Marianne Pitterle didn’t consider herself a private school kind of person. A graduate of public schools and mother of three boys – ages 16, 13 and 8 – Pitterle volunteered at her sons’ schools in the Saddleback Valley Unified School District and was generally happy with the education they were receiving there.
But last summer, after her middle son completed his seventh-grade honors math class at Rancho Santa Margarita Intermediate School, she became concerned about changes to the math curriculum under the new Common Core standards and how they might also affect her youngest, Eric.
“He basically didn’t have to learn anything new” beyond what he had mastered the year before, Pitterle said. “He’s at a great school, but they are teaching a curriculum I’m not happy with. I felt like he lost a year of math. Eric is bright too, and chances are he will also be stifled.”
Those concerns prompted Pitterle to tour several private elementary schools for Eric, a third-grader. Impressed by the nice campus, small class sizes and its wide range of programs, Pitterle and her husband, Brian, enrolled Eric at St. John’s Episcopal School in Rancho Santa Margarita this fall.
“There are only 16 kids in his class, and that’s considered a big class there,” Pitterle said. She also likes that he has classes in art, science, Spanish, music and technology, and could join the school’s robotics club and band in future years.
The annual tuition for elementary students at St. John’s is $15,225. Pitterle says the cost has been a big adjustment to the family budget.
“It’s a lot of money, but I felt the school is noticeably better,” Pitterle said. “I don’t want to limit my kids’ opportunities for the future. St. John’s has some really cool opportunities.”
Private schools by the numbers
There’s no question that private schools are an important part of the K-12 landscape. In the United States, one in four of the nation’s K-12 schools is a private school, and more than 5 million students (or 1 in 10) attend them, according to the Council for American Private Education, a national organization that represents private schools.
Even in regions with highly regarded public schools, such as Orange County, many families turn to private education.
For some parents, sending their children to private schools starts with an interest in religious instruction. (Eighty percent of private school students nationally attend religiously affiliated schools, according to the private education council.) Others, such as Pitterle, are attracted to smaller class sizes or a unique curriculum.
But private education does come with a cost. According to Private School Review, a national online resource for evaluating private schools, the average annual tuition in Orange County is $7,774 for elementary schools and $15,938 for high schools.
That prompts the question for individual families: Is private school worth the price?
Carole Calabria, managing director of Fairmont Private Schools, says parents do look at the “return on investment” equation when choosing to enroll their children. Fairmont Preparatory Academy, a high school, touts in its admissions materials that all its graduates in 2013 were accepted to college, including 87 percent who attend a top 100 college as defined by U.S. News & World Report.
“One of the highlights of a private school is we don’t put a lid on the child. If a child can excel, we can put them on an accelerated track. We aren’t encumbered in our decision-making,” Calabria said.
Fairmont’s elementary school students have physical education every day, learn Spanish as a core subject, and have a wide variety of music and art instruction, she adds.
“I tell parents, children show their talents early on, and we want to have opportunities to develop those talents,” she said.
Families also appreciate that private schools hire teachers who serve under one-year contracts instead of unions, as they do at public schools, Calabria said.
“We are not bound by tenure,” she explained.
Save for college or spend now?
Calabria and other private school administrators emphasize that tuition assistance is often available, and that families shouldn’t disregard a private education solely because of their income. Parochial schools especially invest in financial aid programs.
But one question for families to consider is what they might be giving up when putting funds toward private tuition.
Some families who attend free public schools use more of their disposable incomes to pay for extra music, art, sports or other activities for their children, or spend on travel to enrich their children’s lives. Orange County is also home to many public charter and magnet schools that offer programs ranging from special arts instruction to foreign language immersion, so even if a parent isn’t happy with the neighborhood school, a free alternative may be available.
There is also the question of whether families should choose private K-12 schools if it limits their ability to save for college.
For example, if a parent were to invest just half of the amount of Orange County’s average private elementary school tuition, or about $3,887, every year starting when their child began kindergarten until their senior year in high school, it could grow to a college nest egg of more than $93,000, assuming a 7 percent interest rate for growth. In 2015-16, the estimated cost for attending a University of California school and living on campus is $33,600, according to the UC admissions department.
“When I see women walking strollers, I want to go up to them and tell them to start saving for college. College will be expensive, and you can’t hurt yourself by saving,” said Amy Mendelson, founder and president of Competitive Edge College Counseling.
A former public high school English teacher and administrator, Mendelson now works with high school students from both private and public schools as they apply to colleges.
She says the choice of whether to attend a private school ultimately boils down to the needs of an individual child and his or her family.
“It depends on the kid. Some kids really need that smaller size and the extra attention,” she said. “But it’s a very expensive endeavor to send kids to a private school, and there’s not an inherent advantage in the college admission process for going to private school.”
What colleges really want to see is whether high school students availed themselves of the most rigorous curriculum available to them, she says.
One more area to focus on might be paying for a private preparation class for the SAT or ACT standardized tests, Mendelson said.
“That’s one area where parents can spend a few grand, and if their child can raise their (ACT) score to a 30 or 32, that puts students in a different category for scholarships,” Mendelson said. “I would never want a family to think they are doing a child a disservice if they can’t afford to send a child to private school.”
