Public School vs Private School

[beishan]

For a kid that learns at slower pace and requires more individual attention (hand holding) in learning, which school will fit better while homescholling is not an option at this moment?

 

We live in top school district in NJ and our son is at 2nd grade. School is very supportive so far. Class size is 18 children with one head teacher, one helper and two room moms. While my son is behind in reading and writing from 1st grade, he gets extra pullout support for reading 5 days a week (30 minutes each) with reading specialist and two days (30 minutes each) for writing instrution with small group tutoring. He has minor attention issue (can focus but need redirection and reminder to move on). He does not have behvaior issue (not hyperactive) and doing well in social skills. He seems learning at the slower pace than his peers in language area and requires many repition in order to CLICK. I am not sure it is due to his bilingual background or something else. We are seeking for evaluation to clearify soon. However, in the past year, he was progressing steadily with current support he received in school even though he has not yet fully catched up to grade level yet. He handles math fairly well and does not require too much effort to keep up. He loves science and history and self learning from educational DVD or Brainpop.

 

One day DH is coming up with the idea of sending him to private school if he still has hard time to catch up reading and writing in public school setting. He heard from his coworker that even top public schools sometimes do not serve children well. His coworker's younger brother was an example. While he was enrolled in top distrct in NY for 1st grade, teacher complant about him all the time and suspect him having learning disbilities. However, when DH's coworker tutored her brother, she found he was bright but just needed more attention to learn and keep up. Therefore, she suggested their parents to transfer her younger brother to private shcool for the rest of 1st grade. Suprisingly, her brother not only catched up but also got advanced in 6 months. DH is so tempting when he heard it. He thinks DS is bright while he also needs more attention in learning because he is distractful and have challenge to stay focus for long enough to complete class assignments in one sitting. His current teacher needs to modify his works to small chunks to keep him moving on. If he goes to private school, he thinks the teacher can be more on top of his learning progress and he may perform better.

 

I asked my son's reading tutor who is also a private school literacy coach. She only says that one thing I have to consider is that he will get more support in public school than private school because of funding. In her school, children who have reading issue can only see her once a week even she really wants to see them more. The average class size in private school is around 15 which is not much different from what we have now in public school so she does not think private school will fit my son better in terms of individual attention aspect.

 

Any comments?

 

[SKL]

Most parents and teachers advise me that my children would probably get more help with individual issues in the public schools.

 

My kids are in a private school and the amount of help they get depends mostly on the teacher.  There is limited pull-out availability.  My slower kid is in Title I (publicly funded) and she gets one 30-minute pull-out per week for each of math and reading.  The school also has one tutor who travels around and sometimes provides help to my daughter, but it is very minimal.  The classroom teacher they have this year is really wonderful with my daughter, but the one they had last year was awful.  Either way, the majority of remediation is done at home with me.

 

The availability of services in public/private probably varies geographically.  If you are going to look at private schools, I'd talk to them and get an understanding of what they will offer.  Unlike the public schools, they do not have to help every kid who needs extra help.  There are private schools that specialize in special education, but they tend to be very expensive, and they might not be equipped to support children who eventually catch up / excel.

[kentuckymom]

It sounds like your son is already getting a lot of support in public school, and the class sizes at his school are below average. Given those things, I don't think it makes sense to move him at this point. Yes, private school is  a better fit for some kids, but I wouldn't consider it unless your son stops making progress with the support he's being given at his current school.

 

That said, if your husband feels strongly about this issue, go ahead and look into some local private schools. Ask about class size and available support for struggling learners. If it sounds like your son would get even more support, then you can decide if it's worth the cost to move him. In my experience (this is just in talking with other parents, as my child has always attended public school), most private schools have fewer resources available for struggling students and are a worse environment for them.

[SKL]

Some people also recommend that you look at the demographic composition of the private vs. public school as well.  Not everyone agrees with this, but some would rather their child not be the only person of his race in the class.

[beishan]

Yes, both his hearing and vision are checked. COVD found farsightedness on one eye last September and he is wearing reading glasses now. I spoke to his social skills therapist and she suggested to check his expressive language. He speaks very fluently in English and has tons of vocabularies. It seems that he hears things all right and can comprehend it as well. However, it takes longer time for him to retrieve the words/idea that he has or forget what he wants to say when waiting for his turn to talk. It may be ok when he is in 1st or 2nd. Once the academic pace increases in 3rd and up, he may get frustrated when losing the chance to participate (he loves to talk and participate the class discussion). He received ESL in K and 1st. Distrct decided to drop it this year because he is tested at the native speaker level for listening and speaking and pulling out for ESL will also distract his regular class routine as well so they do not see great benefits to continue ESL for him. After dropping ESL, school offers him reading and writing support instead. Here is some things we observed in his language progress:

 

K ->

teacher mentioned his had problem with rhyming words and only has few sight words

has confusion with pronoun and tense orally

requested ESL

 

1st ->

ok with rhyming

OK with pronoun and verb tense orally

had issue to apply phonics rules to reading but no issue when reading word list

can spell a word but not recognize when it shows in reading

catch up with sight words

starts reading pullout in March and starts AAR2 at home

NOTE: head teacher took 3 months sick leave at the end of 1st half and he stayed at the same level for 4 months till she was back

 

Summer -> I hired tutor to work with his reading once a week and I started Dancing Bears Fast Track at home

 

2nd Grade beginning->

tested above average for sight words (about 3rd grade level) and nonsense words in DIBELS

tested below average for fluency and story recall

school reading level is tested at mid 1st grade while our tutor tested him at late 1st grade level

comprehension is on level while decong effectiveness and fluency is not

Per teacher's comments, writing is close to 2nd grade level (we work on journaling and writing framework in summer)

 

2nd Grade second half ->

reading level is tested at beginning of 2nd grade level at school while our tutor tested him at mid 2nd grade level

doing well on weekly spelling test (6 sentences dictation every week with high frequency words)

still has challenge to put down the idea to writing independently

show anxiety for his performance (if he did not do well on test or seat works are incompleted)

 

 

[kiwik]

Honestly it sounds like you are in a pretty good situation. That sounds like a very low adult/child ration and above average pull out services.

[Heathermomster]

DS attended private school for many years.  In my area, the enrollment period for most private schools is early January.  Student slots fill quickly and with a waiting list.  Helps from a private school depend on the specific needs of the student and the willingness of the school to accommodate.  To discover what a private school would provide, you have to speak with them directly and provide documentation indicating any special needs. Private schools that receive no federal tax dollars are exempt from Wright's Law.  Not all private schools are equal or wish to be bothered with gifted, sn kiddos..

 

 

[beishan]

DS attended private school for many years.  In my area, the enrollment period for most private schools is early January.  Student slots fill quickly and with a waiting list.  Helps from a private school depend on the specific needs of the student and the willingness of the school to accommodate.  To discover what a private school would provide, you have to speak with them directly and provide documentation indicating any special needs. Private schools that receive no federal tax dollars are exempt from Wright's Law.  Not all private schools are equal or wish to be bothered with gifted, sn kiddos..

 

Do you mind to share what your major reason to send DS to private school is?

 

[Heathermomster]

We had several reasons for placing DS in private school. Above all, we are Christians and wanted our son enrolled in a school run by our denomination. Secondly, our local school system is horrible. I spoke with the local public school guidance counselor and was turned off immediately because they wanted DS to complete 2nd grade and fail prior to any reading intervention. We also met local parents and their ps children through cub scouting and sporting events and were not impressed by some negative behaviors we witnessed. We are not from the area though.

 

Eta: We opted to keep DS in the private setting because the school kept three Wilson Reading specialists on staff. DS used a tutor from 2nd through 6th grade. Early intervention changed everything for DS and that would not have happened in the public setting, at least, not in my area.

[beishan]

Thanks. Your choice is definitely wise. My son's reading pullout is also using Wilson Reading Foundation which I am very pleased with.

