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Anonymous
Husband is looking for a reason. |
Anonymous
| If your public ES is a Title I school, k-2 class size is 15 max. |
Anonymous
Where? In MC? |
Anonymous
| Title I schools also have by definition many low-income students--I think the threshold is something like 40%. |
Anonymous
| Norwood has 3 kindergarten classes with 18 children. There are 6 full-time teachers, 2 teachers per classroom. The teacher/student ration is 1 to 9. |
Anonymous
Sounds like a good deal, but is this in Mont. Co.? |
Anonymous
Are both teachers in attendance all day long? I thought not. |
Anonymous
|
You know it's really not about the class size. It's about how good the teacher is/teachers are.
There are some private school teachers who are truly inexperienced and truly suck so the class size can be 12 or 18, and they are still awful and every Friday night you pull your hair out asking yourself why are we paying all this money after you run into your neighbor who describes her daughter's amazing first grade teacher who teachers all 25 kids in their public school by herself. Do your homework and ask how much experience has your $25k teacher had. |
Anonymous
| Title 1 is a federally funded program and found in MoCo (and presumably elseware in the area). Eligible schools must have a certain percentage of students receiving free and reduced priced lunch (the common marker for "poor"). Most ES in eastern MoCo are Title 1 (parts of Kensington, Silver Spring, Takoma Park). Many of these schools are able to fully utilize the extra funding Title 1 provides and offer wonderful programs, in addition to small class sizes. Many parents opt for their local ES in the early years, and then switch to private or the county GT programs after 3rd or 4th grade, when Title 1 benefits faze out. |
Anonymous
What is best is a good experienced teacher with a small class. |
Anonymous
\ If you're not in one of those schools you get the large classes, do those parents start off in MCPS, then switch? |
Anonymous
| I doubt it. There are no Title I schools in Bethesda, Chevy Chase, Glen Echo, Potomac, etc. I think people move into those areas with the idea that they will do public all the way through - the schools in those areas do not have high ratios of low-income families, and the test scores are consistently high. But it must be frustrating to live in an area with "good schools", and have your kindergartener be in a class of 22 - waaaay too big IMO. |
Anonymous
Are you going to use private, if so, which one? |
Anonymous
I agree. People focus on the class size and the school's reputation and assume the teachers will be fine. NOT. You really need to ask specific questions to the AD because this information is not available on websites before you enroll. Before you hand over that first tuition payment in June to your new school ask them how much experience do the pre-k/k/1st/2nd/3rd grade teachers have? Where were they before? Can I get the name of a current 2nd grade parent? My child's class has the lowest participation in the annual fund. There is no wondering why. |
Anonymous
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We actually started out in private, for a variety of reasons, and now have three kids at Grace Episcopal Day School - which we absolutely love.
To be brief - we chose private not because of the demographics of our school (Title I), but because of the emphasis on testing and the lack of extras like music, art, PE, foreign language instruction. We wanted our kids to be in an environment that taught to the whole child. We are very happy with our choice. That being said, we have many friends in the neighborhood who send their kids to public, and who are quite happy. Although, some of them are trying for the GT programs, or are considering moving. |