how did you know you found the perfect elementary school?

[AnnieW625]

We went to a K-8 Catholic school open house last night (we've applied to two; this one and our current parish school) and as we were leaving DD1 said she could go to school there when she is 5. She said a similar thing this morning. DD1 said nothing about our parish school when we went to their open house on Sunday. DH and I both really liked this school too, but of course I have no idea how many non sibling kids they will be able to let in, and we just turned in a registration form for the parish so I think they have to take other kids first. I don't want to get her/our hopes ups, but I think she will get in as long as she does fine on the kindergarten assesment.

The school also has a whole new computer lab with 30 computers, a science/math lab for the older kids, and a nice large playground. Plus the kindergartners uniform shirt is a Hawai'in shirt with the schools logo (too cute if you ask me, but really just a nice added plus!) They are also very organized and are having a kindergarten introduction night next week; the same cannot be said for the parish school (who had a closed door meeting with parents about the diocese upping the school year to 200 days next year, and didn't think to invite prospective parents who are parishioners or let the media in who showed up; it was on KCAL 9 in LA last night).

Tution and after school care at the school we like is also just around $500 a month, and school starts at 8 so no need for before school care:thumbsup:

We are still applying to a number of other public schools as backups, but if all goes right I think we have found the school for our girls.

How did you know you found the perfect school?

[HIU8]

I thought I did. DS now goes to a primary school that goes from pre-K to 2nd grade. We held him back into pre-K for a year to mature. We are moving him to a different school for K. I honestly thought that he would stay at this school to 2nd grade. Turns out there are things about the school that just don't sit right with me. DS is happy, and learning, but he has told me he is bored. I really am paying attention to this b/c DS has NEVER told me he is bored before. He says the work is easy (and it is supposed to be K light but it certainly looks a lot less than that). He enjoys the social aspects and playing with the kids and art. BUT the fact that he says he is bored coupled with a few things I've witnessed with respect to teachers just bothers me.

[egoldber]

There is no perfect school. Schools are full of people, and are by definition imperfect. :)

But seriously, I think you need to realize this. I know when I was first looking at schools I thought there was some single, perfect, magic bullet school that was going to be perfect and loving and amazing for every kid. It doesn't exist.

Our old school, on paper, sounds great. And most kids/families there love it. It was not a good fit for my DD. Her new school is a better fit. But it is also not perfect. There are crotchety teachers. There are mean kids. I wish they had more recess. But it is a much better fit for her.

At any school there will be things you like and don't like. It's a balance to find a school that best fits your family's needs and your kid's needs. But no school will be perfect.

[HIU8]

Beth is right. There is not perfect school. The one DS is in we thought was a really really good fit. I would be leaving DS where he is but there is just to much not going right for me to do that. If I could just go to them and ask them to challenge DS more it would be easy. But it's not possible and not that simple at this point.

[GaPeach_in_Ca]

At any school there will be things you like and don't like. It's a balance to find a school that best fits your family's needs and your kid's needs. But no school will be perfect.
:yeahthat:

Our school is also very good on paper. Well, except for the 30 kids in a class thing. It is fine and we are fairly satisfied, but it's not perfect.

$500 a month sounds amazing, though. We pay more than that for aftercare. :p

[g-mama]

For us, we just send our kids to our neighborhood public school. We never considered anything else. Our county has great public schools so we don't feel any need to look any further. Thankfully, we are very happy there.

There are families within our neighborhood, however, who do send their kids to private schools, some at the cost of $20-25K per year. I don't know what all of their reasons are, but a few have openly admitted that they are uncomfortable with the fact that our public school is 50+ percent Asian and has many English as Second Language students. They didn't send their kids and find it to be disadvantageous - they just assumed it would be. Actually having our children go there, we feel that it has been an amazing opportunity and a unique experience that will benefit our kids in many ways.

[Tondi G]

I found a good school for my boys.... we made the mistake at jumping ship to a start up charter and it was not a good experience. We came back to our local elementary and have been very happy for the most part. Every school has it's pros and cons. If your DD was talking positively about the school then that is a good sign. Sounds like you found a good fit for your family.... congrats! Hope she gets in and that you love the school once she is enrolled. Good Luck!

