Whats the best private school in L I ? (Brentwood, Stuyvesant: employment, middle school)

[Quick Commenter]

Originally Posted by curiouschip

Thats what I've heard.. Don"t know how it compares to Waldorf or Eastwood or Portledge. If I am not a quaker, would christian have a problem with Friends Academy ? I mean I am considering FA but I guess real question is how do you define "best" ?

Very few Quakers are around anymore - and very few Quakers attend the school. There are very few private schools in Nassau - almost none with the full K-12 experience in any case - so the competition for 'best' among the private schools is not necessarily fierce. I believe the general perception is that, among its limited private school competition in Nassau, Freinds offers the 'better' campus, student experience, instruction, and colllege placement. I would repeat that this is not to say the academics and college placement are superior to many of the surounding public, Catholic, and Yeshiva schools. I don't even think the Friends Academy staff claims this.

[Spanky25]

Originally Posted by curiouschip

Can somebody help us find the best school for my child?
My child is 4th grade in public school now but we are exploring private school because quality of education seems much better in public school... What is the "best" private school in long island? I guess by "best" I mean where kids learn and excel by unleashing their potential & creativity.. Of course Most people talked about Portledge, Friends Academy, Waldorf, Stony brook or Eastwoods etc etc.. ( Don't know too many catholic schools). I guess main issue with private school is the tuitions and its cost.
I want my child to get most out of lower school & middle school, and ultimately get into "top tier" college by going to "college prep" school. My kid went to montessori school for pre-k, but I realized maybe my kid needs "smaller" environment rather than public elementary school where typical classes are over 20 kids and perhaps less challenging. My wife thinks my kid actually regressed after montessori pre-k. By that I guess she means if your kid stands out among whole bunch of kids (most parent might think like this !) you want to surround herself with school system that support kid's individualism, creativity, and nurture them. Maybe some of our public school system don't succeed and fail those requirement.
I heard Friends academy upper school is pretty rigorous, and seems like it maybe a good fit for my child but is it worth the money? Seems like portledge is a small school ( teacher/student ratio appears great) that is rich in tradition but how are the quality of student who graduate really ?

"The BEST" Eduction BEGINS at home

[Forest_Hills_Daddy]

Originally Posted by curiouschip

Of course Most people talked about Portledge, Friends Academy, Waldorf, Stony brook or Eastwoods etc etc.. ( Don't know too many catholic schools). I guess main issue with private school is the tuitions and its cost.

Waldorf is one of the least expensive independent schools in LI, yet they have a pretty impressive alumni roster. It might be doing something good inside its walls. Kew Forest is a K-12 private school in Queens that has a good college placement history and it has a number of kids from Long Island in its student body.

Not sure if your child is a boy or girl, but also look at Chaminade and Sacred Heart Academy (Garden City) for high school, both of which place their graduates in good colleges. The curricula is Chaminade and SHA are more rigid though, and probably will leave less elbow room for "creative development" but tuitions might be less expensive also.

[Coney]

Originally Posted by Quick Commenter

Very few Quakers are around anymore - and very few Quakers attend the school. There are very few private schools in Nassau - almost none with the full K-12 experience in any case - so the competition for 'best' among the private schools is not necessarily fierce. I believe the general perception is that, among its limited private school competition in Nassau, Freinds offers the 'better' campus, student experience, instruction, and colllege placement. I would repeat that this is not to say the academics and college placement are superior to many of the surounding public, Catholic, and Yeshiva schools. I don't even think the Friends Academy staff claims this.

Lawrence-Woodmere Academy in Nassau County is prek-12, but does not have the reputation that it used to. I wouldn't rank it as one of the "best" on LI.

Regarding Forest Hills Daddy, some of the Catholic high schools will accept students who are not Catholic. Others do not. We do not know the religion of the OP. I would not recommend Waldorf to someone who has early elementary age children who have not attended a Rudolf Steiner school. In fact, many of them will not accept students who have not started at an early age. These schools are not everyone's cup of tea.

[Forest_Hills_Daddy]

/\/\

It looks like the Waldorfs in Garden City and Rockland would accept older students. The one in GC even has a high school class visit program for prospective students. Otherwise they'd be giving people false hopes.

