mistakes in choosing the wrong school that had negative consequences on students

[Anonymous]

I want to hear from parents who regret making the wrong choice of school for their children.
Were you able to fix the problems by moving them to another environment?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I want to hear from parents who regret making the wrong choice of school for their children.
Were you able to fix the problems by moving them to another environment?

I made the wrong choice for my son and we knew this very, very quickly. We tried to improve the situation at the school and when that seemed impossible (inflexibility of the administration in terms of changing to a different teacher), we pulled him out and enrolled elsewhere. Best thing we did. Wish we had done it sooner.

I think generally there is a reluctance to admit defeat, and lots of attempts to make the best of things, especially when you've "done your homework" on a place which seems to suit your child.

The thing is, you never know exactly what you're getting until you're there, so this can sometimes happen.

I hope you find your way through OP if you are in a similar situation.

[Anonymous]

NP here- curious if your experience is with private or public?

[Anonymous]

Moved to NOVA from out of state when DD was entering 7th grade at Longfellow. She went from about 100 kids in her grade to 750. Yeah, that was a mistake.

[Anonymous]

We are starting to think we made the wrong choice too. Everyone says stick it out. It's a private so I assume we are on the hook for tuition, although we have insurance. Would love to hear how others dealt with this.

[Anonymous]

Wrong choice socially, academically, both, or something else?

[Anonymous]

My parents put my brother in the wrong private for HS and he repeated a year, then dropped out. The school later admitted that it promised supports that it couldn't sustain.

[Anonymous]

Our zoned public school was the wrong fit for DS. We tried for a while to solve the problems but once he started showing signs of significant anxiety we realized we no longer had the luxury of trying to make the situation work. We pulled him and found another school we thought would be a better fit. It was. Within a few months most of the most trouble signs of anxiety had disappeared. By the next year he was back to enjoying school.

Sometimes it's just the wrong school. Sometimes you can stick it out, if it's just slightly wrong and you think there are positives outweighing the negatives. Sometimes backing up your kid and letting him know you believe him and you're not going to make him stay in a bad environment is the right thing to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP here- curious if your experience is with private or public?

public-HRCS

[Anonymous]

public, diagnosed with dyslexia in 3rd grade (though I suspected it in 1st and they said he was just a normal BOY), moved to private in 4th.

wish we moved earlier, but it has all worked out.

[Anonymous]

Terrible experience in a public PK classroom. We waited far too long to pull him out and he did great in a private setting. The change in him was pretty much immediate, but I'm not sure all the harm was undone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are starting to think we made the wrong choice too. Everyone says stick it out. It's a private so I assume we are on the hook for tuition, although we have insurance. Would love to hear how others dealt with this.

I was the first poster to respond to op, above. Our experience was with private. We had insurance. Look at the paperwork and call them for advice, they are surprisingly helpful

Our deal was we would get 60% of unused fees (i.e for the months not attending) back. If our child had been asked to leave by the school we would have had 75% of remaining fees unused.

Its so worth it.

[Anonymous]

I have a child with special needs and his placement has always been the object of careful (I mean agonizing) preparation. I think the only time we might have made a mistake is when we requested he repeat K when he switched from private preschool to public school - however it was rectified a year later when he skipped a grade.

[Anonymous]

Horrible experience in a public K that was supposed to be very nice. It wasn't. We stuck it out, much to my regret, only because the principal bullied us into believing the problem was our child and not the classroom. It turned out not to be, and we have had no problems since.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are starting to think we made the wrong choice too. Everyone says stick it out. It's a private so I assume we are on the hook for tuition, although we have insurance. Would love to hear how others dealt with this.

I was the first poster to respond to op, above. Our experience was with private. We had insurance. Look at the paperwork and call them for advice, they are surprisingly helpful

Our deal was we would get 60% of unused fees (i.e for the months not attending) back. If our child had been asked to leave by the school we would have had 75% of remaining fees unused.

Its so worth it.

Did you move to another private school, or to your public school? How did that process work?