Kirby Hall Private school? (to live in, teaching, orthodox)

[Austindataman]

My children attended Kirby Hall for one year and it is a circus. We left mid-year it was so bad.

The idea of the school is good and it even presents well when you tour. However, I should have listened to all the warnings from former teachers and families who left KHS. Most everyone told me that the administration was "my way or the highway", but since my philosophy is not to interfere with policy, I thought that type of management would be alright. Not so.

Having one elderly woman who is completely out-of-touch run the school or dictate to the office secretary how to rule the school is dangerous. If you care about your child's emotional health, do not subject them to this environment.

The school building is crumbling. It's dirty. The bathrooms and water faucets are broken. The entire school needs an overhaul. My children were older and did not use the basement classrooms, but the smaller children are stuffed downstairs in what looks like a fire hazard.

Teachers are summarily dismissed and students never know who will teach the next year. To my knowledge, teacher development doesn't happen.

Until the owner relinquishes control and invites a QUALIFIED and active board of directors to oversee and direct the school, save your money and your children.

[carolinajack]

the MLK incident, i know schools with similar issues with regards to other figures in history and dont allow other sorts of issues to be presented-like both sides of the civil war argument or both sides of the global warming argument, or the evolution argument. Some places and schools dont celebrate MLK day. I am African American, i dont celebrate it or take it off because here where i live it has changed from a day about Racial Integration into a day of people just doing service work--totally playing down the importances of integretion.


the OP mentioned finding a place that is non religious but someone just talked about the overwhelming Evangelical christian teaching in the classroom. Is it or is it not a religious school? Just confused about this.

[centralaustinite]

Originally Posted by carolinajack

the OP mentioned finding a place that is non religious but someone just talked about the overwhelming Evangelical christian teaching in the classroom. Is it or is it not a religious school? Just confused about this.

I think that sometimes folks from out of town think that it is non-religious because there is no religious content in the name. And I do not think that they have any denominational affliation but it seems clear from their web site that there would be christian content. I knew at once that it was not right for my family.

The academics aren't as rigorous as St. Andrews or other episcopal schools and the religious content isn't as central as it is as Regent's or other places. So they are sort of stuck in the middle and most troubling, they seem to be very poorly managed.

[TexasHorseLady]

It used to be non-religious, when we first sent our son there. In fact, it was the only non-religious private school of quality in the city - and trust me, we looked long and hard, as we felt that the focus of a school should be on education, and religion should be dealt with at home and church.

Unfortunately, shortly before he graduated, the economy took a downturn, they relaxed their admission requirements somewhat, and a lot of parents who could have sent their children to any one of the myriad of religious private schools in Austin chose to send them to Kirby Hall and decided that they knew better about how the school should be run and the teachers should teach than the professionals they were ostensibly paying to do that, AND that the school and method of instruction should be made over to promote their religious beliefs. That's why our younger child never went there, in fact. While KHS was all about parental involvement at that time, those of us who were there early on valued it for the fact that they DID know what they were doing and that, whatever their religious beliefs or those of the other parents, prosyletizing was not part of the curriculum, distracting from education. A lot of truly excellent teachers left in one year about that time.

The "elderly woman" deserves some respect for the existence of the school in the first place, by the way, and did a very good job of running it initially. If not for her, we wouldn't be able to complain about KHS or how far its fallen. There used to be a headmaster (the first one was hired while we were there), a very good one; is there no longer one?

[carolinajack]

thanks all, i read the website some months ago on that school and it was clearly religious in nature. so i was wondering.

Texas Horse Lady: i understand, but for many religious groups(Christians, Jews, Muslims, Progressive and Conservative Catholics) our religious life is not seperate from everyday life and our religion teaches us that religion and education are not seperate.(Remember Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth, and most of the first educational schools in this country-elementary, on up were founded by religious organizations for the process of teaching their religion along with the subject matter). So the home, and church are not seperate from schooling.

but for some more liberal christians, muslims and jews as well as other religions and secularists, it might be seperate.

[TexasHorseLady]

carolinajack, at the time, there were literally dozens of religious private schools in Austin, and ONE that wasn't. I had no problem with the dozens, but there needed to be an alternative. Add to that the fact that those who decided to come to KHS and change it to be merely another one of the dozens rather than attending any one of those (there were, and are, several excellent ones), replaced the former excellent education that the previous students had received with a lesser one that was watered down and religion-based, and made this choice for the parents of the children who'd been there for years who had chosen it specifically BECAUSE it offered a non-religious and excellent education, using money as a tool to push this through, is inconscionable, in my opinion, and I say this a preacher's kid.

Your religion, by the way, can permeate your life without it having to be taught in school. In fact, if it permeates your life, it doesn't have to be taught in school. I learned this through observation and personal experience.

[carolinajack]

no it cant, education is a major part of my life religious and other wise and again the faith I follow makes it imperative that we educate our children with the Lord being central in it.

[mimimomx3]

Originally Posted by carolinajack

thanks all, i read the website some months ago on that school and it was clearly religious in nature. so i was wondering.

Texas Horse Lady: i understand, but for many religious groups(Christians, Jews, Muslims, Progressive and Conservative Catholics) our religious life is not seperate from everyday life and our religion teaches us that religion and education are not seperate.(Remember Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth, and most of the first educational schools in this country-elementary, on up were founded by religious organizations for the process of teaching their religion along with the subject matter). So the home, and church are not seperate from schooling.

but for some more liberal christians, muslims and jews as well as other religions and secularists, it might be seperate.

It has nothing to with being 'liberal', unless by 'liberal' you mean tolerant? We attend a relgious school where they go to chapel everyday but celebrate other religions as well.

[carolinajack]

? not sure what you are talking about?

[mimimomx3]

Originally Posted by carolinajack

.

Texas Horse Lady: i understand, but for many religious groups(Christians, Jews, Muslims, Progressive and Conservative Catholics) our religious life is not seperate from everyday life and our religion teaches us that religion and education are not seperate.(Remember Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth, and most of the first educational schools in this country-elementary, on up were founded by religious organizations for the process of teaching their religion along with the subject matter). So the home, and church are not seperate from schooling.
but for some more liberal christians, muslims and jews as well as other religions and secularists, it might be seperate.

I'll try again. We are considered by many to be 'liberal Christians' (Episcopalians) yet we go to chapel every day. We don't talk about God in math class, but we have a strong religious foundation. I think sometimes the word 'liberal' when it comes to religion is used by many as not really being Christian enough. That's all.