This past two/three weeks have been a trail of visiting one school after another trying to figure out where to put current 8th grader next year. We have so many options and so many good schools that I suppose we are spoilt for choice. Even the public schools are not bad. The down side with the public is the size – the local one currently has 2400 students and is bursting at the seams.
So I narrowed the choice to three and visited all three. Each had definite advantages and each had one or two slight disadvantages.
First was a Catholic HS – great people, superb academics (these guys take 28 – 30 credits to graduate), and they are less than 10 minutes away. Down side – its a covenant school. We moved here 18 months ago, and although I am Christian, I am not totally comfortable with the local church and the cathedral is great but too far. The other one is nice but I am hopeless at getting there at 8am. So to enter this lovely school I have to get a pastor to sign that I belong. I didn’t quite make it to that point yet!! One part of me wanted to go and explain, the other part wanted to forget the idea.This one was also the cheapest tuition wise.
School 2 was great. Not a school covenant school but Christian and that was fine. The school though is nearer 25 minutes or more in rush hour traffic. It also takes the kids traipsing across the globe on missionary work which I am rather dubious about. The other advantage though was that it may be able to take child number 4 as well – having two kids in the same school would be great, because there is no school busing in Ga for private schools.
Both 1 and 2 need ssat before the admissions package is complete and they do not give the final verdict until April 5th.
School number 3 is the high school for the school that kiddo is already in. The academics are not as hot as the Catholic one, but they are very good. Downside to this one is that we have to accept or decline by the end of February to get a place and get a $2000 ‘incentive’ , and it is the most expensive (though not by much). This was the only one that I was able to drag the husband to - took a major guilt trip to get him there and take an interest in his child’s education!
Finally this morning after many heated/ very heated discussions on why we were not going to the local school, he finally signed on the dotted line and we are through this argument for another few years (I hope). We elected finally to stay where he is, as he has only been there two years (we move around alot), and we are now free to concentrate on child number 4.
Finding the right school is a mix of location, curriculum and finance. There is probably not a perfect school anywhere, so we just make the best choice we can for the kids.
Tags: 9th grade, finding a school, private schools
