Big demand for small schools

Private schools attract students despite county’s renowned public education system

Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2005

Click here to enlarge this photo Rachael Golden⁄The Gazette Drew Zagami (left) and Michael Stephens walk together between classes at Georgetown Preparatory School in North Bethesda.

Dan and Carey Buckingham have five children.

A couple of years ago, the family’s morning routine involved each child donning a different school uniform and each attending different private schools in Montgomery County.

Don’t ask about the carpool.

‘‘It was a little creative work there,” Carey Buckingham said of the logistical nightmare. ‘‘But it worked.”

Despite living in a county with one of the top public school systems in the country — one that includes free transportation, incidentally — the Buckinghams enrolled their kids in the smaller, more controlled environment of private schools.

‘‘Realtors talk about location, location, location. Parents sending their kids to private school talk about size, size, size,” said Joanne Zinsmeister, founder of Educational Options, a Potomac consulting firm assisting parents searching for the school that best suits their child.

‘‘The number one reason parents give for considering a private school is size. They’re looking for smaller classes, a smaller school community and individual attention.”

The numbers speak volumes. There were 139,337 students enrolled in Montgomery County Public Schools last school year, while private schools across the county enrolled 31,215 students.

That translates into public high school classrooms numbering around 25 students, compared to an average of 15 students in private schools. Seniors graduating from public schools range from 182 enrolled this year at Poolesville High School to 718 at Montgomery Blair High School, according to Kate Harrison, MCPS spokeswoman.

Most private school graduating classes come in at just 80 students, Zinsmeister said.

While public high school teachers may see 150 students or more a day for less than an hour each, a teacher at Georgetown Preparatory School in North Bethesda, for example, sees no more than 65 students in an entire day.

‘‘Which means each kid is getting two and a half times more attention each day,” said Mike Kubik, a Latin teacher and wrestling coach at Georgetown Prep. ‘‘It’s really hard to slip through the cracks at some of these schools.”

Michael Horsey, Georgetown Prep’s dean of admissions, said he promises parents that the teachers and administrators will know them and love them.

‘‘The only thing you can get here is more personal attention,” he said. ‘‘You’re paying more money for more personal attention. That’s really what you get for your $20,000.”

The facts Despite living in a county with a strong public school system, many Montgomery County parents opt to enroll their children in private schools in search of smaller class sizes and more control. * Public school enrollment: 139,337 *Private school enrollment: 31,215 *Public school tuition: Tax-payer funded *Private school tuition: From $5,000 to $30,000 per year *Typical public school class size: 25 students, depending on subject and grade level *Typical private school class size: 12 to 20 students Source: Maryland State Department of Education, individual school officials

Private at a price

Yearly tuition costs at private elementary to secondary education schools in the lower county range from $5,000 to the low $30,000 range. In some schools, tuition does not even cover the cost of books and uniforms. The high costs are necessary, school officials said, to make up for the huge expense of running a school without funding from the government.

At Georgetown Prep, for example, tuition covers about two-thirds of the school’s budget for things like library books, computers, athletic equipment, school lunches, teacher salaries and building maintenance. The remaining third comes from the alumni fund.

‘‘Spending in the mid-$20,000s is not unrealistic,” Zinsmeister said. ‘‘Some area parents are spending $16,000 a year to send their child to a kindergarten. It’s an investment.”

Student financial aid is increasing at most private schools, she said, in part to keep pace with tuition costs but also to achieve a more diverse student body.

At The Bullis School in Potomac, for example, some 13 percent of the students receive a portion or all of their education for free. A quarter of the student body at Georgetown Prep receives financial aid based on need.

While Georgetown Prep is building a new state-of-the-art athletic facility and media center, the bells and whistles play little to no role when it comes to what parents want, Horsey said. It almost always comes back to more one-on-one time with the teachers. Not every student needs that kind of attention, but most parents want it, Horsey said.

