If you DON'T live in DC, why did you ultimately decide to go private?

[Anonymous]

DH and I are discussing public v. private options for DC. In Maryland MoCo, and in Virginia APS and FCPS are all considering generally outstanding school districts, with admitted pockets of less desirable schools.

If you live in one of these areas, what made you decide to put your DC into a private, which is far more expensive and possibly inconveniently located, when there are some who argue they could get just as good of an education at your local, strong public?

This isn't a snarky question geared towards denigrating anyone's choices. As I said, DH and I are considering what to do and want the input of a bunch of people on an anonymous board who readily bash each other.

[Anonymous]

DD met a better class of people.

"This isn't a snarky question geared towards denigrating anyone's choices. As I said, DH and I are considering what to do and want the input of a bunch of people on an anonymous board who readily bash each other."

Good luck with that, Hall Monitor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DD met a better class of people.

"This isn't a snarky question geared towards denigrating anyone's choices. As I said, DH and I are considering what to do and want the input of a bunch of people on an anonymous board who readily bash each other."

Good luck with that, Hall Monitor.

I know, I was kidding with the last sentence!

[Anonymous]

My son is in a highly desirable MCPS school, has no special needs, and is thriving, and yet I'm contemplating private for middle and high school.

Why? I work long hours away from home, and then come home and spend our family time shuttling him to sports or art activities. He's a well rounded kid, and I want him to have a wide array of experiences, including team sports and other things. At many of the private schools in the area the kids can literally get everything (ice hockey, instrumental music lessons, afterschool tutoring etc . . . ), and then come home and spend the evening with your family. This sounds wonderful to me.

I also think that I would have considered private if we'd lived in this district for K/1st. I think the MCPS classes are so large at that age, and the curriculum quite pushy. I don't think my kid needed that, although he would have done fine.

We'd need major financial aid to make it happen, so I'm guessing in the end he'll go on to our local school and do fine, but if money fell into my lap, or I made what people here seem to make, I'd make a different choice.

[Anonymous]

We simply do not like FCPS. We are zoned for schools with excellent reputations. We even spent a couple of years in the system and did not like it.

[Anonymous]

We are in the Whitman Cluster with a great. brand new elementary (Carderock) but we decided on private for our DC because we wanted more individual attention, smaller class sizes, and a focus on developing academic curiosity as well as rigor. For all the hype about MoCo schools, I was not as impressed with the outcomes as I was with the private schools we considered, esp. for children with DC's temperament.

[Anonymous]

Temperament plays a big role. I used to think that people who paid for private K or first grade were crazy and there was no benefit over a good public school. Then I had a child who is shy, anxious, and distractable, and I realized that coping with a large classroom was taking all of his capacity and he had nothing left over for learning. Class size, school size, and recess time are all better for him in his private school.

[Anonymous]

OP -- I always thought it was weird when folks live in the suburbs and send their kids to private. Why not just live in DC then?

[Anonymous]

Why deal with the overcrowding in MCPS when you don't have to? That's our reason.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP -- I always thought it was weird when folks live in the suburbs and send their kids to private. Why not just live in DC then?

OP here. There are other reasons not to want to live in DC than just the school system. I don't mean that as DC-bashing, there are reasons to live anywhere other than just the schools.

[Anonymous]

Because I wanted to be part of the social set and have my kids meet people who will eventually run this town and country. No snark.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP -- I always thought it was weird when folks live in the suburbs and send their kids to private. Why not just live in DC then?

I live in DC, but don't find this a hard question to answer.

Corrupt politics, high taxes, substandard public services, lots of parking and traffic issues, totally unreliable EMS....

Basically, you have to really love urban living (and/or bury your head in the sand and/or outsource everything from school to safety to water purification) to choose the District. I do and I did, but there are certainly days when I doubt my own sanity as a result. So I'm certainly not going to fault others for living in the burbs.

[Anonymous]

Because we wanted small class size, foreign language, music and art several times a week, high quality facilities, a school full of teachers who know our kids and us, families who are heavily involved in the school. We feel like our children are "average" children for this area, who would easily get lost in the shuffle at our public school. Also, one of our kids has a food allergy and we feel keeping our child safe from the suspect food gets more attention from the teachers in a private school classroom.

[Anonymous]

To make the switch from public to private you have to be dissatisfied with the Public schools.

We found the MCPS --- specifically the Carderock - Pyle - Whitman cluster --- to be a three-ring circus of "edu-speak", political correctness and a lack of discipline because of their abject fear that someone might complain or might sue. And "resource teams" and counselors put in place by a huge bureaucracy looking for something to do.

One of the final straws was our 4th grader complaining that he wasn't allowed to go to recess that day and instead had to go to the school counselor. I had broken my arm. The school had heard about it and had taken it on themselves to provide special counselling services.

In retrospect, once the boys were in an all boys environment, we could look back and see just how "girl-friendly" the public schools were. Boys learn differently at different speeds. An all boys environment takes that into account and as a result is a much better experience.

Private schools aren't Nirvana. But our only regret is not getting the boys out of the public schools sooner than we did.

[Anonymous]

Public schools: teach to the test, worksheets, standardized tests, one-size-fits all, don't think, memorize, test, test, test. We have been in two excellent public school systems, and both were hamstrung by the incessant testing and inability to individualize anything. My kids are bright, well ahead of grade level in everything, and ended up bored, even in gifted programs, which were not creative or interesting for them. In private school, the teachers have much more freedom to teach well, challenge kids in ways that go far beyond reading and math. My children have a much more interesting education that's much more enjoyable for them in our private school.

I am not a private school person, in that I would never send them to private school to get them away from the hoi polloi as many private school parents seem to do. I wish public schools taught kids to think and do and create, but they teach children to be passive and boring, in our experience at two "excellent" public schools.