[MistyMountain]

It sounds like your son gets a lot of support and that it is actually good support if they use Wilson. I would probably just stick with that. I grew up in NJ and there are some good public schools there. He gets daily support and the classroom size is small with a helper.

[beishan]

After talking to some friends and browsing around here, it seems our district is really doing a great job. They can provide such amount of support for a child who does not have any diagnose. I think my husband is just anxious for his reading and writing. Even though he is progressing with support, he is still not fully on grade level yet. But i don't think he is too far behind either. We will need to observe more before jumping to the idea for private school. The private school here costs around 30k per year.

[chiguirre]

The private school here costs around 30k per year.

$30 K could buy a lot of 1 on 1 tutoring. Could you consider hiring a tutor during the school year and summer to help with reading and writing while continuing in public school?

[beishan]

$30 K could buy a lot of 1 on 1 tutoring. Could you consider hiring a tutor during the school year and summer to help with reading and writing while continuing in public school?

 

We already have a private reading tutor (private school reading specialist, O-G trained) coming once a week since last July. I will check with her if we need to increase the frequency during summer.

 

I just had a meeting with his teacher this morning. The school has requested the child study team to observe him and we will be called for a meeting in September to discuss if he needs to go through the full evaluation. My son will be placed into the class with additional teacher assigned in third grade (regular class, not a special ed program). Meaning his 3rd grade class will have two teachers, one helper and room mom(s) if nedded. He will continue receiving reading and writing support. Our school is doing all of those without diagnose/504/IEP and very proactive. So far I am very satisfied with our district.

[SKL]

It really sounds wonderful what they are doing for your son.  I agree with increasing the tutoring outside of school, especially over the summer.  It sounds like he will catch up, and if not, the school will help him even more.

 

One problem I have in a private school is that I feel a lot of pressure for my kid to perform above the national average.  I think that in a public school, they would just let her be who she is.

[nd293]

I think this really has to be assessed on a case by case basis. A friend of dd's was recently diagnosed as gifted with a form of dyslexia. She has done very well in a Montessori school for her primary years, because the environment allowed her to compensate for her weaknesses and build on her strengths at her own pace. But the school is very small, and isn't really able to meet her needs in the high school years. After investigating they found that their local public school at funding and programmes that suited her needs, where none of the local private schools did.

[Heathermomster]

We already have a private reading tutor (private school reading specialist, O-G trained) coming once a week since last July. I will check with her if we need to increase the frequency during summer.

 

I just had a meeting with his teacher this morning. The school has requested the child study team to observe him and we will be called for a meeting in September to discuss if he needs to go through the full evaluation. My son will be placed into the class with additional teacher assigned in third grade (regular class, not a special ed program). Meaning his 3rd grade class will have two teachers, one helper and room mom(s) if nedded. He will continue receiving reading and writing support. Our school is doing all of those without diagnose/504/IEP and very proactive. So far I am very satisfied with our district.

During the month of June, DS used to see the Wilson tutor one hour per day, four days per week. We did this over four summers.

[beishan]

During the month of June, DS used to see the Wilson tutor one hour per day, four days per week. We did this over four summers.

 

That may be something we can consider but I do not think she has time to work with him four days a week because she still works (school admin job) in summer. Our tutor is mainly working on his overal literacy skills. She works on phonics review in O-G, and how to decode longer words in first 30 minutes. Then they will do guided reading for various types of readers (fiction, non-fiction) in next 30 minutes. She will ask him to read, predict, retell, wriite the question, take notes, write complete answer to questions, summarize etc. I will work with him for the rest of fours days during the week. We use Dancing Bears and I SEE SAM. One page of decoding page from DB and one story from I SEE SAM AR3 set (set 6) per day.

[Alessandra]

Hi, Beishan. Welcome to the boards. I am in NJ too, in another excellent district. I would be cautious about moving to a private school situation, as NJ generally has excellent public school services for kids who need them. Private schools are not required to offer the depth of remediation and support that public school districts do (although, by NJ state law, a district has to provide the private school students in its district with access to speech therapy services, but it does not sound as though this is your need.)

