My boy, Wynken, recently received a letter from a prospective Catholic high school offering him a $5,000 scholarship to attend there. Per year. (That's twenty grand for all four years!)
Wow. How awesome is that? It seems that he scored in the top 1% on his high school placement exam. The boy is whip smart, that's for sure. That makes us proud parents, you betcha.
(There's always an "except" isn't there?)
We don't know if we'll be able to accept. The scholarship only covers about 40% of the tuition. Yeah, Catholic school isn't exactly cheap, and we have 5 more Nodlings coming up behind him.
Wynken is very smart academically but has a few social and executive function issues that make him easy pickings for ne'er-do-wells and other punks. He's grown up with the kids in Catholic elementary and middle school and they are reasonably tolerant and understanding of his quirks.
On the one hand, he could really benefit from the special service programs available through the county. On the other hand, I fear that putting him in public school would be like throwing him into a piranha pool wearing meat underwear.
Private school means driving; public school means walking. Private school is costly. Public school is free (well, paid for by our taxes).
Getting an academic scholarship to a Catholic school is awesome. Getting forty percent of a scholarship leaves us with sixty percent of uh-oh.
Which means that's forty percent of awesome.
What do do?
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