Sheridan is above your budget, I know, but its a wonderful school. And the $29K for next year includes all meals and snacks, as well as trips to Mountain Campus. There is a hot & healthy lunch served everyday, in addition to a salad bar. Our daughter loves it. The teachers inspire, appropriately challenge and nurture the children. There is a free before care program which starts at 7:45AM and the after care program is phenomenal. Its an incredible community of caring and collaborative adults and joyful, bright and confident children.

Lowell School. My child loves going to school every day.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP: To 18:22, I completely agree. I recently visited one of the big 3 schools and came away with the feeling that they use the lower school to subsidize the upper school. The schools that focused on the primary years were so much better, in my opinion.

To the ones suggesting Norwood, thank you. I did not consider it because of the location, despite being highly recommended by several people I know and trust. I didn't realize they offered transportation. I will definitely visit! Unfortunately, the other ones outside the Beltway are too far (and I just checked the websites to see if they offered transportation, but they do not).

Re: the Norwood bus, it isn't free. It is in the 1-2K range and so it would push your cost closer to 27K+. Plus the school is mostly MD families and you need to think about whether the location works for you logistically in terms of getting involved in the school beyond pick up and drop off. Will you and your spouse be able to make it to assemblies etc and then get to work? Will you be willing to drive back out to the school for weekend of after hours events?

The Norwood bus is $950 per year, not $2K. The school is not "mostly" MD families. There is a significant contingent of DC families there and even VA families. I know - we are DC residents and have two kids in the lower school there.

My kids play club sports outside of school so the other issues you have raised have not been an issue for us. We do have a nanny to pick them up after school, but many other fmailies carpool. We've never missed a performance, parent-teacher conference or back to school night, either. If you don't have enough flexibility in your schedule to make something at school once a month, I'm not sure the distance is the problem.

If OP looks at Norwood and thinks it isn't right for her kids, that's a good basis for ruling it out. Misinformation from someone who doesn't have a kid at the school on DCUM isn't.

Anonymous wrote:No to WES. Too expensive. And even at $29K that doesn't include the endless fundraising, auctions, capital campaigns, and other financial demands. The younger grades' tuition carries the middle school. Your tuition payments would also cover the "free" trips in sixth grade to Utah and something European in middle school years. You may well be gone by then (as most WES parents are) so your contributions to the foreign trips bucket is lost. The pre-school (Transition), K playgrounds are not nice - it's in an old Marriott headquarters - a west exposure with not much shade. Finally, no bus service, which is a killer in this area.

This is inaccurate. The facilities are great, they just started on a new turf field, the other families, administration, and teachers are lovely. The fundraising is exactly the same as every other private in the area. Go check out the open house Monday November 12.

Anonymous wrote:No to WES. Too expensive. And even at $29K that doesn't include the endless fundraising, auctions, capital campaigns, and other financial demands. The younger grades' tuition carries the middle school. Your tuition payments would also cover the "free" trips in sixth grade to Utah and something European in middle school years. You may well be gone by then (as most WES parents are) so your contributions to the foreign trips bucket is lost. The pre-school (Transition), K playgrounds are not nice - it's in an old Marriott headquarters - a west exposure with not much shade. Finally, no bus service, which is a killer in this area.

This is a biased view.

As a parent of a transition son, I disagree with the pp's comment on the "not nice playgrounds". I would strongly recommend you to attend one of WES admissions open house (next one on November 12) and see the premises yourself. The old Marriott building (East campus) has been demolished and will turn into a 260’ x 180’ artificial turf athletic field. http://www.w-es.org/page.cfm?p=1404

As for fundraising, auctions, capital campaigns: this is true for every private independent school in the area. Contributions are voluntary in nature. I do not know whether "lower grades finance the 6th grade trip to Utah, 7th grade trip to Italy and 8th grade trip to France or Spain (depending on your language choice)". Does anybody know across area private independent schools by how much lower schools finance middle schools?

Attend one of the forthcoming admissions open houses and see for yourself and ask these questions. There seems to be a lot of misinformation on private independent schools in this forum unfortunately.

No to WES. Too expensive. And even at $29K that doesn't include the endless fundraising, auctions, capital campaigns, and other financial demands. The younger grades' tuition carries the middle school. Your tuition payments would also cover the "free" trips in sixth grade to Utah and something European in middle school years. You may well be gone by then (as most WES parents are) so your contributions to the foreign trips bucket is lost. The pre-school (Transition), K playgrounds are not nice - it's in an old Marriott headquarters - a west exposure with not much shade. Finally, no bus service, which is a killer in this area.