If you are upper middle class parent, tell me why you sent your kid(s) to private schools?

[Anonymous]

We live in a terrible school boundary in DC. Like so very bad that we would never even consider sending our kid there. We owe very little on our house compared to what it would cost us for a neighborhood we are willing to move to bc we love our neighborhood and neighbors. We can walk everywhere. We have one kid so private it is. Eight years in and no regrets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What income is considered UMC? Or is it measured in net worth?

Here’s a calculator by Pew: https://www.pewresearch.org/interactives/are-you-in-the-middle-class/

I plugged in $300K for a family of 4 in this area and it said that makes that family upper class.

Sure as long as you live in PG county.

Yes, I’ll believe you rather than Pew

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1. $300K + HHI is not upper middle class. Not in the DMV, or virtually anywhere in the USA. $300K is top 9th percentile in MD, top 6th percentile in VA, and top 10th percentile in DC.

2. We make $430K and are sending our kid to private school because we don’t want her wasting time on Chromebook games and state tests. We want her in small classes with teachers who can differentiate instruction. We want her to get the full slate of subjects, rather than math and reading to the detriment of other subjects. We want her to have access to great art and music opportunities. In sum: We can afford to give her a better education, so we are.

Read other threads. It most certainly is easily UMC by mainstream measures used for academic and policy work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because I wanted my child to learn more then just read and write. I wanted her to learn to self advocate, think outside the box and encouraged to take risks. HHI 225 and we make many sacrifices for her to attend.

It is interesting that you think privates are better at teaching kids to self advocate. I am all for privates for people who can afford them and think they can be superior in many ways, but I have always thought that one of the downsides is that kids are a bit more coddled and so don't learn to self-advocate as much. After all, their parents are the customers, which is not true in private schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our HHI is just under $300, so we can afford the tuition but it hurts. We qualify for a small amount of financial aid.

We only ended up in private school because of covid. Prior to covid, we loved our neighborhood public school. Also, my own Catholic K-8 was pretty terrible so I wanted something different for DD. But watching the school board mess during summer of 2020, we decided to put DD into a nearby independent K-8 that we'd heard had responded well when covid hit in the spring. We said we'd leave after one year, and then after two ... I don't know when we'll actually leave.

DD is flourishing. I like the focus on language arts, including handwriting and foreign language. There is an emphasis on speaking in front of a group, both informally and in scripted events like plays. Because the classes are small, a lot of the tasks and homework can be tailored to each student's level. I was worried the math curriculum wouldn't be strong, but so far I am happy with it. PE, art, and music are regular classes that happen 4 times a week and have actual curricula, unlike in public school when it was once or twice a week and the content was scattershot.

A lot of what you are paying for is the customer service, too. Teachers are responsive, report cards have actual narrative content about the individual child, etc. I don't have to send in supplies. There is homework, but major projects are completed during school time rather than becoming something I have to track at home. I really value not having to chase the school around to get information or ensure my kid is getting what she needs.

Could have written almost the exact same post. Except we have lower HHI and grandparents paying for tuition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because I wanted my child to learn more then just read and write. I wanted her to learn to self advocate, think outside the box and encouraged to take risks. HHI 225 and we make many sacrifices for her to attend.

It is interesting that you think privates are better at teaching kids to self advocate. I am all for privates for people who can afford them and think they can be superior in many ways, but I have always thought that one of the downsides is that kids are a bit more coddled and so don't learn to self-advocate as much. After all, their parents are the customers, which is not true in private schools.

I can only speak for myself, as my daughter is only in K, but I absolutely was not at all coddled in private school. In fact, it was the opposite. I learned a lot of self-sufficiency and confidence.

[Anonymous]

I'm a teacher who has taught in both systems - neither is perfect, but I cannot stand public school striving for mediocrity and bureaucracy. Private has both highs and lows and a lot less red tape. The highs are memorable to my child and the lack of red tape means responsiveness. Your kid gets one ride and I like independent schools more

[Anonymous]

We believed it was the best thing for our kids. Simple as that. What’s the point of being (relatively) high income and not spending it on something as important as the education of your kids? What else would we do with it, international travel and cars?

