which would you do, if these were options for middle and high school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not naming it because I don't want the debate to get very specific about a particular school. Think 5 or 6 on GreatSchools measurements, vs. the "excellent" publics that rate more like a 9 or 10.

We are in the exact same situation except we live in a $900k that is half paid off and we would move to a $1.5 million home in McLean or similar. We have 2 young kids who are not yet school aged. We plan to send our kids to the ok public school (rated 5 on greatschools) and hope that they get into the neighboring AAP center (rated 9 on greatschools). If and when we feel the public school option is inadequate, we will go the private school route. Zoned middle school and high school are ok (rated 7). HS seems to have good college acceptances if you are top of your class.

We love our house, our neighborhood, the area, our commutes to work, etc. Would rather keep our house than move to a house that is probably smaller and older than our current house just to live in McLean. Often good school districts are overcrowded and large class sizes are a concern. Our school seems to have smaller class sizes compared to other Fairfax county schools, probably due to the less than stellar academic reputation.

Also wanted to add that the people we know in McLean seem to send their kids to private school despite the supposed excellent public schools.

[Anonymous]

With #2, are your kids going to grow apart from those neighborhood friends anyway?

[Anonymous]

2. With current funds going to other causes in our country, education is suffering in many of the states. Then again, safety in our schools is also a concern nowadays. Who would ever have thought we would see the cruel and horrifying things we have seen to date??? Interestingly enough, older kids have been the culprit of these crimes. At the early stages, we just are not sending the right messages and putting enough emphasis on learning and education as a whole. If this cycle continues of "ok" to subpar education and average standards, then that really scares me. All of this affects our status, housing market, and most of all, our children. All I keep hearing is that we don't have enough money and it will take tens of millions f do
Lars to ake change.....that is a lot of bake sales.....ughhhh. I will stop my ranting, but as a parent, we want to do the best we can, ESP for their education. If you have the finances, stick with private. No matter what, we all hv to put the work in at home more than ever to educate our children. School is not enough. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

I'm OP, and I will say that right now we are leaning toward #2 but plan to reassess the state of the middle school over the next 3 years or so and could stick with #1 if things improve there. There is a private school that we think our child would really like, but it's hard to know yet. I went to an amazing private school that was much better for me than my own very good local public school, so I bring that experience/baggage. We are not very interested in Option #3 at the moment.