Switch to private school from hs

[rlugbill]

My dd is 13 - 8th grade now. She was homeschooled all along until this year. Now, she is in the best private school in our area. Just wanted to share what it's like.

 

It's a big change for us. Our dd is suddenly no longer available. She pretty much goes to school, does homework and activities and eats and sleeps (and not much time for sleep).

 

I didn't realize how much homework kids do now. She used to read for pleasure- no time for that anymore. Just reads required books for school. I used to read to her every night. No time for that anymore either.

 

This is a very good school- great teachers who really get to know the students personally and are highly-educated people. She is learning important things, such as how to write well and she is learning Geometry and French and Chemistry and Physics. She likes the teachers mostly and gets along well with everyone there.

 

The students are mostly good kids. They are mostly well-behaved and respectful and they are good students. Everyone at this school goes to college, and the best students go to Ivy League schools. They have high average SAT scores, yet they are not test-oriented.

 

She loves the school and has made friends there already. She works her little heart out every evening doing her homework and never complains. Her grades are ok, although she did struggle a little with math and English, which ironically, were the subjects we concentrated on in homeschooling.

 

She is an excellent violinist, and has a very good string teacher, but some of the kids in her string class are beginners, so it's not at all interesting or challenging for her. They talk as if they always help students with their special gifts, but the music program does nothing for her. It's as if a Calculus student was forced to be in 3rd grade math.

 

And we can't afford this school, even with all the financial aid they are giving us. But she loves it and is doing well there. If she stays there, she will be assured of getting into a great college.

 

Anyway, we aren't sure yet what we will do next year. Maybe homeschool or public school. She is an only child and really doesn't want to be home alone again, like she was in the past. She would hate it if we told her she was going to be homeschooled again. And the 9th grade public school in our town is not so great, although the 10-12 grade public school is good.

 

Anyway, the big thing for us is the rushed lifestyle. Getting up early. Rushing around to get ready for school. Always being slightly sleep-deprived (even though the private school starts an hour later than the public school). Never having the free time to enjoy an evening of playing games together, reading together, etc. It's a frenetic pace of life instead of a relaxed lifestyle. But she says she prefers it this way, so maybe it's a fit for her, even if it isn't a fit for us.

 

I thought I would clue people in on our experience leaving homeschooling for private school. It's sort of like we are homeschooling and going to school. She goes to school during the day and then she does sports and/or music and then we help her with homework at night.

[HappyGrace]

Thank you for posting this. It is something the Lord knew I needed to hear right now!!!!! It was very timely for me to hear this.

 

I pray that you will have wisdom to know what decision to make!

[dieuog]

Like you, I would worry about her not having time to read for pleasure. For life beyond college (in fact, even for life beyond getting into college), intellectual passion and being self-directed therein are very important. Good luck with it.

[Chez J]

We are having the same experience in a part-time university model school. This is her first year and time with outside academic programs in a classroom environment. (I write it that way because we have always worked with a tutor for French.)

 

She loves it - being with other kids, having accountability, even doing homework. She loves everything about her experience.

 

There is a lot of homework - even for a part-time school. We skipped a whole grade, and she still is the top student.

 

There are a lot of kids who are having a hard time. Not all of these were originally homeschooled. Some were pulled from public school. Just like in public school, some kids don't do the homework. It's been the homeschooled students for the most part who aren't really doing the work.

 

She has learned how to manage her time in a way I could have never forced her to. She is learning how to get organized as well. She has to stay on top of that, or she risks losing a test or homework assignment. She is working mostly independently.

 

We are busy, busy. So busy that like the OP, she no longer has free reading time.

 

All of this was expected. Middle school and high school are rigorous. Doing it right takes time. And, kids do have growing social lives and outside interests.

 

Biggest thing for me was letting go of control. :glare: I've learned I'm a control freak. :lol:

 

Next year, we won't do the entire program as our needs are diverging a bit with the school's offerings. But, I still plan for her to take half the classes there. She will go to study hall for the others and work on homework or my assignments.

[lauracolumbus]

Thank you so much for posting this. We are looking to send ds to a private high school that sounds very similar. Except it's all boys and Catholic and fairly classical, which really appeals to us. We are so torn. DS says he wants to go, but we're not sure if he has the work ethic. But they tell us that's the kind of boys they want. They want to teach them character and how to work hard. Some (maybe a lot) of boys struggle and drop out, mostly to return to public high school with those grades going on their transcript. I've known a couple of homeschoolers who couldn't cut it also.