[Anonymous]

Because my kid was getting lost in the public school. He was smart and doing fine, but his report card literally read like the teacher pulled a 'good kid report card template' off the Internet and sent it to us. There was no personal attention and he was on a road to mediocrity. Not being inspired or encouraged--just 'you're doing fine--next' kind of attitude.

[Anonymous]

In an excellent cluster (a W), but there was no school during Covid, so we moved to private when DC was entering 9th. HHI is $320, tuition is just over $50k. It definitely hurts. And, DC is not going back to public with 30+ students per class. Where teachers barely know the kids in the class.
Where DC is just another number rather than an individual. We will work a little bit longer than originally planned, but feel the $210,000 (give or take) is worth it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because I wanted my child to learn more then just read and write. I wanted her to learn to self advocate, think outside the box and encouraged to take risks. HHI 225 and we make many sacrifices for her to attend.

It is interesting that you think privates are better at teaching kids to self advocate. I am all for privates for people who can afford them and think they can be superior in many ways, but I have always thought that one of the downsides is that kids are a bit more coddled and so don't learn to self-advocate as much. After all, their parents are the customers, which is not true in private schools.

I do believe there is something about the private environment teaching the kids to advocate. Whether it’s entitlement or in my opinion just being used to having extra resources - it makes a difference. When I went to college as a woman and minority in STEM there were a ton of resources for me, but I did not use them. I’d never had extra help at my not great high school and I just thought I was supposed to do it all on my own. I thought using the resources was a sign that I was doing poorly. The kids that came from private schools did not think twice about asking for help if needed. They weren’t ‘scared’ of the professors. They made use of the resources. It was like they were not trying to prove (like I was) that they belonged there - they knew they did. You can tell I’ve had some time to think about this.

[Anonymous]

Our HHI is 300k and we got no aid. We’re sending DC next year and tuition is about $40k. It’s going to hurt, but we have no other debt except our 4k per month mortgage. Our retirement accounts are in good shape and we have about 900k in equity on our house. In two years our other DC will attend and we will probably need to tap into that equity in some way. Their local public has not delivered and we value a holistic education of our children above all else. If you want to know what someone truly values, look at where they spend their money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our HHI is just under $300, so we can afford the tuition but it hurts. We qualify for a small amount of financial aid.

We only ended up in private school because of covid. Prior to covid, we loved our neighborhood public school. Also, my own Catholic K-8 was pretty terrible so I wanted something different for DD. But watching the school board mess during summer of 2020, we decided to put DD into a nearby independent K-8 that we'd heard had responded well when covid hit in the spring. We said we'd leave after one year, and then after two ... I don't know when we'll actually leave.

DD is flourishing. I like the focus on language arts, including handwriting and foreign language. There is an emphasis on speaking in front of a group, both informally and in scripted events like plays. Because the classes are small, a lot of the tasks and homework can be tailored to each student's level. I was worried the math curriculum wouldn't be strong, but so far I am happy with it. PE, art, and music are regular classes that happen 4 times a week and have actual curricula, unlike in public school when it was once or twice a week and the content was scattershot.

A lot of what you are paying for is the customer service, too. Teachers are responsive, report cards have actual narrative content about the individual child, etc. I don't have to send in supplies. There is homework, but major projects are completed during school time rather than becoming something I have to track at home. I really value not having to chase the school around to get information or ensure my kid is getting what she needs.

Could have written almost the exact same post. Except we have lower HHI and grandparents paying for tuition.

This was me, too, but $250k and we are full pay for one kid, $40k.

[Anonymous]

I did it to get my kids a great education and help with college admissions. Big mistake on the latter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I did it to get my kids a great education and help with college admissions. Big mistake on the latter.

Can you elaborate on the college admissions but? Do you regret going private? I figure college is a craps shoot since it’s so competitive coming from
This area. What school are your kids at?