Here in NY my kids attend small elementary schools – we have only two classes per grade, K – 6 in our building. At our school, we have a full-time orchestra teacher. She runs a 4th grade orchestra, a 5th/6th grade orchestra, and teaches semi-private string lessons throughout the week — no more than 1-3 kids at a time.
We also have a full-time band instructor. Same format as above. 4th grade band, 5th/6th grade band, and semi-private lessons for all brass/wind/percission throughout the week.
We also have a full-time “Music teacher” who runs three seperate choirs, 4th, 5th, and 6th, the school plays, and also teaches all grades to sing and read music.
We have two art teachers, one full-time, and one who splits her time between our school and another in the district, but is a full-time employee.
We have two PE teachers, same as above, one full-time, one who splits their time.
We have full computer lab, excellent library, etc etc etc… I could go on and on.
My oldest started Jr High this year, and all the small elementary schools get funneled into one campus. I was bracing for the worst having only my experience with schools in Del mar and Coronado for reference. I was pleasantly surprised at what I found this year:
Excellent course selection.
Regular and advanced course offerings in all areas, even in music and art!
Excellent science labs, and seperate science lab and science class times allotted during the week (like college).
My daughter plays in three orchestras since she takes private lessons elsewhere and does not need the private lessons they offer at her school throughout the school day. They have one full-time orchestra teacher (so many kids have dropped out by this level in the strings – but the orchestra is still huge). He runs the 7th grade orchestra, 8th grade orchestra, a “chamber orchestra” for kids who have outside private lessons, and an ‘audition only’ orchestra for 7th/8th combined.
Band instruments are more popular, so there are TWO full-time band instructors. One who does all of the above for 7th grade, except they run an “A” band and a “B” band because so many kids are involved, and another instructor who spends full-time doing the same for the 8th graders. each band teacher stays with his same group for both years that the kids are at the jr high…
This is not a hige jr high either. Only five of these small elementary schools funnel into the jr high… I could go on and on and on about the programs here, but just this insight into how they run the music program alone should give you an glimpse of how they run the academic programs as well…
Yes, this is public school, and yes, our taxes are the highest in the nation (and yes, we are cold in the winter!). However, housing is less expensive, so it is a wash. Actually, it is a wash only financially – we feel that we are ahead otherwise….
