I'm a product of the public school system. I didn't read all the preceding posts about the age range and assumed it was about middle and high schoolers. Why the fack does a 4-year-old have a phone or iPad anyways.

Well it kinda delved into a pre-k discussion WRT technology in the classrooms. That's what I thought you were referring to.

MAROON said:

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For ordering Uber eats at lunch

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"I would like one Happy Meal and one Lunchable and two pudding snacks and two Capri Suns"

Now that AI is going to wipe out most of what most of us do, you might consider the new St. Peter High School, "A Career & Technical high School."

maroon10 said:

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20k a year? BARF

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I pay $35k or so a year for Episcopal and slightly less for ROBS. Yeah, it sucks.

Buck Turgidson said:

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For those who are just starting to consider private schools for their young kids, my first piece of advice is to visit all the schools on your list and really check them out in person. Published test scores and other stats only go so far. I started researching schools as soon as it was confirmed that my wife was pregnant. My initial list of schools that I picked based upon online research wound up being 100% different than the schools we really chose after visiting them.

A series of in-person visits is really the only way you will gain a comfort level for the specific people who are going to have a huge influence on your kids inside and outside the classroom. Besides teachers, you'll have coaches, fellow students and their families all playing a big role in your kids childhoods. We have been very fortunate to have our three in schools filled with like-minded families. That means their friends and the families of those friends are the kind of people you are glad to have your kids hanging around, doing sleepovers, playing on sports teams with and eventually dating (my kids are not quite old enough for that yet). These are the people who become the volunteer coaches on the sports teams, chaperone field trips or coach on cheerleading squads, etc.

You must also decide if you want a serious religious component or not. We quickly realized that some "Christian" schools don't really walk the walk. We wanted the real deal, with chapel, Bible classes, regular prayers and a Christian perspective infused into the curriculum. In our school's application process, you must submit letters of recommendation from you pastor indicating that your family regularly attends church services and is involved with church activities. Other Christian schools do not require that and take the stance that they will evangelize non-Christian students once they are in. Many other schools are just going through the motions or are purely secular (and usually woke).

Our kids are not enrolled in one of the 2-3 schools whose names everybody recognizes (St. Johns, Kinkaid, Strake), but they still receive a superior education compared to even those public schools that people tout as being near the top. We've had kids transfer in from well regarded, suburban public schools and struggle to catch-up academically in even the on-level courses.

Also, just because a school doesn't send every graduate to an Ivy League institution, doesn't mean that a self-motivated student wouldn't get into a highly competitive university. Our school sends a high percentage of each graduating class to A&M and Baylor, but we also send kids to MIT, Stanford, Rice, Tulane, service academies etc. each year. The point of all that is to say that published stats about previous graduating classes don't guarantee any particular result for your kid. You have to look deeper than those stats.

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Sounds like Second Baptist to me. I was on the Board at ROBS and we had a lot of kids leave for Second two years ago. I have heard great things about the education from friends who left ROBS for Second and how Christ-focused they are.

I heard First Baptist Academy dropped their affiliation with NAIS. Or maybe it was another woke entity like ISAS. Basically told them to Eff off.

Yes on FBA -- Actually the most recent one dropped (past two yrs) was ISAS. Their review committee was like a clown show.

So what sorts of actual stuff is this NAIS org pushing in private schools?

Al Bula said:

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So what sorts of actual stuff is this NAIS org pushing in private schools?

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CRT. Gender confusion. Wokeness. basically extreme leftism. And has little to do with education. It's activist white leftists who don't have many kids trying to indoctrinate our kids.

At 20k a year does anoyone expect to see actual ROI when you factor in TVOM or are you just accepting the loss

St. Rose, St. Ambrose, and OSL are the options for Garden Oaks / Oak Forest.

OSL is a hidden gem on 60 acres and is about $11k a year. Class sizes are about 20 a class, 2 per grade elementary through junior high. Smaller for Early Childhood. Takes me about 8 minutes to drop the kids off from our house in Shepherd Park Plaza.

They also actively test and were one of the first to have a student success center for students with dyslexia and learning issues.

https://www.oslschool.org/

If you're Catholic, St. Rose is the common option.

I have 3 kids at JP2 this year. We moved them from St. Cecilia last year and have been very pleased. Hoping my 8th grader receives his Strake Jesuit acceptance this afternoon .

That's interesting.

I've been hearing about somewhat of a mass exodus from St. Cecilia over the past several years. Something involving a rogue principal and them not wanting to record official grades.

Is that all true or just exaggeration?

There's truth to what you've heard & it was not meeting our expectations.

That's a shame.

It was an excellent school when I wss growing up.

Sounds like they need a change in leadership. Although these schools all seem to have waiting lists so I'm not sure it's effecting the bottom line yet.

megs03 said:

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I have 3 kids at JP2 this year. We moved them from St. Cecilia last year and have been very pleased. Hoping my 8th grader receives his Strake Jesuit acceptance this afternoon .

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If you know - what's the HS Pipeline like for JP2? Do a lot of JP2 kids end up going public for high school or do they more so stick within the Catholic System (and if so which ones)?

