Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I attended private school for 12 years and sometimes it was a liability rather than a help in my college application process and beyond. The only reason I would send my kids to private is if they did not thrive in public school for some reason.

How can any kid thrive in the MCPS environment now? Anyone who says they are is lying.

I'm not. My kids look forward to school and are learning a lot. Our ES has a terrific principal and wonderful families. We have no complaints except that like everyone we wish there had never been a pandemic. But our school has handled things really well and compassionately.

Anonymous wrote:When you send your kids to public school, they are among other students with parents like this. No thank you.

George Huguely (mater dei/lanond) and Brett Kavanaugh(mater dei/Georgetown Prep) send their regards

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: Most parochial schools have classes of 20-20+, and the education is more rigid so not something I would want to pay $20k on. There are only a few schools at that $40-50+k that I think are worthwhile, mostly at the HS level.

What do you mean by rigid? We are at a parochial that may be considered "rigid" but the kids are well behaved, know their grammar, and can write well. I don't think you get much of that at public school.

If what you wanted to say was that your individual family did not have access to those experiences with behavior and grammar in the public for which you were districted, fair enough. But my elementary-age kids are checking all of those boxes at our MCPS public, and then some. I myself am the product of parochial schools and had a hard time conceptualizing whether a community of circumstance rather than what I used to think of as a community of "intention" could self-regulate like this.

Boy, was I ever wrong. The families at our school support each other, support our principal, and support our kids. We aren't gathered together under a religious umbrella or filtered in because we could write a check for a certain dollar amount (although it is often fair to say that the neighborhood of an elementary is going to share at least some socioeconomic commonalities). But I value so very much the experience my children are having here. We are very lucky.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the younger grades, I really like my kids going to school with neighborhood friends and also we have so many really great and committed teachers.
For HS, I’m happy with the diversity and challenge of courses offered.
Also, I feel like private schools is part of a pattern of spoiling kids….should everything be so perfect for them? I feel like it’s okay to sometimes get a not great teacher or have badly behaved classmates.
The truth is that most our advanced students will never have a class wiith, and are very unlikely to even cross paths with, the kids that are causing the trouble like the Magruder kid.

+1. I’m a graduate of MCPS and generally a supporter of public school. We have been overall very pleased with the quality and rigor of the teachers and classes in public, particularly at our W high school. We can afford private and gave our kids the option to apply in middle school and again in high school and both had no interest. My kids are happy, comfortable navigating a larger environment without being coddled and have good friends who live close by. It’s not perfect, but we have no regrets.

This. Plus, although we could afford it, it would definitely have cut into other family decisions that also impacted the kids positively - like travel, money spent on their EC "passions", quality aftercare - not to mention college savings and retirement. It was the best decision for our family and our kids. I make no judgments regarding what others choose to do - private school can be a savior for some kids that are getting lost, can provide an excellent education, and can provide a cohort that they may not be getting in their public school. These were not issues for us, but are definitely issues for others in this county.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's happening again people. There will be another mass exodus and this time it will be kids going into HS. It is no longer safe to attend HS in MCPS. First post today in the private school forum.

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1031745.page

Keep believing that. Some families from private will come back to public. Others will go to private. That’s not a mass exodus. It’s sad how some will use a tragedy to try to push an unrelated agenda.

Not pushing anything...just calling attention to it. Honestly, I would prefer that our private schools not be filled to the brims, but it seems admissions will continue to be booming due to MCPS's vast failures.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree the run-of-the-mill private school (not Sidwell, etc) provides no advantage and if you're a donut-hole family, not a good idea, because you can't afford it. That would put your child in massive student loan debt. if you could afford and get into Sidwell, then you're probably not going to be dwelling around this dcum forum.

going to a namebrand school is certainly no guarantee of your child's success.

Donut hole excuses are lame [b]as many people who claim that live in million dollar houses. You don't take loads for ES, MS, and HS.

There aren't a lot of privates in this area. If there were and they were abroad $15000-20000 more of us would go.

What does donut hole refer to in this context?

Anonymous wrote:For the younger grades, I really like my kids going to school with neighborhood friends and also we have so many really great and committed teachers.
For HS, I’m happy with the diversity and challenge of courses offered.
Also, I feel like private schools is part of a pattern of spoiling kids….should everything be so perfect for them? I feel like it’s okay to sometimes get a not great teacher or have badly behaved classmates.
The truth is that most our advanced students will never have a class wiith, and are very unlikely to even cross paths with, the kids that are causing the trouble like the Magruder kid.

+1. I’m a graduate of MCPS and generally a supporter of public school. We have been overall very pleased with the quality and rigor of the teachers and classes in public, particularly at our W high school. We can afford private and gave our kids the option to apply in middle school and again in high school and both had no interest. My kids are happy, comfortable navigating a larger environment without being coddled and have good friends who live close by. It’s not perfect, but we have no regrets.

For the younger grades, I really like my kids going to school with neighborhood friends and also we have so many really great and committed teachers.
For HS, I’m happy with the diversity and challenge of courses offered.
Also, I feel like private schools is part of a pattern of spoiling kids….should everything be so perfect for them? I feel like it’s okay to sometimes get a not great teacher or have badly behaved classmates.
The truth is that most our advanced students will never have a class wiith, and are very unlikely to even cross paths with, the kids that are causing the trouble like the Magruder kid.

We are holding out hope that McKnight is kicked to the curb and someone better will be at the helm soon.

Otherwise, private might be an option.

Anonymous wrote:It's happening again people. There will be another mass exodus and this time it will be kids going into HS. It is no longer safe to attend HS in MCPS. First post today in the private school forum.

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1031745.page

Keep believing that. Some families from private will come back to public. Others will go to private. That’s not a mass exodus. It’s sad how some will use a tragedy to try to push an unrelated agenda.

Anonymous wrote:It's happening again people. There will be another mass exodus and this time it will be kids going into HS. It is no longer safe to attend HS in MCPS. First post today in the private school forum.

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1031745.page

MCPS is a huge system. Tons of kids come and go every year for a variety of reasons, including this horrific outlier.

When a school shooting is no longer an outlier it'll be different.

Anonymous wrote:It's happening again people. There will be another mass exodus and this time it will be kids going into HS. It is no longer safe to attend HS in MCPS. First post today in the private school forum.

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1031745.page

A private school recruiter! Welcome!