So many choices
Private schools offer different options for different needs
Sandra Bentley doesn’t
regret paying private
school tuition for five
children, for more than 20 years.
She and her husband, David, a
private contractor who repairs
railroad tracks, forewent the latest
fashions, tightened the family
budget to the point of sacrifice and
prayed. Hard.
The crowning moment: when
their son thanked them for a
Christian education during his
valedictorian address at Easley
Christian School.
“What else can a parent ask
for?” Bentley said.
Paying tuition on top of taxes is
obviously an extra financial
burden, private school administrators
said. But don’t rule out private
school altogether. It could open a
new world of educational opportunity
with a variety of prices, sizes
and methodologies that might suit
a child’s learning style best.
“We represent small to large
schools,” said Edward Earwood,
director elect of the South Carolina
Association of Christian Schools.
The group includes a dozen
Upstate schools, including Easley
Christian and Bob Jones Academy.
“We have very small schools and
large ones. Hampton Park Christian
School, for example, in Greenville, runs 800 students. Then we have
schools that are small with more target
ministries. We have Hidden Treasure
Christian School in Taylors that focuses on
special-needs students.”
The average tuition for the association’s
80 member schools is $3,000 annually, on
the low-end for private schools, he said.
“I know the perception of the private
school, that it’s high-dollar and only for the
upscale,” Earwood said. “But that’s certainly
not the case.”
On the higher end, a high school tuition
averages at $28,000 nationally for the 1,200
schools belonging to the National Association
of Independent Schools, which includes
Christ Church Episcopal in Greenville,
which has an annual tuition of $10,475 to
$12,550, and the Spartanburg Day School,
at $10,600 for high-schoolers.
Kathy Cassidy and her husband are
dipping into a college fund to send their
three boys, ages 4, 7 and 10, to Five Oaks
Academy, a Montessori School in Simpsonville.
The monthly tuition ranges from $400
to $600 per child.
Her oldest son, diagnosed with autism,
could have handled public school, but
Cassidy was drawn to the Montessori
method for him because the children learn a
lot individually and are driven by their own
curiosity. They also receive a lot of individual
attention from teachers, she said.
“I wanted them to flourish, not just
survive,” Cassidy said. “We felt it was more
important right now to educate them and
put them on a good footing. I was unsatisfied
by the way my children were being put
into a box at public school. I wanted their talents to flourish, and to have
their creativity rewarded.”
There are set learning goals and
group lectures, but students also
have free time to explore on their
own, said Susan Edwards, Five
Oaks spokeswoman. On one recent
school day, 20 children, ages 3 to
5, crisscrossed an airy room like
dust motes in a sunbeam, choosing
one Montessori-designed activity
after another. Teachers keep
detailed records, and only allow
the children to participate in an
activity they’ve already been
taught, Edwards explained.
One boy, 5, diligently solved
multiplication problems. A girl and
her teacher sorted colored blocks,
in harmony with the hands-on
Montessori philosophy. There was
a contented hum after two hours
of independent study.
Dr. Maria Montessori, Italy’s
first female physician, introduced
her philosophy to the United States
in 1915.
“It is suitable for all children,
the vast majority,” said Karen Holt,
administrator of the Montessori
School of Anderson, which has
220 students from infancy through
middle school. “Most children
actually benefit from moving
through a curriculum at their own
pace, versus having a standard,
prescribed amount of work to do
on any particular day, and any
particular month.”
Any parent who thinks his child
might fare best in this environment
should contact the school,
Holt said. There is scholarship-type
help available from the school, as
well as on the federal level.
“There is a cost to private
school tuition, but there are many
ways that most private schools —
and ours, especially — will work
with a family to help them if we
feel it’s a good match,” Holt said.
“We never want a family to not
come, not investigate it, observe in
the classroom, meet with the
teachers.”
In an entirely different methodology,
students as young as the
third grade learn Latin and study
classic literature, from Homer to
Shakespeare, at the Greenville
Classical Academy, housed at
Woodruff Road Presbyterian
Church. The school has 66 students.
British novelist Dorothy Sayers
presented an essay in the 1940s to
Oxford University, proposing a
return to classical education. It
was a challenge to British schools,
which she felt had lost their academic edge. Doug Wilson expounded her
idea in his book, “Recovering the Lost Tools of
Learning.”
“Learning Latin helps in learning a modern
foreign language,” said Michael Sisk, the
school’s headmaster. “It also helps on standardized
tests, because so much of our own language
is derived from Latin.”
