Planning your child's schooling (US version)

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So I saw CB’s thread and it just amazed me.. Is that how it is in the US too?

I didn’t go to the school in the US so techincally I have no idea how it works or when you start doing your research / registration etc.

My son is 2.5 so when do I start looking/ visiting pre schools.. What to look for? I once had a conversation with a colleague about private and public schools for kids and his response kind of stayed with me.. He said difference is what you see between bottled water and town water so guess not much but that was for the town with excellent public schools and town water :smiley:

What’s the general ruling? How are Islamic schools for foundation and then public school starting kindergarten?

Let’s make this thread valuable for all of us parents with young kids :slight_smile:

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Planning your child’s schooling (US version)

No, that’s not how it is in the US at all! I was amazed by that thread too.

Formal education does not start until age 5/kindergarten. Prior to that, it’s pretty much up to the parents wether they want to enroll their child in preschool/montessori. I sent my boys to a pre k program that was 4 hours a day, three days a week from ages 3-4.

For schooling here, you have 2 choices: public or private. Your public school will be dictated by where you live(your address will be what decides the school feeder path..elementary—middle school—high school. That is why schools are usually the number one deciding factor when purchasing a home. If you don’t want to go the public school route, then it’s private school..either religious/Montessori/secular private, depending in what you can afford.

I don’t know about the rest of the country, but here in the Dallas area, we have amazing public school districts. Some of them rival private schools. That’s where the concentration of Asians reside. Some of the public schools here offer IB program and other magnet programs as well.

As far as private tuition outside of school to supplement and prepare…some families will send their kids to Kumon, or Chinese school on Saturdays is popular here too, but it’s definitely not a must requirement for your child to succeed or be guaranteed admission to a good college/uni.

The good thing about most metropolitan areas here are the masjid established communities. My boys all started masjid Sunday school and weekly Quran classes at age 4, as did I.

My husband and I both are products of the public school system and we managed to do quite well for puddles lol. My BFF on the other hand, spends $20,000 a year for each of her boys to send them to private school, and honesty, I don’t see the difference between her kids education and my children’s. It’s a personal choice I guess. IMO, as long as you’re living in a nice area with well rated schools your kid will be fine.

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Re: Planning your child’s schooling (US version)

I find the Islamic schools here lack a solid education foundation when it comes to non-religious teachings. They’re not ranked very highly and most of the really religious families we know choose to homeschool for this very reason. Homeschooling is something I absolutely refuse to commit to- I know I wouldn’t be able to handle it. So I would much prefer to send my kid to Montessori or public school for his initial foundation and supplement it with Sunday school at most, and even then, I would have to research it thoroughly to ensure their stance falls into line with my own. I’m not extremely religious but we’re not entirely liberal either, and given that my kid is half white/half desi, I want to make sure he isn’t taught extremes like all white people are going to hell lol. That would confuse the hell out of him.

Otherwise, like khatti said, your school is determined by your neighborhood. Ontario has a very extensive ranking system and website- the Fraser Institute Rankings, if anyone is interested- and they rate schools on a number of areas from 1 through 10, 10 being the highest. We are so fortunate that we happen to live in an area surrounded by public schools, from primary to senior, that are very high calibre and ranked above an 8.5. Unfortunately, now that we’re moving to California, I have no idea what we’ll face there, but at least if we decide to stay, I’m happy with where we are.

Generally speaking though, the crazy panic to enroll your child early happens for daycare. Typically you are told to waitlist your child for the top daycares shortly after conception, and then you follow up again when they are born. Wait lists can be as long as two years for some daycares which is totally nuts. I waitlisted mine following the same guidelines, and sure enough, last December is when I started getting callbacks asking if we wanted to place him as they had spots opening up. It gets better the older they get, but finding a place for a 1 year old in a daycare if you haven’t waitlisted them prior to birth, is HARD. Mind you, my experience is limited to the downtown/midtown corridor so I don’t know what the suburbs are like.

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Re: Planning your child’s schooling (US version)

^ Great information Khattichic. Only think i would like to add is that public schools are funded by the property tax from the houses. So if you think about it, the higher the house price in the area, higher amount of property tax will be collected…so the funding for schools will be higher = better resources at the school.