 

It sounds as though you are receiving good services, sounds like RTI (Response to Intervention). Wilson is excellent. It must be a bit confusing, figuring out how much your son may be affected by learning issues vs English language learner adjustment. 

 

Having formal evaluations for your son should help answer many questions and be a tremendous help to you. You would want to make sure that the school follows up in a timely manner. Although there is lots of information on the web about your rights in this area, I wanted to suggest an wonderful book, Wrightslaw: From Emotions to Advocacy. It lays out laws, parental rights, potential pitfalls, all in an easy to read fashion. It even has sample letters, should you need to write your school district. Under various Federal laws, parents have very strong rights and procedural safeguards in terms of evaluation and plans for kids with special needs. It is important to be aware of these rights so that you can be a good advocate for your child (and it sounds as though you already are).

 

One other suggest is to ask your district if there are any summer programs that your son might qualify for. Often districts have some kind of Orton-Gillingham or other remedial program for a few weeks in July. Should be free, if child qualifies.

 

 

[beishan]

Alessandra

 

Thanks. He is qualified for summer school offered by district. However, we both work full time so the summer school hours are not feasible for us (3 hours a day and 4 days a week for July). He will go to a camp with half day academic review (English, Math, Reading) and half day fun activities for 7 weeks. They do hire NJ certificate teacher to work with them in the small group (1 to 6 ratio). They will review the passed year (preassessment on first day of camp) and then preview some for the next school year. My son had great time in that camp last year and he has asked to go back.

 

 

 

I have asked his reading tutor to increase to two sessions in summer. She will do OG in one day and Project Read for writing on another day of the week. She said that they will be able to get to work on paragraph before he starts 3rd grade. For the rest of time, I will do AeBeCeDarian short B workbook for reineforcement and C for multi syllable words decoding. He is doing well on math so I will only ask him work on math mammoth 2nd grade review book and dreambox in summer. And I need to keep up his Mandarin during summer as well. :)

 

 

I am currently seeking private neurodevelopmental pediatric evaulation through our insurance to get more clear picture if any medical condition is involved. It's a long wait to get one from local hospital so I may need to go out of network first. Like you said, it will be complicated to tell with our ELL background. His teacher said that there is a regulation that school needs to provide me the result within 6 weeks after they start evaluation. We will be called for meeting at the end of Sep before they start and should be notified the result and plan by end of year. Our school is more proactive than I thought. My friend who is living in another distrct in NJ was not able to get 504 for his ADHD-hyperactive/Implusive son. The principle claims 504 is for student who has C and below in grade and her son is on track for all his subjects. They can only offer behavoral intervention plan for him.

[Alessandra]

Responding on phone, so this is brief.

 

You can request the eval now, in a simple and tactful letter. District has 60 days to respond. You can offer to postpone until, say, September 15 or 30, whatever. You don't want to be overly pushy with a good district, but you might want to get the process going as early as possible next fall.

 

It sounds very good that they offered you the summer program, even if you are not able to do it.

[beishan]

Alessandra

 

I am not sure if I still need to write the letter to request. As  last meeting with his 2nd grade teacher, she informed us that school pyschologist has been monitoring him few time in class during school year and they agreed that he will be the case that they want to follow up next school year as 3rd grade will be more demanding on the schoolworks (state exam etc). Also the meeting with child study team is scheduled in late September already. They will be busy to settle existing SN students for the new school year at the beginning of month so won't be able to get to us till late September. The teacher said that we will receive a detail letter from school some time in September.

 

I can see the chance he can get IEP or SE is rare because he fits in regular class well. He behaves and not too much distruptive. His math is on track. Social skills are great. Reading and writing are around 6 months behind. He mainly just needs redirection and reminders to stay focus for language related works. I worked with him last summer for his writing in my own way (loosely follow daily 6 traits) and I was able to bring him up to close grade level before 2rd grade started. School is proactively assigned him to inclusion class for next year where he can get extra attention from additional teacher in class in addition to reading support 5 days a week and writing review twice a week.

