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Lander, WY | No private schools in our area, but our younger kids go to a charter school. When we moved to the area, our oldest started at the public school in town. He had always been a decent student, little forgetful in turning stuff in but knew what he was doing and had good grades. Instantly his grades started slipping, had some minor "behavior" problems, had meetings with teacher and principal, turns out the problem was he would get done with his work, and have time to start getting in trouble...no challenge. Ended up talking to the principal and curriculum director, went several rounds with them over choice of programs and how they deal with kids at different levels in the same grade (short answer, they don't... too much work...). Wife and I are both well educated, my Mom and Dad were both teachers in their past (Mom retired and is now teaching the teachers, doing in service training, etc...) and could go toe to toe with the administrators, every fact we showed about their choice of teaching styles, they threw something else to deflect the conversation. So we moved him to the charter school...instantly behavior problems and grades improved.
Our youngest are now in kindergarten and 2nd at the charter school. Class size limited to 20, aggressive expectations, will move kids up and down grades for subjects if needed. Second grader is currently reading at 4th grade level, goes to 3rd grade for reading and writing and math. Kindergartner is reading at 2nd grade level (in fact just asked last night if we had a chapter book she could read, she wants to read what her brothers do...) Would NOT do anything different. Unfortunately, it's only K-8, so oldest is at the public high school now...but doing well, in college prep algebra and English and in drafting as a freshman, planning on becoming an architect.
The public school is big (3 elementary schools, 2 classes per grade, 20-25 kids per class, feeding into a single junior high and a brand new high school next door), it doesn't deal with kids as individuals, just class by class... The district covers about 30-40 miles east to west and about that north to south on the fringe of the Denver metro area...they could have and should have split the district instead of building a new high school right next to the old one, but the trend is toward bigger is cheaper...unfortunately, not better though. | |
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Private Schools
