How to Choose a Good Private School

When my husband I decided to pull our girls out of the local public school system and put them into the private school sector, we at first thought it would be an easy choice. And the choice to actually do it was easy. It was the decisions after that original choice that was difficult.

We didn't have any idea what we had bitten off and were now trying to chew. There were private schools, and then there were PRIVATE schools. There were parochial schools and Christian Schools. There were schools that you have to be a member of the church that sponsors the school in order to attend. It was a headache waiting to happen.

So like any good journalist and parent, I began to do research. It took us almost 3 months to make a decision, and I think we visited every private school within a 20 mile radius of our home. This morning I was cleaning out my desk and found the notes I'd made while on the phone with the admissions counselors from all these institutions. I threw them into the trash can, and then went and dug them out again.

Because, I thought, if we had trouble making that decision, wouldn't other parents be having those same problems? So I took my notes and came up with a guide to choosing a good school.

The first thing you should do is get a local phone book and make a list of the schools in your area. You might not be interested in all of them. For instance, if you are raising your child in the Catholic Church, you probably aren't going to want to send them to a school that is sponsored by and teaching a religious curriculum from a Baptist Church.
Then get on the phone and make an appointment to tour the school.

You can ask questions of their admissions counselors over the phone, but the best way to handle this interview is to go down there and check it out for yourself. Be ready with your list of questions. Take your children with you, especially if they're older than 11-12 years old. If they're going to be spending every week day for 9 months in the classroom, it's important to allow them to have some input. You're the parent, so the ultimate decision is yours, but they should be encouraged to express their likes and dislikes about what they saw.

Here's the list of questions that I asked.
1. What percentile did their students rank in national test scores. If the school does not offer standardized tests to their students, find a way to get out of there, and fast. You want to know that the teachers are teaching, and not just filling an empty chair in the classroom. The easiest way to do this, is to see where their students range in terms of education with other private and public schools.

2. What kind of curriculum are they using? We were looking for a school that would expound on the religious values that we were implementing in our home, BUT we also wanted a school that would build on the core subjects of Math, Science, History and English. What we searched for and ultimately found, was a school that used a biblical approach to teaching those subjects. Our girls will not only be grounded in the Word, but will be grounded in Calculus, Physics and sentence structure, and they will be ready for college when the time comes.

3. Are they accredited? This may seem like a dumb question. It's not. When I first started looking at schools, I had no idea that you didn't have to be accredited to open a school. It takes several months to go through the accreditation process. Some schools don't want to mess with it. Which is fine, but some colleges don't want to mess with taking their diplomas either! The school we chose is a member of the Arkansas Non-public School Association and the Association of Christian Schools International. ACSI is the largest Christian School Association in the country.

4. Are all of their teachers certified? Again, you might be wondering why you need to ask this question. Some schools don't require their teachers to be certified. This goes hand in hand with accreditation question. No certification-no accreditation in most cases. There are a few of the extra-curricular classes that you don't have to be certified in order to teach in a private school. Home-economics, art, music, and writing classes are a few such subjects.

5. What do they offer academically outside of the classroom? My girls are and have been involved in National Honor Society, a robotics team, Olympics of the mind, and the county spelling bee. There are other schools in our area that don't participate in any of that. If your kids are planning to go on to college, you might be looking for a school that offers SAT or ACT prep classes. If you have a student that loves to build things, you might look for a school that has a Scientific, Critical Thinking team and goes to county, state or national competitions.

6. Do they have organized sports? If you have a social butterfly that loves to dunk a basketball against the rival Christian School across town, this is the ultimate question. Our school is part of the Arkansas Christian Conference, which is made up of teams from 4 counties in the Central Arkansas area. Our teams go on after the conference season is up to participate in both state and nationwide tournaments in baseball, basketball, volleyball and football. We have cheerleaders. Some of the schools in our conference have dance teams.

7. Do they have before and after school care? If your children are young, and both parents are working, having a school that provides extended care hours is important. If they don't, and you are still interested in the school, try asking about upper classmen that might be interested in after school childcare. I know admissions counselors who have a list of high school girls who are willing to baby-sit after school for a fee of a lot less than normal day care. They help with homework, feed them a snack, and become a "big sister" to the younger students.

8. What about a summer school program? Some schools offer a summer day camp type program for elementary aged students. If you work full time and year round, this might be something you're extremely interested in.

9. Ask for permission to let your child spend the day at the school and "shadow" another student. Then talk to your son or daughter about their day. Were the classes fun? Were the other kids friendly? Was the cafeteria good?

10. Ask for references from some of the other parents in the school. Find out what their likes and dislikes are about everything from the teaching staff to the curriculum to the extra-curricular activities. Are their parents organizations you can get involved with?

Choosing a good private school for your child isn't the easiest decision you'll ever make. As a parent, it can certainly be one of the most important.