Types of Schools

I've been writing about private schools for twenty-five years. I always remember how little we knew about private schools when we started looking for schools for our girls. My late wife had attended several private schools when she was growing up in New York City. So, she was at least familiar with them. She spoke favorably of the small classes and individual attention she received. I attended the Westmount Public Schools growing up in Montreal. Those schools were run along English public, i.e., private, school lines and might as well have been private schools. They had small classes and lots of individual attention. They also had strict codes of discipline.

However, when it came to identifying private schools for our children, our choices seemed limited. Before the Internet and smartphones, we had to research schools by phone and snail mail. We asked around and learned about schools from friends and associates. Fortunately, we lived in the suburbs, which always seemed to have a school or two for us to consider. In any case, in the 2020s, you have some truly amazing tools to help you identify the right school for your children.

So, let me save you time and lay out a road map for your research. Your decision process will include consideration of cost, suitability of schools in your area, the reputation of schools and their teachers, curriculum, athletic programs, and extracurricular activities programs, among other items.

The first thing you need to do is decide when

Editor's Note: I will disclaim upfront that my eldest daughter went to a Waldorf School in the primary grades. Being creative people, we were impressed with the creative side of the curriculum. Our daughter's two years at a Waldorf school were overall a good experience. ~Rob Kennedy

On the fringes of traditional K-12 education are movements like Montessori, Waldorf, and Reggio Emilia. They offer parents different approaches to early childhood education, and in the case of Waldorf schools, they continue on through high school. Searches on Google and YouTube will yield a lot of information to help you explore the subject of this article, a Waldorf education.

The founder

Austrian philosopher and scientist Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) established what we now know as the Waldorf or Steiner schools. He opened his first Waldorf school in Stuttgart, Germany Emilia 1919. A hundred years later, there are over 1,200 Waldorf schools worldwide.

According to the Biodynamic Association, "Long before many of his contemporaries, Steiner came to the conclusion that western civilization would gradually bring destruction to itself and the earth if it did not begin to develop an objective understanding of the spiritual world and its interrelationship with the physical world. Steiner's spiritual-scientific methods and insights have given birth to practical holistic innovations in many fields, including education, banking, medicine, psychology, the arts and, not least, agriculture."

This video describes the Waldorf education.

All About Elementary Schools

As a parent who has faced the challenge of finding the right preschool and elementary schools for his children, I can tell you first-hand that it's a process. Each of my articles below addresses a part of the process. Hindsight tells me the secret to success is allowing yourself plenty of time to look for schools. The more research you do, the more questions you ask, and the sooner you will find a school, or perhaps a couple of schools, that will suit your needs and requirements.

Admissions to Primary and Preschool: A-Z

For many reasons, it can be more challenging to get your child into a preschool or kindergarten than into a prep school. Here's an overview of the process. Use it as a starting point for your school search.

The Scramble for Places in Primary Schools

It is almost as tricky getting your child into a good Manhattan or Bay Area primary school as it is getting them into an Ivy League university. The same is true of most major cities in the United States. Once again, start your search for schools as soon as you can.

Your Options for Child Care and Preschool

Beginning to think about your childcare and preschool options? Some thoughts and guidance here. Reliable, well-run daycare establishments are what you are looking for. Don't rely on the daycare's website. Do your due diligence carefully and thoroughly.

This video discusses finding the right daycare or

Google, Bing, and Yahoo will find anything you are looking for provided that you ask them correctly. The problem with these search engines is that if you aren't careful, you will end up with far too many results. And 99% of those results will not relevant to you and your needs. For example, when I search for "private schools" on Google, I get 1.5 billion search results. Nobody has time to look through all those schools. With that in mind, here are a few search tips to help you search more efficiently.

Save interesting sites.

Before we start searching for schools, take a few minutes to set up a Google or Word doc. Save interesting school websites for easy reference tomorrow, next week, or a month for now. Doing this will save you valuable time and keep your search process organized.

Use quotes.

When you enter the term private schools without quotes in Google, Bing, or Yahoo, you will get millions, even billions, of results. By surrounding your search term with quotation marks, you will restrict the results to precisely what you have specified. For example, "private schools raleigh nc" will produce a list of private schools in Raleigh, North Carolina. You will still have to filter the results to find schools which match your requirements.

Be precise.

If you are looking for Jewish schools in Nashville, Tennessee, enter jewish schools nashville, tn You will still have to filter the results, because depending on the keywords which various

What is a choir school? It is a private school serving the choristers of a cathedral, college or large parish church. The choristers can be boys or girls or boys and girls depending on the institution with which the school is affiliated. The United Kingdom enjoys a long history of this genre of private school. As the Choir Schools Association notes:

"Choir Schools are amazing places where young choristers enjoy learning and playing. Their work takes them into stunningly beautiful buildings on a daily basis. There is no better educational and musical training start for boys and girls aged seven years and up who love to sing."

Residential and day choir schools have seen a steady decline in their numbers since the 1950s for three reasons. Two devastating world wars in Britain drastically altered the social and economic landscape in that country. Changing values in modern society throughout the world have seen parents choose alternative forms of education for their children. Finally, the tremendous cost of educating children in a choir school has forced many sponsoring institutions to close their schools.

Why send your child to a choir school?

I remember a parishioner years ago asking me to support her son's application to Saint Thomas' Choir School. He was an only child and, frankly, she was the quintessential velcro mother. I was pleasantly surprised that they were keen on the residential choir school at Saint Thomas Church in New York City. It was a good solution