Schools

I just caught some of the Marc Steiner show about alternative schools-he had a guest on from the Fairhaven School in Prince George's county which is a student led, democratic model based on the Sudbury school in New England. It was so interesting, and ties in with something I've been thinking about constantly. My oldest just turned 4, so we are starting to think about options for school for him. We are in the good position of trying to decide from a number of options that look interesting to us. Our zoned school, City Springs, is a charter and has a reasonably good reputation. However, it draws almost exclusively (I believe) from the Perkins Homes housing project on the other side of Central Ave. I don't think we can seriously consider it as an option for us. So, the schools we are considering are Patterson Park Charter, Federal Hill Prep and Hampstead Hill. Patterson Park is a city wide charter and accepts students from all over the city-if there are more applicants than spots they will go to a lottery. They will start offering pre-k next year, so he could theoretically go there that soon. Hampstead Hill is also a charter but is also the zoned school for Fells Point/Canton, if there is room in the class students from outside the zone can attend. Federal Hill is not a charter, but also will accept students from outside the neighborhood if there is room. The only one I have visited is Patterson Park-I went to an open house there last year. It is appealling to me in lots of ways-they offer lots of art, Spanish language from early grades, it is a community based school and requires 30 volunteer hours from parents. It is in a lovely building and takes advantage of their location on the park. They follow a project based curriculum, which sounds appealing to me although I don't know how it works in practice. Charlie's preschool is in Federal Hill so lots of his friends will be headed there. It has started to attract more and more middle class families from the neighborhood most of whom seem very happy with what is happening there. They offer the ingenuity project-a special math and science curriculum that gets good reviews. I'm a little concerned about what they offer as far as "extras"-art, music, pe etc-things I consider essential. I know very little about Hampstead Hill, but have heard there is an excellent principal-my neighbor's daughter is there after she didn't get in Patterson Park. We're considering private schools too-Grace & St. Peter's, Gilman, etc but would like to give public a shot first. I believe so strongly in school choice, and think all families should have the option of several schools-it's funny that in the dysfunctional Baltimore City school system the fact that there are choices is a bright spot, and in my view will probably be the savior of the system-it was great to see all the new groups that applied for charter schools next year-exciting stuff!