‘‘The expectation is that kids are going to get the individual attention they require at a private school,” Zinsmeister said. ‘‘[Parents] often use the phrase, ‘They’ve slipped through the cracks at a larger, public school.’”

Buckingham, who will have two students in college next year in addition to two who are in private school, said she is sometimes conflicted in justifying the added expense of tuition.

‘‘We struggle with that because the public schools here are so good,” Buckingham said. ‘‘But this is kind of our legacy to them, that we’re investing in them through their education.”

Finding the best fit

Not that small class size is a guarantee of academic excellence, Zinsmeister said.

‘‘Many public schools in this area are as academically challenging as the best private schools,” Zinsmeister said. ‘‘A bright, outgoing child will succeed anywhere. It’s all about how motivated they are. For that reason, I don’t necessarily steer parents towards a private school.”

Indeed, the ratio of students attending public (81 percent) versus private schools (19 percent) in the county has remained constant in the past 20 years, said Bruce Crispell, Montgomery County Public Schools Division of Long-range Planning director.

‘‘We’ve pretty much held our own over the years,” he said.

Since the county often enrolls more ninth-grade students than it matriculates from the previous year’s eighth grade, Crispell figures some of that influx is from private schools.

‘‘I think ninth grade is the threshold of kids coming in [to public schools],” he said. ‘‘Larger schools mean a richer environment, a wider range of courses.”

Parents often value the demographic and socioeconomic diversity of county schools, Crispell said.

‘‘Many parents like their kids in a more diverse environment,” he said. ‘‘It’s a more realistic world. And kids are more likely to find friends with similar interests in a larger school.”

At several private schools, construction projects are in the works to either house additional students or to better serve students. Bullis, for example, is increasing its enrollment from just more than 600 students to 900 over the next decade by adding two new buildings and expanding three existing buildings on its 78-acre campus on Falls Road.

Fewer students translates into more opportunities to play on the school’s football team or sing a role in the school musical.

‘‘We have just 350 kids in our high school, yet every year we put on a musical, a revue, two plays and field 20 different athletic teams,” said Thomas Farquhar, head of Bullis, a co-ed, independent day school. ‘‘There is a guarantee of a breadth of experience for each student.”

At Georgetown Prep, if a junior or senior wants to play football, they are automatically on the varsity team, Kubik said.

‘‘We don’t make cuts,” he said. ‘‘Track doesn’t make cuts, swimming doesn’t make cuts, ice hockey this year didn’t make any cuts. We think it’s important for the boys to have that experience, that character building.”

Buckingham’s youngest daughter, Mary, 9, left St. Francis Episcopal Day School last year to attend Potomac Elementary School. Now in her second year in public school, she is thriving.

‘‘Mary’s not a child who’s going to get lost in a class of 30,” Buckingham said. ‘‘I have been very, very impressed with the education she’s getting there. Both the teachers she’s had have been wonderful.”

In Mary’s case, she needed a bigger environment, Buckingham said. At St. Francis, Mary was in one of two second-grade classes of 15 students each. She also wanted to play on the soccer team, but there wasn’t enough interest from the girls at her school, so she had to play on the boys’ team. Ditto for T-ball.

‘‘And that’s a drawback of a much smaller school,” Buckingham said. ‘‘I think it was really important for learning to read and write. But as the social part comes into it ... she needed something more.”

Choice offers peace of mind

Social issues also come into play in deciding on a private school, parents and administrators said. The schools attract parents looking for particular qualities, ranging from same-sex education to religious orientation. At Georgetown Prep, for instance, 75 percent of the students are Catholic.

‘‘The reason for the existence of private schools is parental choice,” Farquhar said. ‘‘Montgomery County has some of the strongest public schools in this country. But private schools offer a different product than is found in public schools.”

For Carey Buckingham, that product has a lot to do with familiarity.

‘‘I like [Connelly School of the] Holy Child because it’s a parent body that’s fairly conservative, and I know there are like-minded parents there who have concerns for their daughters just like we do,” she said. ‘‘And they don’t mind if I call them and say, ‘Are you going to be home tonight and you’re definitely not planning to serve alcohol?’”