We live very close to JP2 and want to send our kids there in a few years. But being close to JP2 means we are not close to any Catholic High Schools which somewhat stresses me out for the future. Even Strake/St. Agnes would be a bit out of the way on the way to work every morning.

Diggity said:

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That's a shame.

It was an excellent school when I wss growing up.

Sounds like they need a change in leadership. Although these schools all seem to have waiting lists so I'm not sure it's effecting the bottom line yet.

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I don't know when you grew up, but in the early 2000's they had some real issues.

Diggity said:

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That's a shame.

It was an excellent school when I wss growing up.

Sounds like they need a change in leadership. Although these schools all seem to have waiting lists so I'm not sure it's effecting the bottom line yet.

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I don't know when you grew up, but in the early 2000's they had some real issues.

What's the better entry point to private schooling? Pk3 or kinder? Are you at a disadvantage if they apply for a kinder spot?

We really like the kids Montessori daycare and it has the attendance option up until the kids go to kindergarten. But will that be a disadvantage to apply for a kinder spot at a private school vs a pk3 spot?

Honestly I never went to preschool and when I attended St Thomas More it was half day kindergarten...how times have changed.

One of our neighbor's sends their kids to OSL. They really like it. The campus with all of that land is definitely a huge plus. Sounds like they make good use of it.

Can throw St. Theresa into mix for GOOF folks. Especially if you work downtown or I-10 west as it's on the (mostly) on the way

We have our kids at SBSUM which is a university classical model. PK-4th grade is 2 days a week in school and 2 at home. 5th-12th is 3 days at school and 2 days home. Our 1st grader is doing 3rd grade level according to public school. The goal is for almost all to graduate with an associates degree. We love the model of school but it is not for everyone. Majority of homes have one stay at home parent, especially during the younger years. Once kids hit 5th grade they are doing the home days mostly by themselves.

Will we get all the money back in an ROI, no but we know what our kids are being taught and it lines up with our Biblical world view.

Jerzzy said:

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What's the better entry point to private schooling? Pk3 or kinder? Are you at a disadvantage if they apply for a kinder spot?

We really like the kids Montessori daycare and it has the attendance option up until the kids go to kindergarten. But will that be a disadvantage to apply for a kinder spot at a private school vs a pk3 spot?

Honestly I never went to preschool and when I attended St Thomas More it was half day kindergarten...how times have changed.

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Unfortunately it's going to be hit or miss.

My oldest joined the new school in Kinder and that class was full. Our youngest son was already there, so that helped convince them to accept him first.

My youngest son is in PK4 and there will be plenty of room in Kinder to grow that grade.

Certainly Kinder has the most turnover though as many who go to pre-k will go into Kinder at public schools.

For those in the Galleria area, Memorial Lutheran is a good school to look at.

Many of their middle schoolers went onto Strake and did well. That was actually why they just started a high school. Their kids were doing well enough at other schools, that they thought it made the most sense to start a high school.

The Headmaster is great and you can be very comfortable that there will be no DEI or wokeness showing up.

Gotcha. My era was early to mid 90's.

Seems crazy given their location that they can't get their crap together.

It really depends on how the school prioritizes applicants. Siblings, alumni, staff all get top priority at our school. There were 36 open slots for PreK-3 but they took 32 of them. After that it came down to Parish members and the timestamp on the application.

In kinder the class size increases to 50 so some more spots open up.

We are also seeing more applicants for 5-7 grade than in the past. I suspect the applications to keep rising as long as HISD is a dump.

With regards to Montessori school kids. Some of them have a hard time adjusting to a more structured learning environment. There is a boy in my son's PreK-3 class that is just now starting to get comfortable with the structure. Every kid is different but something to be aware of.

We heard some of the same things. In talking to a family there it seems like the new principal came in and made changes that were not well received by some of the staff and parents. But now after a few years of being in place things have calmed back down. We heard good things about him recently.

St Cecilia also received the National Blue Ribbon school award last year. https://www2.ed.gov/programs/nclbbrs/index.html

I think it comes down to personal preference as to where is the best fit for the parents, kid, and school.

glad to hear they're sorting things out. You never know what to believe with the rumor mill.

each school being a good fit for different kids/families is a good point. You can't be everything to everyone.

Diggity said:

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You can't be everything to everyone.

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good points.

You say private school taught some how to read and write
And they taught some how to count
I say they taught them how to buy and sell
Their own body by the pound

Jerzzy said:

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What's the better entry point to private schooling? Pk3 or kinder? Are you at a disadvantage if they apply for a kinder spot?

We really like the kids Montessori daycare and it has the attendance option up until the kids go to kindergarten. But will that be a disadvantage to apply for a kinder spot at a private school vs a pk3 spot?

Honestly I never went to preschool and when I attended St Thomas More it was half day kindergarten...how times have changed.

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Pre-k will usually be tougher, at least in our experience. Most all preschoolers proceed on to the next preschool level in the same school making it tough to get in. Pre-k up to kinder is the easiest transition point. Most schools will expand the amount of spots they have from pre-k up to kinder, and a lot of the people who had their kids in a church's pre-k and were willing to pay for that, aren't willing to pay for kinder when a "free" option is available in the local ISD, so some spaces that were never available in pre-k are now available.