Young students memorize dates, names and
places, Sisk said. Then, they reach the “logic”
stage at the fourth grade. Students study the
different views of great writers throughout
history, and then weigh in themselves, joining
the Great Conversation, Sisk said. They’re
learning to think and reason clearly, he said.
At the “rhetoric” stage, from 10th to 12th
grade, students externalize their knowledge by
writing, speaking and debating. The school
offers classes from kindergarten through the
ninth grade, but hopes to add a grade every
year, Sisk said. Class sizes range from four to
15. Annual tuition ranges from $2,530 for
kindergarten through $5,390 for the ninth
grade.
Kristen and Creed Barnett’s daughter is a
first-grader at the school.
Kristen read Wilson’s book “and I was fixed,”
she said. “There were no other option but
classical education for us at this point. Just the
way it was presented — the methodology of the
teaching. It’s amazing how much they retain.”
Kindergartners are working with fractions
and measuring, Kristen Barnett said. “The type
of work they don’t know they’re not supposed
to be doing.”
Tuition takes a bite out of their budget but it
“is not a sacrifice,” she said. “It’s a choice.”
The Bentleys chose Easley Christian School,
with an annual high-school tuition of $2,650,
because teachers could reinforce the Christian
message their children heard at home. The class
sizes were also small, and the school had a
family-type feel.
“In a small school, there is obviously a lot of
personal attention,” Administrator Ed Richardson
said. “And it’s hard to hide if there’s only
10 of you.”
To prove his point, Richardson stepped into a
classroom. The kindergartners grinned, and
held up painted palms — part of an art project.
He greeted one of the
dozen by name and, with
expert poise, slipped
away without making a
ripple.
Only 200 students,
from age 2 up to the
12th grade, walk the
painted cinderblock halls
of a two-story addition,
built in 1966, Richardson
said. The school was an
addition to Faith Baptist
Church on Saco Lowell
Road in Easley.
The class sizes average
15 to 17, Richardson
said. Ashley Stanley, 17,
one of the school’s eight
seniors, said she wonders
what a graduating class
of hundreds must be like,
but wouldn’t want to
lose the closeness of her
own class. The eight do
homework together, and
meet up at Barnes &
Noble or Michael’s Pizza for down
time.
“It’s more like a family,” she
said.
Students consistently beat the
state and nation on standardized
tests, and have the opportunity to
sing in the choir, act in dramas
and play soccer, Richardson said.
A smaller school often means
more students will get a chance to
play.
Southside Christian School, at
1,110 students, has a booming
sports program, said Tommy
Blackmon, director of development.
Four female students were
named South Carolina League
players of the year for the 2004-
2005 school year in swimming,
volleyball, softball and basketball.
Thirteen Southside teams play
public schools as part of the South
Carolina League, and Southside
Christian was ranked 12th last year
among school sports programs by
The State newspaper.
The school also launched a
football team this year, Blackmon said, coached by former Clemson
Tiger and NFL standout Dexter
Davis.
At the same time, students get
an education centered on Christian
values and good academics.
“I think the thing that makes us
most distinct is the last part of our
mission statement, ‘consistent with
biblical truth,’” he said. “It’s not
just an addition to the program, it
completely permeates every
program.”
Students scored above the
national average on the Stanford
Achievement Test at every grade
level and every subject level,
Blackmon said. The price tag is an
annual $5,261 tuition for children
under the sixth grade, $5,999 for
middle school and $6,568 for high
school.
Spartanburg Day School offers
sports, but is most famous for its
academic drive. Seventy percent of
the teachers have earned advanced
degrees, and 10 percent have
doctorates. Last year, the 24
graduating seniors won $1.5
million in college scholarships for
academics, said Robbie Richards,
director of admissions. The amount
was $2.5 million for the previous
year’s 40 seniors.
“The faculty really care about
our students,” Richards said. “They
want to make sure they meet their
goals, whatever those goals might
be, and to reach whatever potential
that might be. The bar is set
high. The faculty expect a lot from
their students and our students
expect a lot from themselves.”
The annual $10,600 tuition for
the high school should be considered
an investment, Richards said.
“People might have a sticker
shock in regards to private education,”
Richards said. “But look at
the return on the investment in
their child’s future. It might far
outweigh anything that tuition
might cost. Don’t rule out any
experience for your child. Always
investigate, always explore.” |
