@middling Thank you for this post! I hear you. Our daughter is an 8th grader in a very similar situation (at a good private day school where she is doing well academically, but is not as happy as I’d like her to be). She has applied to several schools, but we are not sure if we will let her go. It is agonizing. Sometimes I truly think BS would be a great experience for her and she would shine; other times I worry that a new school is not necessarily a magic fix, and that additional electives and sports opportunities are not enough for us to give up our remaining years with her at home. I agonize over this every day, and March is going to be a very difficult month for our family. Unfortunately, we do not have any good boarding schools within driving distance. We live in Florida, so we limited her search to the southeast, but even so, the closest school is an 8 hour drive.
I feel for you as you struggle with this decision and I hope that, whatever you and your family decide is best, will work out better than your expectations.