Working at Pitt, family neighborhood- Aspinwall or Pt Breeze?

[scrapp]

Originally Posted by TimGyves

"Shrug. I don't think you're really tuned into the thought process of affluent families"

I'm not sure what goes into the thinking of affluent families either, but I suppose my wife and I qualify as an affluent couple looking to turn into an affluent family - to be honest, we hope to send our kids to public schools, for some of the reasons I'll mention below.

But many people troubled by public schools send their kids to Ellis, Shadyside, Winchester-Thurston, etc.

There is no one answer here. You don't have to be troubled by public schools to send your kids to private school... maybe you are just repeating what your parents did with you, or maybe you want an environment that the public schools cannot provide. For example, if you want your kids' schooling to have a religious component you are going to have to go private.

If you really want to get into someone's thought process on this, you are going to have to ask for more details. In some cases, you may end up hearing things you won't like. For example, one of my neighbors told us she is sending her kids to Winchester because the public school has "too many black people" (Colfax is about 30% African-American). Parents who have that kind of prejudice either have to go private or move to more racially homogenous school districts (e.g. Fox Chapel).

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by robrobrob

I think you would be surprised about how many wealthy families send their kids to Shadyside as opposed to Fox Chapel.

I actually know some parents in Fox Chapel who sent their kids to Sewickley Academy. Seems crazy to me, but I guess it was a legacy thing.

[greg42]

Guess it's what you know and/or what seems to fit. But yeah, Fox Chapel and go to Sewickely Academy, that's quite inconvenient. My boss originally sent his kids to Sewickley Academy even while living there in the Quaker Valley school district, but has since switched to the public schools. All in high school (or graduated) at QV at this point.

[gg]

A lot of public vs. private also has to do with the kids. If the so-called affluent parents have two people working and the kids get very little quality time with the parents. That can be a negative. To be honest, many of my neighbors here in Fox Chapel, only the father works and yes, going to Shadyside is quite common. No Central Catholic kids that I have seen or heard about, but Shadyside is a very good school that has very little competition except maybe Kiski Prep. Several kids go to Fox Chapel and going to Ivy League from this is very possible. The kids just have to work hard.

Anyway, the topic was about someone moving in and looking at Point Breeze and Aspinwall. If a person can afford to send three kids to private schools then live where you like. If you are going to rely on public school, I vote for Aspinwall. We all pay a TON of taxes to the school districts in Allegheny County. Might as well use the schools you are paying for, but if you have an extra 40K laying around yearly, send them to a private school, but send them to a good one like Shadyside. That is in a different league than Central. No comparison.

[caroline2]

Originally Posted by h_curtis

I would still stick to Fox Chapel School. If you really want to get a better understanding of what a school is like, look at SAT scores. That is more important than silly tests that are not consistent.

I would suggest ignoring school-wide SAT scores, for the reason that BrianTH mentions.

What I find especially useful is looking at AP scores. The big talking point people use to support relatively good schools in not good districts -- such as Allderdice -- is to suggest that there's enough of a critical mass of motivated students that there'll be a bubble that sort of mimics the student body and experience of a good school district. If so, that should be reflected in their performance on the AP exams. Allderdice releases a very detailed breakdown of AP exam results, and the news is not encouraging.

We put offers on two houses that would have had us in PPS (and we wouldn't have done private schools), so I'm hardly arguing that going that route is bad parenting. I don't mean for this to turn into the bash Allderdice thread. But the very first preference Hanna expressed was for a "good school district". She didn't say, "a district with a few good schools -- and let's hope they don't change the feeder pattern boundaries anytime soon -- or maybe I can just hope to get lucky in the magnet lottery..." I am trying to be realistic about her prospects.

[caroline2]

That's both hilarious and touching, scrapp. I can't begrudge them their cardboard plaques...

Originally Posted by robrobrob

I think you would be surprised about how many wealthy families send their kids to Shadyside as opposed to Fox Chapel.

Yes, our (elderly) realtor liked to tell us how, back in his day, only the yahoos let their kids actually go to FCAS .