[lhafer]

I don't think we have a choice. We have to go to the local neighborhood elementary school. When I sign her up, I have to bring ID and 2 utility bills showing that I am in the right "zone" for that school.

[smilequeen]

While there is no perfect school, I think you can find a school that feels perfect for your family. We certainly have and I knew it with my first tour. I toured a lot of other schools, but my gut was with their school the whole time. The school is not perfect and it wouldn't be a perfect fit for everyone, but it is as perfect a fit for us as I can imagine.

[wimama]

I agree with Beth, there are no perfect schools. The best you can do is find a school that seems to fit the needs of you DD and family well. We looked at the facts at the two schools we considered and then just went with our instincts. My DS had pretty much the same reaction to the tour we took when we looked at his school. In fact, he was rather upset when he had to go to daycare and couldn’t go to the new school the following Monday. LOL. I really didn’t know it was the right school until he was enrolled and a few weeks into the school year. Now I am very comfortable that we made the right decision.

However, when you are talking about Catholic schools, I do think there are definitely some schools that have more resources and are therefore stronger. Some Catholic schools are really struggling to keep their enrollment up, at least by where we live. There are some schools closing and two local schools have combined due to low numbers (like 3-4 kids in a grade). Your non-parish Catholic school sounds like a popular Catholic schools, if I remember correctly from your previous posts. My DS Catholic school is strong academically, one of the larger Catholic schools, but the class sizes are still quite manageable from 14-18 students tops. There are several grades with two classes per grade. Yet, even though it is a good size everyone seems to know everyone. The secretary holds the door for DS when he walks in and greets him by name. All the kids seem to know each other. They have plenty of specials classes. 3 recesses a day including afterschool care. The big things for me were the Catholic education, the fact our school seems to have a more relaxed learning environment in the early grades yet the kids still perform very well in standardized testing, and the community feel of the school itself.

Weigh the pros and cons of the schools you are considering and then just trust you gut instinct and go with it!

[niccig]

While there is no perfect school, I think you can find a school that feels perfect for your family. We certainly have and I knew it with my first tour. I toured a lot of other schools, but my gut was with their school the whole time. The school is not perfect and it wouldn't be a perfect fit for everyone, but it is as perfect a fit for us as I can imagine.

:yeahthat: We were part way through the principal's talk and DH turned me to and said "this is it. I want to go to school here." It's not perfect, there are things we wish were different, but on the whole it fits DS and us well. Now, that might change as DS gets older. It doesn't mean it's a "bad" school, just not what we need at that time.

You do need to be careful about not comparing with other parents. What school fits for one child/family may not fit with your needs. I think some people get threatened if your choice is different to their choice.

[AnnieW625]

Thank you all for your insight and I totally realize that no school is truly perfect, but with the way the states budget cuts are effecting our district (they just voted last night to close two schools w/under 300 students enrolled, and lay off 429 teachers or non special ed. resource staff for next year) and the issues I have with our neighborhood school not really being a neighborhood school at all it was just nice to finally feel excitement for a school. Plus we won't have to take time out of work to take the girls to religious education classes. It's also hard to feel excited about even doing school of choice because of the budget cuts and district officials saying most parents will be lucky to get two school of choice schools for kindergarten (and we will most likely turn in applications for 8+ schools). My friend is an SLP at the top public school (which is also a charter school so it's 10x more popular than the rest of the schools in the district) we like and might be able to get us in, but honestly with the way things are in the district I can't count on that either.

I also learned very early on to not compare my children to other children. I am very open minded so I tend not to do that, but Nicci I definitely hear you on that one because people do compare and they do tend to make comments that aren't warranted.

[niccig]

I also learned very early on to not compare my children to other children. I am very open minded so I tend not to do that, but Nicci I definitely hear you on that one because people do compare and they do tend to make comments that aren't warranted.

Especially if your school is a different choice. We went private and it's a non-traditonal school, and there have been comments. Through people we know, we heard of a family that pulled their child in K because felt school wasn't academic enough. But that's why we like the school, we want play based K. We have a different philosophy about DS's education. Honestly, we think he would do fine where ever he is, but we want certain things that our local public school can't offer. So we opted for a different choice.

