School options in Eugene (Springfield: school districts, education, areas)

[haggardhouseelf]

Most of the parents I know who use day care either go through their church, KidCity, or a neighborhood preschool/day care. By neighborhood preschool I mean one that is usually a home day care situation that is run by either a mom that people met through word-of-mouth or a group of neighbors that came together to form a sort of child care coop type situation.

One thing you can try is to contact the 4j elementary school that will be near the area where you will be relocating to and ask them if they can recommend a preschool or solution for you. A lot of families who have elementary age children will also have younger pre-K age children, and in Eugene sometimes the same organization that does the after school care also has or knows about pre K all day care for younger kiddos.

For low income families I think there is something called Head Start, but that may only be in Springfield. I don't know too much about it. I just googled and found this link: Head Start of Lane County

[Steve Pickering]

Some of the private Daycare providers have issues. No Licensee, Drug or Alcohol issues, and worse. There are several who manage to get by the checks and balances.


Ask to see the license. Did you know that it is mandatory in Oregon that all Babysitters of any age or relationship, be paid minimum wage.


Federal law exempt's Casual Babysitting, Oregon does not.

But ......
If your childcare needs are more than an occasional night out even federal law requires minimum wage for babysitters

Although casual babysitters are exempt, federal law includes babysitters employed on other than a casual basis within the category of domestic service employment which must be compensated at no less than minimum wage (29 U.S.C. §206(f); 29 C.F.R. §552.106). Live-in domestic service providers (including child care workers) need not, however, be paid overtime for hours worked over 40 in a work week (OAR 839-020-0125(3)(n); 29 U.S.C. §213(b)(21)).

[Road_Scholar]

CED Mommy, it's not too late; turn back. I am a licensed English teacher and the schools here are terrible. I pulled my daughter out of Edison this year. Little traditional subject matter content is taught and if you study history at Edison it will only be the history of some exploited tribe in a remote region. It is social justice gone mad with nothing but contempt for teaching reading and writing and anything resembling a traditional education.

I just moved my son from Edison to the French Immersion school. It is also pretty dysfunctional. The class sizes are huge (over 30) in the lower grades and behavior problems are the norm. You said you want a Classical school. That is my desire also, but there is nothing resembling that here. I have friends who pulled their smart precocious daughter out of Ridgeline Montessori school. There are good teachers here and there, but not many. The test scores look good at Edison but that is a reflection of the socio-economic status not the quality of education.

[eric351982]

If you want a very "Eugene" school, google "The Drinking Gourd" elementary school in Eugene.

[haggardhouseelf]

I'm glad Road_Scholar chimed in. I'm just a parent, not a teacher, but our family has had a very frustrating experience in 4j schools as well. I've vented some of our frustrations here on C-D.

Our oldest son has been gearing up for graduation/college life. He's struggling to do well on the math part of the ACT and SAT. Reading and writing he does wonderful with - but the math curriculum and teaching methods used for math in the 4j schools is awful.

The teachers and staff at the schools have always been very defensive and argumentative when we (parents) tried to talk with them about our concerns. We kept hearing that the reason we were so upset about the way math was being taught in 4j was because it was different to the way we were taught when we were in school. So, because it was foreign to us, we were either afraid of it or we were resisting it.

Well, now we have kids trying to take the SAT, ACT, or other placement tests - and struggling. Even the math placement tests at LCC. I was in a meeting with two administrators at LCC a few nights ago. They said that each year there are more and more students entering college and having to take remedial math classes because the area public schools are not teaching math correctly.

These students are having to pay to take math that they should have learned in middle school and high school. It's absolutely not right and totally unfair to these students and their families IMO.

[CEDMommy]

Road_Scholar and haggardhouseelf- what would be better school district? I vaguely remember something about Bethel-Danebo (sp) being another district in Eugene? Or should we look into Springfield or Cottage Grove? My husband will be working Springfield and I work from home so we are flexible. But the school options are important to us. My 9 yo expressed interest in the French immersion school but I am on the fence, he does struggle in Math too.

