Choosing private school? (Plano, Richardson, Flower Mound: 2013, houses, neighborhoods)

[mrstsh2004]

We may be relcating to DFW so I have been following this forum for several months now, particularly to learn the neighborhoods and school systems. It seems like the Metroplex offers an overwhelming array of choices. You have good public schools and many internationally recognized prep schools.

We are not a legacy family of prep school or ivy league graduates, but we are college-educated professionals. But we are no in the "elite league" who is able to pay private school tuition without making choices/sacrifices. So I am curious how I could measure what ROI we should look for if we enrolled our children in a private school instead of a public school?

If you live in a top-ranked district like Plano, Coppell or Flower Mound, what were your reasons for considering private school? (I am not considering Highland Park or Southlake, which are out of of housing price point.)

Specific questions:
1. It sounds like the DFW private schools are very selective and competitive. If you are applying to several because your child may not be admitted to your first choice, how are you sure of the fit?
2. How many tours did you go on? Did you do obervations or have your child shadow? Did you do that at multiple schools?
3. What are the entry points if you don't start out in K?


I realize that these are very generalized questions and that education is always a personal family decision, but I welcome your insights! Thanks!

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by mrstsh2004

We may be relcating to DFW so I have been following this forum for several months now, particularly to learn the neighborhoods and school systems. It seems like the Metroplex offers an overwhelming array of choices. You have good public schools and many internationally recognized prep schools.

We are not a legacy family of prep school or ivy league graduates, but we are college-educated professionals. But we are no in the "elite league" who is able to pay private school tuition without making choices/sacrifices. So I am curious how I could measure what ROI we should look for if we enrolled our children in a private school instead of a public school?

If you live in a top-ranked district like Plano, Coppell or Flower Mound, what were your reasons for considering private school? (I am not considering Highland Park or Southlake, which are out of of housing price point.)

Specific questions:
1. It sounds like the DFW private schools are very selective and competitive. If you are applying to several because your child may not be admitted to your first choice, how are you sure of the fit?
2. How many tours did you go on? Did you do obervations or have your child shadow? Did you do that at multiple schools?
3. What are the entry points if you don't start out in K?


I realize that these are very generalized questions and that education is always a personal family decision, but I welcome your insights! Thanks!

While living in Plano we chose the private school route for several reasons in our case catholic schools.

Generally speaking:
1. Smaller settings and usually smaller class sizes.
2. Almost zero violence. Over his 12 years my son saw one fight. My daughter is at Ursuline now and has never seen a fight at school - although she was involved in a stand off with a boy in first grade. That was more funny than anything else.
3. Drugs and booze are less common. Sure there are a few kids tied into the dope culture - an exceptional majority are not.
4. Everyone works hard. Slackers either do not get in or are bounced out quickly.
5. Teachers are involved in ways that would not tolerated in public schools. Teachers make calls and send emails to kids and parents regularly. If a kid needs a hug from a teacher he will get it. Imagine that at a public school. One time my son's physics teacher stayed with my son and three other kids for almost fours hours after school helping them understand a particularly difficult problem.
6. As far as I know all of the private high schools have two and three tracks while rarely using these words - regulars, honors and sort of a super honors track where by kids eventually take real college courses like engineering calculus etc. (real meaning SMU/UTD etc.)
7. Everyone is expected to not only go to college but thrive there. At Jesuit and Ursuline, and I'm sure the other better privates, everyone takes the SAT. Everyone with scant exceptions goes straight to college. At better publics 1/3 of the kids never take the SAT and more than that don't go immediately to college. BTW - I understand that metric as a stand alone point is unfair but it's real.
8. About finances - at Jesuit 26% of the boys receive some sort of financial aid. The average aid is 56% of tuition everyone else pays full fees. I don't know the numbers at UA but they are similar.
9. Most private school parents sacrifice and sacrifice hard.

Your ROI notion is interesting. IMO there is no simple way to justify spending $180 - $300K tuition plus the school taxes you will still have to pay for private schooling per kid. The public schools you mentioned are each fine options and a kid who excels at a private would most likely excel at Plano West etc.

If you are looking at privates for next fall it's technically too late. I would call the ones you might be interested in get the testing done and apply anyway if they will allow. There is a lot of churn in the summer and spots do open up plus most schools hold "open" a few slots anyway.

From a numbers game perspective if the private route makes sense for you all apply to some catholic schools even if you are not catholic. There are more catholic school seats up for grabs than at the others.

[TX75007]

Originally Posted by mrstsh2004

Specific questions:
1. It sounds like the DFW private schools are very selective and competitive. If you are applying to several because your child may not be admitted to your first choice, how are you sure of the fit?
2. How many tours did you go on? Did you do obervations or have your child shadow? Did you do that at multiple schools?
3. What are the entry points if you don't start out in K?

