St.Cecilia Catholic School (Houston, Katy: transfer, catholic schools, living in)

[mrsp1030]

Does anyone have any good/bad things to say about this Catholic school in the Bunker Hill area? Anyone try the commute from Katy?

[EasilyAmused]

It has a good, affordable repuation in the Houston area. I think it gives a solid,however not a rigorous education, according to many of my friends who do, and have had, children who attended. The core values are enforced most of the time, however if your family is a big contributor to the school/church, your child can be a problem and not get kicked out. It's a good feeder the Strake and St. Agnes,as is St. Michael's,Grace and St. Francis.

If you care about middle school sports, it's not very good.

For Catholic primary and middle schools, Regis and Duchense are the strongest but the most costly and hardest to get into. The perks are that they are High Schools as well.

It depends where you live in Katy. But say you live at the Grand Parkway Ramp, it could take over 30 minutes to get there. I would say most of the students are from the Memorial/Tanglewood/Briargrove areas. So you need to think about that for play dates.

[LizzySWW]

I'd really think about this kind of a school commute for a child. EA is right that most kids here are 77024 residents & you're not going to find many parents wanting to drive a one hour round-tripper to pick up their child from Cinco Ranch. Aren't there Catholic schools in Katy?

My observations of St. Cecelia's academics is that they're on par with the better public schools in this area. I see kids transfer in & out without having to play catch up on either end.

The tutition is the lowest in the area & several hundred cheaper/ mo for church members.

I have to be honest, that hour long round-trip commute for your child to play with a school friend concerns me alot.

[350days]

Originally Posted by LizzySWW

I'd really think about this kind of a school commute for a child. EA is right that most kids here are 77024 residents & you're not going to find many parents wanting to drive a one hour round-tripper to pick up their child from Cinco Ranch. Aren't there Catholic schools in Katy?

My observations of St. Cecelia's academics is that they're on par with the better public schools in this area. I see kids transfer in & out without having to play catch up on either end.

The tutition is the lowest in the area & several hundred cheaper/ mo for church members.

I have to be honest, that hour long round-trip commute for your child to play with a school friend concerns me alot.

All the private schools are in aligned to the TAKS curriculum, BUT the only difference is they cover subjects in depth OR may teach a subject one year ahead. Teaching a subject one year above grade level can make a curriculum more rigorous. Private schools have to offer something up more than public which is not hard to do first of all because every student has their own book in each subject whereas at the public school there are barely any books for each subject and not enough. Anyone can open up a private school and it has been happening and do more than what students are getting for free.

[EasilyAmused]

Private schools aren’t subject to the federal No Child Left Behind Act, and aren’t mandated to give the TAKS test, nor are they forced to follow any TAKS curriculum. They do however have a test called the ERB. But the child can move on to the next grade based on preformance, not on a standard test result. You need to research the enrichments they are offered, which the public system has kicked to the curb.


St. Cecilia, nor any of the better private schools within the beltway, are not some "hack" private school that just opened.

[notready]

I toured recently. I was relatively impressed, and I am a school skeptic. When we passed through the Kindie room they were set up for a spelling test and one of the moms was told that most kids entered K reading. My out of state kindies barely had to write words in K, I can't believe that the local publics are much different.

I think they do work about a year ahead of the publics, with the kids leaving middle with high school Algebra. They can have class sizes up to 25, at least in the upper elem grade I cared about, but seem to run closer to 20-22. They don't have some of the clubs like robotics or chess you might find at other schools, but seem to have a very active school community and lots of sports and scouting.

If you are Catholic and join the parish it seems to be one of the best education deals around, coming in at almost 1/3 the cost of some of the others if you have more than one child.

I'd listen to what the local experts say about commuting, are you already locked into housing?

I think you are on the right track looking for private schools, good luck.

[Vicman]

Originally Posted by LizzySWW

Aren't there Catholic schools in Katy?

There are no Catholic K-8s within Greater Katy.

[mrsp1030]

Thank you all for the advice. We also looked at John Paul II. I know the commute does not sound reasonable according to most reports here but it is a similar mileage commute as the Cincinnati area but I hear the traffic is worse. We had always intended on our child attending catholic school; however, living in the Katy area is the best for us due also to my husband's commute to the Sealy area. We are coming from an area where Catholic schools are very predominant and the size of the public schools in Ohio are so much smaller than Katy.

[EasilyAmused]

Originally Posted by mrsp1030

Thank you all for the advice. We also looked at John Paul II. I know the commute does not sound reasonable according to most reports here but it is a similar mileage commute as the Cincinnati area but I hear the traffic is worse. We had always intended on our child attending catholic school; however, living in the Katy area is the best for us due also to my husband's commute to the Sealy area. We are coming from an area where Catholic schools are very predominant and the size of the public schools in Ohio are so much smaller than Katy.

JP II is almost too small. I'd give it an "eh."

the commute from Memorial to Sealy is 30 minutes....

[mrsp1030]

How is the Memorial Area for housing?