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[quote=Anonymous]I'm another one who switched my kid from public to private this year.  The pandemic and failure of virtual school was the last straw, but I was contemplating a change before that due to his experience in our Title 1 school, where he was basically left to his own devices at "stations" or doing "choice board" activities at his seat while the teacher understandably spent most of the time focused on teaching kids below grade level.  There was a constant cycle of testing, it seemed every other month, and my kid said he always finished quickly and had to entertain himself the rest of the time, leading to many wasted days.  I was skeptical he was actually learning anything, and I was dismayed by his increasingly negative attitude toward school.  This is a kid who is not super motivated anyway, so happy to sit in the back and chat with friends, not doing any work.  He is not the type to volunteer for special projects or seek his own enrichment.

This year in private has been night and day.  With only 15 kids in a class, no longer can he skirt by under the radar.  He has to participate, and is pushed to do more.  The learning is more engaging and for the first time ever, he says school is fun and looks forward to going!  That alone, to me, is worth the money.  I also agree with other posts that the arts, music, foreign language, and sports opportunities are better - and they are built into the curriculum, so it's not like he can opt out (I had previously tried to get him to sign up for band in public but he refused to do anything "extra").

Now, if your super smart kid is motivated and takes initiative, I definitely think they can and will succeed in a large public school.  But for average kids who could get lost in the shuffle and become disengaged, I think sometimes a smaller environment with more individual attention could be just the right thing to keep them on track, especially through the delicate middle-early high school period where they are going through a lot developmentally and trying to figure out who they are.  We can't get that at our local public, so that is why we pay for private.[/quote]

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