Reply to Has anyone left Somerset Elementary for a private school? Why?

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

Reply to "Has anyone left Somerset Elementary for a private school? Why?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP again. Finally, one more thing that attracted us during these school tours. The "social curriculum" for want of a better word. There appears such an emphasis on social justice, character development, learning to "do the right thing" etc. at some of these private schools. I don't feel like our kids get much of that. And its attractive to us. [/quote]

I didn't go to one of the private school in this area but I went to one of the top schools in NY on scholarship.  My situation was different in that I wasn't at one of the top public schools.   You could get a good education and go on to a top college at my local school but it was a tough, as in could get into physical fights type of school and being in talented and gifted was not always a good thing.

In private school,  I don't know that the Quaker values were really embraced by the student body.  I think most kids were typical teenagers and we did community service as required by the school.  I will say as an adult I can now appreciate Quaker meeting and what we learned but it wasn't the type of thing that changed how we interacted with each other as teenagers that we were nicer to each other until maybe high school.    In private school I've had a few teachers that stand out but I also had a few stand out teachers in public school.  Where I think private school differed is that I was more likely to play an instrument or a sport because everyone got to do it.  PE in middle school was picking a sport so I tried things I probably wouldn't have done otherwise - cheerleading, lacrosse, field hockey without regard to having played it before or needing to beat out other kids to get a slot.  There were high expectations academically (which at Somerset probably isn't an issue) and high expectations of behavior.  Believe it or not, there was no bell to get to classes, you knew you had a set amount of time or you were late.  We had study halls and free time during the day that we were able to use to get homework done.  I always found it funny that people paid all this money to go there and we all had lunch duty rotation to clean up the lunchroom.  I guess you learn quick not to leave your mess for someone else to pick up when one day a week you are that someone.  When I later went to public school for one year it was vastly different.  I needed to get a pass to go the library during my lunch time.  I
 mean I guess there might be those crazy kids going to school and cutting class to read in the library but really.

You are lucky that you are in the situation where your family will help out.  I do think there are things you can get at private school that you can't even at the best local public school just by nature of private school being able to incorporate things like music every day, foreign language, playing a sport, free periods and study halls, and making rules around dress codes and lunch duties for example that would be harder to at a school where you aren't making a choice to go there.  Is it worth $20,000 more per child if you can't afford it at all or easily .... that's when you look at doing the best you can - bringing your kids to different enrichment activities, getting kids involved in church, community service, girl scouts etc. Being" that parent" if you feel the school isn't expecting enough of your child, applying to magnet programs.  I think you can still find the things you are looking for even if you stay in public school but it would take more of your 
time and energy to get supplement.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics