forum Main differences between public and private school?

Started May 04, 2018 by @Broken Princess

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Please help! Talk about social differences, differences in the experience, that sort of thing.

The ghetto-ness. Seriously tho there is a huge difference in the way the kids dress and act

Well, please explain because I'm homeschooled and have no clue.

O.M.G. ok so at most private schools, they are christians and they wear uniforms. They are also very strict unlike public schools who have free will. Private schools also cost a LOT to get in.

Ahh. Um. Well, i am going to sound either prejudiced or rude, but I’m not trying to do either. Kids at public schools, in my expirience, are more… uncontrolled? They are more openly mean and post literally everything on social media.
(I have been to both public and private schools btw)
Private school kids aren’t as social-media centered, and less of them are openly mean, they will undermine more quietly.
Don’t get me wrong, I have met some great people, really nice and kind and considerate, at both places, but that’s my negative expirience

Dress codes are majorly present at private schools and almost never at public ones

O.M.G. ok so at most private schools, they are christians and they wear uniforms. They are also very strict unlike public schools who have free will. Private schools also cost a LOT to get in.

Nothing wrong with Christians, I how do you know they are only Christians there??

Because I go to a christian private school and most of the people who go are christians , I mean some aren't but most are.

Hummmmm…. They must come from 'no so good' family's or they don't practice there faith or there not good kids.

No no no no, you got it all wrong. Everyone there is actually nice. ((No offense, but the boys at my school are SUPER close to getting a ISS.)) Like seriously, it's not the kids, it's the staff.

I can agree with that, teacher, staff, whatever, usually aren't that good, including if there not in the faith because they try to discourage the students.

Yeah

And plus, school systems aren't that good these days.

Its like a military camp there. Except for english like, our english/religion teacher is the best!

I hope so!

I went to a private Catholic high school, and I'm not sure I 100% agree with everything that's been said here.

• There are non Christian private schools. Not all private schools are centered around religion.
• The people I went to school with were definitely social media centered. Especially in our graduating year, we coordinated a lot of grad stuff over facebook (we even had a group where all the girl posted their grad dresses so no one bought the same one as someone else).
• We had a good mix of good and bad teachers. Some were super nice and helpful, others were just straight up useless.

And some other stuff:

• Private schools have less people in them. I knew everyone in my graduating year, but my brother (who goes to a public school) does not because there's way more people in his graduating class.
• Because there's (generally) less private schools in an area private school kids might live farther away from their school than a public school kid would (for me it was like a 30 minute bus ride) but I definitely had friends who lived within walking distance of our school. (And because of this we had way more snow days. Like some days we'd have no snow in my area, but it'd snowing like crazy up by the school so it would be cancelled).
• Because I went to a Catholic school, we had a mandatory religion class (public school usually take a 3rd elective in the place of this). If you're not wondering about religious schools, then I guess just ignore this. Oh we also had school mass once a month and everyone dreaded it every time.
• I don't know if this is applicable to all (or even most) private schools, but mine offered less electives. Like we had the choice of art, business, home ec, drama, band, and choir (band and choir were full year, the rest were only half year). Most public schools will offer all that and more (like I know my brother's school offers woodwork, metalwork, photography, probably other stuff as well). Idk though maybe my school just sucked.

A quick word on uniforms:

• Easily the #1 difference between public/private schools.
• We'd have a "jeans day" usually once a month where we were allowed to wear our own clothes. You had to pay to participate (Not a lot, like $1-$2) and all the proceeds usually went to some kind of charity.
• Girls have to wear a kilt. It's usually like knee-length but a lot of girls would roll them up to make them look shorter.
  -A lot of girls would also put different pins on their skirt. It was kind of a way of expressing ourselves since we couldn't wear our normal clothes. Jewellery and makeup was another way.
• Sometimes different school groups were allowed to wear a different shirt for special occasions. Like the football teams were allowed to wear their team jackets on game days, band kids could wear their band trip shirts for like a week or so after the trip. Stuff like that.

Anyways, sorry that's kind of a lot. Hope it helps though.

EDIT: Actually, to give you a better idea of how small our school is compared to public schools, I graduated in 2012 and went to college right after. In 2015, I started going to a different college so that I could do a different program. I didn't really interact with people that weren't in my grade, nor was I really involved in many clubs/extra curricular stuff. But on my first day at this new college a guy in my class asked me if I went to [insert high school name]. Turns out he went to the same high school as me and recognized me even though he was 3 grades behind me and we hadn't spoken until that moment.

