<p>jrpar, I’m just curious and not being combative in any way, but, as an earlier poster pointed out, does that mean that you believe a student who attends private school should be able to avail themselves of the music, sports and arts programs at their local public school if they so choose? And if not, how is that different from the guidance department (assuming it is for college counseling)?</p>
<p>SBDad, yes, I think they are legally entitled to do so in NY. </p>
<p>I certainly understand why doing so would be unfair in some states given how the school funding works there, but given how the school funding works in NY, I don’t think it is. Families of private school students pay the same local property taxes which fund the school districts. </p>
<p>NY state also mandates that public schools pay for textbooks for private school students (in addition to the busing). There are some bells/whistles to this mandate that I’m not familiar with since we never pursued this reimbursement.</p>
<p>I know several private school kids who have participated on the local public school’s sports teams, and a few homeschooling families who have availed themselves of a wide range of the school’s programs. In most cases though, I’m not sure why a private school family would want to use the public school services. I don’t think it is done very often.</p>
<p>IMHO, if your private school isn’t providing adequate guidance, you’re being ripped off. Demand the services you are paying tuition for.</p>
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<p>My experience is that they also vote NO everytime the school requests more funds to provide better facilities and a better education. Their reasoning “My son or daughter doesn’t go to the school. Why should I pay for it?” It’s your own fault your son or daughter doesn’t go to the public school that you are ALREADY contributing to.</p>
<p>You’re either in or you’re out as far as I’m concerned. I also love how “public school isn’t good enough” but if you need special education of any kind, the private school sends them right over even if their out of district. If public school isn’t good enough, it isn’t good enough!</p>
<p>Also, with the homeschool and athletics… can’t happen at my school. To be eligible you must be passing 20 hours per week or something like that. A homeschooled student’s “credits” don’t count.</p>
<p>Not my experience hops scout. The value of my home is directly tied to the perceived quality of the local public schools. We’ve always supported the budget, as well as the school foundation fundraising efforts.</p>
<p>My son, a public HS student, actually got help from guidance counselors at two private schools because he is looking Catholic universities. I have no doubt that our public guidance counselor would be happy to lend advice to a private school student. I guess it just depends on the school. Guidance counselors all have different levels of knowledge regarding hundreds of schools.</p>
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<p>Not wishing to dis GC’s but in our experience in public high school, this was not the case. Maybe ours were the “different levels” of not knowing a lot except about schools in this state and the neighboring ones…not nearly hundreds.</p>
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Not my experience AT ALL. We’ve used both public & private, yet always vote yes on school funding questions. Plus support all the town fundraisers to improve specific programs. As do all the private school families I know. And here in NJ, property taxes are huge because they are the primary funding source for the schools. Half of the property tax bill in my town goes to our school, and another chunk goes to the county to fund Newark & other crumbling urban districts. </p>
<p>When D was in a Catholic grammar school, she took advantage of the public school gifted & talented program offered on weekends. She could have enrolled in SAT prep as a high school Catholic school student, as well. I would imagine, but never have tried, that if she wanted to participate in a sport not offered by her Catholc school, she’d be allowed to try. (Really not sure.) In our town, all grammar school & middle school sports are offered through the parks & recreation department, not the BOE, so participation issues have never arisen to my knowledge. At the high school level, the Catholic school sports are far superiour to the publics. I would hope that a kid in town who isn’t strong enough to make the team at a regional Catholic would be given an opportunity at the local public. There is more than a hint of animosity on this thread toward those who choose a private school option. Why? Finding your kid’s “fit” seems to be the mantra on CC; shouldn’t that apply to their high school years as well?</p>
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I think it’s a little bit of jealously (you can afford it and/or you have a private school that’s close enough and good enough to be worth it), a little bit of smugness (we’re better than you - because we after all chose the more diverse school) and a little bit of ignorance (I know a lot of people vote against our school budget - a lot of assumptions made about who they are.) </p>
<p>I’m quite heartened that private school parents here at least are all saying that in general that aren’t voting down school budgets. (Speaking as someone who benefited from a great private high school, but did choose to send kids to public.)</p>
