Opinions on IBS vs Montessori vs Catholic for elementary schools (tuition, kindergarten)
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My 5 year old grandson starts kindergarten in the fall. He has been in preschool for the past 18 months. His father (dad has sole custody) did not like the neighborhood school so was able to get him a spot in a public charter International Baccalaureate k-5 school. He is also on the lottery list for two Montessori Charters and they are holding a spot in a Catholic elementary school if he signs up within the next few weeks.
My questions are:
1) does anyone have any experience with a public charter IB school, do they offer any advantages aside from introduction of a second language?
2) would Montessori prepare him academically for junior high as well as other schools?
3) Would the advantages of a Catholic school be worth the tuition and the drive, about 25 min. each way compared to the other schools which are free and closer to home.
Thanks in advance!
Does he know how to read? My mother taught me and I was reading when I started kindergarten
In retrospect the problem was my mother did not give me anything to read and I did not find anything interesting until 4th grade. My mother sent me to a Catholic school so they spent ridiculous amounts of time teaching me what I knew how to do. Diagramming sentences never made sense to me.
But now there is free stuff for kids:
David and the Phoenix, by Edward Ormondroydhttp://www.gutenberg.org/files/27922/27922-h/27922-h.htm
Children have no idea what the options are and think whatever happens is "normal".
Now adults have more options regardless of the school.
Does he know how to read? My mother taught me and I was reading when I started kindergarten
In retrospect the problem was my mother did not give me anything to read and I did not find anything interesting until 4th grade. My mother sent me to a Catholic school so they spent ridiculous amounts of time teaching me what I knew how to do. Diagramming sentences never made sense to me.
But now there is free stuff for kids:
David and the Phoenix, by Edward Ormondroydhttp://www.gutenberg.org/files/27922/27922-h/27922-h.htm
Children have no idea what the options are and think whatever happens is "normal".
Now adults have more options regardless of the school.
psik
He just turned 5, he can phonetically sound out and identify about 50% of words in a children's book but I don't call that reading. My youngest son read when he was in kindergarten and was horribly bored for the next two years so I'm not too concerned about this little one not having a good grasp on reading yet. He has a tablet and plays reading and math games on it.
My 5 year old grandson starts kindergarten in the fall. He has been in preschool for the past 18 months. His father (dad has sole custody) did not like the neighborhood school so was able to get him a spot in a public charter International Baccalaureate k-5 school. He is also on the lottery list for two Montessori Charters and they are holding a spot in a Catholic elementary school if he signs up within the next few weeks.
My questions are:
1) does anyone have any experience with a public charter IB school, do they offer any advantages aside from introduction of a second language?
2) would Montessori prepare him academically for junior high as well as other schools?
3) Would the advantages of a Catholic school be worth the tuition and the drive, about 25 min. each way compared to the other schools which are free and closer to home.
Thanks in advance!
I think it really depends on the individual schools involved. I would just visit them all, read reviews, look at data, and talk to them all. I don't know much about charter schools, but I would never send my child to a for-profit school, so if the charter schools are for-profit then I would say stay away at all costs. I love Montessori, but the idea of a charter could potentially go against Montessori principles, and if it's for-profit then it would probably not be true Montessori. That takes time and money. On the other hand, if the Catholic school is diocesan and not too expensive, they all follow a set curriculum which is very educationally sound and should prepare him for just about anything. Of course, I'd still visit the school and talk to people there.
As for the language, no, I don't think that means anything, nor the IB label for K-5. It's fairly irrelevant. Catholic schools usually offer Spanish anyway.
I think it really depends on the individual schools involved. I would just visit them all, read reviews, look at data, and talk to them all. I don't know much about charter schools, but I would never send my child to a for-profit school, so if the charter schools are for-profit then I would say stay away at all costs. I love Montessori, but the idea of a charter could potentially go against Montessori principles, and if it's for-profit then it would probably not be true Montessori. That takes time and money. On the other hand, if the Catholic school is diocesan and not too expensive, they all follow a set curriculum which is very educationally sound and should prepare him for just about anything. Of course, I'd still visit the school and talk to people there.
