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Schools and Education General Discussion
Oyster vs private
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Anonymous
| If you lived in the Oyster school district would you send your kid there even if you could (just) afford private school? |
Anonymous
Yes, through grade 4/5. Jury out on the middle school expansion |
Anonymous
| So you are talking about the point at which he kids move over to Adams, right? |
Anonymous
You got it. That does not mean I would sit out the lower grades. I just would not count on being as satisfied as my child progressed higher. It is not because lower grade teachers are somehow better either. It is just that Oyster has been running that rodeo for longer and pretty much has it down in a free-wheeling haphazard sort of way, but then expanded to upper school with very little plan in place for how to effectively reach a totally different developmental stage of learning. These are the issues the school is now addressing, and the jury is out on how effectively it will implement an upper school program that actually excites people the way the lower school does/has... |
Anonymous
| Thanks for that feedback. You;re not the first to mention this issue. For us, the most important part is the Oyster component...So we may be ok. |
Anonymous
| I would and did choose Oyster over private. It's the best of all worlds and we're very happy. |
Anonymous
| OMG "running that rodeo" so describes our Oyster experience. Thank goodness the horse did not throw us! |
Anonymous
Please elaborate. We are facing a similar situation. Our kids are gifted -- will they be challenged at Oyster? Does the dual language component make up for the lack of gifted programs in DCPS? DD has shown no sign of interest in foreign language, what does that say about her chances of success at Oyster? "Best of all worlds" demands an explanation, please. |
Anonymous
You have not been happy at Oyster? Don't know if that's what this means. Did some kids get thrown? Why? |
Anonymous
|
16:05: I was kidding about the horse throwing us. We were happy at Oyster but as you probably know the school has been trying to reinvent itself given the changes that have taken place since the program was started 35 years ago. That, and going through several principals, took a lot of energy.
16:04: I'm not "best of all worlds" but I would say that the challenges of the bilingual program definitely compensate for a lack of a gifted program. There are a number of gifted students in every Oyster class so your children will be stimulated by their peers. |
Anonymous
I chose Oyster because my daughter was reading by 3.5 and writing by 4.5, and I didn't think that there would be much for her to do in an English-only school. Getting thrown into the bilingual environment is great for a child who is bright and/or an early reader. They have their first taste of real mental challenge. The different cultural environment also gives them something to think about. Oyster is bicultural and not just bilingual. It made sense for us to take a child who had mastered the regular curriculum through first-second grade and put her where they were teaching something totally new. At the same time, Oyster is not one of these achievement factories that gives kids the mistaken impression that they're the chosen ones or that they need to be "at the top" to be loved and to develop. It's still an elementary school, not a college prep prep. The children there go on to many other great schools, and get there fully bilingual. If you want to know more about the value of bilingual education for gifted children, check in with the DCPS bilingual office or the Brown University school of education website. Seriously, Oyster rocks-- come on board. |
Anonymous
|
Our child is at WIS, not Oyster (wish we were able to get an OOB slot at Oyster! it would save us from bankruptcy). I just wanted to chime in that both language immersion (WIS) and bilingual education (Oyster) pose excellent challenges to gifted and academically advanced kids. It's been a great experience for our child, who is many grades ahead in reading and math, etc.
Given the lack of gifted programs in the city---both public and private schools---and our relucatance to move to the suburbs for a G/T program, we thought that language immersion would be an excellent alternative. It has been and it offers the additional possibility of adding other languages in middle and high school. I'd love to hear more from parents of gifted/advanced students pursuing the language track rather than the G/T track. |
Anonymous
| Not to quibble, but I do not think Oyster students always become "fully bilingual." Many children from English only homes become conversant in Spanish, and they can write and read decently in Spanish, but are not bilingual in the strict linguistic sense (i.e., they do not speak and write Spanish as well as they do English.) Still, it's a great program, students' language skills surpass those who from other schools by leaps and bounds. Oyster's also great for bright children who like a challenge. We did it, we'd do it again. |