Thanks, everyone, for the advice. I will certainly explore Thinkwell & Plato. Tuition at our school is very high, so I'd actually be saving money even if I used CTY for everything.
As far as public school goes, our home district is not, nor will it ever be an option. We have one of the highest bullying rates in the state & athletics are more important than academics. My son was literally physically & verbally abused by a bully in elementary school. The MS is way worse that the elementary school for bullying. Our home district is also an "at risk", title one district with the main focus of bringing up the bottom.
That said, I looked at sending him to other public school districts. The district I thought would be a good fit charges 10K tuition for out of district students.. Less than private school, but still a lot of money. After touring the middle school and speaking with the principal, I realized that even this highly regarded district, with many, many bright students, is not the right fit. Basically it boils down to the fact that my son is much further ahead of their middle school program & they would have to patchwork a program with the HS to meet his needs. They didn't seem very eager to do this, when they can get another tuition kid who isn't going to be as much work for them.
I did explore another public school district that's offering a STEM Academy next year. Admission will be very competitive. Students will attend the neighboring university for STEM,, take classes with college students, and earn up to 40 college credits & a college transcript. My son was thrilled when he toured the university. They have one of the top ranked engineering programs in the country with a state of the art building & labs. This seems like a great fit & it's FREE! Downside, the program hasn't started yet & though they offer MS, it's just their regular program. The true academy doesn't kick in till HS.
Right now, I'm waiting to see which direction our school is heading. They've been thru several Heads of School since we started there. After our first year, the Head who had been there for 30+ years retired. The most recent Head started the iPad program. This person does not have any experience in education & it shows. The iPad program has been a mess because this person decided Apple education IS the curriculum. It's crazy! The MS teachers (who are not the same lower school teachers we know & trust) were told to select apps and just teach from them. Many of the apps don't work consistently causing time lost. In October, the MS language arts teacher announced at back to school night that she didn't know what books they were going to read because there's no budget for ebooks! (state law requires local districts to fund / provide text books for private schools, but ebooks are not part of that fundingt) A properly certified & experienced administrator would know about this funding arrangement & would have considered this well before OCTOBER. The Head is so stuck on this "no paper" policy that the school can't get good old fashion books till they figure out this mess.
Most teachers are unhappy with the iPad program. The iPads were recently serviced because students added a second Apple ID & could download gaming apps, etc. Teachers had the kids watch movies all day because they cannot teach without the iPads! Last year these same teachers did just fine teaching with paper & pencils. Makes me think the teachers are having a silent revolt. The Head claims the network is protected but a MS student was just suspended for sending porn videos to all of his classmates thru the system. Teachers have implemented new policies for iPad use during the classroom, but during recess and lunch kids are still using them inappropriately. These are very smart kids and they will figure out a way to sneak onto Minecraft, Facebook, etc. One is smart enough that he's hacked the school's system twice already.. It all boils down to the Head pushing this iPad program without the proper research & support. The school is very small (less than 200 pre-K thru 8) and lacks people with technical experience. Having a Head of School with a degree in business and no experience as an educator has created nothing but problems. This person has created a cold, professional environment & fired many staff. Among many other concerns, the Head wants to get rid of tracking because it's unfair.
All that said, a parent group is forming to try and save our school from heading down the wrong path. So, I'm holding onto hope that they will get rid of this Head and find a person who understands how to implement technology into the framework of challenging academics among other things.
There's been so much talk & research about teaching to different learning styles, it amazes me that folks fail to recognize that this applies to the use of technology as well. I believe the study about not retaining info learned via electronic media may be correct. There are connections the brain makes when learning and many of those connections are not being made when kids learn from a screen. I wonder what the impact will be on our youngest children who are literally growing up attached to iPods/iPads, etc.
