Lafayette Kindergarten and 1st grade

[Anonymous]

My DC is in a private K in a K-8 school, but for financial reasons we are considering switching to Lafayette, our in-bounds school.

I am interested in the following metrics for K (it's the only way I can compare):

How many kids per class? I saw it was 25-26 on another post, but how many teachers are in a class?

How many times per week do the kids do reading? Are they separated into smaller reading groups or is everybody lumped together? Same questions for math?

How many times per week is PE, music and art? What about after care and after school activities?

How many times per day do they have recess? How many times per week do they have library?

How has the school done on integrating all children into the class? What does it do to aid socialization and to break up cliques?

How is the parent community? How many families are dual-income? What are the volunteer expectations for parents? What are the major community events?

Sorry for all the questions, but I figure if we are switching, we want to try to do an apples-to-apples comparison.

Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Why don't you call the school and set up a tour so you can ask these questions?

[Anonymous]

Because they have them only once a month from 9-10a.m. Not very convenient for working parents...

[Anonymous]

The only thing I have to add to this conversation is that if you're interested in seeing the school in action, you'll HAVE to go during the school day. That's a completely appropriate time for prospective parent tours. If this just doesn't work for you, try contacting the principal to answer your list of questions.

[Anonymous]

This year they added a new K class (5th). It is in the first grade wing which is good and bad. That one class is isolated but then the class size went down from around 25-26 to 18 or so. The school building overall has gone from under utilized to over utilized. Generally teachers are good and principal is good. And parents are great. The aftercare kids are walked from lafayette to CCPC. I think the program is good other than that walk. Not as good as in school program though.

I think the kids are lumped together in K for reading. Not sure on first grade. THe K is academic. My kids definitely learned.

We did have problems with some mean kids. Not sure it really matters that much - it happens every where.

I found the school building depressing but my kids generally liked their time there. There are tons of fun community events. The volunteering is optional. Lots of working parents. Generally a liberal bunch as you would expect in DC. There is a big fundraiser benefit for the school that you should go to. They expect every family to contribute towards extra teachers - something like $350 per year for first kid and a bit extra for each additional kid.

[Anonymous]

PP, thanks so much for your helpful post. I'm not the OP, but I live in the neighborhood and am trying to figure out if Lafayette might be an option for us. Did any of your children do preK at Layfayette? Do you know anything about that program (or have an opinion on whether it's better to stay at our private nursery school for PK next year)? Of course, that all depends on the lottery.

Your post seems to indicate that your kids are no longer at Lafayette. Did they stay through the "end" of the school or did they transfer elsewhere during the elementary years? Would you mind sharing why?

I really want to like Lafayette and hope it's a good environment for our son, but I hear that the school declines a bit in the upper grades and I'm afraid we'd have a hard time getting into the other private schools in the area if we decide to bail on it at a time when those schools aren't set up for an uptick in enrollment.

Thanks for any and all insights!