Thinking ahead to high school

[Montessorimom8]

Ds's montessori goes up through 8th grade. Just seeing what the 8th graders are doing I feel our local public high school cannot compare! Granted ds is very young but I'm already thinking ahead (and saving ) If anyone's montessori goes through 8th grade what are you thinking? Public? Parochial? Private? Please enlighten me!! I'd almost rather ds start somewhere where everyone is 'new' as in Parochial high school so he won't be the new kid on the block as a teenager. What do you think?

[anotherKatrina]

My Montessori kid graduated from 8th grade and went on to a private high school. The bulk of his classmates are now at private, IB (a public accelerated program) or a highly rated public h.s. in about the same neighborhood as the middle school.

I think you're smart to be thinking about this now (as in start saving money!), but you'll have a definite set of variables to work with when the time comes that don't exist right now. He'll be new wherever he goes, so don't let that be the basis of your decision, although it may be a variable...you don't know yet. Your son will most likely have an idea of where he'll want to go and he'll let you know about it. If you were really curious, I would suggest maybe arranging to have a chat with one of the middle sch teachers or parents to get a feel for the general migration patterns. Most likely 2 or 3 schools will pop up as the most common options. Then there will be the more 'specialty' schools that you could choose based on your son's interests/talents.

You're really lucky to be in this position!

[Flor]

Our town has only 2 high schools, both public. That's it. Ds's Montessori can go to age 15. Some kids go on to public high school, but the director says that most kids aren't interested in going to public high school at that point so that can go to community college, do independant study through a charter school, homeschool, or some combination.