It’s school open house season (except for public schools, which seem to have little interest in encouraging you to attend, and thus don’t have posted open houses that I could find).
Manuela Slye from Cometa Playschool (4106 Stone Way North) wants you to know that they’re holding an open house Saturday, January 18th from 11 am – 1 pm and Thursday, January 30th 6 – 8 pm.
Come visit our school, meet our instructors and learn more about our Spanish Immersion program for children ages 3-5. For more information please visit www.cometaseattle.com or call our Director Manuela Slye, (206) 353-6781
Gracias!
Cut the public servants some slack. Public schools don’t tend to have staff with recruitment/marketing in their job description. Open houses for public schools are usually in Feb/March, I have found.
Wow! that slam at public schools was not necessary. each school has their own open houses posted on their websites. Most have many, usually beginning in Feb an dgoing on for 6-8 weeks. Possibly each Tuesday morning over a 6 week period. I do not understand why this insulting comment is made.
The public schools (JSIS, Green Lake, Salmon Bay) will have tours in February or March. Most haven’t been finalized so they aren’t posted. We did Cometa for one year and our daughter enjoyed it.
Public schools choose to have their open houses AFTER application deadlines for all the area independent schools. I called the JSIS and scoured the web site and have not found any open houses.
I’m a bit surprised people found my comment “insulting” or a “slam”. Public schools do not have an incentive to encourage people to attend. Independent schools do. It’s not surprising that public schools don’t go out of their way to try to “compete” for students with an independent school. They’re not bad people, they’re not lazy, but it seems to me, if they had a strong interest in attracting students, they would hold open houses when they could be useful: when people are choosing which schools to apply to. I don’t see it.
wow, slam again….. For many years, yes- it’s true, the schools did compete for students as the more students a school had, the more money they had for programs, teachers, etc. Student families had the ability to choose which school within their area they could go to so there were lots of potential students up for grabs. Open houses and tours (with presentations, food, coffee, etc) were run to lure folks in during the late 1990s onward (when my child attended K forward). With the new neighborhood schools program, this has been scaled back but tours are STILL AVAILABLE (and at my school, still with presentations, tours, food, drink), though not until closer to the Feb. enrollment. The enrollment time frame has been the same for as many years as i’ve had kids in public school.
It may surprise you but INDEPENDENT SCHOOL enrollment DATES HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE DATES THE DISTRICT PROVIDES for enrollment. You could switch it around and say the independent schools purposely choose their enrollment dates earlier than the public schools for those folks who panic about this kind of issue.
I typically find the fabulous information on Wallyhood to be pretty unbiased. But, unfortunately, this is the exception.
Personally, after scouring public and private schools alike, we chose the public school option and could not have been happier with the education our children received. In this area of Seattle, we are lucky enough to have an abundance of great schools, great teachers, and great opportunities for your child. I hope you can find the right educational opportunity for your child without denegrating public or private schools either one. They both have positive and negative points, depending on your family. Just because it isn’t right for your family doesn’t mean it’s not a good choice for many of us.
I would like to add my preschools to the list of open houses. Tara’s Tots are hosting three dates: Sunday, January 26th from 3-5pm. Wednesday, February 5th from 6-8pm. Sunday, March 2nd from 3-5pm. I now have three locations: The Songbirds are located in lower Wallingford next door to Fremont Community School at 3534 Interlake Ave. North.
Linden Tree is located at the south end of the zoo at 4918 Linden Ave. North. The Chickadees will be opening in Wallingford soon at 2206 North 41st. The Chickadees is our newest program and is opening for little ones ages 1 and 2.
You can check out my schools on the Wallyhood Blog!
Jeez, Wallyhood is concerned with establishing a positive community environment around barking dogs than over our public schools. Maybe should follow the barking dog advice. Find out a little bit more before you fire the cannons — like when public schools do have open houses and not just assume you know what’s going on. And there’s surprise at the reaction? Then you really don’t understand where schools and their supporters are in today’s public discourse.
I’ve enjoyed Wallyhood until today. Then this unnecessary attack on public schools. Kinda ironic that just a few days ago Wallyhood issued an appeal to understand the situation with barking dogs before jumping to conclusions and damaging community relations. Wallyhood just did some damage to my community. Sounds like Wallyhood needs to exercise some of that effort to understand before slapping our schools. Hoping for better stuff in the future. And as far as public schools wanting to attract students, unlike independent schools, public schools take all comers — even those kids independent schools don’t want to educate, those that get kicked out of independent schools, or those that need special programs the independent schools don’t offer.
Thank you for those words.
Wallyhood: damaging the community since 2009.
Our daughter has attended Cometa for several months and enjoys it. Glad we have Manuela’s program in the neighborhood.
I, too, Wallyhood, have found it hard to learn when SPS open houses are. I even called one school and they could not tell me if/when an open house was going to occur. They told me one option was to “go to the playground” to find out from other parents what the school was like.
So it’s great that the wallyhood blog provides some information on that — though as is often the case, you have to read the comments to get the story.
JSIS will release tour/open house dates next week, which will be in Feb or March. It is looking like the Green Lake open house dates will be Feb 4th and 27th. Salmon Bay has one on February 6th. It is frustrating that already by mid February a private school that we are interested in will need us to commit even though we maybe haven’t even toured JSIS yet.
Sorry, I just don’t see any “slam” on SPS. I see a parent looking for information on a school system that apparently hasn’t planned, or at least posted the information. If it hasn’t been planned yet, that’s an issue. If it hasn’t been made public yet, that’s a issue.
Steve
“which seem to have LITTLE interest in encouraging you to attend” ? That’s not a slam?
Independent schools have an economic interest in attracting students, and particular kinds of students that serve their mission. Public schools lack those economic incentives. In fact, they have the reverse incentives.
As evidence, I offer specific behaviors that independent schools exhibit (publicizing their open houses, reaching out to neighborhood blogs to get the word out, scheduling open houses early enough to be useful, etc) that public schools do not.