<p>Yes, you do seem to have a great perspective here. If you research the public school, may I suggest asking about teacher-family communication. I've noticed that some public schools do not communicate promptly with families when there are issues. Even top students can hit a bump or two. So, getting a sense of the culture of communication seems key. Ask outright if teachers are likely to contact parents when needed or wait until parent-teacher conference. Ask parents of students as well as teachers! Also ask about report cards, a.k.a. progress reports, how consistent they've been over the years and whether they might change. Many school districts have revised them several times since the enactment of No Child Left Behind. If he has one report card year, another the next, it can make interpreting them trickier for admissions offices. Good luck working WITH your son on this!</p>
<p>My friend is at The Lawrenceville School (boarding) and she came from a public middle school but her sisters are both in private middleschools. One of them came to the public high school to "shadow" someone and she realized that our "way of life" was simply not for her.</p>
<p>Shadowing is 1000% a must,</p>
<p>I agree with velocity. You sure do have a handle with things. We know that whatever you'll do will ultimately end up great.</p>
<p>^^^^
Good point about the report cards - our local school district seems to revamp them every 2-3 years!!</p>
<p>Also, I am amazed with how long it takes for some public school teachers to return papers/projects/tests - it can be 3-4 weeks! Meanwhile they keep plowing ahead so if your kid has a problem understanding something, you can't even correct it before the next quiz or test crops up! Definitely not a good thing in sequentially taught classes like math.</p>
<p>Also, I was amazed when seeing my kid turn in a 5+ page paper and receive back an A grade with just one or two minor corrects and only a "Good Job!" comment. Quite the contrast now when her papers in BS come back covered in red - which is how this good writer will learn to become an excellent writer! </p>
<p>This is not a diss on public school teachers - my kids have had some wonderful ones - but they are just overwhelmed with the number of kids they teach and they cannot provide the same level of interaction with each student. </p>
<p>I think it would be hard to go from strong private school back to a public school unless you are fortunate enough to live in an area with very strong public schools.</p>
<p>I started hearing stories from parents with children in public schools years ago. Their child would falter in, say, math, but the teacher would not say anything until the parent-teacher conference. So, weeks and weeks after the problem surfaced. I've experienced this firsthand myself, the waiting until the parent-teacher conference. He's been in public school since pre-K.</p>
<p>The report cards our school system used last year, just for one year, were ridiculous. The narratives were all about the standards, not the child. The teachers hated them. My son's teachers have been stellar as far as providing feedback on homework, prompt and systematic and quite detailed. Outside communication has been more challenging. Two of my best friends teach at top independent day schools, so I know how much effort they put into remaining in constant contact with students and their families. They seem to send out an email the second there's a problem. I do not mean to criticize hardworking teachers. However, it does seem that the culture of communication needs examining. Teachers do not seem to see that sometimes communicating with the family saves them time in the long run, by getting reinforcement from the home front and also understanding what might be behind a change in the student's performance or behavior. I discussed this very thing with my son's homeroom teacher (6th grade) last week. She said it's even happened to her, when a colleague had one of her children as a student and she was teaching in the next room!</p>
<p>private school teachers don't tell parents anything unless it's consistently really bad or you failed a test (and by fail I mean an F not a D) </p>
<p>their comments are inciteful, but if you are having problems it's not like they are going to ask you to meet with them. students have to make the effort, which is good because it teaches responsibility</p>
<p>
[quote]
**private **school teachers don't tell parents anything unless it's consistently really bad or you failed a test (and by fail I mean an F not a D)
[/quote]
Did you mean to say "private?"</p>
<p>It's tricky to generalize. I'm comparing my experience with a son who's been in the public school system for eight years with what I hear from parents with children in area private schools as well as inside perspectives from three private school teachers (my two closest friends and my sister, one in Connecticut, one in California, one in Washington, D.C.). Also, maybe there's less communication from teachers, public or private, as students get older. </p>
<p>Whatever the case, I still think any parent considering switching to public should inquire about the school's culture of communication and report card consistency.</p>
<p>yes, private</p>
<p>I got a 46 on a pop quiz and the only reason my parents know about it is because the grade was in my comments</p>
<p>a lot of schools want the students to learn how to fix their own problems, not go to their parents. I think it's better this way because in college it's not as if your professor is going to call your parents and ask them to help you study.</p>
<p>I agree that teachers need to foster independence and responsibility. I am speaking about lower grades and middle school more than high school. My experience as a parent only goes through Grade 6! I do get the sense from a friend who teachers at a private high school is that the faculty is encouraged to communicate possible weak grades A.S.A.P. so parents can give support (perhaps redirect their child's EC time or hire a tutor). I do not think total sink or swim is the way to go, either. It's a balancing act.</p>
<p>I can say that our experience with a private K-9 school has been the complete opposite as Roses and our experience with a public K-6 was what she describes.<br>
We get constant communication from the teachers and advisors when *anything * starts to be of concern. At the public school when we asked to meet to talk about comments and grades that were not up to potential all we got was "he's not THAT bad" and "it's a good report card..." That would never happen at the private school they are at now.<br>
I think the point being, as parents, we need to know what the "standard" is in terms of communication and go from there. </p>
<p>In addition, most of the schools we visited told us that the advosors meet weekly with their students and review grades and comments from teachers weekly so that they can catch anything before it becomes a problem. They said that new students they call parents every 1-2 weeks for the fall term. I know it's not all schools, but some.</p>
<p>We should all also be careful of generalizing.</p>
