Private School for Ordinary Middle Class Family

[Anonymous]

We have two children in one of the schools on your list and we are middle class. You will not feel poor at the schools on list of schools you have chosen - at least we don't. Pretty down to earth people. We are in a good public school district, but after we toured the schools just to see, we decided we really valued the small class sizes, focus on arts and music, science and languages at a young age.

Please do yourself a favor and tour each of the schools on your list, (although I should add we didn't look at Lowell or Green Acres) and make your own decision based on reviewing.

Each of these schools will bring out naysayers on DCUM, so there is no substitute for going to visit them.

[Anonymous]

OP here - I'll clarify a few things.

I have done a lot of searching/reading threads on this forum about these schools what I am looking for is a better feeling of which might be good for a middle class family. Also we have looked at class size and ratios at the local elementary school and for kindergarten they are okay but beyond that the class are large. And the decision to like at private is not just about class size. It's about the aproach to teaching and music, art, the outdoors and so much more.

My background - I grew up in DC and went to an elite private school. Both DH & I are well educated with advanced degrees. I hesitate to give more personal details as I prefer to remain anonymous.

As for finances, I know we can swing at least $20K a year from our own pockets without a problem as we did it for infant daycare with out additonal help from anyone. My parents can easily give us $15K a year and are happy to do so without strings as education has always when important in our family and in fact they rec'd assistance from their parents for my education. Oh, it helps that we bought our house in 1999 and put down 25% and then did a re-fi a while ago to get a better rate (didn't take any money out) so we have a relative low mortgage payment for this area.

I can already see that I was correct to be concerned that snobbery (or whatever you want to call it) could be a problem. I am hoping to get a feeling for which schools may have enough socioeconomic diversity to be inclusive of the middle class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have two children in one of the schools on your list and we are middle class. You will not feel poor at the schools on list of schools you have chosen - at least we don't. Pretty down to earth people. We are in a good public school district, but after we toured the schools just to see, we decided we really valued the small class sizes, focus on arts and music, science and languages at a young age.

Please do yourself a favor and tour each of the schools on your list, (although I should add we didn't look at Lowell or Green Acres) and make your own decision based on reviewing.

Each of these schools will bring out naysayers on DCUM, so there is no substitute for going to visit them.

OP - Thank you so much! I was beginning to worry. This is good to hear.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FWIW OP we go to a Catholic School that is under 10k per year. Our HHI is 220k and we feel poor by comparsion. If you try most privates, you are going to feel poor. Lots of folks in the 300k to 500k range and if you don't feel comfortable socializing with them you aren't goung to feel comfortable at the school. I have a friend in your income bracket and she fits in well. She has a very inexpensive townhouse but she is extremely polished.

It's funny b/c I know it can be so true - some of the Catholic Schools can be the worst in terms of cliques of parents and nonsense over $$$ and often lack of diversity. Wish there was a good Jesuit school in the area that included the younger grades.

[Anonymous]

This is a very big financial decision to make on a gut feeling, about a 3-year-old, with a HHI of $120K. Be aware that he will grow and change, and go into it with your eyes open. You had better be right for $30K a year for 6 (or 13?) years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a very big financial decision to make on a gut feeling, about a 3-year-old, with a HHI of $120K. Be aware that he will grow and change, and go into it with your eyes open. You had better be right for $30K a year for 6 (or 13?) years.

No. You do the best you can at the time. Later, if a change is needed, you make a change.

[Anonymous]

Look at NPS! Fantastic

[Anonymous]

Why have you ruled out Beauvoir, Sidwell, GDS and Maret? They are the schools with the largest endowment funds and are best equipped to provide financial aid to middle income families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a very big financial decision to make on a gut feeling, about a 3-year-old, with a HHI of $120K. Be aware that he will grow and change, and go into it with your eyes open. You had better be right for $30K a year for 6 (or 13?) years.

No. You do the best you can at the time. Later, if a change is needed, you make a change.

Yes, but this is easier said than done.