<p>Given how most public school guidance counsellors are overwhelmed with the number of students to whom they are first obligated (those who attend the public school where the GC works), and especially with college admissions-- I can’t imagine a GC agreeing to it. The only way I would agree to it, if I was the GC, is if I did it in my off-hours, and the person paid me for my expertise. If I was a parent of a public school kid, in that particular school, knowing how swamped the GC must be, I’d be furious that someone was coming in from a private school to use her services, and in effect, forcing her to take time away from her first obligation-- again, the students who attend that school.</p>
<p>I agree with the above poster who said that if your private school GC isn’t doing her job, then neither you nor your student is getting what you deserve with your private school tuition.</p>
<p>Mathmom, those who vote no on school budgets in my town do so to protest the nepotism, cronyism, and bad administrative practices. It’s really not wise, from merely a selfish standpoint, to starve the schools that are an important factor in property values. It’s shortsighted, at the very least. Our kids will actually be in the school system for a very small fraction of the years we will be supporting the schools through our taxes. I can argue for supporting the budget/public schools from a very selfish position (keeps up property values, keeps deviancy down, keeps a steady supply of competent teen labor for local businesses) or purely altruistic one (all kids deserve a good educational foundation.)</p>
<p>My D’s all-girl Catholic, by the way, is far more diverse than our town public. That could be said for the elementary Catholic both kids attended for a short time. In fact, every Catholic option in our area is more diverse!</p>
<p>It’s all kind of moot without knowing exactly what services the OP is looking for. Maybe it’s something innocuous, e.g. hearing the GC’s junior year presentation, being able to attend college rep sessions. Or maybe not.</p>
<p>Calmom, about 11% of children nationwide are educated in private schools. If they all started attending public school, it’s easy to see that per-student spending would decrease. Of course, the states and local educational districts would have to either raise taxes or decrease services if all those private school students went to public school. This isn’t rocket science. School districts should send thank you notes to parents who send their kids to private school.</p>
<p>The only real losers in private education are the “educational” unions – who practically froth at their collective mouths at the idea of any teacher anywhere not paying dues.</p>
<p>^^That’s a ridiculous statement about teacher’s unions. At my campus several teachers aren’t members of the union and have felt no pressure at all from union reps about opting out.</p>
<p>I have several adjuct professor friends who are under enormous pressure to join the union. Even those who teach business management!</p>
<p>Is this a new union perhaps? The existing union doesn’t seem to be pushing itself on anyone in our K-12 system.</p>
<p>“School districts should send thank you notes to parents who send their kids to private school.”</p>
<p>I think there is a bigger issue here than money, at least from my point of view. I believe a foundation of our county and key to our future success should be to provide a quality uniform public school system available to all children. By syphoning off, in general terms, higher performing students and their involved parents, the public school system is weakened. What if all the resources, time and energy devoted to private schools were suddenly allocated to the public school system. It seems to me it would raise the overall quality of education in our country.</p>
<p>To me, this is the larger and more important issue. If the public schools were poorly run and everyone was forced to stay there, people (people with money and influence) would be much more motivated to stay and fight rather than flee.</p>
<p>Thank you for your support. lol (oh man am I going to get heat for this)</p>
<p>My daughter goes to private school and when I tried to register her at our local HS’s summer school program for SAT prep was told I had to pay out of district fees. Such insanity.</p>
<p>SBDad, how would you enforce that and what would you do (if you ruled the world) about families seeking a religious education?</p>
<p>I have often wondered whether my private-school son could avail himself of any of the public school perks - summer school sports camps for enrolled students, for example. Our public schools are awesome, and my other two kids went/go there. I tried it for my son, but he got absolutely lost in even a classroom of 25 students - he is quiet and would just “zone out” and the teachers didn’t have the time, resources or disciplinary methods to keep him on track. So he is in a private school with 15 kids per class with a philosophy of “do your work or else…” that works with him. </p>
<p>We did not abandon our public schools, I would rather he were there, but he is not a special ed case and they couldn’t provide what he needs. The “quality uniform public school system” does not work for every kid.</p>