<p>I know I'm in a prep-school forum which is really foreign to me, and I should just shut my mouth and lurk, but I am a Child Psychiatrist, and when I think about what kind of boy could say what he did, I could just weep. Especially when I think he doesn't seem to be asking for something crazy, and that be might not be "heard". Most kids do fine in "good enough" settings and it sounds like he's had enough of the "right stuff" to do better then, most wherever be lands.</p>
<p>BTW, my kids have gone to a small Christian school from pre-k to 12th and I WISH they wanted to leave. It's nothing like what a "prep" school sounds sounds like on CC and the only "boarding" school's I'm familiar with are residential treatment centers for juvenile offenders...</p>
<p>perhaps "lurk" is not the best term for a professional to use...</p>
<p>I don't think there is anything inappropriate about using the term lurk. According to wikipedia:
[quote]
In Internet culture, a lurker is a person who reads discussions on a message board, newsgroup, chartroom, file sharing or other interactive system, but rarely participates.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I think Shrinkrap was just describing what she typically does: lurk (or read) the discussions.</p>
<p>I tend to" lurk" on forums until I get a sense of the culture. I'm not here as a "professional" so maybe "lurking" is ok? (as in internet lurking). I mentioned my proffession because I rarely talk to kids who have all the strengths the OP seems to, and it really touched me. </p>
<p>I've posted (1000+ times!!) elsewhere, but I've never been in "prep-school" before. I want to be careful not to offend.</p>
<p>Welcome Shrinkrap! Don't be offended by the "lurk" comments. We don't have too many contributers who aren't either prospective, current, or former students, or parents of boarding school students. We do have one actual contributer who works for a boarding school.</p>
<p>There is at least one other who also works with children's mental health, so you will find that your opinion may not be unique.</p>
<p>And even some of us boarding school parents may agree with your take on things.</p>
<p>A few of us have even been asked why we parents stick around here (mine has been in boarding school almost 2 years now, so admissions is long gone) and occasionally think us strange (they can't see my third eyeball sticking out of my forehead online).</p>
<p>Actually, I think a few pointed questions (both at parents and prospective students) from a professional like you would be a good thing around here as occasionally some lose their sense of priorities in the competitve world of prep school admissions (think about all the Ivy League mentality, with less worldliness).</p>
<p>And while most of my almost 1000 posts have been in this area, I think you will find that I probably have a few dozen in other areas as well. In fact, I was talking about the life of performance majors earlier tonight over in the College Majors forum. </p>
<p>Point here is that there is always room for another point of view in any of these forums. I think you'll find a great mixture of kids and adults who are generally friendly.</p>
<p>And are you the dad of a goalie? If it's a soccer goalie I think those kids are pretty special too. Well I guess I think all soccer players are special. Okay I guess I think ALL kid's are special. Thanks for the welcome!</p>
<p>Naw, my D plays ice hockey in net. And yes, all our kids are special!</p>
<p>So is there a relationship between "prep school" and boarding school ? I'm intrigued by the idea that this boarding school thing sort of "runs in families". What happens if you marry someone who doesn't "get it". Do they usually "see the light".</p>
<p>Edit Never mind...
Perhaps this older post sums it up...</p>
<p>" i suspect this forum will be limited to mostly nationally known boarding schools, i.e. exeter, deerfield, st pauls, andover, choate, lawrencville, taft, hotchkiss, st georges, hill, groton, milton, etc. since admissions and student bodies at these schools are much like colleges."</p>
<p>"everyone: this forum isn't knocking public magnets/private days. its just that those schools don't take kids from all across the nation. they are unlike the elite prep schools, "</p>
<p>I'm in a mixed marriage. I went to a prep school (that happened to have some boarders) and then to a private college. My wife attended a large public high school and went to a large state university. I got the boarding school ball rolling and my son really got into it. The two of us did all the road trips and searches. It was at revisits -- the "yield events" the schools hold for accepted students to make one last big pitch to them -- that my wife first set foot on a boarding school campus. I had other commitments so when I first reconnected with my wife and son on a campus, I almost didn't recognize her. She was totally hooked, despite always being a staunch advocate for public school education.</p>
<p>I know you used some of those terms tongue-in-cheek, but I'll differ slightly on the "see the light" point. It's more like "see the possibility." If there's a track record for boarding school in your family, you're far more inclined than most of the public to "see the possibility" of boarding school for your child. It's simply a viable option most people don't consider or one that many families rule out before giving it serious consideration.</p>
<p>And, as for all this talk about "boarding school" on a forum entitled "Prep School Admissions," my take on it is that there are far more efficient and personal communication channels available to people who are interested in private day schools that draw from limited geographic regions. At the same time, families from the Wasatch Valley who would be interested only in schools in that area and families from the Berkshire Mountains who would only be interested in schools in that area and all the families from other enclaves who would be interested only in schools in their respective proximities...they'd all always get overshadowed and outshouted by the families from all over the world who can consider boarding schools. There's no prohibition against prep day school talk here. I just think that this sort of forum lends itself quite well to the far flung families that will consider boarding schools while the day school families have other networks that are more practical than this forum for those school searches.</p>
<p>I mean...I could have talked about our local prep school options here -- public and private -- but it would seem sort of silly doing that. Would someone from Albany, NY really have any insights for me about school options in, say, Atlanta, GA? I didn't feel pressured or cowed into not posting about non-boarding school options. I just self-selected out of engaging in those conversations because they wouldn't seem likely to bear fruit.</p>
<p>" I know you used some of those terms tongue-in-cheek, but I'll differ slightly on the "see the light" point.</p>
<p>You said it better, but I really did mean it sincerely. How do you bear missing out on the day to day lives of the Kids? How often do you see their games or music recitals or theatre performances? Is it like a sacrifice your willing to make for them for the opportunity (like college?).
Now that I think about it, I knew two boys from boarding school who came home summers when I was growing up. We thought they were pretty exotic! I come from on almost exclusively black neighborhood BTW, and went to an all black (except the nuns!) Catholic school.</p>