St. Mary's vs. Lester School (Downers Grove, St. Joseph: rentals, homes, neighborhood)

[Magpie425]

Can anyone help me who has their kids in Lester School in Downers Grove? I don't know anything about it. I know St. Mary's of Gostyn is a great school, but the tuition is so steep. Everyone in my extended and immediate family has always gone to private school. Is Lester a good school by comparison? Any parents out there who are happy with it?

[chet everett]

There are teachers that have been at St Marus for around 30 years. It is a very different experience than even the best public school -- the discipline is a lot more "family based" and that makes it very hard to compare.

If you afford the tuition (which I believe is pretty much the same as other parishes, and they do have a variety of fund raising events and scholarships) and are seeking the kind of experience that comes from having kids and their families together for 8+ years you can't compare that to a public school.

The experience any child has a public school is shaped by the whole environment, and over all Lester has a very mix of kids from fairly well off parts of Downers Grove as well as some areas with more modest homes and rentals. Disrtrict 58 is at least as responsive as other nearby districts and kids that do well can expect to be in good position to do well in middle school.

In some ways I think the biggest factor comes from your close neighbors -- if most of them are sending cods to Lester that makes it easier to have friends to hang out with, if St. Mary's is big on your block / neighborhood maybe that would be enough to tip the balance. 50/50? The maybe go along with the parents whose valise are most compatible with your own.

Both St Mary's and St. Joseph's are somewhat unique in that the demographics of their schools are probably most similar to that of the surrounding public schools -- in other towns you get kids that. Ifht be trying to "avoid" problem areas and Downers really is among the most uniformly "nice but not crazy expensive" towns in DuPage, maybe even the whole region. The handful of really pricey homes (like in Denburn Woods) are vastly outnumbered by ordinary homes...

If you really want some eye popping tuition check out Avery Coonley. Though in all honesty, as far as the core academic content, there is not a huge difference between any public school in Downers and any private school. Extras? Oh yes -- friends in high places, field trips to places that some college kids don't get to, a beautiful campus, but except for maybe some more hands on science (due to smaller classes) and more elaborate math (with lots of competition) the kids are not years ahead...