[Alessandra]

Alessandra

 

I am not sure if I still need to write the letter to request. As last meeting with his 2nd grade teacher, she informed us that school pyschologist has been monitoring him few time in class during school year and they agreed that he will be the case that they want to follow up next school year as 3rd grade will be more demanding on the schoolworks (state exam etc). Also the meeting with child study team is scheduled in late September already. They will be busy to settle existing SN students for the new school year at the beginning of month so won't be able to get to us till late September. The teacher said that we will receive a detail letter from school some time in September.

 

I can see the chance he can get IEP or SE is rare because he fits in regular class well. He behaves and not too much distruptive. His math is on track. Social skills are great. Reading and writing are around 6 months behind. He mainly just needs redirection and reminders to stay focus for language related works. I worked with him last summer for his writing in my own way (loosely follow daily 6 traits) and I was able to bring him up to close grade level before 2rd grade started. School is proactively assigned him to inclusion class for next year where he can get extra attention from additional teacher in class in addition to reading support 5 days a week and writing review twice a week.

You've made some great curriculum choices, IMO. Love 6+ Traits.

 

The reason I suggested requesting an eval in writing is because the your ds will be on the list on kids your district has to evaluate in a timely manner. If other parents request an eval in writing, their kids evals will likely come before your son's, because of the legal timeframe for responding to a written request. If there is a learning disability, it is better to know sooner, rather than later.

 

You can always phrase these letters very cordially -- thank you for all your help, glad you see the need to test him, wanted to make a formal request for testing at this point, look forward to working with you as part of a team, etc. The a wrightslaw book has many examples.

 

Even the best districts can have bottlenecks with evaluations and child study team meetings. It can be a challenge to keep things on track, even when all concerned want to help. That is why I like a formal, nicely written letter. It will also help your child study team if they have to compete with other child study teams in the district -- psychologist/testing people can be easily be overscheduled!

[beishan]

Thanks. I just email principle and ask for her advice.

[Alessandra]

Good luck!

[Guest tonnyrobbin]

You can go for Private Tutor as tutors will be willing to travel to the pupil’s house, allowing them the benefit of learning in a happy home location.A tutor will be able to focus their teaching on a particular area:If your aim is to improve your aptitude and knowledge base in a particular field, all education pertaining to this subject will useful.

[beishan]

Our principle office called, they cannot do the evaluation now. I don't know why. DH was the one who got the call and he didn't ask. Most of the info he got is the same as what we heard from his teacher. Inclusion class, reading support, writing support and child study team monitoring. They said the child study team has to observe his performace in new classroom for few weeks before they can decide if full evaluation is needed. Anyway, I finally got our own appointment from Children Specialized Hospital in August so before school child study team starts monitoring, I will have some information on hand already.

 

Also I chatted with a neighborhood friend who pulled her kids out to private school from top district. She highly recommands me pulling my son out to private as well. She thinks public school picks on kids like our children in order to keep funding for special services. I really doubt it. At least, in our school, my son is receiving quality curriculum in pullout and he did learn from it.

 

I just use the 40L reading grade level test from ElizabethB`s tutoring page. My son scored at 4.1 grade level. He scored at 3rd grade level for AeBeCeDarian placement test as well. Our tutor uses DRA to assess him and he is around late 2nd or early 3rd grade level which is on level for his age. However, our school only identified him reading at early 2nd grade level because he is careless and districted while doing assessment at school setting. There must be some gaps. Hopefully we can find it out from our appointment or from school child study team.

[SKL]

I do think that pull-outs are not all the same.  Your child is learning from his.  My kid was in pull-outs this year and it was negative or neutral for her, probably because the Title I teacher wasn't so good.  It's great to hear that your son is in a better situation.

[beishan]

I do think that pull-outs are not all the same.  Your child is learning from his.  My kid was in pull-outs this year and it was negative or neutral for her, probably because the Title I teacher wasn't so good.  It's great to hear that your son is in a better situation.