 

I'm sort of hoping we're ahead of the game b/c ds is on his 5th year of Latin, and Latin seems to be one of the weeding out classes. But who knows. It's such a risk to take. I'm not sure I want to lose that time/flexibility with him and then have it negatively affect his transcript.

 

Laura

[Mommy7]

I had the same experience when my dc were in grammar school. So, I guess the level doesn't matter...it's more the nature of the change.

 

I ended up pulling my kids back out within a few months. (I had put them in a classical christian school due to my health being at an all time low.) It was a *wonderful* school! But, I so missed my children! I missed the whole homeschool lifestyle that you all are mentioning. All of a sudden, we had to be up way earlier than normal, had the disruption of taking them to and from school, etc. Then, to top it all off...I spent all afternoon after they were home helping them with their homework. I decided I might as well do it in the morning like we were accustomed to. It felt like I was homeschooling...just in the afternoon when we were all tired. And I can so relate about the reading!!! After spending all those hours on schoolwork, I can understand their reluctance to do anything else, especially if it even closely resembled a book.

 

I won't go off on a tangent about how much it all cost!!!!! ;)

 

I thank the Lord for showing me and my family that we really want to continue homeschooling even if it means resorting to video school or something if we are in a pinch. (health or whatever) It renewed my passion and vision for homeschooling.

[C_l_e_0..Q_c]

Although we decided NOT to put DD into such a private school, there are moments where I doubt my decision. She would have learned to organise herself, stop losing assignments, but she would have lost her passion for reading *and* writing. I'm hoping to keep that passion by keeping her at home.

 

I hope it will work out.

[J-rap]

Do you know if your ps system allows students to take classes there part-time? This is what we've done. Being with other kids wasn't an issue with us, since we had five children at home the majority of the time. But we are in a small town, and there were certain opportunities I wanted to provide for my children that I personally didn't feel I could provide, or that weren't offered anywhere else in town: such as, being in a choir, band, theater, etc. Some of my kids took their upper-level sciences and foreign languages at the high school too. Doing it this way allowed them to do a few things at the school, but come home and have that extra time still for things that were important to us.

Different communities may or may not allow this. We're fortunate to be in a community that does.

[Rebecca VA]

I put my 14-year-old into private school this year, and it's been great for her. She was lonely and unhappy at home. She wanted a rich, consistent social life with friends she could depend on -- homeschooled kids seem to see each other on a hit-or-miss basis, and parents' actions (such as changing churches, deciding they're too busy to let kids pursue friendships with other children across town, not signing kids up for activities, etc.) dictate their children's social lives. Not to mention that we had to deal with plenty of mean, cliquish homeschoolers (moms and kids) over the years. The school she's going to is wonderful. Most of the students have known each other since they were in Pre-K together, so they're like brothers and sisters. Kindness and courtesy rule, among parents, students, teachers, and staff. There's always something fun and interesting going on.

 

My daughter was also looking for a consistent schedule and clear-cut assignments and grades. Homeschooling was too "loosey-goosey" for her. She loves completing school assignments and receiving a "real" teacher's grade on them. The teachers give well-thought-out assignments and make insightful comments on her work. Several of the subjects (math, P.E., and English) have varying levels of difficulty.

 

She is constantly busy from early morning until she goes to bed. Some of that is because of homework, but it's also because she's taking online Latin 3 (a holdover from her homeschool days) and swimming three days a week, and she does mandatory sports for school. She has a much more active social life than she used to -- her classmates invite her to join their doings, and there's always some innocent fun activity sponsored by the school. She was voted student council rep for her homeroom. She is THRIVING -- I've never seen her so happy before.

 

It's true that she doesn't have much time anymore to do things she used to do, like knitting and crocheting, creative writing, and reading. It's true that I miss her while she's at school. But it would be wrong for me to make her stay home to keep me company or to fulfill my dream of what a proper education should look like. She's her own person -- she's not just like me, she doesn't learn like me, and she's far more socially-oriented than I am. My little homeschool wasn't meeting her particular needs.

 

I will say that not every school is as good as this specific one. I wasn't so desperate to send my daughter to school that I would have dumped her off just anywhere. There are lots of schools that would have been a horrible fit for her. We were totally blessed to have something that exactly suited her 15 minutes away from our house.