[Coney]

Originally Posted by Forest_Hills_Daddy

/\/\

It looks like the Waldorfs in Garden City and Rockland would accept older students. The one in GC even has a high school class visit program for prospective students. Otherwise they'd be giving people false hopes.

The big problem lies in grades 1-3/4 because how/when they introduce reading.

Also, I don't know if the one in Garden City follows the Waldorf program precisely, but if the school does authentically follow Waldorf philsophy, there is an amount of western religion incorporated in the curriculum as the reading curriculum is supposed to include "listening" to new and old testament bible stories in the early elementary grades. Just as few "montessori schools (even some with AMI or AMS accreditation) follow the full Montesorri philosophy in its original form, Waldorf schools have also made modern adaptations. Each school has to be checked out individually.

[curiouschip]

Originally Posted by Quick Commenter

Very few Quakers are around anymore - and very few Quakers attend the school. There are very few private schools in Nassau - almost none with the full K-12 experience in any case - so the competition for 'best' among the private schools is not necessarily fierce. I believe the general perception is that, among its limited private school competition in Nassau, Freinds offers the 'better' campus, student experience, instruction, and colllege placement. I would repeat that this is not to say the academics and college placement are superior to many of the surounding public, Catholic, and Yeshiva schools. I don't even think the Friends Academy staff claims this.

So why would anyone pay $ 27k to send their kids to Friends academy? because they are living in "bad" public school district ? I would think people spend that kind of money because it offers 'best" education(in their mind) instead of other good public schools in LI. My feeling is if parents went to private school they are more likely to send their kids to private school and vice versa..

[curiouschip]

Originally Posted by Forest_Hills_Daddy

Waldorf is one of the least expensive independent schools in LI, yet they have a pretty impressive alumni roster. It might be doing something good inside its walls. Kew Forest is a K-12 private school in Queens that has a good college placement history and it has a number of kids from Long Island in its student body.

Not sure if your child is a boy or girl, but also look at Chaminade and Sacred Heart Academy (Garden City) for high school, both of which place their graduates in good colleges. The curricula is Chaminade and SHA are more rigid though, and probably will leave less elbow room for "creative development" but tuitions might be less expensive also.

My kid is a daughter, 4th grader. and I am looking to transfer next fall. SHA is for high schooler. Basically looking for smaller school with rigorous academics. My kid's class has 22 kids in her class and I believe its too large.. I am hoping to find a good private school that typically has much smaller class.

[Quick Commenter]

Originally Posted by curiouschip

So why would anyone pay $ 27k to send their kids to Friends academy? because they are living in "bad" public school district ? I would think people spend that kind of money because it offers 'best" education(in their mind) instead of other good public schools in LI. My feeling is if parents went to private school they are more likely to send their kids to private school and vice versa..

It may certainly be correct that parents who went to private schools may be more likely to send their children to private schools than parents who did not attend private schools - for whatever reason. I have no idea what proportion of students at Friends Academy have parents who went to a private school of some sort.

You may want to re-read my post. I did not write that parents who live in the 'best' public school districts necessarily send or don't send their children to Friends Academy. Some of the 'best' public schools in the nation (Cold Spring Harbor, Syosset, Jericho, North Shore, Wheatley, etc) are not very far geographically from Friends Academy. The academics and college placements from these public schools are far 'superior' to Friends Academy. Ditto with Chaminade. Again, I don't believe Friends leadership, itself, would argue or even be interested in arguing that point. My understanding is that there is a fairly large geographic spread from the student body and that many do come from these 'better-reputation' public school districts.

My understanding is that, on the other hand, a good number of students attending Friends Academy are from Glen Cove, Oyster Bay Cove, and Huntington Bay - areas that are served by public school districts with lesser reputations (Glen Cove, Oyster Bay, and Huntington respectively). Of course, these folks would have the money necessary to pay the steep tuition at Friends. (FYI Glen Cove has some very wealthy sections...assume the Oyster Bay Cove and Huntington Bay wealth goes without saying).

Obviously, there is no one-size-fits-all reason for attending a private school such as Friends. I am not trying to address all of them.

[Amelorn]

Hmm, for the $27,000 charged at the Friends Academy, I'd send my kids to the St Grottlesex league of schools or similar such North-East boarding schools.

When push comes to shove in college admissions, I'd guess that the top quarter of public schools do as well as the private schools on LI.