Browse archives: 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999 | 1998 | 1997 | 1996 | 1995

Published on 10/02/1995 All articles from this issue

Small classes, a sense of safety draw students to area private schools

printer friendly version

By Matthew Tom / Town Crier Staff Writer

It costs anywhere from $5,100 to $10,000 a year to send your children there.

In these times of economic hardship, many Los Altos area choose to send their children to private high schools in an attempt to provide their children with a better education.

"St. Francis offers a top quality education that is geared towards success," said Cindy McDold, public relations coordinator for Saint Francis High School in Mountain View.

A top quality education is the main reason parents send their children to schools like Saint Francis and Pinewood in Los Altos Hills, which cost $5,100 a year and $10,000 a year respectively.

"We try to go above and beyond the minimum standard," said Mark Gardner, principal of Pinewood High School. The minimum standards are the guidelines set by the University of California. "We provide a good college preparatory environment. Our main goal is to get them ready for college."

According to Gardner, the main advantage Pinewood has over public high schools is the small number of pupils.

"We have 195 students at Pinewood," he said. "Our math and foreign language classes are never more than 14 with all our other classes being no larger than 20.

"This allows our teachers to pay more attention to each individual student."

Gardner said classes like math and foreign language are smaller because of the nature of the material.

"We want those classes to be smaller because math is very sequential. In order for a student to move on he must understand the material very well," Gardner said. "Our foreign language classes are small to provide more dialogue between the teacher and students."

At Pinewood, for a student to graduate a student must complete: four years of English, two years of technical writing, three years of a foreign language, four years of history, three years of math, two years of science, two years of physical education, one year of oral communication, one year of computer science and one semester of art.

"We try to provide a very broad curriculum," McDold said. "Our goal is for our students to be well-rounded and to be the best they can be."

Saint Francis, which is a Catholic high school, has a student-to-teacher ratio of 17-to-1 and a student population of 1,390, 70 percent of which is Catholic.

"We want our kids to improve spiritually as well as academically," McDold said. "We want our students to go out and do something good in the world.

"But we try to foster values that are not necessarily tied to Catholicism."

Saint Francis accomplishes this by requiring students to fulfill 50 hours of community service. Community service activities include working with the elderly, the disabled, the poor and tutoring younger children.

"We want our students to do things that benefit people," she said. "I think it is an intricate part of the curriculum that the students need and enjoy."

But, academics and sending their children off to top-notch colleges is not the only reason parents are willing to spend thousands of dollars a year for private school.

"The two main reasons parents send their kids here are: behavior - kids here want to learn," Gardner said. "And atmosphere - parents feel they're putting their kids in a safer environment.

"That, I think, enhances the learning environment," he said.

"We don't allow any weird clothing," Gardner said. "We don't have any problems with drugs, violence or gangs.

"But we try to make it the same as public high schools socially through dances and rallies," Gardner said.

"Parents definitely see their kids as being safer here," McDold said. "We have a dress code and discourage any violence or gang activity. We also have a closed campus so students can't leave.

"Parents know we provide a greater level of supervision," she said.

"The one advantage we have is we can kick a student out for misbehaving," Gardner said.