I do think it could be a chance of "grass is greener" kind of thing. If he was just shadowing for a half day, people are going to be overly nice and not mean to him. So, if he's coming from a bad situation, it is going to look great. But that doesn't mean once he starts into it, he won't have some of the same issues.
I have taught at both public and catholic high schools. Honestly, there isn't much of a difference when it comes to the kids. If anything, my experience (and only my experience) is that bullying sometimes is more tolerated in the catholic school. Depends on who is doing the bullying. If it's someone who's parents donate a lot of money to the school, the school is a lot less likely to come down hard on the student. (once again, only my experience at the school I taught at).
But you will never know unless you switch schools. It could be a great experience for your son, or an even worse. You just have to weigh all the options and decide what's better. I'm not a fan of just letting a kid decide their schooling. They have to learn that sometimes you have to learn to deal with a less than perfect situation. That's how life works. But if you truly believe his current school is a bad situation, I would consider moving him.
excellent post.
i have to echo that sometimes bullying can be worse in private schools because it's not nesc. addressed as much as it would be in the public schools. in my experience (taught at a private school and kids have attended different ones over the years), it can def. be an issue of it not being addressed due to the financial aspect/who your parents are in the parent church community, but it can also be due to (in religious based private schools) the mindset that any kid with bad behaviours can be changed through modeling good behaviours and prayer, with a heavy dose of repeated forgivness.
that's a problem we've seen ALLOT of in private religious based schools, esp. those that tend to take kids in who have the opposite issue your son has-being on the "giving" end of the bullying.
i've seen kids cycle into the schools my kids have attended that were literaly expelled from multiple public schools that truly were trying to address their problems but the parents were not doing their part so the kid ends up in a private school often times very resentful about it and more prone to cause trouble because it's been a long standing threat from their parents that they will send them there to "whip them into shape". the private school sells the parents on the concept of "it's a new fresh start/clean slate" and unfortunatly (in my opinion) does'nt appropriatly address those behaviours (is more forgiving of, puts a heavy burden of forgiving and praying for the bully on his/her new victims) because they want so much to believe/prove that they can change any kid.
i've seen behaviours tolerated that would have been the basis for immediate expulsion in a public school setting.
that said-i think given the situation, it's a good idea to ask the new school what their disciplinary model is, and maybe give them examples of some of the issues you've delt with in his current school. if they are very vague or say they don't have a problem with that issue in their school-be very cautious, if a school says they don't have a problem with bullying they are either outright lieing or ignorant of their population. it happens at every school to different degrees.
as for him changing schools right now, what's the makeup of the new school-have these kids all been together since k or even preschool? if so he needs to be aware that it can be harder making friends with these long standing relationships in place. despite being a great student, are the academic standards for his grade comparable at the new school or is he going to facing much more challenging work-and is he ready to put the time and effort into it (dd went from private school to public in 9th grade and has found with some, not all classes that she studied the curriculum/mastered the concepts years earlier. ds is in 7th grade at a private school now, and his math and esp. english classes are covering subjects that are not heavily focused on until freshman year in the public high schools). the other thing he will have to get used to is the inclusion of religious classes in his curriculum-and depending on how challenging they are, and how much of a base of knowledge he's got, might be the most difficult to jump into mid semester (i know it's a new trimester, but the new one builds on the previous one and while a private school might offer different levels of math and english classes for a 6th grader they usualy just have one level of religous instruction).
dd's one of those 'the grass is greener' kind of kids, but she's found that public or private school there are still the same kinds of problems occuring (though i'm impressed with her school's administration-they jump on these issues and deal with them immediatly) so she has had to learn skills to deal with it.
good luck with your decision, i hope you find a good fit for your son. i'll pass on one suggestion for you to share with him. don't make the mistake some kids from the public schools who are moving into private make-going into major details about why you changed/bad mouthing the public school you changed from. if you give allot of information out about having had to move because you were bullied, it can make you an appealing target for new bullies, AND you never know if circumstances will change where you have to/want to go back to the public school-and the private school kids live in the same neighborhoods as the public school kids do, so the negative things you've said can and do get back to your former classmates which can make it even harder if you do end up attending school with them again at a future date.
Of course, not by choice...