Another time I was out with my mom and this guy came up to me and said hi to me. I didn't recognize him, but he knew my name and said he went to the same high school as me. He actually addressed me by my first name and used the name of our school. But to this day I still have no idea who this guy was.

I’m about to graduate from a Catholic school, so I’ll add some stuff:

• no matter if it’s guys or girls, there’s always 2 usually separate groups that hang out
• Sports rivalry is pretty tense, especially when two grades are in the same league with different teams
• Dress code is…kinda strict? Like, no tank tops if the straps aren’t at least 3 fingers wide, no spaghetti straps, no short shorts, short skirts, or short dresses, and no inappropriate tee shirts.
• classes are very small, like my class has 15 kids, and less than 30 in the grade. Some of my friends are going to another Catholic school where grades are like 10 people.
• our drama club is great though, I’ve never been to a private school that doesn’t put on a great theatre show
• teachers are mostly good, some are chaotic neutral
• there’s a pretty big divide between 6-8 graders and under
• we do fun stuff, but it’s the same stuff every year
• some private schools have a chef, and I know a private high school that has food catered to it twice a week. My school has government issued food, and it’s not good
• since classes are small, we can do fun stuff, such as roller skate in phy ed, have class outside, walk to a coffee shop, etc.
• every year the 8th grade has a massive field trip to DC. Other grades have pretty great field trips too, like a citywide bike ride, waterparks, and museums
• For extracurriculars, there’s three girls’ sport seasons (volleyball, basketball, softball) and three boys’ sport seasons (football, basketball, volleyball) although most boys just do city rec basketballs
• we also have Destination Imagination, which is a great program! Like, google it if you’ve never heard of it (And also try to get it set up in your town or city). Our school always has at least 2 teams advance from State to Global Finals in Knoxville, TN. I’ve been lucky enough to make it twice with my team, and placed in the top ten with a special award.
• Our schoolday extracurriculars are limited to band, choir, art, and study hall. They used to have a program where there was like a cooking club and a running club, etc. but that got cut.
• If you’re writing about a Catholic school, we have mass once a week, but some schools have it once a month. We also have stuff like a Stations of the Cross reading and a Tree of Life, which has the names of those who’ve passed on written on it.

I hoped I’ve helped!!!

Ok from My experiance of a private school :

• I guess most of our teachers are actually good teachers. Though some are actualy straight up useless like who teaches 6th graders how to reduce their fractions?
• There is DEFINATELY not a lot of people in our school. I think about 95 people. My class has 15 people and the elementry had it worse. I don't know, the students kept dwindling down each year.
• The uniform code is STRICT at my school. We rarely get dress down days and what we wear is a white blouse with a navy blue kilt with white strips with an uncomfortable vest. Dress down days mean no tight jeans, tank-taps, anything inapporpiate, people had to see your socks.
• We don't really have a lot of clubs, like it would depend on what they want to do each year. Band and Choir are the same… though Basketbal is always on and off since they need more assistant coaches.
• TUTION like for my school, it cost 4k to get in.
• We have mass once a month, just to add.

Did I mention at my school, they keep raising money on EVERYTHING including the tution, cuz people keep leaving?

My school asks for so many ‘donations’ on top of our tuition. Its insane

Same!

O.M.G. ok so at most private schools, they are christians and they wear uniforms. They are also very strict unlike public schools who have free will. Private schools also cost a LOT to get in.

Plus Kids at my public school get dress coded… A LOT!

ok I'm homeschooled but from what I've heard from my friends: private schools are more cliquey and less diverse. You have mostly preppy white people who know each other and can be very cliquey and non-inclusive. however, this is a southern catholic school, so ya know. The public school is underfunded and thus suffers from poor management etc., but there aren't as many cliques and there's a lot of diversity. However, if you only care about test scores, private schools are technically better (average ACT of the private school in the mid twenties, while average of the public is like 16). There are pros and cons, and i'd probably know more of them if I actually attended either school…

ok I'm homeschooled but from what I've heard from my friends: private schools are more cliquey and less diverse. You have mostly preppy white people who know each other and can be very cliquey and non-inclusive. however, this is a southern catholic school, so ya know. The public school is underfunded and thus suffers from poor management etc., but there aren't as many cliques and there's a lot of diversity. However, if you only care about test scores, private schools are technically better (average ACT of the private school in the mid twenties, while average of the public is like 16). There are pros and cons, and i'd probably know more of them if I actually attended either school…

If the education is better at private schools then why am I learning to reduce fractions in 6th grade?

isn't that what you're supposed to learn in 6th grade I legit don't remember