Anyone with a child in a NW DC private?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Very interested in the proposed The Maryland School. Went to theMarylandschool.com but there was no available website.

.org, not .com

Same here. Please let us know when the website is back up.

[Anonymous]

I have recently visited a very $$$$ DC school and observed some classes. I am a parent very active in our own neghborhood school, which is pretty decent...I dont see to much difference in what they do and how they do it. Is it just the name we are paying for? Or is it fear of the children being influenced by general population at the PGCPS? The average parochial or religious based private school compared to my heighborhood school is in my opinion not a good use of my money...they really dont offer too much more......
Parental involvement is the key to a successful school

My husband and I are now struggling as to where to put our children. Do we put them in $$$ schools because they are better schools and in the long run they will do better academically or will they still have the same education as long as we stay as involved as we are?

[Anonymous]

You are paying not only for curriculum but also peer group. Your child will be heavily influenced by their peers and the peer culture at the school. As your children approach middle school, your influence goes down and the influence wielded by their peers goes way up. To put it bluntly, you are shopping for a peer group and yes it matters tremendously.

[Anonymous]

OP, if your DH commutes to UofMd and you are considering moving to Arlington or Fairfax, why not consider Montgomery County? You could move to Kensington and have great public school options while still giving your DH a really reasonable commute. He could get to College Park in less than 30 minutes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have recently visited a very $$$$ DC school and observed some classes. I am a parent very active in our own neghborhood school, which is pretty decent...I dont see to much difference in what they do and how they do it. Is it just the name we are paying for? Or is it fear of the children being influenced by general population at the PGCPS? The average parochial or religious based private school compared to my heighborhood school is in my opinion not a good use of my money...they really dont offer too much more......
Parental involvement is the key to a successful school

My husband and I are now struggling as to where to put our children. Do we put them in $$$ schools because they are better schools and in the long run they will do better academically or will they still have the same education as long as we stay as involved as we are?

I'm not sure which school you visited or which school you are zoned for, but I can comment on the major differences we're noticed between our zoned school (one child is there) and the $$$$ independent school.
1) class size - neighborhood school has 27 in DD's kinder class with no aide, private school has 15 plus math and reading specialists, so with pull out in those subjects the leveled groups are never more than 10 kids
2) specials - the bulk of the neighborhood school's day is devoted to math and reading, no matter the grade, because they are teaching towards proficiency on the state tests, that leaves very little time for anything else. DD gets things like PE and music on a rotating schedule for a 20 minute block maybe once a week. At other DD's school, the math and reading blocks are no longer than the blocks for science (daily) or social studies (also daily) or the specials like art, music, etc. She gets PE 4 days a week and at least one "special" (usually 2) a day that are 45 minute blocks.
3) school communications - neighborhood school is not very organized and there is nothing proactive as far as getting info out to parents. I typically have to confirm things with friends with older kids because announcements on the PA are how they transmit info. My child is 5, so info about events and dress down days is often forgotten or slightly confused by the time she gets home. This is in contrast to the web portal for my other DD's school that is a centralized source of info about anything we could need - schedule, homework, events, etc.
4) miscellaneous - obviously there are far more field trips and supplemental events and services that happen at the private school. The tuition pays for that. The facilities are amazing. The meals included with tuition are healthy and pretty tasty. The neighborhood school is pretty bare bones as far as facilities and they have had one field trip this year. I send lunch because I teach in county and the meals we serve at my school are not good. There's a huge difference in P/T conferences. At the neighborhood school we were scheduled for a 5 minute conference. The teacher hadn't prepared anything and just said "she's doing great." At the other school, the conferences are blocked for 1/2 hour and they walk through all of the objectives for the report cards and showed samples of the work and how it was evaluated.

There are a lot of other differences too, but most are just the types of things you'd expect due to the disparity in funds available to the schools for various things. My eldest was also at a parochial school for a few years and I would say it fell somewhere in between the 2: smaller classes, but not as small as the independent school, way more communication between school and home, but not as slick and pretty as the private school, facilities were comparable to the neighborhood school, curriculum also was pretty comparable.

