Questions about private high school applications for 2e kids
Hi -
We are gearing up for high school applications. Our child has been in a non-traditional 1:1 program for middle school after two different elementary school settings (public and private).
I'd love to hear how other parents of 2e kids have approached the process -- it's demanding for all families, I know! I'm working hard to reduce the list of schools to ones I think where my kid can thrive -- but I'd like to hear if people reached out to learning specialists directly? How to balance the overload of visits and attention demands with a kid's understandable anxiety about a big transition?
We are familiar with some of the less traditional high schools, like Orion, Orinda, and Holden. I'd like to also consider some of the more traditional (if project-based) environments like Bay or Maybeck, for context. We are also looking at Millenium.
In other words, I'm less interested in recommendations for schools than for tips on what has worked well in balancing the need for the kid to feel able to participate in the application and decision process without overloading them. Thank you!
Parent Replies
We started a shared spreadsheet and the first tab we had what my daughter, me and her dad had for goals for high school / what we were looking for in a high school.
Second tab we listed all the possible schools that might be a good fit. Me and her dad went to open houses as many of them as we could and narrowed it down to a list of schools we thought would be a good fit based on what we all were looking for for our daughter in a high school. We only brought our daughter to visits for ones that both she and we agreed would be a good fit / wanted to apply to (turned out only to be 3). We ended up at Millennium but had also applied to (and got into) Maybeck and St. Mary's for reference.
Good luck - it's definitely a lot but helpful that it's a relatively short time frame to get it done in (doesn't drag on forever). I wish you well.
I highly recommend u consider San Francisco Waldorf High School. It may seem a bit far to travel; however, our kid had great success with the logistics of getting there on time and with the ease of transport in general (we live near Ashby BART): It was simply one BART ride, and then transfer to Muni; and the Muni train stops directly in front of the school. San Francisco Waldorf High is absolutely project based — your kid would love it! And they make the admission process super easy — no long forms to complete or excessive “personal statement” requirements. The academics are top-notch; nevertheless, after c. 2-hours of somewhat traditional class work, the kids are engaged for the remainder of the day with visual arts, music, PE, dance, and various horticultural/nature projects. There are also sports teams to join — along with the usual clubs — but add too lots of outdoor education adventures. The class sizes are very small (‘round about 13 students at the most), so lots of personal attention. All in all, a really unique and beautiful learning experience.
We started by attending Open Houses and school tours on our own- without our son. There were many schools that we were able to weed out right away- knowing they would not be a good fit. We looked at many of the same schools on your list and there were big differences- some obvious possible fits and some clear “no gos”. Once we had our short list, we let our son check out the websites and confirm he was onboard with applying. He only attend the interview and shadow days for schools where both us (the parents) and the school felt were a good fit. Some things we considered and saw a lot of variation on…use of technology for non-education related activity in the classroom, is the focus on just accommodations and getting them through high school or do they have a college track curriculum with structured support to build skills, availability of clubs and social events.