Schools

What were your experiences and if you have children what do you choose for your children?

Homeschool, boarding school, public school, private school, charter school, special school? Co-ed or single sex?

What do you look for in a school...values, affordibility, curriculum? Proximity? What do you expect a school to teach your children?

Have you ever had to leave a school? Or ever been expelled?

Just to share my own experience...public (state) school..coed. Never expelled but I did not have a good time at high school. I thought high school was boring and not challenging enough. I cant recall many outstanding teachers and tended to do my own learning from books.

I sometimes wonder about homeschool if that works more for younger children or teenagers. In my town you have to live within school zones to attend..but some may make exceptions for out of zone students. Many families will move or rent according to schools in their area. Of course this means the richer suburbs have more resourced schools and more students in their rolls. Ive also noticed schools tend to divide themselves by race and ethnicity.

I am a firm believer that it was my job to educate my children, and schools, churches and other means were only tools I used to accomplish this.

I sent my children to public school, and I supplemented or corrected their education as I saw need. I had no trouble telling teachers/principals/school workers when they did a great job above and beyond, and no problem telling the school/teacher when I thought they were wrong. I volunteered in the school as often as my schedule allowed, and I still volunteer in the school, helping teach children how to read (teach a child to read and they can learn to do anything else). I taught the girls to always be respectful of the authority teachers and school workers had over them, regardless of how they felt about the person. If they got in trouble at school, I heard their side, the school's side and then punished accordingly or went back to the school and gave them more of the story and corrected any punishment they received. Neither myself, nor any of my children were ever expelled, but there were a couple calls to see the principal. They are now grown; one is studying to become a teacher, one is an EMT studying to become a doctor and one is battling cancer and the taking the treatments that go with this, but she hopes to finish grad school when she's better.

If I had to do it again, I might have home schooled for at least the first few years, but I would have sent them to public school later. Each person has to decide how to best educate their children, so my way isn't for everyone.

We home schooled ours.

If you homeschool, do you need to train as a teacher, or can anyone do it? Its not regulated is it? You cant just open up your home and make it a school for other children they have to be your own?

My brother did homeschooling and once or twice a week they met at a friend's house (his mother's house) to do some sort of homeschooling curriculum. I presume there was some type of licensing but it's probably pretty simple.


There are homeschooling "groups" which are designed for socialization as well as studying. #doesexist

It seems a lot of christian families homeschool I dont really know any secular parents that do it.
More and more parents are dropping their preschoolers into daycare though, you can do that from six months old...

It makes sense honestly. The annoying thing is the private christian schools are super expensive. Not every really understood that.


10k/year?!? how on earth is that fiscally responsible? Where does all that cash go really?

I enjoyed the one year I spent at one in the 9th grade. Opened my eyes to where I would want to teach but the cost is just absurd.


Same with "christian" colleges. 25k/year?!? 3 students pay for 1 teacher's salary (at the upper end).


I'm not about to go off on a rant so I'll stop. System needs work, I've had Godly experiences at places like that but I also did at public school. It was cool being in a "bubble" but it seems like poor stewardship and improper priorities at best.

Yes expensive...i remember one parent telling me school fees for a christian schoolwere $5000 a year which I thought was expensive compared with public schools that arent meant to charge any school fees.

She always asking people to go to school galas and other fundraising events. And the parents had to clean the school and do all sorts of things a caretaker would do.

I guess in comparison homeschooling is cheaper. I think its because christian schools dont have government funding?

Yeah I had to do work for my tuition. Somehow or another my sisters didn't pay theirs and they ended up putting my grades "hostage" for the family bill. I worked all year and it still wasn't enough for them. Removed posts, chopped down lots of bracken around the soccer field, cleaned the cabin (which was like a rec center) weekly (or twice not sure)...worked on sprinkler systems and STILL.

Almost got bit by a black widow too lol.

At least the scar has finally faded from the hedgetrimmers. Still had it in college I think.

So in the end I homeschooled for 10th grade and those credits wouldn't transfer somehow because of a payment thing "again" and I ended up doing 1 full year at public school and then in 12th grade I was technically a sophmore so I accepted the schools advice. Got my GED and went to college with my SAT scores.


