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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It just really depends on your kid and their needs.

I'll give you our path - I thought we'd 100% do public all the way through.  We live in a west-of-the-park school neighborhood and I thought we had a clear path.  My prediction was our oldest would go to Jackson Reed and our youngest might likely go to School Without Walls.

Our older child has some mild/moderate learning issues. We had good luck with tutoring in elementary. Middle was harder for the tutor to track and support. We learned of the Benilde program at St John's College High School, a private Catholic school, which supports a cohort of kids with learning differences. We figured we could struggle with her in school, pay tutors, continue to pull our hair out, or we could try this program.  We tried the program.  It's been a good choice.

Our younger child has the opposite problem - more on the gifted side.  DC had a good elementary experience, but clearly struggled / was bored with the pacing (too slow). There were several more advanced kids in the classes, and they seemed to do ok with parental supplementation.  We lotteried him into a charter middle school and at first it was good and showed him some possibilities in subjects he hadn't experienced before, and some, but not enough, acceleration. But by 8th grade it simply wasn't a good fit for him. He felt frustrated and held back by the rules.  He's now at Gonzaga and loves it.  I realize that sounds crazy, because an all boys Catholic school has rules aplenty, but he likes the structure provided while relishing the academic challenge of honors classes and acceleration.

So, wildly different than expected, though I suppose it seems fairly traditional.  It is very easy to get sucked into the anxiety of DC parents.  Roads to high schools are important.  But the landscape changes, and your kids will let you know what they need.

[b]I will say - and I hate saying it - but I didn't realize how much DCPS stressed me out until we were out. There's just a layer of uncertainty every year, with budgets, with the mayor, with building facilities. I like stability. Removing those questions from the DCPS system and going into well known, well structured environments alleviated anxieties I didn't even know I had.[/b]  [/quote]

The last paragraph about uncertainty in DCPS is so spot on.  I only realized how much background stress DCPS caused after we left.  There are constant policy changes from above that cause trickle down effects that, at least at my school, you found out about through rumors from teachers and other parents.  Nothing was straightforward and it was so frustrating not knowing what you're walking into from one year to the next. [/quote]

I don't know.  In my experience you just exchange one form of stress for another, especially in high school.  My kids have moved to a "Big3" private for 9th grade from DCPS and I don't miss the background stress of DCPS (and I totally get what you mean) but now it's been replaced by the stress of insanely high expectations, teachers who don't give A's, hours and hours of homework (that just never ends), etc.

Some days I really miss DCPS and the culture of low expectations.  The kids in privates around here (at least Sidwell, GDS, NCS, STA) work insanely hard.  it's kind of a sucky high school experience to be honest.  They finally catch their breath again in college. [/quote]

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