Question

Ya, wondering if I can get some of ya's thoughts. We are getting ready to move from Cali to Tennessee either in May or June. WE ARE ECSTATIC to get out. God opened up an amazing business opportunity, we get to be with family, its beautiful there, so many positives about Tn. EXCEPT the school situation. The public schools are'n the best and honestly not an option for us, religious reasons and just personal belief. We are looking into a private Christian School, but holy smokes they are expensive there, even more so than Cali. Weird. Our goal is go to without a mortgage, so our school tuition would actually be the "mortgage", yes its that much. We applied for financial aid, but haven't heard back yet. We know 0 about finaincnail aid, does anybody have experience with it. Like what does it look like, , does everybody get some taken off the tuition or only certain families? Any experience with it here? Thanks ya. xox

Answer 1

How do you know the schos aren't good? Personal experience or just from what you have heard. People don't really know if a particular school is good or not unless they are in that school every day.  

Comments

@lathing just from what I hear and that's from people that actually work on some level in the system. But I just know my kids and it would not be a good fit‍♀️

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When we moved to El Paso everyone told us the schools were horrible. Fact is my son excelled. He loved it and never had any issues. You may need to give it a try before you pass judgement. Hawaii was the place for us that schools were horrible. Bullying and unorganized, no control of the kids.  

Answer 2

Usually with financial aid it depends on your income to family size ratio. I do not think it's common for the financial aid to cover the entire cost of tuition, but again that depends on other factors. If you have more than one child, ask them if they have discounts on tuition for multiple students in the household. And if you've just heard the schools are bad through word of mouth, I would definitely check them out for yourself. I am a former public school teacher and I can tell you that "bad schools" can vary from year to year. Also, and unfortunately schools that are labeled "not good" are often not in favorable neighborhoods. So, keep that in mind!  

Answer 3

I think financial aid is going to differ from school to school. You should be able to call their billing office and ask how it works. With our Christian school that we are trying to get the kids into, financial aid is based on how many people need it and who needs it more. If you make $15k a year, then you need it more than someone who makes $80k a year. That’s basically how they decipher it. And then it also just depends on the funding/donations they get, it all comes from the church/community so when they don’t give, the kids don’t get. I know some schools do fundraisers and scholarships through the year to help with tuition prices. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen financial aid cover the full cost of tuition anywhere.  

Answer 4

The public schools in TN are good but it depends on what county you are going to. Financial aid really depends on the school.  

Answer 5

I'd consider homeschool or university model school

Comments

@autogenous What is university model school

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Jada, it is a private school or charter school that only goes to school 3 days a week and you homeschool the other 2 days

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There's also a lot of online options if you're kids are old enough to not need constant supervision

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@autogenous umm sounds interesting! Our 14 year old is special needs with a severe learning disability so i'm kind of at a loss as where to put her. I can not homeschooled her because I am not qualified nor would it be good for our relationship‍♀️ Silverdale has programs for her but it's soo expensive!  

Answer 6

I live in TN and some public schools are great and some are not so great. It truly depends what school system you’re in.  

Answer 7

Where in TN will you be living?  

Comments

@strange We will be in the Cleveland Chattanooga area

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My in laws live out there. You definitely probably want to go private. My nieces did

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@strange Yeah we are looking into Silverdale. Well we've actually enrolled them already

Answer 8

I know nothing about Tn but I see this topic come up quite often. As tax payers I beg you all to hold your school board accountable. Board of Education members are there to set policy, direct funding and provide oversight. Performance of the schools in your city/town/village can have an impact on property values. Go to the board meetings or at least read the minutes so you’re informed about what they are doing with your money. If the schools in your city/town are “bad”/low performing find out what they are doing to make them better. *off my soapbox lol Also public/private/home schooling is a personal choice and please don’t think I’m trying to sway you in either way

Answer 9

Did you look on niche to see how the schools actually rank?  

Answer 10

Have you looked into an online/homeschool program? I think there’s one called K-12 or something like that where they have a teacher and do everything online.