This post is getting way too long, but I think these choices depend a ton on the child. Our eldest really needs the school we sign checks for each month. It has made a tremendous difference in her quality of life. She's happy and challenged and feels safe at school. Those things weren't true until we moved her to the independent school. My DD at the neighborhood school is doing fine and enjoys going to school and she is happy there for now. We'll play it by ear year by year for both of them. I think for many people, the differences start to become more apparent or matter more as the child gets older. Kindergarten is more about learning to be in a structured classroom and socializing with others. So at that age I think class size and facilities are the big differences between the neighborhood school and a place like GDS or Beauvoir. As they get older, I think the substantive contrasts between one school and another and "fit" become more obvious.

One thing I will say, is at least from my experience, the kids will not have the same education. Our neighborhood school essentially does not teach science or writing in any meaningful way because they are incredibly focused on getting the numbers up on math and reading proficiency. So at the independent school, my daughter does have a substantively different curriculum than she would as a TAG kid at the neighborhood school. I can't speak for the TAG centers because she did not get drawn in the lottery, so we never visited and just committed to the independent at that point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are paying not only for curriculum but also peer group. Your child will be heavily influenced by their peers and the peer culture at the school. As your children approach middle school, your influence goes down and the influence wielded by their peers goes way up. To put it bluntly, you are shopping for a peer group and yes it matters tremendously.

Thanks for this, well said.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have recently visited a very $$$$ DC school and observed some classes. I am a parent very active in our own neghborhood school, which is pretty decent...I dont see to much difference in what they do and how they do it. Is it just the name we are paying for? Or is it fear of the children being influenced by general population at the PGCPS? The average parochial or religious based private school compared to my heighborhood school is in my opinion not a good use of my money...they really dont offer too much more......
Parental involvement is the key to a successful school

My husband and I are now struggling as to where to put our children. Do we put them in $$$ schools because they are better schools and in the long run they will do better academically or will they still have the same education as long as we stay as involved as we are?

I'm not sure which school you visited or which school you are zoned for, but I can comment on the major differences we're noticed between our zoned school (one child is there) and the $$$$ independent school.
1) class size - neighborhood school has 27 in DD's kinder class with no aide, private school has 15 plus math and reading specialists, so with pull out in those subjects the leveled groups are never more than 10 kids
2) specials - the bulk of the neighborhood school's day is devoted to math and reading, no matter the grade, because they are teaching towards proficiency on the state tests, that leaves very little time for anything else. DD gets things like PE and music on a rotating schedule for a 20 minute block maybe once a week. At other DD's school, the math and reading blocks are no longer than the blocks for science (daily) or social studies (also daily) or the specials like art, music, etc. She gets PE 4 days a week and at least one "special" (usually 2) a day that are 45 minute blocks.
3) school communications - neighborhood school is not very organized and there is nothing proactive as far as getting info out to parents. I typically have to confirm things with friends with older kids because announcements on the PA are how they transmit info. My child is 5, so info about events and dress down days is often forgotten or slightly confused by the time she gets home. This is in contrast to the web portal for my other DD's school that is a centralized source of info about anything we could need - schedule, homework, events, etc.
4) miscellaneous - obviously there are far more field trips and supplemental events and services that happen at the private school. The tuition pays for that. The facilities are amazing. The meals included with tuition are healthy and pretty tasty. The neighborhood school is pretty bare bones as far as facilities and they have had one field trip this year. I send lunch because I teach in county and the meals we serve at my school are not good. There's a huge difference in P/T conferences. At the neighborhood school we were scheduled for a 5 minute conference. The teacher hadn't prepared anything and just said "she's doing great." At the other school, the conferences are blocked for 1/2 hour and they walk through all of the objectives for the report cards and showed samples of the work and how it was evaluated.

There are a lot of other differences too, but most are just the types of things you'd expect due to the disparity in funds available to the schools for various things. My eldest was also at a parochial school for a few years and I would say it fell somewhere in between the 2: smaller classes, but not as small as the independent school, way more communication between school and home, but not as slick and pretty as the private school, facilities were comparable to the neighborhood school, curriculum also was pretty comparable.

