| Moco rez here. Great cluster but want more for dd than public can offer (small class sizes, more music/art/pe, not having to teach the test, etc). |
| We live in Fairfax County. I am CONSTANTLY questioned by family/friends why we would even think to send kids to private schools. Small class sizes, access to teachers and administration, moral teachings, and strong community at privates makes me want privates all the way through high school. |
| MoCo here. Tried public and it really didn't work out for our daughter. Classes were huge and they really couldn't monitor what was going on at school which led to her being bullied. I would REALLY have preferred to not shell out the cash for private, but feel that it's in my child's best interest to do so. |
| To PP. So, so sorry to hear your daughter was bullied. That must be the WORST feeling in the world! So glad you found a supportive private school for her. |
| I agree ..we are at a nw private and witnessed some bad behavior in k..teachers right on top of it ..I don't think this is possible with 28 in a class. |
| We live in Montogomery County with excellent public high schools, but the public Kindergarten is full of kids from poor familities that does not speak english. |
| Our local public school in Montgomery County offers free Pre-K only to kids from very low income families (<$33,000 / year HHI) that do not speak English. |
| We are in Arlington and have a great elementary school (public) but aren't thrilled about the public high school, so are private. |
| Arlington, great school pyramid but looking at private primarily for a single sex education. It will mean figuring out commutes and carpools and such since the girls schools are all in NW and MD, but we still have a few years to make that decision. |
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Live in MoCo -- Whitman cluster.
DC goes to private because of much smaller class size. |
I have a 4 year old and I am thinking about sending her to private school. The reason is my DC is a little wild and generally seems disinterested in school. All she wants to do is play and she generally drives her preschool teacher crazy by not following directions. Our preschool director thought a play based curriculum would be better and small classes with more attention would as well. She thought the public schools had too much pressure to get the kids up to speed for the VA SOLs by first grade and that my DC would rebel on certain types of teaching and may fall behind. She warned that some teachers would spend extra time with her and give her individualized attention to suit her, but many would not. I'm torn because I did public school and thought it was fine and the public schools here have such good reputations. I did the private school WISP-III testing for DC and the tester thought my child really needed a hands on progressive school that wasn't so rigid. Sometimes I just don't know and think I'm being sold the private school route by people who are part of its infrastructure (most of the preschool kids at my DC's school go to privates). But I would hate for DC to fall behind and tear DC from the private if DC like it. My husband is skeptical, saying that's how kids are and the DC will adjust. Money is a concern, but it's not like it is that more expensive than preschool/daycare, and aftercare now. So it is manageable for us right now unless we have more kids. |
| We live in Fairfax Co. but send DC to private b/c the latter offers religious instruction. |
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PP, here again. I'm also torn because I've heard private schools do not do well with kids that need special attention, which seems contradictory to what the preschool director told me. That if there is a behavior problem, they get weeded out. My friend in the West Coast said at her private, they are brutal about it.
But I really don't know how my DC will adapt to K. The DC seems to adapt to everything pretty well and has been maturing quite a bit every month. However, DC still have the outrageous meltdown seemingly once every other day. It's like that cord blood thing where you kind of know it is useless to pay $2K to keep and store it, but you have a little doubt so you do it because it can't hurt (besides the pockbook). |
No, we send DC to private because we live in Ward 1, have a house with an under water mortgage and ride our bikes to work. DC got in because she had great scores. If we could afford to live in CC , we would send DC to public. There is no comparing Janey and Harriet Tubman Elementary or Sommerset and Bancroft. |
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