Signed,

Been there, done that

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why have you ruled out Beauvoir, Sidwell, GDS and Maret? They are the schools with the largest endowment funds and are best equipped to provide financial aid to middle income families.

Not OP, but we ruled them out because we preferred the pre-k or k through 6th or 8th schools. Also, with the exception of Beauvoir, the other schools seem more focused on the upper schools and will look there for upper school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a very big financial decision to make on a gut feeling, about a 3-year-old, with a HHI of $120K. Be aware that he will grow and change, and go into it with your eyes open. You had better be right for $30K a year for 6 (or 13?) years.

No. You do the best you can at the time. Later, if a change is needed, you make a change.

Yes, but this is easier said than done.

Signed,

Been there, done that

You can't plan for these things, you can start public and hate it and go public, or vice versa. At least by starting private young you get the benefits of the great early childhood programs, low class sizes, lots of recess, etc. If you end up not liking it, your child will still have that grounding and can go over to public. Happens successfully all the time.

[Anonymous]

I would add Norwood and primary day to your list. We have friends at Norwood with an income of 150,000 and they are very comfortable there. People don't know how much money people make--or they dont care. Yes, people might be hesitant to send their kid home on a play date if it was in sw dc, but other then that, dd has been in huge mansions and row houses for play dates with no issues. Dd is at primary day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would add Norwood and primary day to your list. We have friends at Norwood with an income of 150,000 and they are very comfortable there. People don't know how much money people make--or they dont care. Yes, people might be hesitant to send their kid home on a play date if it was in sw dc, but other then that, dd has been in huge mansions and row houses for play dates with no issues. Dd is at primary day.

PP, you must not live in DC or know anything about the different quadrants. There is nothing wrong with SW DC and there are some nice homes in SW. There is also a major revitalization taking place near the waterfront area Please stop making such uninformed statements.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am looking for advice on which private schools might be the best fit for my son and our family.

My son is 3 y.o. and we are just starting to look. We had thought we would send him to our neighborhood public school which is in the Walter Johnson/North Bethesda cluster but are concerned that he would not do well in such a huge overcrowded elementary school. My gut tells me he needs a smaller more nurturing environment to succeed - somewhere where they can really work with each child as an individual. Of course I am bias but I think he’s quite smart - not a genius but smart. I also think he gets easily frustrated and that he’s going to need more attention and flexibility in teaching method then is possible in a large class.

I have been doing a lot of preliminary research on these forums and looking at the schools websites. It is a bit disheartening to see how crazy and ultra-competitive this area has become regarding private schools - much more so than when I was growing up in the 70s & 80s. My concern is finding a private school that my son can get into for pre-K or K and that has a community we will feel comfortable in - don’t want to get into a situation where we will fill like outsiders for not being able to keep up with the Joneses. We are just an ordinary middle class family. Our annual HHI is about $120K, I work full time downtown and DH works PT in Bethesda. We have a small to medium size SF home in a nice neighborhood. We drive Toyotas. We go on a beach vacation once a year and every few years a bigger vacation. We live a nice life and stay within our means. Education is very important to us and with a little help from grandparents and careful planning we will be able to afford tuition so won’t need financial aid.

I would appreciate input on which schools where we would feel most comfortable. We prefer a coed school in lower Mont. Cnty or NW DC that includes at least K-5th. We are not interested in Catholic parochial schools as although we are Catholic we find them too conservative for our values and most seem to have class sizes as large as public schools but without the resources and many just don’t seem to have as strong academics as we would like.

I have already ruled out the following schools as just too competitive to bother with:
-Beauvoir
-GDS
-Maret
-Sidwell

I am particularly interested in hearing more about the following schools:
-Grace Episcopal Day School
-Green Acres School
-Lowell School
-National Presbyterian School
-Sheridan School
-Washington Episcopal School
-Woods Academy

Thanks.

OP, you should save your money until middle school especially if you are in a good elementary school cluster.

[Anonymous]

You will feel out of place at Green Acres.