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another SD post and public vs. private school...
we are dealing with a similar issue as the other poster from earlier today...
our options are either to renovate our home in the city of pgh and make it a fabulous home with everything brand new or, move to the burbs were we buy a similar house for probably 100K more. If it wasn't for the school district it would be a no brainer to renovate as it will be cheaper and the house has a nice yard and beautiful city view. Plus if we renovate we would be saving $$ on buying/selling houses (commissions, closing costs, etc). however, as most of you know the school district in the city of pgh is pretty bad and it could be difficult getting into a charter school or magnet school. Private elementary school isn't cheap and private high school is even worse (of course). we have 1 child now but might have another so potentially very high costs in schooling.
we need to decide whether to risk doing the renovation (which is stressful) and stress about the school district or just move to a good school district (which will be more expensive and will have a longer commute time to work). my post is a little different than the original poster's because the school districts out her way are both decent whereas city of pgh nothing is really very good.... (correct me if i am wrong).
so....what would you do???? i've been thinking about this non-stop for about a month and my head is about to explode.... maybe you will say something that haven't considered... TIA
Re: another SD post and public vs. private school...
what area of the city are you in?
every time i hear a friend of mine boast about the city schools it turns out they are not actually in public school but some expensive private school (hello, shadyside). i don't know of anyone that opted to stay in the city and do public school, they all went private. one couple refuses to have another child based completely on the fact that they don't/can't pay for private school for more than one child.
we moved out of the city simply because we knew we didn't want to be in the city public schools. however, we miss it. i've always said if we could find a way to afford private school and a decent area of the city to live in i'd go back to city living (once we could relocate back to pgh). we were in the south hills and it was too suburby for us.
Both MrsAmers and Lishie are sending their kids to Pittsburgh Public. If they don't respond, you may want to page them. I know a lot of people who went to PP and are quite successful.
Growing up, we lived in the city but we went to Catholic school which we attended even after moving to the suburbs.
I think to make the blanket statement that all Pittsburgh City Schools are bad is completely unfair. I think it depends A LOT on which school you are talking about, the principal, the teachers, etc, etc. Yes, there are financial troubles. But due to state budget cutting across the board *every* school district is either cutting programs or raising taxes. (Thank you, Governor Corbett.)
I?m not sure what part of the city you are in. We are in the East, so I really only know the schools around us. I would have been comfortable sending DD to our neighborhood elementary, but we preferred a few of the magnets, so we did the magnet lottery and got our first choice. Neighbors who didn?t get their chosen magnet school were able to get their daughter in at Colfax, which I have heard nothing but stellar things about. Other neighbors send their kids to different magnets, and we also know neighbors who use charters and private schools. It is true that if you don?t get into the magnet or charter of your choice and you don?t like your feeder school, you can find yourself in an undesirable position. But there are *lots* of options, and as stated before in other posts, parental involvement is a key part of the equation.
Again, I don?t know where you live and what your feeder schools are. A+ Schools has a number of different reports on their website about the PPS and on the PPS website you can find a factsheet for every school in the district (enrollment, diversity, test results, etc). I would recommend that you find out more about the schools near you before you make a decision.
If we were or are in the future, completely dissatisfied with our PPS experience, then we would consider another option. But we love our house, our neighborhood and our proximity to work/shopping/etc. So we weren?t interested in leaving our forever home just because PPS isn?t the highest ranked school district in the region. PPS is actually ranked really well compared to other urban school districts in the country and the benefits of the Pittsburgh Promise are appealing as well.
Just my $.02.
We're in the east end, and my son is starting the magnet montessori school in a few weeks. We bought an old Victorian 8 years ago, and have been slowly rehabbing it. I did a lot of looking into the schools a few years ago when I was pregnant with my first. While I didn't like the feeder school my neighborhood fed into, I found several magnet schools that I was interested in, and the Montessori was one of them. There are several families in my neighborhood who have young kids and who are sending them to the public schools. My next door neighbors are doing Frick Environmental, a few are doing Montessori and a few others are using Liberty and Dilworth. My cousin is in the south and hers went to Carmalt, and the oldest is now a junior at the science and technology high school and is doing really well.
I wouldn't totally rule out the city schools if you love your neighborhood and house.
I've heard good things about the Minadeo/Allderdice area schools.
When we moved to PA last year, we didn't feel comfortable enough w/ the different areas to make an informed decision about the schools in the city. Instead we chose to move to Mt. Lebanon. But I'm a little sad, b/c i've loved every city nrighborhood i've been to...
Love mt. lebo too, though.
Joseph Henry was born at home on March 9, 2009
Nora Mae was born at home on October 30, 2011
the house is in greenfield so that would be greenfield elementary school.
i think the high school would be allderdice. i've heard things at dice are going to get worse now with there being less teachers and no longer having the 2 track system. seems like a huge gamble in the event that our son doesn't get into a charter or magnet school. and likely dice is the only high school option other than private school. true that things could change by the time he is in high school....but, such a risk.... currently central catholic is ~10K/yr so for 4 years =$40K and if we have another kid it would be $80K and of course that will only be more expensive as the years go on. i'd rather save the $$$ to help with college not high school.
if we knew our son would def get into an awesome charter school that would solve a lot of the problem. but, i am worried about the possibility of him not getting into anything like that (maybe not for a few years??) since its via lottery...
I am a product of PPS.
I feel that that up until high school I had a great education. I was in the gifted program from 2nd to 12th grade.
That said, I was not prepared for my freshman year at PSU. The english teachers were not focused on grammer, instead it was more reading comprehension. To this day I am still very insecure about my grammer and I loathe my written communication skills.
I however grew up in the south hills, the PPS in the east end are better. I would not send my son to a PPS in the south hills, however I would if I lived in the east end.
I'm a huge advocate of the PPS and a PROUD product of them. The school district is never going to improve if people who value education decide to flee when their children are school aged. Just my $.02.
I also live in Beechview and I think Gabe will go to Banksville Elementary and I'm really excited about it - although it would be super cool if he went to Beechwood like I did!
Leiann, I'm so happy to hear your family had a good experience with the PPS!
Sami, I didn't know you were a PPS girl. Which high school? I went to Brashear.
Best compliment I ever got "You dont look like you went to Carrick" true story.
Hahaha. Oh my goodness. Yeah, I've had a few eye-brows raised at me when I've said that I graduated from Brashear. Eff em