Mass exodus from public school?

[Anonymous]

PP here: I would add that a huge benefit of private (and we have done both) is that we get a lot of communication.

Teachers have office hours and are very consistent. When we hit a speed bump, counselors call us back, often within the hour.
We get newsletters weekly, and teacher create videos all the time.

I don't have experience with being the parent of public school child during virtual learning, but I feel like my kid's school is trying to create a sense of community through social media and other tech.

[Anonymous]

I plan to return to public school once it's safe to do so. I can't wait to not spend this money for school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just a flipside...

My kid does attend private. He's 14.

The model is hybrid, so he attends 2 days a week.

He had a positive Covid test months before school started and recovered.

At least 3 times, we got the call that he was in close contact with a person who tested +, so he had to quarantine and become a virtual learner.

For a month, the whole school went virtual because there were a lot of + cases.

Longer holidays were topped off with extended periods of virtual learning, because people travel or make their own choices of what a pod is.

The back and forth makes it hard to stay on track (and all of this is hard).

The school is doing the best they can, but they are juggling providing this service of in-person learning with keeping their staff & students safe.

The tuition is a stretch for us, and we joke that for the number of in person days, it would be cheaper to "home school" at Disney every day, including the flight. If I had to guess, I would say that he has been in the building 20 times.

We are considering shifting back to public but it does seem like we can be optimistic about the entire pandemic getting better in the near future.

That is very helpful, PP. We applied to private hoping for in-person and this helps weight the decision. In addition to the DL v in-person considerations, though, we had just been fed up with the public school system as a whole and are looking for smaller classes and more personalized attention.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:There are only so many slots in private schools. There will be many students that don’t get in that will be forced to stick with public school. Their parents are going to be even more angry and vocal. If FCPS doesn’t get its act together by the Fall, it could get VERY ugly.

I think this is right. The seats at the privates people would actually consider are already taken.

Yes, the well-known private schools are currently in the midst of the application season and most have received 10 applications per spot. That means 90% of families applying to the schools that you hear talked about on DCUM will be back in public (or will home school or move). That will be interesting.

The idea that parents will just "put their kids in private" is such a fallacy. There was some ability to do this last spring because the Catholic elementary schools were historically under-enrolled and allowed families to just enroll (and not go through the traditional admissions process). But those spots are long filled.
The traditional, large privates have very few spots and they're competitive in a normal year.

I'm really interested in seeing how this all pans out. Most of us will be back in public.

Agreed. Heck I know a couple families who got spots in Catholic ES after the fall had already started. Our youngest will enter kindergarten next year and we are weighing whether to apply to a couple nearby that are just starting their enrollment process because I know already that DL would not be a good fit for him. But it's not something we could afford longterm by any means.

I will say that the pandemic has made us reconsider whether we want to stay here for the long haul. All the problems of a large, unmanageable school district came to the forefront, and I envy friends/family elsewhere in the northeast in smaller districts that made it a priority to bring kids back safely. Leaving the DMV would necessitate a career shift for one or both of us and I don't know whether we will ultimately take the plunge, but it has become more tempting.

[Anonymous]

There is nowhere to go. All the privates are full. And the county's budget is not going to be reduced based on a temporary decline in enrollment without a concurrent decrease in population.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is nowhere to go. All the privates are full. And the county's budget is not going to be reduced based on a temporary decline in enrollment without a concurrent decrease in population.

I wouldn't be so sure. Privates are maximizing every square foot, adding (enclosed) outdoor spaces and plenty of teachers are champing at the bit to get away from online only teaching.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:please stop the empty threats for going to private and just go

Word. I mean, less crammed students in my class? Puh - lease!!!!
Make it happen.

Be careful what you wish for. The wealthy are a huge benefit to wealthy students in the public school system.

How so? PTA donations? They pay the same taxes regardless of whether their students are enrolled in public or elsewhere.

Someone check me on this but I think the public school gets per pupil money.

True. This is why the SB begged to be “held harmless” this year. They got to use last years enrollment numbers for funding. That won’t happen again. And feds are refusing to fill out impact aid forms unless FCPS gets its act together.

Money leaves per pupil. But affluent kids are cheaper and easier to teach per pupil.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The big problem isn't going to be rich people going private, it's going to be trying to juggle the kids who stay in public who have been learning well for the past year with those who have tuned out and are being left behind.

+1 you win the smartest person award.

Which is why I think there will be some level of exodus. The gap will widen, and it is unrealistic to expert teachers to fix the problem.