As for the language, no, I don't think that means anything, nor the IB label for K-5. It's fairly irrelevant. Catholic schools usually offer Spanish anyway.
Oops..I need to clarify something I said. The International Baccalaureate school is not a charter, it is a public school with IB certification. The two Montessori schools are public (free) charters. My son visited all of them, this was his take on them:
The IB school seems to have a very structured program with an emphasis in the higher grades in Stem courses. Here's some info on IB schools https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IB_Pri...ears_Programme He found it interesting in that in the younger grades they require a level of parental participation (which he likes) and that when they finish a learning module they have a class activity integrating the skills learned, i.e a class play, field trip, group project or guest speaker.
The two Montessori schools are public (free) charters, my son visited both of them and found them to be interesting and he liked the concept of kids working in small groups, but knowing his son, he was concerned that the boy would gravitate to activities he already excels in rather than challenging himself. He's in private gymnastics and plays t-ball and in both of those he seems to prefer repeating what he is good at rather than trying new activities.
The Catholic school is a Diocesan school and it's not cheap, Grandpa and I would be paying the tuition but it is a very small school with a good reputation, we are holding off on that until a decision can be reached that none of the other schools would work out for him.
I think it really depends on the individual schools involved. I would just visit them all, read reviews, look at data, and talk to them all. I don't know much about charter schools, but I would never send my child to a for-profit school, so if the charter schools are for-profit then I would say stay away at all costs. I love Montessori, but the idea of a charter could potentially go against Montessori principles, and if it's for-profit then it would probably not be true Montessori. That takes time and money. On the other hand, if the Catholic school is diocesan and not too expensive, they all follow a set curriculum which is very educationally sound and should prepare him for just about anything. Of course, I'd still visit the school and talk to people there.
As for the language, no, I don't think that means anything, nor the IB label for K-5. It's fairly irrelevant. Catholic schools usually offer Spanish anyway.
My grandchildren went to a public school which was just starting their IB program. While I don't know about the charter schools, I can tell you that IB is more than just introducing a second language. At our school that was Spanish because that is very useful in Texas. The school integrates art, music and movement into all classes. There is also an emphasis on world cultures that I liked alot. They learned a great deal about many other countries. With the prevalence of getting rid of art and music, the IB school could not do this so we were pleased with that as well. The end of the year meant a big project that integrated a lot of what the kids learned so the parents got to see it as a performance. This was one third grade performance, but not my kids.
My grandchildren went to a public school which was just starting their IB program. While I don't know about the charter schools, I can tell you that IB is more than just introducing a second language. At our school that was Spanish because that is very useful in Texas. The school integrates art, music and movement into all classes. There is also an emphasis on world cultures that I liked alot. They learned a great deal about many other countries. With the prevalence of getting rid of art and music, the IB school could not do this so we were pleased with that as well. The end of the year meant a big project that integrated a lot of what the kids learned so the parents got to see it as a performance. This was one third grade performance, but not my kids.
This is a public school with an IB program, I misspoke when I said it was a charter, the two Montessori's are public charters. What you just said confirms what my son liked about the school, and the one available for my grandson has Spanish as a second language.
Things have changed a bit since my earlier post. I mentioned the IB school before, but when his dad signed him up for that school no test scores had been posted for 3 years. When we finally found a source with the missing test scores, they had simply fallen off a cliff. Only 24% of 3rd graders tested at level for reading in 2016. We're not sure what happened, we called the district and they said not to worry it was just because California was using new tests, but we looked at test scores for the same period for the 3 top rated schools in the district and test scores had not dropped in any of them.
So we were back to square one and seriously considering the Parochial school then a few days ago I found out that the top rated school in the district had just added another kindergarten class and had a few openings for the fall semester. My son immediately went to the district, they still had openings so he signed him up. It's a fundamental school and the only elementary school around with a chess club (Grandpa is teaching him how to play chess) We're all very excited the school has a great reputation and a high level of parental involvement I think he will do very well there!
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