Son doesn't want to go to Catholic school

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milimac

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My son is going to middle school (6th grade) next year and he is excited to start at the public middle school we are assigned to. He has never been enthused about going to school, but I was happy and surprised that he was actually excited to start school next year. The middle school had people come out to his elementary school to talk about it over a pie & ice cream social, and everyone was invited one evening for a tour. He is sold, because they have pizza at lunch almost every day, he gets to ride the bus, they use Chromebooks for all their classes, they start almost an hour later than his elementary school so he can sleep in, and things like that. I’m a little leery because they are overcrowded and because I feel public schools subtly and sometimes not so subtly undermine the Catholic faith and morals I want to instill (the middle school has a Gay/Straight Alliance club – for 11-13 year olds, really?!)

There is a Catholic “classical education” school that recently opened in our area, even closer than the middle school. Originally they were only taking K-5, but have decided to go K-6 and add a grade each year until 8th grade. I was excited because I’ve always wanted to send my kids to Catholic school, but they were always so far, and my non-baptized wife wanted something more convenient (and less expensive). But they are Catholic, close, not too expensive, and I’ve heard good things about the classical education model.

I broached the subject of the Catholic school with both of them. My wife is agreeable, but my son is not excited. We are going to visit the school in a couple days to check it out, but it breaks my heart that he doesn’t have interest. He doesn’t really have many friends, none that are very close, so I don’t think there’s much issue there. I don’t think he really has much against the Catholic school, since he doesn’t even know much about it; he’s just excited to go to the public school. I think he thinks Catholic school is like going to the parish religious ed classes all day. The things he was looking forward to at the public school, they don’t have – no pizza almost every day, they start later than his elementary school, but only about 25 minutes rather than an hour, no bus service (and no need for it), and likely not as much use of the Chromebook at school. And to make it worse he hates purple, one of the school colors.

I want him to be happy, but I also want to do what’s best for him. I told him such, and at least I got a “I guess so”, but I hate bursting his bubble when he was so excited for next year.

Any advice?
 
Dad, this is exactly why God gives us parents. Because fifth-grade boys don’t know anything and need guidance. I can say that because I was a fifth grade boy at one time, impressed by the flashy and trivial. Parents are the primary educators of their children, and will answer to God for their choices. You know which is the better school. If your wife needs convincing, check the test scores of the government school and your local Catholic schools.
 
Take him for the tour. You might be surprised. He might get very excited about this opportunity too.
 
What school in America can serve pizza every day and meet requirements of the federal lunch program? None. Something sounds off.

Pizza, bus rides, school colors. None of these are reasons to select a school. Use of Chromevooks-- unproven at best, detrimental at worst (as some studies are beginning to show).

Your child lacks friends, doesn’t like school, and is only excite about next year due to some pretty dubious enticements on the part of the school. Are there perhaps some physical, mental, or social developmental delays you haven’t shared?

Does your son do well academically? going into a classical school at 6th grade with no previous classical education may be a challenge-- talk to the teachers and administration at the school about your son’s readiness for academic rigor.

What is the academic record of the public school system? What is the record of this new school?

You are the parent. Make your selection based on the academic records, what support they can offer your son if he is struggling, the environment he will be in, etc., not school colors and lunches. And by all means get your child some assessment regarding his social engagements and his academic abilities if he is struggling.
 
PaulfromIowa said:
Dad, this is exactly why God gives us parents. Because fifth-grade boys don’t know anything and need guidance. I can say that because I was a fifth grade boy at one time, impressed by the flashy and trivial. Parents are the primary educators of their children, and will answer to God for their choices. You know which is the better school. If your wife needs convincing, check the test scores of the government school and your local Catholic schools.
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Yes, please compare test scores. Where I live, the Carholic school is small, but their test scores are among the highest in the state. Talk to your son about the school after you take the tour. Do not ask him which one he wants to go to. You and your wife need to decide what is best for him. He is a child.
 
1ke said:
What school in America can serve pizza every day and meet requirements of the federal lunch program? None. Something sounds off.

Pizza, bus rides, school colors. None of these are reasons to select a school. Use of Chromevooks-- unproven at best, detrimental at worst (as some studies are beginning to show).

Your child lacks friends, doesn’t like school, and is only excite about next year due to some pretty dubious enticements on the part of the school. Are there perhaps some physical, mental, or social developmental delays you haven’t shared?

Does your son do well academically? going into a classical school at 6th grade with no previous classical education may be a challenge-- talk to the teachers and administration at the school about your son’s readiness for academic rigor.

What is the academic record of the public school system? What is the record of this new school?

You are the parent. Make your selection based on the academic records, what support they can offer your son if he is struggling, the environment he will be in, etc., not school colors and lunches. And by all means get your child some assessment regarding his social engagements and his academic abilities if he is struggling.
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Our public school offers pizza, salad and deli sandwiches everyday as an option in addition to the “hot lunch option”

I love the chrome books for the kids at school and the public school provides all support and repairs for the computers all year.
 
Irishmom2 said:
Yes, please compare test scores. Where I live, the Carholic school is small, but their test scores are among the highest in the state. Talk to your son about the school after you take the tour. Do not ask him which one he wants to go to. You and your wife need to decide what is best for him. He is a child.
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We are unable to compare the public school to the local catholic school as they do not take the same tests…
 
sometimes not so subtly undermine the Catholic faith and morals I want to instill (the middle school has a Gay/Straight Alliance club – for 11-13 year olds, really?!)
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That would be the last straw, not to mention the first, right there. I can all but guarantee your child will will succumb to the LGBTQ peer pressure and academic propaganda, probably within the first year. That agenda comes with other regrettable ideology that is definitely NOT Catholic and in fact is anti-Catholic. Find out the approach the Catholic school takes, though, because the same thing has been known to rear its ugly head in Catholic schools as well.
 
My experiences:

When I was a kid, my public elementary school went to 5th grade. Our public school system was failing in many ways and the 6-7-8th grade middle school was across town in a bad neighborhood. My parents opted to send me to a Catholic school for 6th grade.

I wasn’t opposed to the idea because I didn’t want to face the harsh realities of the public middle school.

So–at an age when I was entering a potentially difficult time of life, i.e. the early teen years, I basically started over in a school where I knew absolutely no one and they’d all grown up together. I was an academically gifted but socially bashful kid. It took me several months before I found friends. And, they weren’t exactly nice kids or good kids–looking back on them, I don’t think they were much in the way of friends at all.

I spent 6th and 7th grade there. Aside from attending Mass more often (I went every Sunday with my family and in Catholic school we’d all go once a month on First Friday) I really didn’t get anything particularly Catholic in my education. It was basically a standard urban school with most of the same disciplinary problems you’d find most places.

My parents decided to move out of the district into one that had/has a flourishing public education system. 8th grade, still in an awkward stage of life, and I moved into an entirely new school system in an entirely new community and was surrounded by people who’d known each other their whole lives. I was furious. All my new Catholic school friends were headed off to the Catholic boys high school and I was again being uprooted. Still academically gifted, still socially bashful, and I didn’t really find any friends until 9th the end of grade.

9th grade was a move to the high school. Third new school in four years in the midst of puberty/adolescence. If you count 5th grade, that was four school cultures/systems in four years. It knocked me back academically, that’s for sure.

I think you need to weigh out what is most valuable to your son and to you. As difficult and miserable as I was ages 10-14 or 15, in the long run it was incredibly worthwhile to get out of where we were, because the failing school district eventually did fail and is virtually non-existent at this point.

However, I was taken from a situation where my school district was incapable of providing for me and my siblings and our community was headed down the tubes. We really had no alternative.

It seems to me that you have viable alternatives on both sides. Please consider both sides.
 
Blessedwithfive said:
We are unable to compare the public school to the local catholic school as they do not take the same tests…
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I think most people usually know how their public school does academically. Where I live, There are articles in the paper, and we knew parents that had their children in both schools.
As far as different tests, you can always see how each school does against other schools of the same kind.
 
If he is the one who makes this decision, you can count on not making decisions going forward. Sorry dad.
No bueno. :nope:
You’re the parents.
YOU evaluate, and make the decisions based on which offers the better education.
I’ll say a prayer for you.
 
I’m praying for you and your family.

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
 
You are the parent. If you want to send your kid to Catholic school, do it. Your child has no choice.

And if my district’s middle school has gay club, there would be no way my kid is going there
 
So much about middle school success (and what it does to a child’s faith) has to do with whether or not the social order at the school is civilized, much less Christian. I am afraid that it is not a given that every student finds mercy and kindness at every Catholic school in the US, nor that every secular school is more of a hotbed of rebellion from what the Church teaches than their parochial counterpart in the same town. Sad, but true.

