Does anyone ever regret sending their DC to Siena?

[Anonymous]

PP - I should add that I agree with the other PP that the social dynamics can be thorny because of the small class sizes. OTOH, the teachers and school counselor have been very good at supporting students' socio-emotional development and addressing conflicts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC is in 3rd year at Siena. The school has pros and cons. It seems that they have a hard time keeping kids after middle school so it ends up being small. Also, because kids come from all over there really isn't much socializing outside of school. DC misses the social network from previous school.

DS is at Siena. Agree completely with this assessment. In my fantasy world, MCPS would have the teachers and curriculum Siena has and DS would be able to go to public school with these stellar teachers and program. Since that is not the real world, he is there but it is a teensy tiny school with not a lot of friend choices.

[Anonymous]

^^^^ I'm PP and just to answer the main question: even with its downsides, DH and I have absolutely no regrets with the switch. Siena is a fabulous place for a dyslexic kid.

[Anonymous]

We do not have experience with Siena but wanted to say that we wish we had sent DC there or to a similar school instead of public. We looked at small privates but decided to stick with public for social reasons and now that DC is older they are struggling with a lot of very basic academic things. The years or the lack of appropriate instruction in school are coming crashing down despite aggressive tutoring and a lot of support from us parents.

We made the opposite decision as some others on this thread and to be honest we do have regrets about staying with public.

[Anonymous]

I have a child in 2nd grade with ADHD, dyslexia, and dysgraphia.

I have looked into this school as a option for the future, and it seems really nice, but how do people afford it? Is it covered by insurance?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a child in 2nd grade with ADHD, dyslexia, and dysgraphia.

I have looked into this school as a option for the future, and it seems really nice, but how do people afford it? Is it covered by insurance?

.

Pretty darn sure insurance won't cover it. You have to be pretty well off to afford it. It's my dream to send my child to one of these but we are stuck with FCPS, as there is no way I can afford tuition, aftercare and before care for my dyslexic child, before and aftercare for my other child and my mortgage. We live in a modest central fairfax home and drive old cars an 08 and a 2015. We will likely very little so we don't want to take a home equity loan to finance it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a child in 2nd grade with ADHD, dyslexia, and dysgraphia.

I have looked into this school as a option for the future, and it seems really nice, but how do people afford it? Is it covered by insurance?

.

Pretty darn sure insurance won't cover it. You have to be pretty well off to afford it. It's my dream to send my child to one of these but we are stuck with FCPS, as there is no way I can afford tuition, aftercare and before care for my dyslexic child, before and aftercare for my other child and my mortgage. We live in a modest central fairfax home and drive old cars an 08 and a 2015. We will likely very little so we don't want to take a home equity loan to finance it.

Insurance doesn't cover it, but we take the tuition as a tax medical deduction (including miles driven to/from). It is totally legal w/ proper documentation thru the IRS and falls into certain AGI limit. I think it took off about $5k on our taxes w/ our income. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p502.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a child in 2nd grade with ADHD, dyslexia, and dysgraphia.

I have looked into this school as a option for the future, and it seems really nice, but how do people afford it? Is it covered by insurance?

The school also offers financial aid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We do not have experience with Siena but wanted to say that we wish we had sent DC there or to a similar school instead of public. We looked at small privates but decided to stick with public for social reasons and now that DC is older they are struggling with a lot of very basic academic things. The years or the lack of appropriate instruction in school are coming crashing down despite aggressive tutoring and a lot of support from us parents.

We made the opposite decision as some others on this thread and to be honest we do have regrets about staying with public.

I would have done public *plus* consistent tutoring.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:11:57

How did you get accepted into an MCPS magnet for middle school if your child wasn't in an MCPS elementary school for 4th and 5th?

You do not have to attend MCPS school to apply to a magnet, you merely have to be a county resident. At least that is how it was several years ago. FWIW, DC had attended MCPS ES in early years, but we withdrew after great difficulty with our MCPS ES which was unable/unwilling to provide special instruction. We explored Barnesly GT/LD ES program but opted for Siena instead because MCPS had been an utter failure for 4 years.