[AnnieW625]

Especially if your school is a different choice. We went private and it's a non-traditonal school, and there have been comments. Through people we know, we heard of a family that pulled their child in K because felt school wasn't academic enough. But that's why we like the school, we want play based K. We have a different philosophy about DS's education. Honestly, we think he would do fine where ever he is, but we want certain things that our local public school can't offer. So we opted for a different choice.

I was initially worried about comments from people in my mommy group (about 25 moms) about chosing Catholic when 98% of the mommy group is either an ex teacher, a teacher, or is way pro public schools, but now that there are three other families who chose Catholic this school year I am not so worried anymore as no comments have been made, and I ran into another mom at one of the open houses too looking for kindergarten so it's nice to know that I am not alone.

Next to buying our home I think this has been the most stressful decision and sometimes I think that buying a home was easier than this.

[Karenn]

Of the 5 schools I've chosen for my kids (some preschools), 3 of them turned out to be good fits. In each case, when I found the right school, I knew almost instantly that they were a good fit. Like someone else said, it was a gut feeling. With the two that turned out not to be right for us, I found that I was constantly second guessing and questioning our decision. I spent all sorts of time trying to convince myself that the schools "weren't that bad" and also a lot of time reminding myself that "there is no perfect educational option." Now, it is true that there is no perfect educational option, but the schools that have worked for us have been a lot closer to perfect than the ones that haven't worked. At the schools that fit, I got excited when I heard the leaders talk about the mission and direction of the school and also when I watched the teachers teach. I felt instantly at home in the schools that were a good fit. I never felt comfortable in the schools that didn't work for us.

[egoldber]

See, I think this is interesting. At our last school *I* felt at home. I liked the school, the admins and felt like they were all genuinely nice people who meant well. It felt very much like a family. Leaving that school was hard for DD and even harder for me. The new school is much less like a family. It's larger and less personal. I walk in the office and they have no idea who I am.

But a larger school has meant that DD has the opportunity to meet more kids, and she eventually said to me this year "I love this new school, I feel at home here and I never did there." But it's the same school system, essentially the same curriculum with the same resources (in theory). It's just at this school she clicked with some kids and at the old school she never did. And the staff at this school is more experienced at dealing with kids with needs like hers, whereas the old school tried but couldn't effectively meet her needs.

So I guess what I am trying to say is that a school can sound good on paper, be a wonderful school with basically nice kids and your kid can still be miserable there. Much of it is a function of who ends up in their classes and their individual teachers. Perhaps some schools by virtue of their educational philosophy are more likely to create an atmosphere and cultivate employees who foster those same goals.

[SnuggleBuggles]

I didn't know till I got there and got involved. And, at the beginning of the school year this year with ds2 I didn't really feel like it was the right fit for me and my family even though I had loved it the 1 year ds1 attended. But, it's grown on me and I see the positives all the time. It still doesn't feel as comfortable and good as ds1's school. But, you know? I think ds2 is getting a better education so even though ds1's fits/ feels better, I don't think it really is. If ds1 could go to ds2's preschool I'd have him there in a heartbeat for the education.

I really think at the end of the day who your teachers are makes all the difference. The school can be kind of a factor but it's the homeroom teacher that the kids are with 7ish hours a day that really can make or break things.

Basically, I agree with Beth's observations on it all. :)

Beth

[jenmcadams]

See, I think this is interesting. At our last school *I* felt at home. I liked the school, the admins and felt like they were all genuinely nice people who meant well. It felt very much like a family. Leaving that school was hard for DD and even harder for me. The new school is much less like a family. It's larger and less personal. I walk in the office and they have no idea who I am.

Right now we're facing the very real possibility of two kids in two different elementary schools next year. We'll make the decision in April, but my K DS might need to move to a Center GT program and we'll (probably) have my 3rd grade DD stay at our neighborhood school (even though she also qualifies for the GT program). I LOVE our current school...everyone from the principal to the secretaries to most (if not all) of the teachers knows me by name. I volunteer a lot and really like most of the staff and the environment. It might just be that my DS needs a different setting to meet his needs. The schools nearest to us with GT centers are all larger and it worries me. I'm pretty nervous about the prospect of switching...

I think it's important to keep in mind that what might be the perfect (or a very good) fit for one child is not always the right fit for your other DCs. We're lucky that I SAH, but even so, if we do make the switch for my DS, coordinating two drop-offs and two pick-ups is going to be tough...