At this rate i'll be bankcrupt soo...
Posted Feb 5th, 2009 at 03:13 PM by Mrs weasel
One more school fundraiser! This time aimed at only parents. Our school throws a big fun filled spring extravaganza just for parents every year. The aim is to attract more donations in the form of monetary contributions or property and equipment. We have never taken a part in it ever since we joined the school. The activities offered for the event are not the sort we enjoy or will participate in. this year being one of the room moms for the grade I had to contribute and I decided that being a part of a calling tree was the lesser evil. Long story short, how much donations are enough?
Majority of parents if they arent religiously inclined choose private school for reasons of, better education, safety and security. Situations like our, a very small town with only a few public school to begin with and then those school obliged to cater to all the community. As parents most of us want to control who interacts with our kids due to multitude of reasons. Along with pros there are a few cons to private education. Public schools exposes kids to others of different social economic backgrounds. They are govt.ly funded so have programs along with academics which can facilitate the education xperience for the students. Private school usually run on private funding and funds from the churches they are connected to. Even though private school teachers dont make significantly high then their public counterparts still significant amount of tuition goes towards their pay check. Same tuition is also used towards programs offered, school maintenance etc. this leads to xtremely, high tuition rates. Then to make up for remaining monetary needs the school arranges for the fund raisers and even though no one is physically twisting your arms you are xpected to donate.
I guess you cant have your cake and eat it too. For safety and security we have to pay the price, literally.
This rant is only about my diminishing bank account. They are many pros when it comes to private education.
Majority of parents if they arent religiously inclined choose private school for reasons of, better education, safety and security. Situations like our, a very small town with only a few public school to begin with and then those school obliged to cater to all the community. As parents most of us want to control who interacts with our kids due to multitude of reasons. Along with pros there are a few cons to private education. Public schools exposes kids to others of different social economic backgrounds. They are govt.ly funded so have programs along with academics which can facilitate the education xperience for the students. Private school usually run on private funding and funds from the churches they are connected to. Even though private school teachers dont make significantly high then their public counterparts still significant amount of tuition goes towards their pay check. Same tuition is also used towards programs offered, school maintenance etc. this leads to xtremely, high tuition rates. Then to make up for remaining monetary needs the school arranges for the fund raisers and even though no one is physically twisting your arms you are xpected to donate.
I guess you cant have your cake and eat it too. For safety and security we have to pay the price, literally.
This rant is only about my diminishing bank account. They are many pros when it comes to private education.
Total Comments 4
Comments
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Mrs Weasel, hope you dont mind but as much as i love your background, sometimes i really have to scrunch my eyes to read teh entries. Maybe you could try using a bigger sized font?Posted Feb 5th, 2009 at 05:42 PM by Ira
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I went to a public school, and as much as my journal would tell you otherwise, I came out pretty good. The kind of public school riff raff you're trying to protect your kids from is writing here in your journal. So, as much as I am insulted being one of those lowly public school types, I must be honest in letting you know that private school children will not create a better environment necessarily for your child. Its like any other school - as a child, you either find kindred spirits and you grow and blossom into a good person, or you fall into peer pressure and end up not being yourself. And that can happen anywhere.
Posted Feb 5th, 2009 at 09:36 PM by PyariCgudia
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^completely agree with PCG.Posted Feb 6th, 2009 at 12:29 PM by farishta2
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PG,
My rant was about the monetory donations asked of the parents in my and other private schools. I have nothing against public schools. In fact my older boys went to public schools until they finished middle school. If the circumstances were different all weasel kids would graduate from a public school. Big cities like Chicago, NY and Houston have very well structured public school system. I can say that cause all of youngsters in our family in big towns are in those schools. Unfortunately, small towns are a different story. Elementary and middle schools still have some structure and control cause the student body is still in the age group where teachers and admin has fairly good control. Even though by 7 and 8 grd some kids do start testing their boundaries. Now once in the high school, in a small town all of a sudden those 3-4 middles are merged in 1 large campus. Here you find drug dealers, skin heads etc. You get the point. It gets very hard to alienate yourself. You yourself might not be one of them nor associate with them but at one point or an other the paths will cross. The grade sizes are in hundreds and the small class size is 50+. With one teacher it is very hard to control the testy kids. I can only give you xample of my small town. Things maybe calming down now but after 9-11 being a muslim was worse then being a black in the south ( I live in the south BTW) at that particular time adults may not have resorted to aggressive behavior toward others openly but almost all muslim kids in schools had some negative xperience where other children and even in xtreme cases teachers were involved. In our small town there are 4 pakistani muslim families and 3 indian muslim. At that time only 2 of us had school going kids. Both of our children were harassed by other kids and in one case by a teacher. This is a public elementary and middle school. Much small student count and more controllable. Now imagine high school. I assure you all of the Pakistani school going kids here go to same private school. Our children are much safer their. Trust me.
Now having had 2 kids go to college 1 after another I tell you if it was a public school they would have had a much well rounded college application to fill out. More extra curricular activites etc. They would have had a well rounded xperience in high school which I truly believe that my kids are missing out on. I honestly believe American colleges are looking for a well rounded and not just an academically, nerdy, book wormy candidate. The student who are well rounded have a better time adjusting to college. That’s what the studies show. To make sure our kids were as well adjusted we provided activities and incentives etc outside of school environment. For our small Pakistani community this private school has so far created a much safer environment and showed us tolerance where public school failed to. They have been open to more understanding of our religion and have gone out of their way to accommodate the tiny muslim community in town. I am not saying that there isn’t negative peer pressure here at all. I am saying it is safe here for our kids. It is our job as parents and teachers to arm the kids to deal with peer pressure. Unfortunately, cant do much about discrimination.
IRA, I am looking for font size in my blog customization but cant find it. so for now i have just clicked the increase size thigy.Posted Feb 6th, 2009 at 12:53 PM by Mrs weasel
Updated Feb 6th, 2009 at 01:03 PM by Mrs weasel
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