it again my kids would go to private schools. FCPS seems to get messier every year and most parents I know have tutors. My kids are older and don't want to leave friends/sports but if they were younger we would pull them out.

FWIW we did private for K-2 and were equally displeased. I think we threw away nearly $100k and didn't get anything we couldn't have gotten in public, except less screen time. We moved back to FCPS for 3rd.

I do think benchmark has kind of ruined upper elementary language arts, as there are no more book clubs/novel groups, it's all just paragraphs from a textbook which has killed my child's love of reading...but I'm not sure it would be different in private school, we didn't make it that far.

In private, your kid would be reading whole books since first grade

He didn't in 1st or 2nd, that's part of why we pulled him back to public. In 3rd-5th there were lots of novels and book clubs, but in 6th this year it's been only benchmark.

I guess it depends on the private. Ours does novels starting in first and then it just keeps going. They start doing some historical fiction starting in 3rd and up so there can be some history/language arts integration.