Reply to Families who can afford private but go public, why?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]You are missing the “why”.  My kids grade in APS HS will have over 800+ kids next year.  It will be even bigger when our younger kids get there and they already are freaking out about space.

We’ve been in public k-8.  The academics have been excellent, [b]but there are issues that come with size. [/b] I agree academics aren’t necessarily better at privates, but that’s not why we are sending our kids to private.  Pretty fed up with APS at this point and their lack of foresight.  And the focus groups upon focus groups to try to appease are endless with not much coming out of it.

Not everyone leaves because of academics.[/quote]

And why judge?[/quote]

I'm curious what problems you think come with size.  I used to think big schools = problems (my own parents enrolled me in a private HS to avoid an large public HS).  But my kids have gone to very large elementary and secondary schools in FCPS and I have changed my mind.  These schools have been good at making it feel like there are smaller communities within schools and the size brings some real advantages--more varied classes--my kids could pretty much take any art form, have any extracurricular, choose among many languages etc.  They also have wider networks of friends (in my "good" mid-sized private HS it got insular quick and kids would feel utterly destroyed by a fight with friends or a break up in part because everyone knew and there was no avoiding a clique).

My kids also formed great relationships with teachers despite the size.  The main downsides I think was there was a lot more competition for teams, roles in plays, leadership opportunities and there is limited personalized college counseling.  The latter  can be gotten privately and as such sidesteps some of the weirdness of private college counseling where one kid is tagged to be recommended for a particular school so other kids are steered away from it.  [/quote]

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