 

Yes, I completely agree. I do hear some of my friends in CA saying that their children are forced to get in ESL even their English is fluent. The school makes it mandatory for children whose parents are not native English speaker to go through ESL screening test. We do not have this situation in NJ. My son's ESL in K was push-in. The ESL teacher got in his class and help him and the other boy for the classwork.

 

Do you know what kind of work/curriculum they do in your girl's pullout?

[SKL]

Yes, I completely agree. I do hear some of my friends in CA saying that their children are forced to get in ESL even their English is fluent. The school makes it mandatory for children whose parents are not native English speaker to go through ESL screening test. We do not have this situation in NJ. My son's ESL in K was push-in. The ESL teacher got in his class and help him and the other boy for the classwork.

 

Do you know what kind of work/curriculum they do in your girl's pullout?

 

They use a reading program that is designed for slow readers.  But my daughter isn't a slow reader, she is just in a school where most of the kids are above average.  For math, I think they just go over some basic skills related to the topics being covered in the regular classroom.

 

Interesting thing about the ESL.  I heard of some places where the children are required to be tested for ESL if they were born in another country - even if they have been hearing only English since they were babies.  Parents could not opt out.  My friends who adopted internationally were very upset about that.

[Alessandra]

Also I chatted with a neighborhood friend who pulled her kids out to private school from top district. She highly recommands me pulling my son out to private as well. She thinks public school picks on kids like our children in order to keep funding for special services. I really doubt it. At least, in our school, my son is receiving quality curriculum in pullout and he did learn from it.

.

I would tend to agree with you and not your friend here. In my district and in other NJ districts that I am familiar with, there are so many students in need of services that a significant number have out of district placements, at considerable expense (busing adds significantly). Despite reimbursements, there is a cost to the district.

 

Also, the NJ Education Department monitors very carefully, through periodic audits, that children are not being disproportionately classified on account of ethnicity or country of origin.

[ElizabethB]

It sounds like he is getting good help in his current school. For additional phonics and spelling work, you can have whoever is watching him during the day monitor his progress through my online phonics lessons over the summer. I would break any that are over 20 minutes long into two parts with a break in between for that age.

[beishan]

Thank you, Elizabeth. I just started let him watch your online lesson. He does not like it but I think it will help on top of OG tutoring once a week. He needs work on syllable division rules.

He will be in half day academic camp for next two weeks and grandma will watch him for the afternoon. The camp will be led by certified teacher but they have their owner workbook and curriculum. They won't be able to work with him for extra stuffs. Grandma does not know English too much so she won't be able to monitor his progress either. He will have to wait till I get home at 6pm to start the work but 20 minutes a day is definitely doable.

[ElizabethB]

My Syllable division rules and exercises can also be done fairly quickly over the summer:

 

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/Resources/syllable%20division%20chart1.pdf

 

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/Resources/syllable%20division%20exercises1.pdf

 

Also, what language does he speak?  It is in draft while I work on verifying some of the content for languages I don't speak well and cleaning it up, but here is a page with syllabic phonics for languages other than German, it might be helpful if he sees how the syllables work in his other language compared to English.  Some of them also include with syllable divided words as well as the syllabary in that language.

 

If it is Russian, I can e-mail the links, my web software went tilt when the link was in Cyrillic, I am working on a fix or work around.

 

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/syllableslanguag.html

[beishan]

He is Chinese and English biligual. He now speaks English most of time but understands Chinese when grandma speaks. In Chinese, there is no syllable, past tense, and plural rules. English is his dominant language for sure. I can see he is using English to learn his Chinese now.

He knows how to divide the syllables but does not use the skills when he sees the longer word. The same situation happened on his general reading last year. He knew all the sounds but didn't use it when he read. When he was 1st grade, there were even some words that he can spelled but cannot recognize when reading. After many practices, finally he starts to sound out unknown words but still has guessing habit sometimes.