My kids went to a public school in Westchester that would be “upper middle class” compared to the “wealthy” districts that get all the love. Kind of a bi-modal school-- with lots of AP opportunities for the talented kids, but plenty of kids for whom AP is a distant thought, if thought at all. After freshman year, the school was more or less stratified, so that they were taking almost all AP classes with good (generally) teachers and talented peers. They did very well in the “college sweepstakes”. Paying 30k a year for private would have been a huge hit to our retirement planning. We are “happy” to pay 60k a year now for their colleges, as that was part of the planning. Given that you are in one of those “special” districts, I can’t imagine paying for private unless you have money that you don’t know what to do with.