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If You Could Afford Private School...


Private School - yes or no?  

2 members have voted

  1. 1. Private School - yes or no?

    • YES, I would seriously consider it.
      120
    • NO, I can afford it but prefer homeschooling
      140
    • NO, I can afford it, but there's not a good private school near
      21
    • NO, I can't afford it but I'd choose HS'ing anyway
      140


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Depends on the type of private school. I am more of a reluctant homeschooler, so if I had the chance to put them in the school of my choice rather than the school of the neighborhood I can afford (which is :lol:) I would do it in a heartbeat.

 

 

It would definitely depend on the type of school though.

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I said yes but with a proviso= this is for next year, not this year. I am completely happy homeschooling here in Northern VA with all the choices and activities we have here. However, we are moving. I would really probably prefer to send my youngest to private school, if it was one I liked, then keep homeschooling her in some of the places we might be stationed. If my husband was re-assigned here, yes, we would continue to homeschool. In some other areas, I think private school would be better at helping my d find other math/science oriented kids than homeschool has been in some areas (not all, just some). SInce I don't know where we will be living or what the school choices will be, I can't really answer exactly but I did based on some areas we could be moving to.

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We pulled dd from a private school we could afford for academic reasons. If I could find a school that would work with her needs in certain subjects, then she'd probably be back in building school. I had to interrupt my own schooling (second time through---horticulture and landscape design after inorganic chemistry lol) and I miss it desperately.

 

I didn't vote because nothing really fits this situation.

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Well, I pulled my DD from private school to HS.

 

Having said that, there is one international school, with multi-language immersion classes, that I'd have to seriously consider if we could afford it-but with tuition at 30K/yr, plus fees, plus uniforms, plus travel on the frequent trips and semesters abroad upper school students do...well, it's just not an option financially.

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The school I'd love to send them to has very good academics, a great reputation and small classes (between 11 to 18 students). And, it's really not expensive as far as private schools go (around $5,000 per student) but still to expensive for us. They do have financial aid available, but unless they're willing to cover 70-80% of the cost there's no way we can afford it. I don't think it's realistic to expect that level of aid.

 

My reason for homeschooling is mostly academic.

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I said yes, but I have a specific type of school in mind. There is a really neat private school I would have loved for my son to attend because they specialize in special needs but the tuition was $15K per year and that was so far out of our league that all we could do was laugh hysterically. :blush:

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We have considered it once. When there was a multi-lingual pre/early elem private school that opened near us (classes taught in French in the morning, Mandarin in the afternoon, and recess/ lunch/ gym were conducted in Spanish), we desperately wanted to send our age-eligible children. However, my dh was a teacher at a different private school at the time and we had to get special permission to homeschool while he still worked there (the teacher contract stipulated that teachers send their kids to the school) so sending them to another private school was out of the question. It also would have been a financial stretch then we moved about 6 months after it opened, so it all was moot anyway. :D

 

I generally consider us lifestyle homeschoolers. (We homeschool because we're homeschoolers.) If another multi-lingual opportunity came up and we could afford it, I would probably send the kids. Otherwise, they'll be home.

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Nope. Been there, done that. I sent my DD to a small, one room schoolhouse type private school that just seemed PERFECT for us. I brought her home just before spring break, and that was only K. Nope, homeschooling is a lifestyle for us, and we won't be going back. :)

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I voted yes but only if it were one particular private school. However, the tuition is about $17,000 per year. Not ever going to happen.

 

We are however considering a public science school, basically a charter for my dd beginning in 6th grade. It has so much to offer that financially I could never give her at home. We are still in the process of weighing if the pluses outweigh the minuses.

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I think this is a hard one, with not always clear-cut answers. As some people said, depends on the grade, etc. Maybe part of the time, etc. Also, the poll just asked if you could afford private school would you do it. TOTALLY depends on the school. Some are pretty good, some are just excellent! I wouldn't send my son to one that was pretty good, but I would sent him to one that was excellent. Seems pretty obvious, but I didn't know how to answer that in the poll. He was at a private Catholic school that was designated as a "Blue Ribbon Award School" and has excellent test scores and all that, but I didn't think it was great, and he was bored and didn't like it. So now we're homeschooling.

 

One thing I found interesting is that about 37% of people could afford it! Yikes. The excellent private school here is $18K/year, and I don't know how people with several kids do that for K-12!

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If there was an excellent classical school in our area and we could afford it, I would consider it. Homeschooling is my first love but life circumstances have combined so that I'm unable to do as perfect a job as I want to right now. OTOH, we're doing fine and I still love homeschooling best.

 

And anyway, there is no private school nearby that doesn't require a SoF--and you know how I feel about those! This area is remarkably scarce in private schools of any kind--there isn't even a Catholic high school less than an hour away.

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No. I think of homeschooling as "family-centered education" and you can't get that in any school, public or private. I taught kindergarten, 1st and 4th grades, and middle school English in private Christian schools. The social dynamic in a private school is very similar to a public school (attended public school K-12 and public university) and that is definitely not what I want for my kids.

 

There is no academic advantage, imho, that trumps the negative social and spiritual aspects of a school environment (and I'm not just talking bad behavior either - I'm referring to the soul-sapping effects of a communal education as well).

 

If I could afford an expensive private school for my children, I would spend that money on travel. Experiencing the world up close is a better education that reading about it in books.

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Possibly. Is there a "it depends" option?

 

We have a lot of reasons for hsing, but there is a private school here for kids with LDs, Asperger's, etc....that many love and say is great, 6 to 1 ratio, all Orton-Gillingham, etc...if I could afford that, I might consider it for my oldest.

 

It is $19K per year for one child.....

 

Dawn

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No. The exception might be if DD was in upper middle/high school and there was a particular program she was highly interested in. A large reason why this would be an exception was because DH wanted to go to military school in high school, and even though he could have paid for it and DH was something of a problem child (the sort other parents threaten with military school), his dad wouldn't.

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My situation is unique, so it would be hard to represent as a poll option.

 

When I was a traditional homeschooler, I would have chosen homeschooling even if I could afford a private school.

 

2 of my 3 now attend a private school where I work and I'm pleased with how that is going.

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We started homeschooling because we didn't want to send them to school at 4 or 5. Older dd has a June birthday, so was especially young for her grade.

 

Older dd will begin attending a private school next year, for 3rd grade. She's thrilled. Younger dd is staying home for next year. We'll see how she does at home by herself. She has a September birthday ( with a September 1 cutoff date), so will be older for her grade.

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We can't afford it and I prefer homeschooling anyway... BUT... I would consider it in the future if we ever had some sort of issue arise with our kids where they needed a school environment. So, in that sense, I wish I had an extra $40,000+ lying around ever year.

 

Sigh. That's just so absurd an amount of money though. I can't even... wow... just typing it makes me feel like I'd never pay that much to send two young kids to school. But that's the going rate around here.

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We could afford private school.

Before we even thought about homeschooling, that was what we had planned on doing. Enrolling in a private school and that was that. We looked at a dozen schools in this area and finally looked at each other and said, "What could *we* do for our son's education with the expense of tuition?" Not that we spend anywhere near that amount on his schooling. But we do go on a lot of field trips and we do a lot of educational traveling. We know that as much as we order from Amazon :D it is still way less than private school.

We do have two private schools that are our "fall-back options," but we still love homeschooling and feel it is the best option at this time for DS.

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