[meemee]

in your opinion which school is more important?

what i am trying to do here is figure out where to put my money.

should i spend the mucho bucks at elem or at high school.

and i thought i'd ask you moms of teenagers here.

dd is in an elementary school which she is not too fond of. i have already changed schools once and i have learnt to accept that for dd right now school is just tolerable.

i am saving my energy and money on a good high school.

looking back i find i put in a lot of time and effort in trying to find a good elem program for dd.

and i look back and see she is doing ok - not excited. she is willing to tolerate it.

all of you mamas who already have a child in high school or graduated from high school, is the amount of energy i spent in trying to find a 'good' elementary school all that important? i mean yeah if your child is miserable, its a whole different story. what if your child is ok with it?

dd is almost 9. i look back and find omg i have spent sooo much wasted time (at least i call it wasted) on worrying about little things, that now in retrospect i find is not that big a deal at all.

i cant do both. if i have to move dd to her kind of school, it will mean a huge issue with ex. that's the reason why i have saved that for middle perhaps but definitely high school. school will be an hour away.

what do you think?

 

[whatsnextmom]

I don't fret a lot about the future personally. I make the best choices I can make at the time. Sure, if there is a "maybe" on the horizon that requires I throw my child's name into a lottery, I'll do it. However, what my children need and want changes and the choices we've made "at the moment" are never choices I would have guessed we'd make years prior. I've said it before but I'm big into "family health." Having grown-up in a home where one child's needs meant entire family sacrifice every single year (emotional, financial, time).... well, I won't get into that. I'll just say that for us, we have been careful not to make choices that result in family hardship. That doesn't mean we haven't sacrificed... it just means we try to keep things in perspective.

Your DD may just not be built for traditional schooling whether it's a "good" school or not. That doesn't make her less intelligent or capable. She just may not LOVE school for a while and that's OK. If there is a specific issue, for example, she is anxious in large groups and you could find a school with very small class sizes, then sure, go for it. However, if she's just generally doesn't like it but is doing OK, I'm not sure any money or time you throw at a new school is going to make a difference. Always look. See what the options are. Just be realistic about those options. Personally, I reccomend putting that energy on outside pursuits.... activities that she can love and be passionate about that bring her in touch with interest-based peers. That can make up for a lot of "blah" at school.

 

[meemee]

Quote:

Originally Posted by whatsnextmom

Personally, I reccomend putting that energy on outside pursuits.... activities that she can love and be passionate about that bring her in touch with interest-based peers. That can make up for a lot of "blah" at school.

wise words mama. wise words. yeah that was how i tolerated school too. presently that's what we do now. its teh afterschool that keeps dd's life in balance. yeah i stopped looking at schools because dd's definition of 'good' and others are poles apart. plus the curriculum remains the same. the real part she hates about school.

hmmm i will have to rethink high school which is way away in the future and see our priorities when dd is old enough. to spend the two extra hours travelling back and forth between school and home or carry on with the crappy school nearby (we are in an aweful area for hs) but focus on outside school activities.

 

[enkmom]

At our house, it turned out elementary school was more important. My daughter was never going to like school in any way, shape or form. Her elementary school gave her a solid foundation, so that when she really petered out in high school - she still went, just didn't put much effort into it - she had the tools necessary to unschool herself lots of the time. I wish I had had the courage to just let her leave school, because she did a fantastic job learning what she wanted to know, on her own schedule. Without the concepts learned at grade school, I'm not sure she could have done as much.

For my son high school was more of struggle academically, and I believe if he had attended a school that didn't do as well teaching the basics he would not have done as well as he did.

 

[karne]

High school, if I had to make a choice.

 

[zebra15]

High school. My reasoning is that high school is the springboard for university and trades education. High school is where scholarships are earned, 'grades' are given merit, activities hold more weight, and the years post high school do look back upon those years for references etc. I would hold off and look for a high school. This is what I'm doing with DS who is currently Home Schooled. I'm deciding if we are going to HS for highschool or try to find a traditional school that will fit his needs and give him that 'springboard' toward more scholarships, references, and other such things that he so desperately wants but isn't willing to/can't tolerate traditional school to get.

 

[mtiger]

High School. Many/most parents can handle elementary ed stuff pretty easily. HS? Not so much.

 

[mar123]

I teach in a public high school; I can tell in an instant which kids came from the local private elementary school. They are SOOO much better prepared for the rigors of what we do in high school. On the other hand, some public elementary schools tend to be better because they are smaller and local, whereas depending on where the high school pulls from, the kids can be dealing with some rough stuff. I think it really depends on the schools themselves, the area and the kids.