Buckingham said that’s not a problem with Potomac Elementary School, but when Mary reaches middle school, she and her parents will be faced with a tough decision. Does she leave behind her friends who will move on to Herbert Hoover Middle School and later, Winston Churchill High School, or enter the smaller, known environment of Connelly School of the Holy Child?

‘‘Their friendships are really important to them and we’ll definitely keep that in mind for her,” Buckingham said. ‘‘But I think we’ll just have to evaluate what kind of student she is, and go and look at Hoover and Churchill both when we’re trying to make those decisions. For elementary school, Potomac’s been wonderful, but there are other issues that come into play in middle school and high school.”

If private schools are all about choice for parents, it sometimes means the reverse for the children enrolled in the school — at least when it comes to dress, because most require uniforms.

‘‘Even without uniforms, all private schools have strict dress codes,” Zinsmeister said. ‘‘It does make it harder for kids to express their individuality. But that’s welcomed by parents overwhelmed by battles over what their kids want to wear.”

For similar reasons, Buckingham likes the fact that her older children attend same-sex schools at Landon and Holy Child. While Brianna Buckingham, 15, a sophomore at Holy Child, resisted the idea at first, attending a same-sex school has not hampered her social life, her mother said.

‘‘She just went to her third homecoming this Saturday and she’s got, I think, one more to go,” Buckingham said. ‘‘So there’s no lack of interaction. My son who graduated [from Landon] last year went to four proms. You know, they get around. But it keeps that element out of the classroom, so the kids aren’t worried about looking silly or whatever in front of someone of the opposite sex.”

Conformity at private schools also goes deeper than wearing a school blazer. Students must buy into the school’s culture, Farquhar said, in order to succeed.

‘‘It’s all about being part of something larger. Life is not all about having things your way. That [realization] is a distinctive strength of all private schools, and certainly the case at Bullis,” he said.

Private school acceptance

That emphasis on conformity can be a tough sell to students entering their middle or high school years, however.

‘‘I was looking for a more laid-back environment with more kids, but still wanted an academically challenging school,” said Michael Garchik, 16, of Potomac, about his decision to leave private school and enroll at Winston Churchill High School for freshman and sophomore years.

But Garchik discovered that a larger school did not mean he made more friends and opted to return to Bullis for his junior and senior year.

‘‘Churchill had more cliques,” he said. ‘‘You’d think it’d be that way at Bullis, but it’s the exact opposite here because you get to know everybody at least a little.”

One advantage of private schools is the luxury of not living and dying by SAT and other standardized test scores. Parents are more concerned about other numbers, such as the teacher-student ratio.

‘‘We are spared the kind of endless measurement tests that [public] schools are compelled to do,” Farquhar said. ‘‘Obviously, our students take [various exams] required for college entrance but we don’t obsess over them. Frankly, there is little correlation between SAT scores, the success a student will achieve in life ... and how a school is performing.”

Instead, parents of prospective Bullis students are handed a list of the colleges its graduates have matriculated to over the past five years.

‘‘We are a college prep school — that’s what we do,” Farquhar said. ‘‘One hundred percent of our graduates go to college. It’s just assumed.”

Private schools certainly get to know prospective students before enrolling them.

The application process usually begins with open houses held from November through February for the next school year. Most schools require prospective students to interview, take a standardized intelligence test and write an essay. Interviews and daylong visits at the school are common, Zinsmeister said.

Bullis, for example, normally receives twice the number of new student applicants that it accepts each year. Georgetown Prep is even more competitive, receiving five applications for every student the school admits.

‘‘It’s all about achieving success,” Zinsmeister said. ‘‘Private schools want a child that feels comfortable, happy and confident with them, and one that will keep up with the curriculum.”

Parents want the same thing, Buckingham said.

‘‘You just do what you think is right for each child,” she said. ‘‘Especially when you’re paying that much money.”