Private Schools

• Eagle School
• We are at our self-limited enrollment of 182 -- 13 units of 14 students each, K-8.  Based on the transportation contract information, 59% of these are MMSD students (emphasis added).  We haven't polled them, but certainly greater challenge is the number one reason parents bring their children to EAGLE.  I'm sure there are other reasons mixed in, but we hear many tales of  apathy and even neglect of children with high potential in Madison schools.  This is our 21st year of existence, and NOTHING has changed for gifted kids in MMSD since we started.  They are just never high enough on the priority list to get the differentiated education they NEED and deserve.  It is wonderful to be in a setting where kids can get what they need, but it's heartbreaking for us to listen to the parents of kids on our waiting list when we don't have a spot for them month after month and sometimes year after year.  We've also seen the results of  inappropriate education when underachieving, cynical 7th or 8th graders apply here and we can't turn them around at that stage -- it's too late!  We have a good scholarship program (over $70,000 given out last year), but some years it isn't enough to meet all the need.  Gifted kids don't always come from affluent families, so there is an equity issue that the public schools ought to face -- e.g., the gifted child from a poor, single-parent home with no one to enrich him at home or to advocate for her in school.  Our students do tend to return to public systems for high school, but we turn them out as accomplished achieving self-advocates who can handle "the system" and usually get what they need.  Even then, they are disappointed with the limitations sometimes.  If the Youth Options are cut, the rich families will find a way, the middle and low-income families won't have any choice.  [back to top]
  

• Edgewood
• Our enrollment is 307.  Approximately 70% of them are in from the MMSD  boundries.  The lack of challenge question is tough, I have my best sense  from the incoming 6th graders.  Their reasons for coming vary, here are some:
• lack of challenge in public school
• disruption and distractions in the public schools from other students
• MMSD middle schools too large, too impersonal
• family is comitted to their student attending EHS and want to get them ready

• I will say that the few students who join us in grades 1 - 5 do come because of the lack of challenge.  The Catholic issue is really not huge once past the early grades because if  the family wanted their student in Catholic school they would have do that from the beginning. [back to top]