Any other private school parents considering switching to public school?

[Anonymous]

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PP, I could have written this. We are AA living in a great MoCo school district. We have our children in private school because of concern over the achievement gap, lack of diversity, and concern over the faculty's potential inability to understand the cultural nuances of educating an AA child if they aren't accustomed to having any or many AA children in the classroom. We struggle with this every year as well, as the tuition for two children greatly limits our ability to afford to do other things. We have re-enrolled. Our contract binding date is June 1, and we are torn every year this time of year.

So in comparison, your private school is more successful in these areas I've highlighted? I am especially interested in how the faculty is trained in understanding the cultural nuances of educating an AA child. I know that in Mo Co, many teachers are trained in diversity - particularly in understanding and appreciating cultural differences. But perhaps your private school is smaller. So there is more "quality control" (for lack of a better term) in regard to diversity training.

I would say absolutely our private school does "diversity" better than our local school. Our private school (as do many) has several diversity professionals on staff who are responsible for helping the school support its mission in that particular area as well as provide continuing guidance to and develop programs for faculty, students, the parent body and the DC community at large. The school also has a significant portion of its faculty and student body in the "diversity" category. My MoCo elementary school's faculty is 97% white. This doesn't in itself say that they can't handle teaching diverse kids, but it does matter that diverse children see individuals that look like themselves in the classroom. The school's student body has about 3% AA, of which half have been labelled special ed or LD. This is statistically significant in my mind and makes me wonder about (yet not state as fact) a couple of things including unfair labelling, achievement gap, the faculty's ability to teach and "reach" and relate to AA students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

PP, I could have written this. We are AA living in a great MoCo school district. We have our children in private school because of concern over the achievement gap, lack of diversity, and concern over the faculty's potential inability to understand the cultural nuances of educating an AA child if they aren't accustomed to having any or many AA children in the classroom. We struggle with this every year as well, as the tuition for two children greatly limits our ability to afford to do other things. We have re-enrolled. Our contract binding date is June 1, and we are torn every year this time of year.

So in comparison, your private school is more successful in these areas I've highlighted? I am especially interested in how the faculty is trained in understanding the cultural nuances of educating an AA child. I know that in Mo Co, many teachers are trained in diversity - particularly in understanding and appreciating cultural differences. But perhaps your private school is smaller. So there is more "quality control" (for lack of a better term) in regard to diversity training.

I would say absolutely our private school does "diversity" better than our local school. Our private school (as do many) has several diversity professionals on staff who are responsible for helping the school support its mission in that particular area as well as provide continuing guidance to and develop programs for faculty, students, the parent body and the DC community at large. The school also has a significant portion of its faculty and student body in the "diversity" category. My MoCo elementary school's faculty is 97% white. This doesn't in itself say that they can't handle teaching diverse kids, but it does matter that diverse children see individuals that look like themselves in the classroom. The school's student body has about 3% AA, of which half have been labelled special ed or LD. This is statistically significant in my mind and makes me wonder about (yet not state as fact) a couple of things including unfair labelling, achievement gap, the faculty's ability to teach and "reach" and relate to AA students.

I couldn't have said it better myself. Hence the reason I keep sending in the check. I am a person of color, I live in a good school district in MoCo, but as hard as it is for our family financially, I keep sending in the check for my kids to stay at private school for all the reasons mentioned above. I am very open to hearing that my fears are unfounded by parents whose kids attend MoCo public schools.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:8:40 here. Our school IS wonderful. I don't wish to out myself, but will say it is one of the close-in suburb MoCo elementary schools that you hear about a lot on these boards (think Potomac, Bethesda, Chevy Chase districts and all the wonderful elementary schools they have). As I said in an earlier post, I shouldn't have been surprised by how wonderful it is since it reflects so much the wonderful giving community we live in.

Other than socio-economic diversity, how diverse is your local elementary school?

If it's got real socio-economic diversity, that's huge frankly. Those kinds of schools tend to have genuine diversity, across the board.

To be quite frank, that has not been my experience with Potomac, Bethesda, Chevy Chase. Let's be honest, not much socio-economic diversity exists in these communities, which essentially means the public schools in those areas are probably pretty homogenous because unlike private schools that can make a commitment to having a diverse student body, public schools are a reflection of the communities in which exist. So my point is I don't think there is much "real" socio-economic (or other) diversity at the schools in the districts mentioned by 8:40.

I guess I'm agreeing with you PP. I don't find these areas to have genuine diversity - socio-economic, racial, or what-have-you.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Your kids have attended the public schools in all three of these areas?

Seriously?

No, of course not. But I am wondering how she knows about these schools if her kids haven't actually attended. As somebody with kids in MoCo myself, I know that the reality can be quite different from what other parents say, or even what's on the school data sites.