Reply to Pyle/whitman v maret

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]If you are wedded to Maret as the only viable private school option, then apply and see if you get in before you decide to relocate your family.

We are zoned for different MS/HS in Bethesda, but we opted to stay in our small teeny mortgage home and send kids to private. Before moving to Bethesda everyone told us the schools were great, but that did not align with our experience in elementary so we applied out and it was the right call for our family. [/quote]

Thanks for sharing- I’m curious to hear more re what you didn’t like at the elementary school. [/quote]

The biggest issue was that the school was wildly overcrowded, but there were a ton of things that led to us feeling dissatisfied. A few examples: 1. Many families that came and went each year and many did not speak English so the level of “community engagement”  was low, 2. Teachers didn’t really know our kids because they were quiet and the teachers were focused on disruptive, higher needs students (both kids had multiple years where there was at least one, if not more children in the classroom who was highly disruptive), 3. The principal was terrible, 4. Kids hated school—something which I would understand coming from a middle schooler, but not an otherwise well adjusted second grader, 5. Kids were not learning what we considered to be pretty standard ES curriculum skills/topics.

We have plenty of friends who had very good experiences at BHES. Maybe we would have stayed in public had we lived a few neighborhoods over. That said, Pyle was a mixed experience for our friends and although WW is a good school, it’s still 500+ kids per class (roughly). I know my kids—they are bright but very willing to fly under the radar if given the opportunity. The small setting at their private did not allow them to do the bare minimum and that expectation was the challenge they needed to really dig in and level up. They loved school—even when it was hard, even in the typically awful MS years.

Yes of course over the years we paid more in private school tuition than it would have cost to move to a comparable/slightly bigger house fifteen or twenty years ago, but given today’s rates and house prices, the math there is less clear. And I know that the day to day experience, curriculum, and education that my kids received was better than what they would have received at our zoned public. We vastly preferred the private school calendar/schedule, overall communication and flexibility, athletics experience, sense of community, etc etc at our private.

This is just my personal experience based on my kids and our zoned schools and I am NOT trying to make a private is always better argument. The two potential experiences—Maret vs Pyle/WW—that OP is considering are very different. 
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