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For when kids are too young to put it on themselves, I am a fan of those full-body fleece suits too -- convenient and efficient. Get one that zips up so you are not trying to stuff the kid into it. For when riding in carseat, we just kept a blanket in the car to toss on top until the car heat was pumping. Once kid is old enough to put on coat herself, I have found that I have little control over what coats she wears on most days. I consider myself lucky if I can get her to wear anything warm enough, so I've found it's best to have an assortment around and hope that one of them satisfies the kid's fickle brain on any given day. We're lucky in that we get lots of hand-downs from cousins so lots of options are available. Also, I've found that tons of great coats are available from your local thrift store at crazy prices. DW often comes home with $40 clothing items that she picked up for under $3. Coat selection might be kind of thin now, so maybe that's not a good short-term solution for you. Good luck!
Hello all. I am trying to compile a list of resources for researching schools. I ran a few searches in this forum and could not find any collection of suggestions, so I figured I'd start my own. Below is what I have turned up so far (in no particular order). If I missed a comprehensive list that someone's already posted, could you please point me there? If not, please add any other good sources I have missed. Also, if you know of sources that stink (meaning they're not reliable), please let me know too so I can ignore them. My own focus is on private schools, but this list is not intended to be limited to private schools.
(1) Your own personal impressions from school visits. These first-hand impressions are clearly going to be best, although I suppose most schools will "put best foot forward" in prospective student meetings, so take it all with a grain of salt.
(2) Advice from friends and neighbors whose kids have attended the school. This will be a pretty good source since you will get the inside scoop from someone in the know. Also, you will know whether your friend is a good evaluator or not. You also can ask questions. There could be some sugar-coating because most people tend to want to think their own choices are good ones, so many parents may emphasize the positive aspects of their school while minimizing the negatives.
(3) DCUM forums. This forum has some of the best info I have found yet. Lots of different viewpoints and lots of experience are represented here. I am happily amazed at how much energy & info some people put into their posts. My only complaint would be the amount of snark and nastiness I have to wade through to dig out the good stuff. (If you're tempted to add to the snark, please go get a cup of coffee instead.)
(4) Great schools.net. Some useful reviews there, but lots of gaps in info. Also, since it's a national website, it does not have much focus on DC/MD/VA schools.
(5) Your neighborhood email list/website. My neighborhood has one, and I should probably post something there for advice/input. However, I don't know if I'm too keen on hearing all my neighbors tell me which schools my kids should and should not attend. They would have good advice, but it might be hard to turn some of them off.
(6) http://www.washingtonlife.com/backissues/archives/01sept/schools.htm. I turned this up in a web search. It has some generalized info, but not too much.
(7) Each individual school's website. This is a good source for factual info about the school, but it's all clearly biased, so hard to give it too much weight. Every school website tells you it's the best for your child. Also, although I am as impressed by a good website as the next person (and turned off by bad ones), I need to be careful not to give the good website any significant weight in selecting schools since my kids would not be attending the website. I suppose though that having a useful website might be slightly indicative of how good a school is at communicating with parents, or perhaps just indicative of having hired a good website designer.
(8) Websites with bare lists of schools, their addresses, grade levels, tuition costs, etc. There are many lists out there, but I am not including them here since they don't add much besides aggregating what is on each individual school's website. Beware also that many of these lists get out-of-date quickly.
(9) http://www.bethesdamagazine.com/sept05/private.php. A fairly bare-bones list of basic school info, but a little bit of description too.
I was hoping to find some site like Epinions for schools in DC, but no luck. Maybe someone else knows of one. I also was thinking that there might be other message boards like this one with good info, but this board appears to be fairly unique. Again, if anyone knows of other sources, please post.
Thanks for any input.
(1) Your own personal impressions from school visits. These first-hand impressions are clearly going to be best, although I suppose most schools will "put best foot forward" in prospective student meetings, so take it all with a grain of salt.
(2) Advice from friends and neighbors whose kids have attended the school. This will be a pretty good source since you will get the inside scoop from someone in the know. Also, you will know whether your friend is a good evaluator or not. You also can ask questions. There could be some sugar-coating because most people tend to want to think their own choices are good ones, so many parents may emphasize the positive aspects of their school while minimizing the negatives.
(3) DCUM forums. This forum has some of the best info I have found yet. Lots of different viewpoints and lots of experience are represented here. I am happily amazed at how much energy & info some people put into their posts. My only complaint would be the amount of snark and nastiness I have to wade through to dig out the good stuff. (If you're tempted to add to the snark, please go get a cup of coffee instead.)
(4) Great schools.net. Some useful reviews there, but lots of gaps in info. Also, since it's a national website, it does not have much focus on DC/MD/VA schools.
(5) Your neighborhood email list/website. My neighborhood has one, and I should probably post something there for advice/input. However, I don't know if I'm too keen on hearing all my neighbors tell me which schools my kids should and should not attend. They would have good advice, but it might be hard to turn some of them off.
(6) http://www.washingtonlife.com/backissues/archives/01sept/schools.htm. I turned this up in a web search. It has some generalized info, but not too much.
(7) Each individual school's website. This is a good source for factual info about the school, but it's all clearly biased, so hard to give it too much weight. Every school website tells you it's the best for your child. Also, although I am as impressed by a good website as the next person (and turned off by bad ones), I need to be careful not to give the good website any significant weight in selecting schools since my kids would not be attending the website. I suppose though that having a useful website might be slightly indicative of how good a school is at communicating with parents, or perhaps just indicative of having hired a good website designer.
(8) Websites with bare lists of schools, their addresses, grade levels, tuition costs, etc. There are many lists out there, but I am not including them here since they don't add much besides aggregating what is on each individual school's website. Beware also that many of these lists get out-of-date quickly.
(9) http://www.bethesdamagazine.com/sept05/private.php. A fairly bare-bones list of basic school info, but a little bit of description too.
I was hoping to find some site like Epinions for schools in DC, but no luck. Maybe someone else knows of one. I also was thinking that there might be other message boards like this one with good info, but this board appears to be fairly unique. Again, if anyone knows of other sources, please post.
Thanks for any input.
Anonymous wrote:I had a parent at one of the big 3 recently tell me that they drove a republican family from the school because someone who worked for the administration should not be at that school.
How exactly can one parent drive another family out of a school? That seems a little far-fetched to me, but I am pretty naive. BTW, I completely agree that anyone who suggested doing something like that, even if she/he could not make good on the threat, seems pretty ridiculous and intolerant; I am just questioning whether that threat even makes sense.