I'm not a fan of "luxury christianity" and am firmly of the opinion that niceties can be cut out...it's when something is built to attract the rich I have a problem with it.


It's a deep topic...almost always there is something mismanaged and fiscally irresponsible. The bureaucracy and politics...

Hmm i remember feeling rather intimidated going to an interview for a private girls school that was christian - presybtyerian. I mean they had resources a public school could never dream of having.
I cant imagine what the fees were. But for some parents on higher incomes, thats nothing.

One workmate used to garden for one of the well known private girls school in my city. He told me that they had funding for underwater hockey field. You know stuff like that. Its so essential to have underwater hockey right?

Whereas i know some schools were some children have no lunch. Most schools you bring your own lunch and if you forget or dont have any, too bad.

It seems nobody here went or sent their children to boarding school. Ive wondered what it was like.

People that live out in the countryside would send their children but sometimes the school wouldnt have accomodation so they boarded with another family. At university sometimes you do live on campus, which I did for my first year. Its probably like that but its expensive too.

But being away from home when you are younger than 17 must be a bit traumatic for many children. Though it depends on you parents and the school I guess. Some people dont have great boarding school experiences. Others have a wonderful time.

Uh...underwater hockey?!?!?!? I have learned 2 new things today now I in no way expected to learn lol.

Found a book called 'free schools' which seems to answer my question, author is a dad of six children investigating the school system in australia. He reckons it doesnt matter where you send your children they will get the same results anyway so why bother paying more for private you just paying for the brand and smaller class sizes and the fancy buildings.

Also the intersting thing about single sex schools is they make teenagers go more crazy cos they are deprived of the opposite sex. I kind of notice some of my friends that went to all girls schools are just weird around men like they dont know how to act around them. I dont know if its the same with boys schools.

I find the whole single sex group thing in church a bit silly. Whats wrong with having a mixed bible study you there to study the Bible not each other.

Looks like the single sex education only came about because initially schools were only meant for boys.

Have been reading a book called Terms and Conditions, about life in english boarding schools for girls, 1939-1979. What horrors. I think its changed now, mostly for the better, as academic standards are raised for girls and they have more choice.

But this is only for middle and upperclasses, they would homeschool if they could find a nanny or governess. The parents themselves would be hands off. MOstly what happend is they would choose a school based on a prospectus and send them away for years on end. There was no recourse for the child and if they got bullied, too bad! Newcomers always got treated the worst.

Of the 20 congressionally authorized functions granted by the Constitution, education is not one of them. That
should be enough of a reason not to be involved, but there's no evidence of any benefit, and statistics show that great harm has resulted. It has cost us hundreds of billions of dollars, yet we continue the inexorable march toward total domination of our educational system by Washington bureaucrats and politicians. It makes no sense!
It's argued that if the federal funding for education did not continue education would suffer even more. Yet we see poor and middle-class families educating their children at home or at a private school at a fraction of the cost of a government school education, with results fantastically better--and all done in the absence of violence and drugs.
A case can be made that there would be more money available for education if we just left the money in the states to begin with and never brought it to Washington for the bureaucrats and the politicians to waste. But it looks like Congress will not soon learn this lesson, so the process will continue and the results will get worse.
The best thing we could do now is pass a bill to give parents a $3,000 tax credit for each child they educate. This would encourage competition and allow a lot more choice for parents struggling to help their children get a decent education.
[Compiled from Web sources]

Why dont they just send their children to christians schools then? Or dont they have any in america. Surely they could just make christian schools free. It seems absurd that the only christians schools would be super expensive.

In any country they want a one size fits all approach and a national curriculum otherwise they cant do their stats and set up exams across the country. I dont understand why its nation wide govt that decides the budget rather than local communities where people actually GO to school close to where they live.

Its always been private schools are very expensive in fees so not sure how poor families are affording private schools in your article Bingo, unless its referring to homeschools.

Regarding drugs, that seems to be huge problem in america, but it doesnt have anything to do with schools as schools everywhere have zero tolerance for drugs that I know of and kick students out for doing any. Its actually the community itself, not the school. What students are exposed to outside of school.

Rich kids are just as bad as those living in poorer areas they just get access to the classier drugs.