Wyngate ES?? Do you like this school? or pay for private?

[Anonymous]

Our child will enter K this fall and this will be his school.. We could potentially afford private school for DC but financially it would be a bit tight for us. The private school we have considered is Oneness Family School.. We continue to wonder if it would be worth it to pay 20k/yr for private school or if we should just give MCPS (at Wyngate) a "try". So far, there are not specific issues of concern with DC that would pull us more in a specific direction when it comes to private/public, except that he is more on the "shy" side at first. But our dilemma continues.. Any thoughts? Is this a normal anxious feeling since this is DC1? TIA!

[Anonymous]

Research the 2.0 Curriculum because this is really unpopular now (and very new and experimental). This affects your child no matter what public school they are in so I'd start with this.
It's a very different approach to learning and a very strange grading system.
Many people see it as dumbing down the curriculum a bit and that's probably true.
However, I think it depends on your child and the teacher and that dynamic is impossible to predict (for private or public) so some of this is going to be taking a chance. I'd take a chance with free first if it were me (especially for Kindergarten).
That statement coming from someone who thinks the principal and teachers at my child's school are great but 2.0 is so awful that we want to move out of Montgomery County just to get away from it.

[Anonymous]

Personally, I think it is worth trying Wyngate. For one of our kids it has worked out great. That said, we are likely heading to a small private school next year and on the pro/con list for DH I did list being able to understand the grades and curriculum as a plus for the other school!

I don't think 2.0 is awful but I think there are growing pains. In our situation one child is possibly GT/LD so navigating the support in public school, in a bigger environment, in the midst of a curriculum change where assessments and plans for enrichment were being developed post rollout...it's way too many moving pieces. Also, there is no aftercare offered at Wyngate so this limits the after school activities that my kids can do. I like the idea of my kids having the opportunity to participate in basketball,running, art enrichment etc. especially in upper elementary. We could have figured out something but I do like the total package, one stop shopping of having everything one place at the school.

I think someone on another board in a different post said its better to make the free mistakes first. Why pay 20K to find out your child could have done as well going to the free school? I do believe the teachers are very strong at Wyngate and the kids on the whole do very well academically. As we are preparing to spend at least $150,000 over the next 7 years ( not including high school), I can say that we tried public school. We could in theory make it work but it would take a lot to get there for reasons that have to do specifically with challenges our child has and our situation ( no family support in the area, both work full time, no background in LD or navigating MCPS nor family that knows the system) and just when we probably would get it working right by likely 5th grade, we would need to start all over in middle school with more teachers.

Good luck with your decision.

[Anonymous]

This is probably a pretty minor issue all things considered, but IIRC Oneness (like most privates) has fewer school days than public-- so you have that many more days to cover, if you both work.

We considered Oneness and some things really appealed to us about it, but in the end the cost and the small classes at the upper grades (at least at the time) led us to try the local public and we've been pretty happy (things aren't perfect, but then I don't think things are perfect anywhere).

[Anonymous]

PP here, I wanted to add that many of the private lower schools have lots of parent angst. Rare is the private lower school that most parent would agree is doing a great job. Half of the time I am reading how a new lower school head was just named. So it was harder to make a 20-30K per year commitment in a school that wasn't universally loved as being great when we were deciding between giving public school a try or going to private school.

Maybe it gets back to what another person said that no school is perfect. I think you have to find the school that gets the closest to perfect for your kid and your family and unfortunately that is hard to know without having a track record of what works and what doesn't work and maybe some trial and error. Some of the varying opinions can be because what works for one kid or family may not work for another. To give an example, with swim we had a teacher that did an amazing job with our child. My child can be very unfocused but the drill sergeant, "I am not even entertaining the idea that you can't do this attitude" worked miracles with our child. I mentioned how great the swim teacher was and another parent said how the teacher was awful and their child hated going to that teacher. Same person, different results and opinions, different children.

[Anonymous]

OP, here is one more vote for giving public a try -- coming from a parent who loves the private my kids attend in MoCo. Your situation is different from 8:39, and I agree her's sounds like a strong case for going private. Once you start down the private road OP, it is not irreversible but if your child is doing well and happy, it is very tough to pull out for public. So if there is no definite reason yet i would save the money and try public but watch your DC like a hawk. If doubts arise, use a fraction of the money you are saving to hire a tutor or other services short term so DC doesn't get behind, and then you can always do a private later. There are many other reasons some people do private and are happy with it -- as I said, we and our kids absolutely love their school and at this point if I lost my job we'd probably play music on a street corner in Bethesda with a hat out for passers by to drop in dollars to keep paying tuition -- but if I were you I would not start down that road until I was sure of it would be better for my kids because you are taking on another mortgage.

[Anonymous]

8:39 -- if you don't mind, where are you looking? I ask only because I know some Gt/LD kids at my kid's school who have done amazingly well there.

[Anonymous]

Do you have specific questions about Wyngate? We have been very happy with our children's experiences there but would like to answer specific questions you might have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: 8:39 -- if you don't mind, where are you looking? I ask only because I know some Gt/LD kids at my kid's school who have done amazingly well there.

8:39 here. We are considering a small parochial school that has support for both LD and enrichment. What school were you thinking? is it the McLean school by chance?

[Anonymous]

I was refering to St Andrew's

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was refering to St Andrew's

Thanks! I had not heard St Andrews mentioned before for GT/LD but as being strong academically in general.

Sorry to digress from OP post but want to mention that some shy kids come out of their shells at school. It's not unusual to be worried, we all want to feel like our kids are making friends and aren't being overlooked in the classroom.

Also to the OP make sure to call the school and get on the list for the spring kindergarten round-up ( I can't think of the official name). It's a chance to meet some of the parents, for the school to get paperwork and get info for classroom placement, and very important in terms of budget planning to know how many kids will be starting kindergarten. The school starts encouraging parents in February to let them know upcoming enrollment plans. The kindergarten orientation I believe is early May. There are usually a few meet-ups for incoming kindergarten kids during the summer. Also once the K classroom list goes out around mid-August ( note all the other grades don't find out till Friday before school starts) usually a parent will try to organize a class meet up at Arylawn or Stratton Woods. If your kid is on the shy side you may want to try to arrange smaller get together with kids your child seems to really get along with. It was funny because my oldest would ask me who I talked to on these class play dates when I was thinking shouldn't I be asking you that ...is the play date more for the parents or the kids . Also the school list serve is a great source of information to find out what activities are going on.

[Anonymous]

St. Andrew's has a wide range of kids, most of whom have no learning disibilities but the school is very into the idea that certain teaching /studying methods can be more effective for different kids. I know some have transferred there from the MCPS GT/LD program and done very well through high school. For more info, take a look at a new brochure their faculty just published on their web site. http://www.thecttl.org/. They are very into this as a faculty for all the kids -- including those with no learining differences or are GT/LD and strong students as well as those who may struggle a bit in math or have dyslexia, ADD, etc.

[Anonymous]

PP here -- Clarificaton. I know there are many gifted students who have dsylexia, ADD, etc. and did not intend to imply otherwise. David Boise, the famous trial lawyer, is severely dyslexic.

[Anonymous]

Great scores. Tight ship. Big addition underway. Several kids in our neighborhood attend and several go the private route. Though not a fan.