This post is getting way too long, but I think these choices depend a ton on the child. Our eldest really needs the school we sign checks for each month. It has made a tremendous difference in her quality of life. She's happy and challenged and feels safe at school. Those things weren't true until we moved her to the independent school. My DD at the neighborhood school is doing fine and enjoys going to school and she is happy there for now. We'll play it by ear year by year for both of them. I think for many people, the differences start to become more apparent or matter more as the child gets older. Kindergarten is more about learning to be in a structured classroom and socializing with others. So at that age I think class size and facilities are the big differences between the neighborhood school and a place like GDS or Beauvoir. As they get older, I think the substantive contrasts between one school and another and "fit" become more obvious.

One thing I will say, is at least from my experience, the kids will not have the same education. Our neighborhood school essentially does not teach science or writing in any meaningful way because they are incredibly focused on getting the numbers up on math and reading proficiency. So at the independent school, my daughter does have a substantively different curriculum than she would as a TAG kid at the neighborhood school. I can't speak for the TAG centers because she did not get drawn in the lottery, so we never visited and just committed to the independent at that point.

We are looking at DC Privates. The school you describe speaks exactly to what we are looking for school wise. Do you mind sharing the name? I know some people do not like to name school so its understandable if you do not.

[Anonymous]

10:24 - I was the poster you responded to. DD is at Holton. I can't say enough good things about the school. There is a PG County bus route which is a huge help.

[Anonymous]

I recently started taking my son to a private school in NW DC (since the beginning of January). I work in Rockville, so it is somewhat on my way. Traffic is traffic, but he has been really good about it; we generally leave around 7:00 to ensure he is at school by 8:30, and our arrival time varies with the traffic. Overall, I am pleased with the educational instruction, so its a small sacrifice to make for him. DH works in DC and generally picks him up after school.

[Anonymous]

We are in northern PG, and send our child to Sandy Spring Friends School, and there are bunch of kids from my town at the school. When all is said and done, we can either pay a bunch of money for an expensive school and a cheap house (but we do love our town!) or a bunch of money for an expensive house with a "free" education. Our checkbook would look about the same at the end of the month either way, and this way I retain the option of picking the school that fits my child best. I must say we got burned in the housing bust, and I just can't bring myself to tie myself to an expensive house, either.

[Anonymous]

Recently accepted into the lower school at a private school in Georgetown. Trying to figure out if we can manage this from Southern PG county area. I imagine I can contact the school for the directory upon entry but before we decide if the drop off and pickup is something we can handle (in addition to the money) I'd like to find out if there is anyone interested in carpooling.

[Anonymous]

I'm in the same frustrating boat. I love my charming little neighborhood. Couldn't afford a house in DC, if I wanted to. My house would be 1M+ in any neighborhood in DC. But, the schools SUCK! Exploring ALL DC privates, considering all commutes, but will be worth it.

Would like to hear from the parent at Sandy Springs. How do you like that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are in northern PG, and send our child to Sandy Spring Friends School, and there are bunch of kids from my town at the school. When all is said and done, we can either pay a bunch of money for an expensive school and a cheap house (but we do love our town!) or a bunch of money for an expensive house with a "free" education. Our checkbook would look about the same at the end of the month either way, and this way I retain the option of picking the school that fits my child best. I must say we got burned in the housing bust, and I just can't bring myself to tie myself to an expensive house, either.

This is EXACTLY how we feel. I'd rather sink that money into school than a chunk of land. I don't want to be trapped by my mortgage and be unable to move my kid if his school isn't a good fit.

[Anonymous]

Any updates from posters or any new comments?

[Anonymous]

What is the real issue with parents and Prince Georges County public schools? I"m sorry but to the poster who mentioned John Henson, while it is a good school, I can list you over 15 schools in PG that have equal or better test results. Paying all that cash for a private school that can't promise you stellar results is risky in my opinion. My cousins fiance graduated from NCS her advancements in her field while nice isn't anything a kid graduating from PGCPS could not get. I understand paying for a smaller class size, and paying for a predetermined peer group, but for all that cash I would need more then just a smaller class size and "nice" students