Choosing a Private School

You have started the process of choosing a private school for your child. You have done a bit of reading about the reasons for sending your child to a private school. You have listened to the suggestions and recommendations of family and friends. You have explored dozens of school websites. None of this is particularly difficult to do. It just takes a lot of time, right? Not exactly. Here are five reasons why you might be looking at the wrong schools.

1. They don't offer the kind of curriculum you are looking for.

You need to think carefully about what is taught and how it is taught in each school. And you need to do this important bit of thinking well before you create a shortlist of schools for you to visit. The school's curriculum, how it is taught, and the quality of the faculty should be at the top of your checklist. That's how important an issue this is as you go about choosing the right school for your child.

Listen to the Head of the Math Department at Nichols School in Buffalo, New York explain the school's philosophy about teaching math specifically and teaching in general.

What makes this part of the process a bit daunting is that private schools are unique. They won't all offer the same courses and they most certainly will not approach teaching them the same way. By

As you think about sending your child to private school, there are so many choices to consider that, for most of us, we shut down. It is simply too much to deal with all at once. That is the point of this little essay. I don't recommend dealing with all those heavy-weight questions in one pass. Take each one and work through it systematically from beginning to end. Then move on to the next question. In other words, break the project into bite-size pieces just as you do with any big project or challenge in your professional life.

Use your tablet or smartphone to record your ideas, thoughts, and questions. Google Drive, OneDrive, or Dropbox will help you share your findings and data with interested parties, such as your spouse and trusted legal and financial advisers.

OK, let's get to those big questions. Each one needs to be discussed and reviewed thoroughly. The results of your discussions will impact the next issue.

Boarding school or day school?

This fundamental question needs to be sorted out first. Why? Because the answer to it drives everything else in so many ways. I can hear some of you thinking, "Boarding school? I would never think of sending my child to boarding school." Indeed, you may have some legitimate concerns about not wanting to send your child to a residential school. But in the long run, perhaps that is best for your child.

What is your genuine concern? Finances? Letting your child

In the United States a foreign language private school is a school in which the primary language is not English. 80% of our population speaks English, therefore it follows that private schools which teach in other languages are few and far between.

I also want to point out the difference between a K-12 private school which uses a language other than English for teaching and intra-school communications and the proprietary schools which offer instruction in foreign languages. K-12 private schools which teach their students in German or French, for example, offer a comprehensive academic curriculum with specified goals and objectives for their graduates. The proprietary foreign language schools generally aim to have their students achieve fluency at varying levels in a foreign language. For example, you could learn how to speak Spanish in a business setting starting at a beginner's level and working your way up to advanced proficiency.

Reasons Why You Would Consider Foreign Language Schools

Now, back to our original question. Why would parents consider a foreign language school for their children? For several reasons the first of which is job-related. Let's say that you are a German national who is an executive with a German firm with locations in the United States. Your firm decides to post you overseas in the New York office. Your children are ages 10 and 12. What will you do about their schooling? You know that the posting in New York is likely to be no more than three to

I think that any young person who pursues excellence in anything is probably going to come away from that experience with very healthy doses of discipline, structure and purpose. Whether your child wants to be a really good hockey player or the best app writer ever, he will have to decide on his goals and figure out how to get there. That's what military schools are also very good at doing. They offer the kind of rigorous discipline and structure which is every bit as demanding as the kind of athletic preparation a top-ranked runner gets, every bit as focused on teamwork as the members of the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra are, for example.

Discipline

We know that discipline produces good results. It is never enough to be a genius and have a myriad of wonderful ideas and projects nobody else has thought of unless you possess the attribute of discipline. All those wonderful ideas and projects will come to naught without discipline. Fortunately discipline can be taught. Military schools have discipline figured out. They know how to teach discipline. And, no, I am not talking about the popular image of kids in a military school somewhere being yelled at every minute by some nasty drill sergeant. Those days are gone. Military schools these days are filled with students who want to get ahead academically and make something of themselves. Military schools allow that to happen.

The kind of discipline which you will find at military

When making an important decision that will impact your children's lives, you need to have all the facts in place.

Aside from the basic questions of cost and affordability, there are many different factors to consider when choosing where to educate your kids. “Selecting a private school, like so many things in life, requires care and attention to detail,” believes Judi Robinovitz, Certified Educational Planner and Founding Owner of Score At The Top Learning Centers and Schools.

We compiled a list of the most important factors to consider when choosing a final private school for your child.

Academic Style

The #1 reason parents invest in private schools is to get the best possible education for their children. Keep in mind that not just raw academic strength is important, but the style of the learning environment and if it meshes with your child’s personality. We are learning more and more that each student learns in different ways and responds to different types of teaching styles. Some children may thrive on the competition while others succeed under reduced pressure. Others may learn quickly and need more advanced subject matter, while their contemporaries struggle with the basics.

Mike Weagley, CEO of elite tutoring service Lotus Prep, suggests that parents ask themselves, “Is the school too hard or too easy for my kid? Does my kid flourish in a looser or more structured, rigid atmosphere? Is the school a pressure cooker or