1. Looked at teachers' CV including their majors, contests and awards the kids won, flexibility on both class and subject acceleration, student composition, and then curriculum.
2. Two per school plus talked privately with teachers and admissions staff. I looked specifically at each classroom and the facilities for other things, like music, art, science.
3. It is PreK for most, but St Marks is first grade.

I'd also look at the smaller schools or less well known schools. Some of these are definitely in the running for the more astute parents. It really comes down to the teacher for each grade.

The child observations where your child is in with a group of peers will tell you the most about whether it is a fit or not. As will a visit to the prospective class.

[Dfw789]

Choosing private school while living in a good district makes sense if you can comfortably afford tuition of top private schools, religious education is a priority for you, you want prestige & perks attached to private powerhouses for the kid, your kid is the type who would do better in a small setting, you don't mind braking the bank, you are a show off and you rather send kid to a below average private school than tell some one in a party that you send kids to a public school. It is logistically impossible for a low tuition school to meet standards that come with expansive tuition private school or resourceful public school district.

[TX75007]

Originally Posted by Dfw789

It is logistically impossible for a low tuition school to meet standards that come with expansive tuition private school or resourceful public school district.

LOL.

Don't tell that to all those homeschooled kids who get perfect SATs, get into DYS, or get 25s on the AMC. And who go to Japan or Greece for 9 weeks each summer.

At the end of the day, what is a school? It then comes down to the teacher, the student, student-teacher ratio, the curriculum, and the level of hard work.

[mrstsh2004]

Originally Posted by TX75007

LOL.

Don't tell that to all those homeschooled kids who get perfect SATs, get into DYS, or get 25s on the AMC. And who go to Japan or Greece for 9 weeks each summer.

At the end of the day, what is a school? It then comes down to the teacher, the student, student-teacher ratio, the curriculum, and the level of hard work.

Perhaps that would add an interesting twist to the discussion - any "homeschoolers" or "unschoolers" out there for whom the tuition at top privates was not a barrier to entry, yet you chose an alternative method?

[mrstsh2004]

TX75007 - You are spot on - I am trying to get to the root of defining "what is a school."

EDS - application for 2012-2013 is not an issue right now. We may not be there for another 18 months. But, that puts us in the position of having to find a spot for an older child *and* being newbies to the community.

And regarding ROI - yes a guaranteed formula such as "spending $300K on top of your property taxes on primary and secondary education = x for your kid" vs. "spending $180K = y" is unrealistic. My concern for my children is that the mantra of "work hard and go to college" is not going to work for their generation. It's not enough to have a college degree anymore. I want them to have the skill set that will remain relevant and resilient for the span of their careers.

My intent is not to debate public vs. private - there are plenty of other threads for that. I am simply trying to understand different thought processes. Of the few families that I know personally with kids in private school in our current city, most of the reasons for choosing a private school don't resonate with our family. Some can't even articulate why they chose what they chose - it was just "the thing to do."

Oh, and please forgive the typos in the original message.

[Dfw789]

@tx75007 I support parent's right to experiment with their creations but for some reason homeschooling seems as weird to me as conventional schooling(public or private). However in this imperfect world homeschooling or cheap schooling has more disadvantages than advantages. Some kids and parents are equipped to beat all odds but usually we focus on general population, not outliers.

[SimpleLife2]

^regarding homeschooling:

Originally Posted by Dfw789

I support parent's right to experiment with their creations

hahahhaaa! That is too funny!

[debtex]

We live in DISD and the public schools in our neighborhood are very good. I'm a product of Richardson schools, which were then (and are today) excellent. So no bias against public here.

We wanted our kids to go to a neighborhood school - for extracurriculars, play dates, etc...our social life is much easier since it's all local. I can't imagine how inconvenient all that would be if we went to a school outside the neighborhood, and we feel that's a big part of our kids' development. So we toured all the neighborhood schools. If we were in Plano, we would only consider schools in Plano. That's just our preference.

We chose private because we felt it was more academically rigorous and because we wanted our kids to be well prepared before they hit the middle school skid, when they (IMHO) all lose their minds a little bit. A smaller, stricter environment at that stage was a big plus for me. (We're not there yet.)

In terms of which years are typical entry grades for private, it's usually pre-k, 3rd, 5th, and 9th.

As for home school - this has always seemed like an unnecessary risk. I'm willing to try to new things, but I'd prefer not to hang my kids' future success on my ability to learn how to teach. Teaching is an art and a science, I have too much respect for teachers to think I can do what they do with a couple of workbooks and a pile of good intentions. That doesn't even touch the issues around the social interactions we'd miss, and the fact that my kids surely need a break from me. Homeschooling was never an option, period.

Good luck!
Deb