Has your son had a chance to talk to children who actually go to either of these two schools? Have you? I don’t mean their parents, although that can be helpful, too. If you can find some way to talk to the children, perhaps by talking by children in your parish that go to each school, that can tell you things about how a Christian would fare in each that is hard to learn elsewhere the same way.

I’d be particularly interested in talking to parents who decided to switch schools. It is highly likely there are some of each. If no one ever switches out of the Catholic school once they’re in it, though, that’s a very good sign.

I’d be very hesitant to send my child to an over-crowded public school, however. That is a recipe for peer social groups running essentially without outside interference (because the teachers cannot keep on top of such a large group). That can be extremely harmful, and quick.
 
Well you also have to think past 6 grade and 8th grade too.

If u send you son to the Catholic school…for 3 years only…and then plan to send him back to public high school, will he be able to adapt again back to a much larger and different enviorment?

If you plan to continue in Catholic school that’s great. If u wonder about this choice…then look up the stats in your area…graduation rate of both public and closest catholic hs, percent of graduating class going on to college …and scholarship dollars awarded to senior class for college…

You can also use this data perhaps to judge the rigor of the public school district and middle school too.
 
milimac said:
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Id just give him a tour of the Catholic School too and see how he fells, just because he doesn’t want to go to a Catholic School doesn’t mean he’s rejecting the faith or that it’s necessarily going to make educating him in the faith harder. And as you mention, he is mainly making the decision based on some trivial stuff anyway.

I’m Australian and I went to both a Catholic School and Public School, this is what I learned.

For me, the thing that made or broke a school, was the classmates and the company that was kept, if it was a good group of people, it was pretty good, if you got some people who would give you are hard time, or the group of friends are not good, doesn’t matter whether it’s Public or Catholic, it’s going to be bad.

I went to a Public School at first, and the first thing I would warn you against is ‘sex education’ since chances are both Catholic and Public Schools will have some form of sex education and chances are both will have problems (Thank God I wasn’t a very good student), Don’t take the Catholic School for granted. Admittedly, chances are the Public School would be worse, and you wont have much ground to stand on if you oppose it or want to limit it, the Catholic School, even if worse, you should certainly have recourse if you wanted to do something about it, since it’s supposed to be a ‘Catholic’ School.

The same applies for the new Gender Ideology they are pushing onto kids now days (This will certainly go through the Schools in some form), In Australia they are doing it with deceptive programs like ‘Safe Schools’ which is supposed to be about anti bullying, but it’s not, it’s a radical gender theory program aimed at kids, telling them they can choose what gender they want to be and a whole bunch of other messed up stuff.

At least in a Catholic School you can fight that sort of stuff (maybe), but in a Public School you probably can’t, either way, chances of your son being exposed to it is high, so if they do have sex education, id try and educate your son about it too, that way you can get an idea of what he is learning about or has learned about at school and to correct any errors that may have been taught in either the Catholic School or Private School.

So personally I would lean toward the Catholic School, since your within your rights to oppose or correct something there.

Nevertheless, my experience of a Catholic School, was ridiculously bad, if it were left up to the Catholic School to educate me about Catholicism, I would not be Catholic. Thankfully my father provided me with education about Catholicism as I grew up with it and I got bits a pieces of it growing up and then when I finished School really dug into it myself, the Catholic School however did give me a New Testament and Psalms book when I finished, which I read through and then really dug into my faith after that.

We would say “our lady of the Rosary, Pray for us” before class in the Catholic School, but nobody else really took it seriously except for a few teaches and some teaches didn’t even bother to say it before class. Better then nothing I guess.

One time we had to watch the 2003 Movie ‘Luther’ about the reformation, (remind you this was in a ‘Catholic’ School) and it went for several lessons where we had to remember ‘Papal Bull’ ‘Indulgences’ and ‘Transubstantiation’ which were all painted in an evil light (especially Papal Bull and Indulgences, I didn’t know what transubstantiation was at the time, and I believed in the real presence due to my Dad’s education but didn’t know what ‘transubstantiation’ was at the time) and along with the movie, painted Luther as the hero standing up to the corrupt and evil Church.

But then a positive, we also in a later year got to watch ‘The Passion of the Christ’ by Mel Gibson, which was very good and would never have been allowed in a Public School.