This is an old thread but it speaks to me: MCPS had been an utter failure for 4 years.’ Our experience - well for 3 before we bailed. So hard to reconcile when its marketing repeatedly states it is one of the best. Now realize just self licking ice cream cone - even for our NT child. W cluster.

[Anonymous]

We switched back. We saw improvement with reading but not clear whether outcomes were the same as could be expected with public plus tutoring. And the other academics - math, science, writing - seemed to suffer from a fear of challenging the kids. YMMV and we did enjoy many aspects of the school.

[Anonymous]

We are at Siena. It's our second year. DC is in middle school.

We find it to be a very warm and welcoming community, and I have to be honest, I had only ever heard wonderful things and I thought, can this place really be that awesome? It really is. The leadership is strong and the teachers have all been terrific so far. My kid has made huge strides in one year. We came from public. The classes are hands on. DC has done things and made things that she'd never done before. The staff communicates extensively with parents and responds to questions quickly.

The challenges we've had have been social. DC wanted to go to Siena because of the struggles she had in "regular" school. Her self esteem and confidence were plummeting. She dearly missed friends. Still does. It's a much smaller group of kids, and some of the girl drama has been tough to negotiate. This year is starting off much better though, so I hope that continues.

For those who think they can't afford it, we're also in that boat. We receive significant aid and are beyond thankful for it. This school is changing DC's life. We are making huge sacrifices for DC to attend, but I would encourage you to at least apply and see what happens. We applied on a wing and a prayer, and it worked. You never know. I talked to the school, to other parents who had kids there and read extensively on these pages about Siena before we applied and was inspired to apply by an anonymous parent who just said, 'What do you have to lose?'

All that said, we are unlikely to stay beyond middle, in part because of cost and in part because it is so small. We want her to have more in her high school years. We will likely have to go back to tutoring.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We switched back. We saw improvement with reading but not clear whether outcomes were the same as could be expected with public plus tutoring. And the other academics - math, science, writing - seemed to suffer from a fear of challenging the kids. YMMV and we did enjoy many aspects of the school.

I just wanted to address “the other academics” seemed to suffer. While at Siena, they accelerated our DC by 1 grade in math. The Siena science teacher is a former doctor and was wonderful with my DC who was deeply interested in science and the human body. The teacher patiently answered DC’s many questions and encouraged his projects.

As for writing - the Siena early years starts with explicitly building grammar, a necessary task since the ability to implicitly learn these rules is often absent in so many language disorders and ADHD. In high school, the students are taught in a very explicit, structured way to write a “paper” like they would have to in college. By comparison, the only programs in MCPS that teach this are the Humanities magnets, which require students to write a 10 p IDRP (interdisciplinary research paper). If you send your kid to the general MCPS high school program, even if they take AP classes, they are never taught this. I think the only analog in MCPS HS would be the paper in IB programs.

[Anonymous]

Honestly it's easier to find friendships outside school in the neighborhood and other activities than to "fix" public school for your child academically.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We switched back. We saw improvement with reading but not clear whether outcomes were the same as could be expected with public plus tutoring. And the other academics - math, science, writing - seemed to suffer from a fear of challenging the kids. YMMV and we did enjoy many aspects of the school.

I just wanted to address “the other academics” seemed to suffer. While at Siena, they accelerated our DC by 1 grade in math. The Siena science teacher is a former doctor and was wonderful with my DC who was deeply interested in science and the human body. The teacher patiently answered DC’s many questions and encouraged his projects.

As for writing - the Siena early years starts with explicitly building grammar, a necessary task since the ability to implicitly learn these rules is often absent in so many language disorders and ADHD. In high school, the students are taught in a very explicit, structured way to write a “paper” like they would have to in college. By comparison, the only programs in MCPS that teach this are the Humanities magnets, which require students to write a 10 p IDRP (interdisciplinary research paper). If you send your kid to the general MCPS high school program, even if they take AP classes, they are never taught this. I think the only analog in MCPS HS would be the paper in IB programs.

Speaking as Pp: perhaps there is a difference in campus location as this was just not our experience. We did not see sufficient challenges in math. Science was one semester btw which was not clear to us signing up.