I think we'll just see more tracking, whether it's an official policy or a de facto implementation. You can already see it happening in my kid's virtual K.

and a push for kids who fell behid to go to summer school.

In MCPS alone there are 160K students. There is no way all of the UMC/MC families can find spots in private schools. Not gonna happen. There will not be a "mass exodus". My one kid is in a magnet, and another is not. Out of all their friends, I only know of one person (not UMC) who moved out of state, and the rest have stayed in MCPS.

Even if we are in hybrid mode in the fall, there isn't enough space in privates for all the MC/UMC families. Most people will stay put and ride it out.

So if OP means 1% to 2% of the student body = mass exodus, then I guess there's a mass exodus. But OP would have a very different definition of "mass" than most people do.

-UMC parent

FCPS protecting 20,000 unenrollmemts this year. And that’s almost exclusively ES. mS and Hs have no where to go and are stuck for graduation purposes. So— yes, mass exodus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some people say they will move / at least for the year.

But mass exodus may be unlikely but definitely more loss than they already have and that continues this year, I believe is possible.

Maybe. I’m a Fed with a junior. We’re here for my job. DH is remote for a west coast tech firm. But, I’m 90% certain post COVID I’ll be 100% remote. I was 60% before, but can do the job without an office. They have let a lot of our leased space go. If we aren’t back in the fall FT, DD wants to take English this summer and graduate, and we’ll let her. Our housing value is up. We’ll be living in Asheville next year and both remote working. DD will gap year. There is a plan. Otherwise, we’ll, let her finish and move. If I had kids younger than HS, that would be the plan. A lot of Feds and techies will never go back to the office. Why pay the DMV COL for crap schools?

COVID has changed how people work and go to school. The federal government gave up the Trump telework axing and Biden will make it permanent. We aren’t being allowed in our building even if we need to be there for at least six weeks because of Trump riot/ terrorism concerns.

COVID a is going to end with a workforce much more able to work offsite than they were. I haven’t been to my office in a year. My laptop died, they Fed exes it. My annual review was on Teams. Cost cutting post pandemic in the government is going to mean letting dead federal and tech office space no one has to go into in a year go. Lot of people moved here for jobs and schools. The schools have been a disaster and we can leave and keep the jobs. Why stay?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is nowhere to go. All the privates are full. And the county's budget is not going to be reduced based on a temporary decline in enrollment without a concurrent decrease in population.

I wouldn't be so sure. Privates are maximizing every square foot, adding (enclosed) outdoor spaces and plenty of teachers are champing at the bit to get away from online only teaching.

Many privates are limited by their jurisdiction as to how many kids they can have on campus. I know DC (the city) does this. The DC privates can't just add kids. they have a total amount they can't go over per their charter with the city.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Laughing at the we will homeschool because too much DL parents

Dunno why. We did that, withdrawing one of our children in January.

As of December, FCPS elementary has gone from 98208 to 89885 students. About 2300 of those are kindergarteners -- 17% -- and I don't think anyone knows how many of these have parents planning on sending them to first grade, how many are redshirted, and how many are going to stay in private.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Laughing at the we will homeschool because too much DL parents

Dunno why. We did that, withdrawing one of our children in January.

As of December, FCPS elementary has gone from 98208 to 89885 students. About 2300 of those are kindergarteners -- 17% -- and I don't think anyone knows how many of these have parents planning on sending them to first grade, how many are redshirted, and how many are going to stay in private.

ie the number of kindergarteners is down 17%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Laughing at the we will homeschool because too much DL parents

Dunno why. We did that, withdrawing one of our children in January.

As of December, FCPS elementary has gone from 98208 to 89885 students. About 2300 of those are kindergarteners -- 17% -- and I don't think anyone knows how many of these have parents planning on sending them to first grade, how many are redshirted, and how many are going to stay in private.

Lots of my family does online charters or other homeschool options. One major advantage to homeschool/enrolling in a fully online school is... DL is just homeschool with teachers who don't know how to homeschool/crappy software. There's a whole world out there for the modern homeschooler and it's not something an in-person school district reverse-engineered on the fly.

[Anonymous]

Homeschooling is so much easier versus distance learning. So many online programs that you can enroll in with excellent tutors, great workbooks and interesting material. it's not just one teacher teaching to tons of kids with cameras off. We for sure will homeschool if school doesn't open full time next year. Distance learning is a mess.

[Anonymous]

You might also have some kids coming in from private to public because parents unfortunately lost income during the pandemic...