Anyone here chose to put kids into a private school?
Do you mind sharing your reasons why? How did you think about the financial aspect of it? Thanks!

I grew up going to private school. I thought it only made sense to send my kids to private. But when looking at the cost of private school plus saving for college tuition, it was out of reach for us. My oldest goes to public school. We have been really happy. My other two are still in daycare but I plan on putting them into public school too.

Also, I feel the diversity of people is wider in public than private. I felt the circle of people I knew growing up in private school were fairly privileged.

Good luck on your decision! You can always change your mind in the future whichever way you choose!

Hi. Chose to send my son to catholic school. We are in an area where you don’t always get to go to the school closest to you and also not first choice for the schools in the area assigned.
Smaller teacher student ratio. Decided my child’s education was more important than another Starbucks or dinner out or new piece of clothing. I will have my time. But right now his education is his time to learn. Just my two cents.

Since I can't afford a nice house in the best school district in my area, I rent a studio apartment in it.
It's a lot cheaper than private school.
I just use the place for storage and of course, any school mail.

The main reason we send our kids to private is they can take all 3 (baby through kindergarten). It’s awesome only dropping off once.

That said, the small class sizes have allowed more flexibility for my oldest who is very bright. He has been able to get much more advanced work while staying with his peer group. There is also a faith component that is very important to our family. The teachers are so loving and our kids love them. The school is also Spanish immersion so it’s offered our children the opportunity to learn a second language. It’s been the perfect situation for us but, when we move in 2 years, we’ll reevaluate public vs private then.

I want to follow this because we are thinking about it. I went to private school because at the time Indiana schools were ranked really low in the country. I believe it still is and the area we live is ranked well but it means more families are moving here and the schools are overcrowding

Kids are still tiny but husband wants to do private school. We live in an area where the public schools are not particularly great and we don’t really want to relocate to one of the suburbs with good schools. Husband went to a fancy private school nearby and wants to do the same with his kids. I went to public school.... but honestly it was a really really nice and highly ranked public school in New York. The financial aspect is daunting but we do both have pretty high paying jobs. We’ll see how it all plays out in the end. I would like to send our kids to the local elementary school because I think it’s probably “good enough” and then we can save some money and they’ll have friends in their neighborhood. But then probably around middle school we’ll make the switch

I went to a private school up through middle school and then went to a public high school. Overall a good experience and probably put me ahead academically and was very formative to my character. I participated in extracurricular stuff so still had a wide group of friends from other schools etc.
We send our kids to private school for similar reasons. We started at a small private school when we lived in a metro area and it was very expensive but they did tuition aid/reduction based on income. We took advantage of that because I was more junior and making less $ then. It was religious but did not expect or require families to agree or follow the same beliefs, they just made it clear it was part of the curriculum. It was such a great community of teachers and parents and they incorporated STEAM (including art and music) and taught the whole child, not just the brain. We probably could not have afforded to stay there forever with more than one kid though.
We moved and now are at a slightly bigger private school. We live in an area with good schools but our private school is probably more diverse because they have busing available and kids can attend from a wide radius. They also do tuition reduction based on need/income. It is also religious and in this case they do expect families to somewhat subscribe to the same core beliefs. They also have sports, art, music, STEM program, small class sizes, great facilities, and we think since our kids spend 8-10 hours a day there it is important to teach a well rounded curriculum including character (mind, heart, body). Various public school experiences with friends, neighbors, and my husband’s experiences etc. seem like there can be great teachers but a lot of challenges with administration and/or students.
As far as cost, it is a choice for us and we spend a lot on this as a priority rather than probably nicer vacations or cars or whatever. We’re able to pay for it but it’s not like I’m making Partner $$ either. My husband does work at a university so we will have access to significantly reduced tuition for college so we’re kind of viewing that as a trade for paying more for education now. But even without that, we’d probably still choose private school. We both have student loans from college/grad school so would be fine helping our kids with college and having them take some loans if needed.
Happy to talk more if you want to DM.