Private schools vs. Dekalb public schools (Dunwoody, Decatur: spring break, cheap house, school district)

[unsettledITP]

I'm trying to decide whether to move to a better school district in Dekalb county (city of Decatur, Sagamore, Briarlake, etc) or stay in my cheap house ITP and pay for private school. While I can find out loads of information on private school curriculum, I am not finding the specifics to the following:

NCLB--Dekalb public-what percentage of teaching time is devoted to standarized testing. Growing up in FL, we took the Iowa tests, etc maybe in 3rd and 5th grade, but I do not recall spending class time learning how to take these tests.

Stucture of Elementary classrooms--are the English and Math classes broken out by learning level. (Ex: again in FL, we had four levels of English and Math in each grade and you were placed based off ability.)

On another note, what are property taxes for Dekalb Co vs City of Decatur on a $300-$350k house.

Thanks!

[IntownHomes247]

You might want to actually make an appointment to visit some of the schools you are interested in. Talk with the principal, tour the facilities, and get a feel for the vibe of the schools.

[lastminutemom]

unsettled

A couple of thoughts -- first the previous poster has it right, you need to go and visit the schools, nothing else will be as informative.

How old is your oldest child?

Most DeKalb schools do some leveling, but not all. DeKalb lets local schools, assuming they have good test scores, determine their instructional strategies for the most part (not their curriculum that is different). So some schools may have a math teacher for third grade, but most have the more traditional model of a classroom teacher teaching all levels.

I am a DeKalb parent, whose children have done ok, but if I had to do it again, I would make different housing choices. DeKalb is a mess of a school system, with what has to be one of the worse central offices around and a huge bureacracy. With each passing year, it becomes more of an urban, inner city, school system than a suburban one. While it has some high performing schools and some mid performing ones, it also has many low performing ones, including some that are the lowest scores in the state.

I am very impressed with what Decatur is proposing with their charter and in general with what I hear about Decatur schools.

[cmtiger]

Lastminutemom has it right. DeKalb has some wonderful schools as well as some abysmal ones. Schools around Dunwoody (Austin, Vanerlyn, Chesnut) are generally pretty good as are schools around the Oak Grove and Fernbank areas.

We are in Decatur. Decatur uses Expeditionary Learning in its K-3 schools (google ELOB). Their 4th/5th grade school will "officially" be an International Baccalaureate school by this spring I believe - although they have been running as an IB school for a couple of years. The middle and high school will be IB schools in a few years.

Decatur gives all the required state tests, but they don't focus on the test very much in comparison to other schools b/c IB and ELOB don't lend themselves to that type of work. They do get a little nutty about it after spring break though - for the two weeks before the CRCT... but they are back to normal by May.

City of Decatur schools are Clairemont, Oakhurst, Winnona, Glennwood, Renfroe Middle and Decatur High. You can check out their scores, etc. here....

The Governor's Office of Student Achievement

You can also get some good info in greatschools.net ... on both private and public schools.

You can also check around Dekalb on the same website.

Private vs. public is a tough decision. Honestly, if we won the lottery I would probably send our kids to private school, but we just don't have that kind of money especially if we are going to help with college. One thing I have noticed is that my private school friends complain just as much about their private schools as my public school friends do about public schools.... so there is no Nirvana.

Check around, visit schools and it will eventually become clear.

Good luck!