Reply to Top private (Sidwell, GDS) versus top public (JKLM) for early years: what are the differences?

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

Reply to "Top private (Sidwell, GDS) versus top public (JKLM) for early years: what are the differences? "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Hmm. . . [b]Not in DC,[/b] but we started out committed to public for K-5 for our two children, and then private thereafter, mainly because our well regarded public middle/high schools are very large and we wanted a smaller environment.  The first three years in public were great, K teachers were excellent and thereafter, the school had tracked by reading level for reading, which meant the kids needing extra help were placed in small classes for reading and those needing extra challenge were in larger, but homogenous classes offering challenging materials.  Math was always weak because differentiation didn't start until 3rd.

Then, parents at our school successfully resisted a planned redistricting which would have place some children at a brand new, state of the art school, leading to class size going from approximate 20 kids per class to approximate 30 kids.  Those ten kids make a huge difference.  Then decision was made at a county level to go towards mixed class rooms instead of tracking for math (after 3rd) and reading.  Compacted math is no longer offered (formerly was in third grade).   Huge difference between two hours of reading in a homogenous group and 30 kids divided in three reading groups, each of which gets about 20 minutes one on one time with teacher.   I have no issues with common core in principle, but implementation has been a bit bumpy with some of the curriculum being poorly developed when given to teachers.  Kids get specials one a week with gym being a special.  Recess is 15 minutes a day after kindergarten.  No foreign language is offered.  What we learned was that in public you are at the mercy of the Board of Ed and they may make decisions that are not what you want for your children.

Kids now in 4th and 1st and we are moving to private.  Class size will be 15 for most subjects.  Gym multiple times a week.  More recess time and more than one special a day.  Math is more advanced than at our local public (which was not true a mere three years ago).  Foreign language taught starting in first.  Stronger computer science offerings in lower school (coding basics, some robotics, use of technology such as imovie for class projects).  More time spent on science and social studies.

But private is hugely expensive.  If financing it was an issue, I would wait until middle school for private and supplement out the wazoo afterschool.

[/quote]

Then you really shouldn't be commenting on the super-specific question asked:  "please assess these seven schools."[/quote]

I think the risks of what could go wrong in public are equally applicable to DC, especially since there is an overcrowding problem in some of the highly regarded dc public schools and a fairly unpredictable BOE.[/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