our classical Catholic private caps at 20 kids per grade

Our class size varies from about 14-27, most are at 20-24. But, the teacher-student ratio, which you’ll see on a lot of schools’ websites is about 1:12, which reflects aides and subject-specific teachers as well.

Our classical Christian caps at 18, most classes are 16, some even a bit smaller

Me again (above). I’d actually prefer they raise the tuition, make the class sizes lower and pay the teachers more.

The student/teacher ratio at our Alexandria Catholic keeps creeping up. It went from 26 (with most classes at 25) to 27 very quietly. One of my kids’ classes has 28 bc they added a military kid after the year started and someone else is supposed to be leaving (but hasn’t yet.) It’s too many kids, even though most of them behave.

But our local public schools aren’t really all that safe, so these are the choices we make…

I'd be more concerned about the student:teacher ratio in our parochial school if we had behavior issues. The kids in our school are extremely well-behaved - every time I go into the school it's completely silent in the halls and the kids are on task. We handle more enrichment at home so I'm not overly concerned about differentiated learning. I know they've divided my daughter's kindergarten class into small reading groups based on ability, which is fantastic, and I've pushed my daughter about a year ahead in math using a workbook I purchased online.

Are you asking about class size or ratio? They are two very different things.

Catholic schools have similar class sizes to public. They prioritize keeping school affordable, and that’s the result. But a 27 to 1 ratio, would mean either class sizes approaching 40 or no specials, resource teachers etc . . . Either of those would be unacceptable to me.

Our Arlington k-8 capped at 24 per class and was always full. We moved to a DC k-8 and they cap at 15 per class (in lower school, not sure about upper school) also always full. So it really depends!

Anonymous wrote:Looks like your other thread about the directory finally got deleted. I wish they'd kept it, since you'd given us a list of all of your many complaints about St. Mary's which would have been a useful reference for identifying which threads are yours so the moderator can delete those.

Moderator: please delete this troll's thread.

I don’t think this site is a shill for the arlington diocese and just deletes questions or criticism of Catholic schools, just bc you say so. But I guess we’ll see…

The OP raises a perfectly legit question that other parents might want to know about.

Anonymous wrote:Looks like your other thread about the directory finally got deleted. I wish they'd kept it, since you'd given us a list of all of your many complaints about St. Mary's which would have been a useful reference for identifying which threads are yours so the moderator can delete those.

Moderator: please delete this troll's thread.

Jeff doesn’t read every post. Use the report button if you want to flag something.

Looks like your other thread about the directory finally got deleted. I wish they'd kept it, since you'd given us a list of all of your many complaints about St. Mary's which would have been a useful reference for identifying which threads are yours so the moderator can delete those.

Moderator: please delete this troll's thread.

Typical for Catholic. Non-Catholic privates are usually lower.

Yes.

My kids’ Catholic School has smaller classes and a lot of aides and other people helping.

My Alexandria K-8 Catholic is about 27:1 (not including “assistant” teachers, many of whom are floaters and are not dedicated to a single classroom).

Is that typical? She Catholic schools? For private schools generally in this area?