Sorry for my tardiness in catching up after my vacation. I'm still mulling over this issue.
We have heard back from the school. They have said that we will be getting some financial aid. It's not everything we asked for, but it is enough for us to put both children in the school. I know that we can now afford it (at least for this year) without giving up the extra activities we have the kids doing now. DH and I just need to decide on whether or not we want her there.
We have submitted the application and gotten the ball rolling at the private school for next year, but it's not finalized yet. We submitted the application to the JK program (not nursery), but the school said that when she meets the teacher they would bring in the nursery teacher at the same time so that we can all have a discussion together. My fear is that they really aren't open to putting her into a JK class, and that they are bringing in the nursery teacher as well as the JK teacher so that they can team up and say "look, she really belongs in Nursery school!" without even knowing her.
Since DD is right at the cut-off age, if we put her in Nursery then she'll be one of the oldest, while putting her in JK means she'll be one of the youngest. I *know* that she would fit well as the youngest in the class because her brother is older and all her friends are older than her. My fear is that if they put her in the nursery program, she wouldn't fit in with the younger kids and would be beyond them. Putting her in nursery program at the private school is also another year that we would have to pay. It's hard for me to swallow the pill of paying thousands more dollars just so that she can go to a glorified daycare program for an extra year, when the public school JK program is free! (I know the private school nursery program is more than that, but I just can't get past the "nursery" label... kwim?).
I don't believe the private school is very flexible or open minded, and I expect strong resistance to putting her directly into JK, but how could they possibly know what's best for her after just one meeting? My instinct tells me (I've been wrong before, but not usually) that they won't believe us when we tell them she's ready for JK (their reasoning being that she's 7 days younger than the age cut-off).
My feeling is that if she isn't going into JK, than we should call the whole thing off and go with the public school. But now even that prospect introduces a complication because they've agreed to help financially to put her in their school, only for us to turn around and say "thanks but no thanks", which would feel to me as though we've insulted them. I don't want that to add bad blood to the relationship, considering how great the school HAS been for DS.
To answer a PP, we are in Canada, and the public school education is great here. I honestly believe that if I compared the public school with the private school, that the public school would win out in the "academic" category (DH doesn't necessarily believe that, but neither of us have any empirical evidence to support our beliefs). The private school is more geared towards the whole child, not just in an academic capacity.
so many things to consider... I'm no further along in this than I was before my vacation
