Disagreement between Spouse on Public vs Private

[Anonymous]

We are in a very good school zone with a good but not excellent elementary zone, the middle and high and top notch.

One spouse wants to do private and the other is against it citing budget concerns and the fact that the school appear to be good enough.

The spouse wants to do private thinks that class sizes larger than 15 are not good and that a high percentage of ESOL students will be an issue.

Has anyone dealt with this? I feel like I am going to probably have to give in but am not sure where we are going to get the money because we already paid a lot to be in a good school district.

Did you sell and move to cheaper district to do private? Did you tell the spouse that wanted to do private to get a higher paying job?

[Anonymous]

This is not an irreversible decision. if your DC starts at one and its not working out, you can switch. And if it does work out -- success!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is not an irreversible decision. if your DC starts at one and its not working out, you can switch. And if it does work out -- success!

What happens if DC starts at a public and it doesn't go well, wouldn't the private have a waiting list and not accept after the beginning the school year?

I would think it wouldn't be an issue start private and switching to public but I don't think we would be able to gauge the public school if we started private first.

[Anonymous]

Tour both. That's what we did.

[Anonymous]

The one who wants private - has to show beyond a reasonable doubt - how it will be paid for without sacrifice from the spouse who wants public.

[Anonymous]

If public schools are top notch as you say, clearly the ESOL kids are not dragging things down as you fear. Give it a chance (and I don't even have my kids in public but that was a person decision we agreed on, not a reflection on our local public.) especially if budget is a concern. I imagine it's hard to get trapped in private and not be able to afford it long term.

[Anonymous]

What is the "high percentage" of ESOL kids?

And I don't think there are any data to support the general contention that class sizes greater than 15 are not good. It depends on the class, it depends on the teacher, it depends on the age, it depends on...

My kids are at a (public) elementary school in one of the not-fancy zones, ESOL around 20%, class size around 22-25, and we're very happy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is not an irreversible decision. if your DC starts at one and its not working out, you can switch. And if it does work out -- success!

What happens if DC starts at a public and it doesn't go well, wouldn't the private have a waiting list and not accept after the beginning the school year?

I would think it wouldn't be an issue start private and switching to public but I don't think we would be able to gauge the public school if we started private first.

I didn't mean switch in the middle of the year. You need to give it a chance. My point is that this isn't necessarily a permanent decision. The fact that you want to "win" mid-year, rather than wait it out and see if your DH is right (or the other way around) for at least a year, maybe more, sounds like your marriage is the issue because no one will be flexible.

[Anonymous]

Tell DH to stop being such a tightwad, OP.

[Anonymous]

We have found small class sizes restrictive socially. If you only have 7-8 kids of each gender, you had better hope they get along or work well together. It also becomes hard to start teams or activities when there are too few kids to pull from. And as PP said, so much depends on the teacher, the personality of the class, the style of the school, etc. I have seen good teachers more than effectively teach 30 kids while less-apt teachers can't manage 15. You won't know until you get there but luckily around here you can easily hear from others about a school's pros and cons. Pick what works for your family on all levels.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The one who wants private - has to show beyond a reasonable doubt - how it will be paid for without sacrifice from the spouse who wants public.

Here! Here! I told my SAHM wife that if the private option was so important to her she could go out and earn the additional money so that it would not derail my retirement plans. She back off on that faster than greased lightening. She didn't want the responsibility.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have found small class sizes restrictive socially. If you only have 7-8 kids of each gender, you had better hope they get along or work well together. It also becomes hard to start teams or activities when there are too few kids to pull from. And as PP said, so much depends on the teacher, the personality of the class, the style of the school, etc. I have seen good teachers more than effectively teach 30 kids while less-apt teachers can't manage 15. You won't know until you get there but luckily around here you can easily hear from others about a school's pros and cons. Pick what works for your family on all levels.

Agree on some of the social downsides. My DS was in a grade that was quite girl heavy. The pool of boys was just too small and each had their own set of quirks. He was much happier socially in a larger school and actually had far more boy academic peers as well.

I am also not sure that there are that many 15 student classes after K in private schools. Our private school class size was 22-24.

[Anonymous]

You will know whether it is working out or not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The one who wants private - has to show beyond a reasonable doubt - how it will be paid for without sacrifice from the spouse who wants public.

Here! Here! I told my SAHM wife that if the private option was so important to her she could go out and earn the additional money so that it would not derail my retirement plans. She back off on that faster than greased lightening. She didn't want the responsibility.

Yeah, this is what I say to my SAHW every time she asks for a big ticket item. Same experience as yours -- the request goes away lickety-split.

[Anonymous]

We have the same disagreement except we live in a less than stellar school district. We toured our very average elementary school and was pleasantly surprised at how much we liked the school. Sure, class sizes are larger but I think my child would have a larger pool of students to be friends with. There are good and bad teachers at both public and private schools. We decided to go the public school route, hope our kids get into AAP and bank the money we would spend on private school tuition.