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We are doing private school. The only reason is that the school is foreign language immersion, and although there are other things I like about the school and we've been very happy so far, I would not pay this much except that they will come out fluent in at least one but possibly 2+ languages in addition to English. Otherwise we would go with the local public school which is not the best and not the worst, and has lots of neighborhood support.
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Probably public. DH & I are public school teachers and I went to excellent public schools growing up (DH did private school bc his mom was a teacher there). I want my children to attend either the school DH or I teach, which is doable because I'm certified K-12 and he is certified 7-12. AZ has a program called open enrollment so basically as long as your kids are well-behaved, they can attend any school you provide transportation for.
I would definitely consider homeschooling though, if I had a larger family and it was financially feasible.
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My husband and I are both public school teachers, so it's pretty much a "no-brainer."
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@macintosh: I'm in Illinois too, in the suburbs of Chicago. Where are you?
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@MRSJX3: Western burbs. I like the area, but it's not as progressive as Oak Park, for example.
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@shellio: I would love to do foreign language immersion!
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@mrsbubbletea: I feel like it is such an amazing opportunity and a great gift I can give my kids - but there are certainly other ways to go about it. (Besides pricey private schools!)
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Public for sure. We have great public schools here so there is really no reason not to send them there. DD is already in public preschool and she loves it. I only know of one private school in this area, everyone does public.
We have never considered homeschooling. Maybe under very special circumstances we would consider it, but we really believe that traditional school is important.
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We'll do private preschool, since the only public preschool/pre k options in our area are income based. But starting in kindergarten, public school. We intentionally bought our house in a great school district (lots of community support, well funded, strong programs for kids of all abilities, etc). Private school isn't a feasible financial option for us, and we are also not religious and wouldn't feel comfortable sending our kids to a religious school. We both agree that socialization would be tricky with home schooling, and we also think it's important for our kids to be exposed to people, views, backgrounds, etc, outside of our family. I believe that both private and home schooling can be great options. But for our family, at this point in time, the plan is public school.
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I went to public school, and had a wonderful experience ... so I like to think that public school is good enough for my children.
Also, we pay $$$ for daycare/preschool in our city, so I am really looking forward to the financial relief that enrolling in public school will bring.
My hesitation regarding public school is a general lack of safety ... in our area, I've walked into elementary schools, and saw students alone before I ever saw teachers or adults. No security. Pair that with growing violence in schools, and I feel nervous about it.
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@mrsbubbletea: FL immersion is actually one of the options in our district elementary schools. They only offer one language though, and it doesn't continue through middle school, which is partly why we didn't choose it.
The program is via Mano a Mano.
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Unless something turns out to work really poorly for our LOs in the public schools, that's what we'll do. I live in a large city for my state, but there are really only a few non-public options: one private religious school that's pre-K-12, one private religious high school, one K-8 private religious, and two (incredibly expensive) secular K-8 schools. We don't have any charter schools. Other than that, I guess you'd homeschool. We also don't have public preschool unless you qualify based on income.
I could certainly homeschool, but I'd actually like to go back into teaching public school once my boys are both old enough, and I really enjoyed school and, at least for my older son, I think he will too. It fits his personality, and mine as well, better than homeschooling. I could see being able to get a really well-rounded homeschool education in a bigger city with more opportunities and diversity, but I would find it to be very challenging in my current location. I also generally believe strongly in public education and use it as my default unless there's compelling evidence that it won't work for my kids.
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@shellio: We're doing immersion, too. We love it.
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We moved here specifically because of the great public schools but if we were to get vouchers and have the choice you better believe my boys are going to a private school! Either way I am confident they will get a great education so I'm not even really thinking about it.
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We live in an area with improving public schools. The majority of public pre3/4 thru k5 schools are good, however the one we are zoned for (live two buildings over from) is not. It is slowly improving , but draws 90% of its kids from public housing (and always will). . Part of me would like to send her there but the stronger part doesn't want her to be a social experiment, especially when we can afford to send her to private if we budget for it and don't buy a house (metro NYC, preschool's and private are really expensive)
So she just got into a private 2.5's program and we might continue that for awhile as long as it's feasible. -
We are so torn. Neither private school nor home school is a comfortable fit for our budget, but our school district is really bad. I work in a private school so the tentative plan is to start the kids there with lots of financial aid and maybe move to a better school district within a few years, depending on how public policy alters the surrounding districts. I could homeschool, but I'm not sure how we would afford it. It would take creativity. I love the idea of public schools, but they have really failed in our community.
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We have no desire to homeschool, plus we can't afford for one of us to SAH.
