School Wars

The conversation in our house these days has been skewing heavily on the subject of Hannah's future education. We love her CPE (especially since its $7/day) and are fully planning on keeping her there as long as possible until she is 4. For two reasons:

1. It's a great education and unlike other daycares, really has that school environment where children are separated by age

2. Alex will be going there next year and 1 carpool is better than 2

So, as Hannah's 3rd birthday approaches we know that next fall we will have to make a decision about her future school.

Public? Private? Jewish? Secular?

Our new house is literally 10 steps away from a very well respected public school which actually offers a Jewish program. My husband is very pro, coming from a public school background. I'm not so sure, coming from a private Jewish background.

My main rationale? I want our kids to know Hebrew and I think this is a tough challenge when you only study it once or twice a week after school, while all of your friends are doing fun sports or other extra curriculars.

We started browsing various school websites and while the prices of the Jewish ones aren't listed (but somewhere in the $6000-$8000 range) we could not believe how much the private, secular schools are! $15,000 for kindergarden! That's insane.

At least that in Montreal. Not New York city. Check out this movie trailer about the competitive (and expensive) world of nursery school applications.