Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Private School-Is It Worth It for a Gifted Child?

It's a frustrating process. I try to focus on one year at a time. I think, "Is this the best place for my children right now?" Getting worried about the future is too difficult because things change constantly - new principal or different teacher or changes to curriculum. Just breath and try to make the best choice available at this moment.

I chuckled at the price you quoted. Around here the norm is 40k and we go to a bargain school at 19k.

I am sure my son can handle a much faster curriculum, particularly in Math. But so far we found it to be worth it, because it is simply less torturous. Lots of PE, art, and music. The curriculum just seems a bit richer in other subjects too. It makes a difference whether a child likes to go to school or not. This is particularly true in the earlier years where the public school follows the common core religiously. I think by late elementary, the pace may pick up a bit. For now, my son is happy where he is even if he does complain about math being too easy.

Wow. That's ridiculous. What was their rationale/evidence? (By now, I know they don't always have any logical reason...)

We were told they don't deal with kids like him. (We found out about 8 months ago he is on the ASD spectrum (formerly Aspergers). We also know (one of the teachers at our public school has a friend who teaches at the private school) they do have 2E kids at the school. They had a new admissions director last year when we were looking. She only lasted the year. We received an invitation to come for a visit about 2 months ago. Needless to say, he aren't going forward with that process again. DS is in a happy place right now. I think the only benefit for us seeking a gifted school at this point, would be the enhanced science. DS STILL talks about the 2 days of science class he experienced during his visit.

Well, around here, that seems to be the general range. Meaning $8K to $18K.

The $18K is the standard-issue "elitish private school with some very wealthy kids". My wife distinctly disliked her experience there, so we are not sending our kids there.

I'm honestly not sure *why* it is so inexpensive here, now that I think about it. It's not like we suffer a lack of extremely wealthy people.

JohLaw, Now I am curious about where you live. Lots of wealth but cheap private schools.

Low tuition could be due to competition. I live in the Bay Area, which certainly has a lot of wealthy people and high overall costs. Oddly, private school fees are one of the few things here that aren't insanely high (e.g., compared to a million dollars for a 1200SF house on 6,000 feet of land).

There are loads of K-8 private schools around here --- as in, pages and pages of listings in the small-font full-page tables that Bay Area Parent publishes. I imagine that sheer numbers keep the fees low. Many or most (?) of the Catholic schools charge less than $10K annually (a lot less if you're a parishioner). Many of the secular ones are in the $10-15K range. The high schools are pricier, but there are fewer of them. Even so, that means low to mid 20s for most of them, with the odd small one below $20K. We don't have many of the 35-40K+ schools here. That price point seems to be the rule back east (?).

I sent you some local real estate listings for you to review.

Here in SF proper, private schools (independent, not parochial), do indeed run around $30K/year. (Parochials are less expensive.)

That's for K-8; HS costs even more. (Random example: Urban, which runs $42K/yr for soph-sr. http://www.urbanschool.org/page.cfm?p=170)

I almost choked on my lunch! Here the private gifted are about 18k.