Dallas has some of the best public schools in the nation, so you can’t compare those to other public schools. I attended public school here as well and feel the education didn’t prepare me for college. I feel the high schools prepares students just to graduate high school, but not to get it and do well in college. At least thats what it felt like in my high school.

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Re: Planning your child’s schooling (US version)

The disparity in the US public school system from district to district is much higher than in Canada. We moved at the end of grade 9 and I chose to keep attending the same high school to stay with my friends, and to play on the same sports teams. The kids at my high school were, for the most part, from middle or lower middle class households. My brothers attended a high school where there were kids from wealthier household (but not all rich kids by any means). We had the same education, regardless of the neighbourhood in which the high school was located.

rabia: I think the jump from high school to university is much bigger in North America. First year is considered a challenge, and in Canadian engineering programs, there are extra resources aimed at getting students acclimated to the work load, e.g. mock midterms. Then again, like I said, there is a lot of variation in the US from neighbourhood to neighbourhood so not all students are prepared equally.

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Re: Planning your child’s schooling (US version)

excellent info from khatti.
my kid is 2.5 yo and i hear a lot of frantic talk from moms with kid my age or younger … to start looking now. A good preschool/Montessori is a funnel to the best private schools (if you are going that rout) and the process to get your baby into even kindergarten can at times be absurd.
personally, im not doing the preschool thing till she is 4 and am planning to send her to a public school (thats rated as high as the top schools in my state) to start with … for now i think I may switch her to private school around age 7 or 8. we shall see how she does.
ghost and rabia both have great points … affluent neighborhoods have great public schools … simply cuz they have more money and parents that are very involved in schooling and school related activities.
I personally believe, success in college IS influenced by what university you end up in and how well you do there. a well funded high school has TONS of resources and connections to prep your child for top rated higher education.

islamic school is a nay for me … but thats because i firmly believe that early Islamic education must come from the parents. I should note, i am in the minority … many of my muslim friends are sending to their kids to islamic school (first few years only) and tell me their kids education is on par with a good regular public school.

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Planning your child’s schooling (US version)

I agree with Ehl & SGC on the Islamic schools…of the dozen or so in my area, there is only ONE I would ever even consider sending my kids too, and that one is $20K a year and 45 minutes away from my house, totally out of the question for us :smiley:

From what I have seen, heard & researched, the islamic schools I know of just aren’t well rounded and the academics are definitely lacking. My children are receiving amazing deeni taleem at their Sunday school and masjid youth group halaqas and activites and Quran lessons via online/Skype academies, and from what we teach and model at home, so that is enough for me.

My eldest will be starting middle school this fall and he will be in pre AP classes for all core subjects Alhamdulliah. I’ve never pushed to put him in extra tutorial centers, or come down hard on him academically…I’ve just set expectations and stuck with them and stay very involved in all my kids classes. I hope inshallah they will continue to excel at their own paces .

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Re: Planning your child’s schooling (US version)

Great information everyone. Thanks :slight_smile:

I had looked into Islamic Daycare for my son but something happened there that just put me off and I decided not to send him there. I was thinking about checking out their pre school since lots of people from community do send their children there and they are affluent, very involved parents so I wonder if there is a reason behind it. It will be considered but of course evaluated on the same criteria as other choices.

The neighborhood we live in has the best school district and like some of you mentioned it’s in the area where we can never afford to buy a house (can hardly afford to rent a condo :D) so if we stayed in this state for another 4-5 years, we will preferably be staying in this area and renting just so we can be in the best school district.

My only reservation with Islamic school on weekend is it takes the weekend away from family time.. We love to go out on weekends and if my kids started Sunday school that would only mean 1 day off for them.. I feel like it’s unfair to them because I would rather have them hiking the mountains than spending another day at the school.. kwim? I know it’s usually 3-4 hours but after teaching at the Sunday school, I know from experience, you pretty much dedicate the whole day to it. Also, I dont know for sure but I think our masjid has weekend Islamic school (both saturday and sunday). I wont mind doing islamic schooling at home (which of course will be done in addition to what they learn at school) but it’s the social environment and structure that I seek which can only be provided in school like setting.

so many decisions.. so many!