But then another negative, in years 11 and 12, we had to learn about Islam and aboriginal spirituality, so we learned more about those then we did about Catholicism at a Catholic School, and even with Islam, we learned about pilgrimage they all have to go on ‘Hajj’ and the 5 Pillars, funny enough we didn’t do anything on Sharia Law, I guess I know why, and this was supposed to be a Catholic School.

Anyway, I’ll leave it here, the main point I would stress, is to pray on it, and either way, make sure your on top of it with your son, don’t take it for granted that the School will be above board, whatever School it is. If you want your son to have a Catholic education and upbringing, it will mostly be on you I believe. Public School will admittedly be worse in this regard, but since either way it was mostly be on you for the Catholic upbringing and Catholic Education, either way you and your son should survive, then it will just be the company that is kept there.

I hope this has helped

God Bless You

Thank you for reading
Josh
 
DaddyGirl said:
At this age, a group like this is most likely focused on preventing students from being bullied or harassed…or even depressed.

IMO it’s a very healthy and helpful club to have.
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To stop or prevent bullying is right and just, but that’s not all it does, since how do they stop bullying without educating the students on their gender ideologies and getting them to embrace it? (Since they do not believe in “Love the sinner hate the sin” and will not teach that) It will no doubt spill over into ‘educating’ the rest of the students about it and stigmatizing any dissent. And in the education, that’s where their radical gender theory gets pushed, in many subtle and not so subtle ways.

The parents usually always have more weight on such matters than the teachers do though, so that’s why it’s up to the parents to combat this stuff and why I would say to any other parents, that just because they are in a ‘Catholic School’ does not mean they are safe or immune from all this stuff. So don’t let your guards down.

I hope this has helped

God Bless

Thank you for reading
Josh
 
Our son went to a Methodist school from 1st through 12th grade. They are very conservative, as are we and it seemed a good fit. I’ve converted to Catholicism since then but it wasn’t a factor when he was in school.

I remember him saying, when he was a senior that he didn’t believe it was wrong to be gay (and presumably participating in gay relations) since that is the way that God made them. This was the start and since that time, he has come to embrace most things liberal as in abortion, shacking up, etc. After spending $200,000+ he embraced liberal ideals anyway. I still see the value in him going to the school that he did but it did nothing to instill in him the conservative moral values that I wish he had.

His sister is 11 years younger and he has always encouraged us to educate her in the public school system. When he was growing up, all his friends were school friends and they all live far away. Any play times involved a parent to drive and the kids weren’t able to spend that much time, away from school, together. He regretted not having friends in the neighborhood.

When my son was in college, he went to church every week and participated in a weekly bible study. Then he met and started dating a lapsed Catholic girl that is now his wife and he probably now attends church 4-5 times a year.

I’ve taught my children that there are times in life that you have choices and regardless of the choice you make, there will be regret. This may be one of those times.

If Catholics voted Catholic, we could change this county and the world. As it is, it just doesn’t happen. Often, we see news stories where a teacher from a Catholic school was fired due to gay marriage or the breaking of some other Catholic moral rule. Nearly every time, you will see quotes from parents and students about why the teacher should not be dismissed. Often you will see where there was an organized protest because the school is enforcing morals. Your child might embrace the morals of the Church or the morals of his friends and their families.

In religious identity surveys, it is said that the largest group is Catholic and the second largest group is former Catholics. While I truly believe that public schools are being used for indoctrination, not being part of them will not insulate your child. 15 years from now, he may or may not be a practicing Catholic regardless of which path you take.
 
Thank you for your responses. Pretty much told me what I knew already but needed to hear. We visited the school this afternoon – they do not actually start until this fall, so there’s not really any track record to evaluate. But it sounds like he would get a lot more attention than at the huge public school, learn Latin, cursive, and read some classic novels, all in a smaller family-like atmosphere. I have a good feeling that the teachers are authentically Catholic and would be a help to his faith rather than a vaccination or poison against it.
 
milimac said:
Thank you for your responses. Pretty much told me what I knew already but needed to hear. We visited the school this afternoon – they do not actually start until this fall, so there’s not really any track record to evaluate. But it sounds like he would get a lot more attention than at the huge public school, learn Latin, cursive, and read some classic novels, all in a smaller family-like atmosphere. I have a good feeling that the teachers are authentically Catholic and would be a help to his faith rather than a vaccination or poison against it.
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Nice. The Classical Schools are really awesome. They are opening a Classical High School down the road from me this fall, which I pray my kids will one day get to go to.

Godspeed and God Bless
 
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