$17,165

[HardDrive]

Tuition cost for my daughters 1st grade next year. Prolly another $2k in expenses and tidbits.

Happy with the school, but jeeeeezus.....

[MotoSook]

Why are you laying for elementary ed? Are the public schools that bad?

[Joe Ricard]

If you have a 50 dollar head buy a 50 dollar helmet.

But buying a 1000 dollar helmet does not make you have a 1000 dollar head.

Both helmets protect your head, only one of them impresses your friends.

[tangerine911S]

$17K for FIRST GRADE!? Worth it?

[Rick Lee]

That cost more than my prep school tuition 20 yrs. ago, which was also more than my college tuition. Prep school was definitely the better value, but public school was fine until then.

[onewhippedpuppy]

WHAT!? Do they give out BJs at orientation?

[Jim Richards]

Sounds like we're now seeing parents use the model that my wife told me they use in Taiwan (maybe other parts of Asia) where everyone tries to get their kids into the best Kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, high school, etc. Are you also going to send your child to after-school "cram school" to get them even further ahead?

[BlueSkyJaunte]

That is, to use a word I learned recently, ridonkulous.

For that kind of money you could get 3 kids together (neighbors?) and jointly hire a teacher to home school your kids.

[Scuba Steve]

That was a year and a half including all expenses where I went to college. Relatively recently too.

[Jeff Higgins]

You have got to be farking kidding me. My son's tuition at the University of Washington didn't even approach that.

At what point does this kind of foolishness change from real value to bragging rights? Does anyone seriously think that a first grade teacher's role should ever be prominent enough in such a young child's life to be worth that kind of money? Are you trying to buy effective parenting from an institution or its teachers?

Most of what a kid still needs by way of "education" at that age should still be coming from the parents. School should only be providing the very basics - the "three R's", along with socialization with a larger group of kids than she will likely play with in the neighborhood. I can't imagine what this school must be offering beyond that to entice folks to pay such outlandish tuition for such young kids, but I'll guarantee the majority of it is really your job.

[nostatic]

We moved to a neighborhood that had good public schools. Did the same for middle and HS. We give $1-2K to the public school so they can fund extra programs.

[Jim Richards]

You're such a softie, Todd.

[Embraer]

man, i went through K-12 in one building, with the same classmates, in a town of 1200 people. ...and i managed to get a full academic scholarship, class president, national honor society president, etc.

schools don't make kids great.....parents do.

[craigster59]

At $17k she better color inside the lines..

[The Gaijin]

Look at inflation, economic growth or any other yardstick over the past 40 years. Then look at public school funding and the cost of private schools.

[BRPORSCHE]

Wow. I went to private school up to tenth grade. That is probably what my parents spent for all of us for a couple of YEARS!

[berettafan]

If you can afford that kinda dough you can afford to move to a better school district (because apparently you are in a bad one).

Better you send the little precious to public school and put the money towards a Roth and a college savings plan.

[Nine17]

Originally Posted by nostatic

We moved to a neighborhood that had good public schools. Did the same for middle and HS. We give $1-2K to the public school so they can fund extra programs.

+1. Nobody puts their elementary school on their resume and by the 8th grade all those lottery-winning perfect little DNA dumplings start feeling privileged enough that the rules don't apply to them when it comes to safe sex, alcohol, and drugs.

[HardDrive]

I wouldn't have posted this here if we were not in serious discussions about the future.

Like some have pointed out, for that kind of money we could get together with a couple other parents and basically have a private school for our kids. Or we could send our kid to the local public school, and hand her a check for $200,000k when she turns 18.

We got started at the school because the Seattle public schools seem like they are constantly in turmoil. There is a decent school 2 blocks from our house. But she probably cannot get in! She would get sent to a different school 4 miles north of here. Why? Because Seattle keeps failing schools open in the south end of the city that are nearly 50% empty, while the northern schools are bursting at the seams. Hmmmmm.....I wonder why people would be leaving the south end in droves and settling in the North?

The local school has 3 sections of kindergarten this year with 30 kids in each class. No classroom assistants. One month into the school year, one of our friends child's kindergarten teacher sent home an e-mail saying that she was desperate and couldn't handle it without a parental volunteer in the classroom everyday. Another parent told us they got a progress report about their kid, and it was written by one of the parent volunteers. The teacher barely seemed to know their kid.

[onewhippedpuppy]

My kids go to a catholic school that is one of the best in town, they ASK (not tell) us to tithe 8% of our income. No snob appeal, but a GREAT school.