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Re: Planning your child’s schooling (US version)

^ Sunday school definitely cuts into weekend/family time, but if your masjid has a fun and engaging environment, it also is such an amazing experience for the kids. It gives them a sense of belonging. Expecially where we live in the south, Church and Sunday school are big parts of the lives of most goray. My kids friends are always taking about their Sunday school camps and check activities and my kids can also relate and share their own stories and experiences. Our SS goes up to 7th grade, after which the kids “graduate” and are asked to become teacher assistants lol. We also organize overnight/weekend camps and during Ramadan have youth only qiyam ul layl, ending with sehri at IHOP :blush:

Once my eldest gets a little older, I’ll start sending him to the MYNA camps.

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Re: Planning your child’s schooling (US version)

^ one of my Cousin’s son goes to a charter school, he is in 3 grade…he gets home around 4:30 ish (that too is on a speical request from the parents,) and goes to the masjid for quran reading at 6. On top of that he was homework…so i wonder when does he play or does anything to relax his little growing mind??? Even if you take out the 30 minutes weekday quran reading…going to sunday school is another school day. poor kids here in the US. I hate the school timing here in the US. In pakistan we use to be home for lunch (late lunch for American standard 1:30ish -2pm,) and had sooo much more play time.

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Re: Planning your child’s schooling (US version)

Our Sunday school hours are from 11:00 am to 2 pm…just 3 hours! They get to pray zuhr in jamat every Sunday which is important for me.

On weekdays my kids go to school from 7:50-2:50. They are home by 3:10pm. There Quran classes start in the evening at 6:30pm (they each have a 1/2 hr session), since rhey do online lessons via Skype, there is no tension of having to drive to the masjid. They have plenty of time to goof off, do homework etc. We also have soccer practice one day a week from 6-7pm.

Next year, my middle schooler will be in school 8:45-4:15, and he’ll be in band with private lessons so I see his days getting a little longer

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Re: Planning your child’s schooling (US version)

Yeah but so much depends on the priorities the parents set for their kids. In his case, maybe they don’t want him to have too much free time and would prefer he stay busy. Perhaps that suits his personality/routine better?

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Re: Planning your child’s schooling (US version)

wow…

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Re: Planning your child’s schooling (US version)

The mother has complained about his school timing, but since they live in a horrible school district (they live in a desi apartment complex…with a masjid and everything,) they don’t have much of a choice. The little guys doesn’t even get a full summer break. But inshAllah all this hard work will pay off in the end.

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Re: Planning your child’s schooling (US version)

^ Maybe they should consider moving?

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Re: Planning your child’s schooling (US version)

I have seen friends sending their kids to islamic school after elementary school cuz of environment of middle/high public schools are now very bad compare to 15 yrs ago, and cuz of same reason spanish/goras are doing home schooling. I have 3 daughters, so I am thinking sending them to islamic school after elementary education, but problem is we have less paki community here in Miami, so don’t have choice to pick one :frowning: but the area we live in have “A” public schools.

what would u advise?

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Re: Planning your child’s schooling (US version)

^ Same the only reason i consider sending my LO to Islamic school is because they are better thn the public schools around our areas. If the schools around you are good you should consider sending them to public school and see what happens. Here in the west we have to put in a lot of extra effort in teaching our kids the Islamic ways of doing things (compared to a Muslim country.) So i would think you will have your work cut out regardless where you send them.

But if you really think you need them to attend Islamic school because of the bad enviornment, start them from elementary school. I use to work for a daycare long ago, and the kids from elementary school use to play kissing games etc…

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Re: Planning your child’s schooling (US version)

wat kissing gaems now u scaring me…

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Re: Planning your child’s schooling (US version)

Sorry…but it happened under my watch and i had to move the kids around. I didn’t think at that age kids can be interested in these types of things BUt the environment they grow up in introduces them to this pretty early on.

This was the after school daycare for the elementary and middle school. But these two kids were from elementary school…and well it was a kissing game…they were making out! Oh and the girl was older and was initiating the kiss.

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Re: Planning your child’s schooling (US version)

Reading stories like that scares me. But at the same time, I have to keep in mind that he is spending only a part of his day at school, the rest of his education comes from home and if I can limit the amount of exposure he has to TV shows promoting this behaviour, increase the interaction he has with kids who are of similar background/families holding similar values, maybe he can also learn that such games are inappropriate. The earlier he can learn that sometimes he has to distance himself from certain people/scenarios in order to stay true to himself, the better off he will be in the long run. Such decision making skills will certainly help him in the long run, regardless of whether he is in islamic school, college party, work social gathering…etc