Private Schools and Preschools

Shpointers

DH and I plan on sending our LO to private school and after discussing our options with some friends and collegues it turns out that many of the private schools we are interested in here in the Houston area have an unwritten policy of requiring applications for kinder to be done at birth. Crazy! Of course we will do it but that is a lot of pressure in deciding what schools to actually apply for. We know for sure that for middle and high school we want private school mainly because of the public schools we are zoned to. Our elementary school isn't bad but I'm pretty on the fence about it. My concern is if we decide not to send to our local k-5 then we need to apply for these private schools regardless.

Also we have to make a decision quick about our infant care/preschool options asap. Next week we are going to tour one place and I am sure we can get in for the Jan 2012 admissions, but if we don't like it our other top 2 have a 7-9mo waiting list.

I had no idea we had to start planning all of this sooo sooon! We don't even know if its a boy or a girl yet and what the actual birthdate is, how are we suppose to fill out the applications?

Sorry vent over.

MrsNash37212

Since we already have names picked out, we're going to head to the 2 private schools we are considering as soon as we find out the sex to submit an application for the baby. It's just the way things are these days. We will also do the same for the popular drop-in day care we want to use for days when I need a break/want baby to get some socialization, etc.

HadleyS

Just my two cents....I think it's a MUCH bigger deal to get into the middle and high schools that you want, but for elementary, it's not quite as much a biggie.

I taught in private schools for 5 years....I will be sending my child to public schools (we will make sure that we either stay or move to the appropriately zoned ones) for elementary and maybe middle.  DH and I both really like the private high schools that we went to though, so we will probably send our child to one of those two.

magel050485

Thank goodness it isnt like that here.  Of course I live in a small town so all of our private schools are parochial- first spots go to returning students, then members of the congregation, then the general public.   Right now we are in a phenominal public school system so as long as that doesnt change we will stick with public.

Jules08

And this is why I am so glad that our public school system (where I live) is fantastic.

Janimal

When we were househunting we only looked in certain school districts to make sure we were zoned for really good schools. 

That being said, the preschool options are unimpressive, so we are sending DD to a private preschool in the Fall that we are really excited about.  Our plan is to switch her to public school in kindergarten, but what if she just loves her school and is thriving there?  The private school goes up to the 8th grade, and has some really special programs for gifted kids in different areas.  I don't want my kid to be in a sheltered private school really, and it's freaking expensive too -- but I have no idea now what will be best for her when the time comes.  Sigh.

 

ldswims

Where in Houston are you?  I'm in League City and while we have good schools down there, we want to do private anyway.  Neighbors of ours were recently forced to switch from private to public and the caliber of education is just, to me, subpar.  Their three kids have all taken major hits in both interest and desire to learn because everything in their classes is just so much slower than it was in the private school.  Both my Hubby and I did our elementary years in private schools and switched to public for jr. high and high school and we both see that as a major turning point in the strength of our educations.  I wish I had never switched and my husband feels the same way.  Of course, we went to parochial schools, too, and that is also something that is important to us.  I grew up Catholic and went to a Catholic school and have sinced converted to Lutheran and my Hubby has always been Lutheran and went to a Lutheran school.  Our options for Lutheran schools are far more limited than for Catholic schools so we'll probably try to get into a Catholic school.

I think, sadly, that it's even more important in Texas to pursue private education.  We have a number of friends that are teachers in public schools and they are always complaining about how the curriculum is designed simply to pass the TAKS.  There is more to education than the achievement tests!  Private schools seem to not have as many complaints about the curriculum being so limited.

Based on our own experiences with private schools and my friends' experiences with our public schools we feel like we can't do anything but private school.  I feel like I should mention, that our schools for our neighborhood are all ranked as "Exemplary" and, to me, they are still not good enough.  May sound like a harsh statement, but this is also based on statements from friends whose kids have gone to both private and our public schools.  When switching from public to private, they struggle to catch up.  When switching from private to public, they are typically at least a class year ahead of their peers.

Shpointers

ldswims: we are in willowbend which is south of Meyerland. Unfortunately our house is zoned to westbury high school which in our opinion is just out of the question. There are a few good pockets in Houston which if you can get zoned to Bellaire, Lamar or River Oaks is fine but outside of that it is our personal opinion that the best education our child can recieve will be through a private school education.

We are not naive to think there aren't problems in private school but I know the education my husband received through Awty International (private school here in Houston) was far superior to anything I received in public school in Austin.

There are some great parochial schools in Houston. Would you be sending your children to someplace closer to league city like in clear lake area or would you be commuting into Houston?

ldswims

Shpointers: We are considering both, honestly.  It would be nice to stay in Clear Lake/League City so that their friends are closer by.  However, we commute - Hubby works close to downtown off Allen Pkwy and I work out in Westchase.  So we are up here every day anyway.  We commute together and I go right through River Oaks to get to my job.  If we go the route of Catholic school, I think we will stay down south.  If we go "just" private, I think we'd be better off up here....

It sure is a lot to consider.  We are still working on daycare...hard to think about waitlists for babies that aren't even past their first trimester yet.

jnealet

I was quite gung-ho on private school and really liked the Friends School.  But my sister had her two daughters in a Friends School (not the one near my house though) and ran into a HORRIBLE experience.  She pulled her kids out of Friends and put them in public and found that her daughters are using the same books and learning the same lessons in public as they were in private, very little is different.  So she was paying over $10,000 for an education she could get for "free". 

In learning that, DH and I were very disappointed and we're both thinking private schools aren't all that they're cracked up to be.  Now, on the other hand, we live in the middle of Baltimore City, so the public schools are crap also.  We're now leaning towards a charter school but we have a lot of research to do...and quite a few years to do it.