The misnomer about private schools is that everyone is rich that attends. The SPC school's (Kinkaid, ESD, St. Mark's, etc..) tuition is outrageous ($35k+ yearly). With that said, most TAPPS school's aren't for the rich. Yes, there are some larger schools that are, but the smaller one's aren't. I'm on my 14th year in this profession, 7 years in public (5A, 3A, 2A) and 7 years in private school. I can speak for the places that I have worked, both public and private, we did not "recruit". For the majority of the kids that made the switch from public to private, they fell into two categories: 1) Better education / SAT-ACT prep concentration vs. STAAR testing prep or 2) Better social setting / Christian setting / Smaller bubble vs. public school issues (gang violence, vaping. weed in bathrooms, drugs, drinking, etc.). I was at a 5A public school before coming to ACS. To be honest, it was an absolute graveyard for education and safety. They busted students that were sent by the cartels to deal drugs aka fentanyl to students as young as elementary school. There was gang violence daily. Teachers are basically "babysitters" spending the majority of their time trying to stop all the distractions. The bathrooms wreaked of weed constantly. Absolutely ZERO accountability. God was never allowed to be talked about. Genderfication and gay pride was celebrated. To top it all off, this was one of the "better rated" schools in the district.
So for me and my family, we were blessed enough to have an opportunity to come to ACS. Where God hasn't been taken out of the learning environment. Where doing the right thing is celebrated. Where there are consequences for doing the wrong thing. Where we pray for the students and staff as a school in the morning. Where we pledge to the Texas flag, Christian flag, and Bible. Sure we have issues, but nothing even close to what I've experienced in the public school sector. I'm telling you, and you all know it, the public school's, especially the bigger one's, are getting ridiculously bad.
With all that said, I truly believe that most of the school's that are 6man, still have the same Christian values and accountability as many of the private schools. As a matter of fact, I know they do. I'm not Nostradamus, but I believe that we will start to see many of the "city" kids, relocating to smaller schools within somewhat reasonable driving distance. This is already happening outside of the DFW area. As for the other "city" kids, they will find a charter or private school that fits their needs. For the rest, all we can do is pray that they make it out alive and unscarred.
Personally, I don't believe that the government should be involved at all with our personal choices. My entire point responding to this post was to give an insight that private schools aren't the enemy here. They offer things, that unfortunately has been taken away from the public school setting by that very same government who wants to give out vouchers. I highly respect many teachers / coaches in public school. We talk about their issues vs. our issues, and they aren't even on the same spectrum. Again. many of these issues are with the bigger schools. Fortunately, all those issues haven't polluted the small town setting yet. I pray they never do.
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