part-time private school

[JennyD]

Has anyone here ever sent a child to a private school part-time?  If so, how did it work out?

 

My oldest is 8, and we have been homeschooling from the beginning.  It has been a great experience so far and I am more or less pleased with everything in our homeschool save one subject -- Hebrew, which is my perennial source of frustration.  We study Hebrew at home, but my own knowledge is sharply limited and I have been on a permanent, fruitless quest to find a good local tutor. 

 

This morning I toured a local (Jewish) private school, K-6.  It seems like a lovely place, and although we have no interest in enrolling full-time,  I was really impressed by the Hebrew and religious studies.  I sat in on a 6th grade Hebrew class and would be extremely pleased if my kids emerged from 6th grade with that same level of knowledge.

 

The school seems willing to at least consider me sending my kid(s) part time, possibly just for a couple of hours in the morning to attend the Hebrew and religious studies classes.  There are a variety of reasons why they might be inclined to do this, but the upshot is that the principal asked me to think about what, if any, possible setup would be ideal for our family, and then we could begin talking from there.  So I am thinking.  

 

Sending my oldest for language/religious instruction only (assuming that the school would allow this, of course) would be about 1.5 hours daily, and as the school is about 15 minutes away I would probably just stay in the library and do school with my youngers. The main pro, obviously, would be the opportunity to do these specific subjects really well, in a way that I just can't achieve at home.  The main con, equally obviously, is cost,  followed quickly by a dramatic loss of flexibility and autonomy in our schedule.  I so love the freedom that homeschooling gives us, and we would lose a lot of that by being tied to the school schedule.  But on the other hand, I could just see my kid in that class ... it would be such a challenge, and he would just love it.  But on the other hand ....

 

 Anyway, any thoughts?  Ideas?  Things I should be thinking about?  Relevant experiences?  

[Starr]

Only you can decide on the importance of flexible scheduling. Maybe it will too expensive and you won't have to decide. I loved our freedom in elementary school. 

[Laura Corin]

One thing to consider: Calvin went to a private Montessori school for a year.  At the end of the year, they said they could not longer take him, as they had had more full-time applicants, so that disrupted friendships and studies.  He also found it difficult that he was excluded from the fun activities that his friends were talking about: school play, etc.

 

L

[JoJosMom]

This a FWIW:

 

Last semester, I allowed DD to take a class at a public school (Under state law, we have the right to use the public school system to the extent we choose, and sometimes the schools allow us to do so!).  In hindsight, the disruption to our schedule was not worth it.  Mornings are our "work" time, and giving that time up created a really ugly situation.  (For us.  I only have one, and I saw that you can use the time with your younger students.)  We had a longer drive, as well.  I'd just make sure to consider, in advance, what packing up the school and moving it around will look like in practice.  For me, in theory, I thought it would work fine.  Oops.

 

On the other hand, I have off-loaded Latin to a class at a local conservatory.  (Bad Mommy.)  The class meets in the late afternoon (to accomodate public school kids), so it doesn't impact our "school" time.  It's more like an extracurricular activity than school, which works for us.

 

Hope this helps.  Good luck.

[JennyD]

Thanks for the replies.  Lots of food for thought, for sure.  

 

It looks like DH would probably be able to drop off most of the time and I would pick up, so -- theoretically, at least -- I think the schedule might actually be a net win in that it would let me devote some concentrated attention to my younger two.  DS8 already wakes up very early and begins his schoolwork before his brothers are even up; we'd have to keep up a pretty tight schedule to stay on track with everything else, which could get challenging.  

 

For assorted reasons, I think it is very unlikely that the school would boot us out in subsequent years, unless they shut down entirely.  The fact that DS8 would be a very part-time student when everyone else is full-time, though, does strike me as a possible social problem.  

 

This is definitely far and away the best opportunity that my elementary-aged kids will have to really learn a foreign language properly, though, and Hebrew is the language that I most want them to learn.