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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I posted a few times earlier.

Both our center and base school offer Socratic seminar.  I think your kids have far better odds of being selected to participate at the base school over the center school. 
Both offer advanced math, with fifth graders taking the sixth grade SOL etc, but only the center busses kids to the middle school for honors algebra 7.

I don't know about Caesars English, William and Mary, etc.

[b]The center school has far better extracurriculars like Odyssey of the Mind, Science Olympiad, fencing, robotics, an upper grade musical, etc.
[/b][u]
You can do a lot more with a school of 900 than a school of 600.[/quote]

[b]Most of those are PTA organized.  If parents want them and want to do the advertising, work to secure the room reservation, get the fingerprinting done of the instructors, etc., you could have them at any school.  They are a PITA to get these programs implemented but I'm certain a school of 600 could have them just like a school of 900 could have them IF a parent steps up to get them organized[/b].[/quote]

No, not exactly.  You would think this is so but it is not.

Having 50% more students (300 in this case) greatly increases the pool of interested students and parents willing to do the work.

Take Science Olympiad for example.  Science Olympiad is for third-sixth at the lowest level and 5th-8th for level B.

Most of the bigger teams have enough student interest to field 2 or 3 teams for regionals, at both level A and B, of about 15 kids/team.  Most of the centers are top heavy from 3rd grade up, so they have a bigger proportion of students eligible for Science Olympiad than a small school will.

There are roughly 20 events that a team competes in at Science Olympiad.  A school competes 2 kids from each team at each event.  All of the events are coached by parents.  The preparation starts in the fall and runs through the spring competitions.

Our center school's team, like most, requires that a parent must coach or help out in some way.  There are around 30 parents +/- who volunteer to coach the teams over the course of several months.  Because of the size of the student body, there is more depth in not only the team, but the number of parents willing and able to take on the coaching commitment.

At our smaller base school, there is not the number of interested and willing students and parent coaches needed to field a Science Olympiad team on a consistent yearly basis, and certainly not enough to field several regional teams.

The same goes for the musical.  Our center school usually has just shy of 100 kids participating in the musicals from year to year.  They actually have more of a theater program so to speak.  With that many kids, the talent pool is much bigger and so the final product is much higher.  They have enough talented and capable students with strong backgrounds in theater to fill all the leads and stage a very nice quality production.  With more participation, there is more money in the pool for costumes, lighting, sets, choreographers, and on and on.  What they are able to put on due to the size of the student body is actually quiet impressive for an elementary school.

The base school can and does put on a musical or play, but it is a much smaller production and more in line with what you would expect from an elementary school.  The kids do a wonderful job, but there is just not the depth of talent and resources due to the school and pool being much smaller.

The same thing for the strings orchestra, the band, etc.  Our strings program is so large at the center that they are able to have multiple classes for the same instruments.  For example, the violins have several different classes for students at several different levels, and they have well over 100 kids in the orchestra.  The base school is smaller and as a result does not have the amount of students required to run this type of program.

Yes, there are disadvantages to the size of the centers, but the edge in extracurriculars due to the larger student body is a definite plus to being at a center school.[/quote]

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