Interview With a Parent Series

In an effort to provide you with stories to which you can relate, we have decided to interview parents who have gone through various transitional educational experiences with their children. We feel that, by reading these personal stories, you may be able to garner some peace of mind for your own situation.  If you are willing to share your own experience, please send us an email at scooptoo (at) gmail (dot) com.  Thank you to all who contributed to our interviews so far.

Parent: This parent, who wishes to remain anonymous,  has a daughter in the DPS system and a son attending a Denver private school.

Q: Describe your transitional experience or scenario.

A: I chose to send my second child to public school and keep my first child (five years older) in private school.

Q: What circumstances led to this decision?

A: I chose to try public school due to affordability, desire for more diversity, and frustrations with the mixed age classroom in the private school my son attends.

Q: What type of school did your child previously attend and what type of school do they attend now?

A: My son attends a secular private school with mixed age classrooms and a strong emphasis in paying attention to developmentally appropriate teaching and appealing to the interests of the children to promote their learning.  The school has a strong emphasis on the joy of learning and respecting creativity.  My daughter attends a public school with a focus on enrichment and a commitment to small class sizes in the early years.

Q: How do the educational experiences differ?

A: My son’s private school experience seems much more fun.   He loves going to school every day and the attachment to his teacher seemed less important than his excitement about what he was doing.  He learns easily and has not had any academic problems.  My daughter learned to love her public school because she enjoyed her teacher so much.  She seemed to have more time when things were not very interesting for her, but she learned a lot.  By the end of the year she was equally happy.  I still regret that her experience of learning is not as joyful as her brother’s and still think of changing back to private school if the class sizes in public schools increase with advanced age.