Our feeder public school is not the best rated, but even still we like our private school options better. One is religious and the other secular. The secular private school has a curriculum and teaching approach that we like that isn't available in our traditional public school like our feeder. Since all three options are so convenient to us we are probably not going to search out possible public alternatives.
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It depends where we live when T starts kinder. Right now she is in daycare at a private K-8 school that also has preschool it's in the city where we would like to live and would be walking distance from our house. (A friend owns several lots that will be subdivided in a few years)
If we move to central Oregon then public all the way. The city we like there is very highly ranked for public.
I don't have the desire to homeschool.
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My husband would love to have our kids homeschooled, but not by him haha! I'm more of the mind that public school comes first, then charter/magnet schools, then private, then homeschool all depending on a child's needs. I hope when we eventually settle somewhere that the public schools have the programs and funding to be the same level that I had in school.
Also, I have a brother with a severe vision disability and my parents opted to keep him in public school and strongly advocate with the administration to get him the resources he needed. My mother has no qualms walking into the admin's office if she thinks the teacher assigned would be or is a poor fit for her child. And if there wasn't a better alternative, we were taught the difference between respect earned by competence and respect because of position. I rather think it has helped me manage in the workplace
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@looch: That's great. I don't think there are any immersion schools in my city (smallish next to larger cities) but the public schools in general are pretty good, so I hear. I think there are some immersion charter schools in the neighboring large city but that city has such crappy public schools I know the good charter schools are incredibly competitive. After I read this post, I went down a rabbit hole of researching the private IB Spanish immersion school in that neighboring city. It looks amazing, and only 22000/year! sigh!
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We're definitely doing public K - it's full day and free (a lot of districts around here require you to pay for full day unless you are low income). They test in K for the gifted/talented Challenge program which starts in 1st grade. If LO gets into that, we'll likely stay in public school. If not, and depending on what happens with school funding with the Trump Administration, we might consider private. There are two good private K-8 schools in our area. The high schools in our district are well regarded, so she'd likely go to one of them if we stay in this district. Homeschooling definitely not on the table.
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@mrsbubbletea: The lotteries are really tough, I think that's what makes it so hard to get into the schools, at least around me. There are a lot of rules as to who they take, it's not a pure lottery, but once you add sibling and staff preference plus the requirements for kids from districts and certain income brackets, the number of slots is very low.
My son is in an IB school and it's phenomenal.
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We're planning on starting with homeschool and going from there. Both DH and I were homeschooled for some or all of elementary school. Our school district is not very good. I have no problem sending my kids once they are older but when they are little I'd rather give DS the gift of time to play. If I homeschool we can cover the same amount of information in a lot less time. I'm not worried about socialization, we attended enough events where he is on his own without me. My fear is that our personalities will clash for homeschool though. We have a few years still to decide.
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We are dedicated to public education. I'm pretty passionate about it and believe in its value, for society and for individual kids, completely. For us, we live in an area with good schools and a variety of options so I can't imagine us ever feeling like we needed to make a switch to private. Full-day kindergarten is 100% free here (didn't used to be the case but they changed that), the elementary school we are zoned for has won statewide awards and has a cool program integrating with an adjacent 216-acre coastal park (frequent field trips and environmental science curriculum, including salmon hatchery project). There's also a lottery for alternative "choice" schools if we want to do that instead, as well as testing in kindergarten through which we could put DD into either in-classroom or alternative-site gifted education in a dedicated school that's not far from us.
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We will choose public school for our son because I am a supporter of the public school system and want to participate in it; I want him to go to school with a diverse mix of kids; and it's free. I plan on being as involved as my time allows when he starts kindergarten in a year and a half.
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Unless something significant happens, LO will go to the public schools in our town. They've got decent ratings, and are not too big or too small.
I went to private religious school, and disliked it. There was such a strong religious emphasis that the educational instruction suffered.
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Public school for my girls! We bought our house specifically for the excellent schools here.
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Public! The private schools in our area are not diverse at all and don't really rank much (if any) better academically. Realistically, though, I couldn't afford private school even it was dramatically better!
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@macintosh: small world! I'm also in the western suburbs , I'm in Lombard.
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Our decision is an easy one - there are few options
LO will be going to a public school, the same one she attends for preschool (located in the wing of the school). I really like the school and how it's close to nature. It's also walking distance from our house.
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Private!!! More than likely. Not a fan of the high stakes testing in the public schools. I might reconsider if she gets into the G&T but those locations aren't ideal either.
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@honeybear: I am literally touching wood
but wanted to interject -we are homeschooling currently at 3. We never get sick and I loathe illnesses, even colds, so that is something I really value!
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