[Steve Pickering]

Blame "Common Core".

[haggardhouseelf]

My husband and I searched high and low and we could not find a public school in the Springfield/Eugene area that taught a traditional type of curriculum with regards to math. It's all the "new math" stuff. One year we had an awesome "old-school" teacher who was actually retiring that same year who decided she was going to teach math her own way - the traditional way - and she did. And we loved her for it. Towards the middle of the year, though, the principal or somebody from above made her stop and switch to teaching the new math. She was in a bad mood for pretty much the rest of the year, and then retired. So sad.

We also had trouble finding a high school that taught math all year, reading and writing all year, science all year, etc - what we were used to having when we were growing up. (We both went to high school in Texas.) My high schooler has very long breaks in-between his academic classes. We are hoping that with the switch to the trimester schedule things would change, but so far for him at least we haven't seen any improvement.

If we had to do it all over again, we probably would have gone the private or virtual public school route.

Marist has a very traditional way of teaching, with each subject being taught all year. Welcome to Marist Catholic High School - Home With O'Hara I believe being the K-8 option... O'Hara Catholic School There are also the virtual public schools. Connections Academy is on of them. https://www.connectionsacademy.com/home.aspx I know of three Sheldon families who got so upset with Sheldon that they finally pulled their kids out and are now doing the Oregon Virtual Academy and they are much happier. Oregon Virtual Academy | Free public school online

Another thing that has always struck me as very odd, is that when I have spoken with my kids 4j teachers over the years regarding their struggles with math, and mentioned that we were considering getting a tutor... the teachers and once the principal tried to persuade us against hiring an outside tutor. ?? I never understood this. And each time we did hire a tutor, the grades would improve and the math frustrations and stress that the kids were experiencing lessened. We just figure... if the school cannot provide what our kids need, it's our job to see to it that they get what they need. Why would a teacher or principal be opposed to that? Doesn't make sense.

I'm sorry to be so hard or negative about 4j schools. I love Eugene and it is a shame that the schools here have degraded so much, and so quickly. When we first moved here in the early 2000's, they seemed OK (elementary level). But suddenly we have these enormous class sizes and ridiculous curriculum and the teachers seem overworked and very stressed-out. Something needs to happen, and fast.

Also - when people say Sheldon high school is a good school, what they really mean to say is that if your child is into sports, especially football, it is a good school. Otherwise, if you're going with the 4j public school route, you're better off at South or Churchill. (North Eugene is ghetto. I'm sorry to say that, but it is.)

Personally I think another issue schools are having is how the common trend seems to be to celebrate or praise mediocrity. That "everybody is a winner" and we're all special type of mentality. When it comes to academics, kids need to learn how to study and they need to be held accountable. They need to learn that learning is a struggle. But the schools seem to want to baby the kids or make things easy for them. My kids have never been made to work on handwriting or memorize multiplication or division tables. Remember the poems and speeches we had to memorize as kids? My kids have never had to do that. And when I asked about it, the teachers at the time would always talk about how memorizing "and regurgitating" is not learning. My kids only know the Pledge of Allegiance because my husband and I made them learn it. Even though we say "under dog" instead of god because we aren't religious.

[CEDMommy]

It sounds like the schools there are very much like the schools here in Maryland. And with the implementation of Common Core (which they have started here) it is just getting worse. I do agree that just memorizing isn't learning but if it is memorizing with a lesson behind it and practical application associated with it then that information becomes useful. That is what the schools here are missing, the practical application. Although we do not have handwriting anymore.

We do have our subjects all year long except when you get to High School and then it is block scheduling with your classes being only 1/2 the year. Is that the same in the 4j system?

We are not religious either and very anti Catholic so those school options would be out.

Do you know anything about the Springfield school districts? Are they any better? I thought I saw something about their being a Classical Education school there.

My eldest is a competitive gymnast so he may end up doing virtual school at some point but my 2 youngest are only 2 yrs old and we have a lot of school ahead of them.

[Steve Pickering]

Common Core is as Evil as Nazism.