The Perks of Private School

On my last blog I talked about the differences between public school and private school. Today I want to discuss what I enjoy most about working at a private school.

One of the aspects about our school that I love so much is that we have been able to keep our enrichment courses. We refer to library, computers, P.E., art, and music as “enrichment courses.” These courses are “pull-out” classes where the students leave my classroom and are taught these subjects by a different teacher.  They visit these classes once a week for 30 - 45 minutes, depending on the class.  I know a lot of other schools in our area who have not been able to hold on to these programs (both private and public).  We have been blessed during this rough economy to still be able to provide these resources (and more) in our program.


I almost hate to add this because I know that I will have a lot of eye-rolls or straight-up jealousy, but I have an assistant.  Don’t kill me please!!! It’s just one of the perks of my job (I’ll talk about the down-sides in another post).  I share my assistant with the other 4th grade teacher.  Our assistant helps us with things like grading papers or putting up bulletin boards. She also calls a parent if a child gets sick and I’m in the middle of lesson, or she may get a bag of ice for another hypochondriac child who’s finger would fall off unless ice is applied. 

Lastly, I love the freedom I have in my class to teach what I want to teach, and how I want to teach it.  We do have pacing guides to stick with so it’s not like I can teach ANYTHING I want, but I do have the freedom to do things like add a unit to Science that wasn’t in the book, or take an entire day and work on various centers I’ve created.   I also have the freedom to discuss my beliefs with the kids since we are a Christian school.  One of my very most favorite aspects of teaching in a private school watching my kiddos grow and mature in their faith.  

In my next blog I will discuss some of the downsides to teaching in a private school, so all you teachers who yelled when you read that I have an assistant, you’re going to want to stay tuned!!!  Click here to read about the downsides to teaching at a private school.