The Inevitable School Tours and Debate for Your Emerging Little Person: Public versus Private (aka a

So it is inevitably that time of the year in which we as parents must begin to make a decision on where to place our child in school as they've become school age appropriate. Public or Private? Secular or non Secular? Traditional or Montessori? Monetary costs versus convenience of drive and pick up. The list goes on and on as a parent as well as the anxiety. Who knew that your entire child's future depended upon the choice you make for their kindergarten (please get the sarcasm in my tone right now), but in the moment and with it being your child it can feel like that. And I haven't even put in what one must think about in terms of placement if you are a minority family. Do you want your child to be the token (does this promote a future complex on who they are) or should you focus on what is best academically for where they are without giving thought to the social. As a clinician you can see why the gauntlet had become so taxing in our home. I myself am a product of public and private, my husband is a product of public so the debate runs long in my house but can also be viewed from both lenses. We did go the private route as the public charter we liked in our neighborhood was a lottery and there was no guarantee for placement and so we applied to the top schools in our state based on our son's functioning and at the recommendations of his current placement. He was accepted into all of the schools so we then had to weigh it down to what best suited the attitude of our family, as we are very invested in whatever school he attends (be it from volunteering in the classroom to helping with fundraisers and everything in between) and where he would be personally touched and grown as an individual the most. This narrowed it down to two schools lol (told you this process wasn't an easy one) and ultimately we chose the one out of the two that had the more vigorous curriculum for where he was currently as a learner and where he already had friends. What goes/ will go into your decision process? This topic is definetly a two parter for me (-: