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Use this checklist to keep track of your questions and answers to those questions as you visit each school on your short list. There is a lot of information to assimilate as you make those important visits. It will be easy to forget details unless you note them promptly.

Boarding or Day School?

Many parents agonize over sending their teenagers to boarding school or keeping them at home and sending them to day school.

• The issue you really need to address is the quality of supervision you are able to give your children after school and on weekends.
• Let's face it, modern parents lead very busy professional and social lives.
• If you aren't around to see what's going on, do you know what your teen is up to?

Canva generated this picture of a boarding school campus.

The Advantage of Going to Boarding School

When you send your child to boarding school, you are buying the whole package: academics, athletics, social life, extracurricular activities, and 24/7 supervision all rolled into one.

• That's just part of a boarding school's DNA.
• It is an incredibly good deal for many thoughtful parents.

Of course, she will miss her mother and father, her siblings, her own room, and all those other special things she knows and loves.

• But the truth is that she will be off to college anyway in a few years.
• Getting a head start on leaving home is not a bad thing. It will pay huge dividends in later years as she has had to learn to cope and adjust to new circumstances at an earlier stage in her life.
• Teaching her to be independent is a good thing.

Living in a boarding school essentially prevents your

Froebel, Montessori and Steiner: Champions of Children

Friedrich Froebel, Maria Montessori, and Rudolf Steiner were trailblazers in early education in the 19th and early part of the 20th centuries.

• Their ideas and philosophies shaped early childhood education as we know it in the 21st century.
• Who were these people?
• Why did they feel that early education was so important?

Freidrich Froebel

Freidrich Froebel (1782-1852) invented "kindergarten," which means "a child's garden."

• Froebel wanted children to interact with their surroundings. Interacting with nature was central to his philosophy of education.
• He believed that interacting with nature would lead children to a closer examination of how things work.
• Froebel was influenced by the Swiss pedagogue Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746-1827), whose methods and approach to education, in turn, shaped a young Albert Einstein when he attended the local school in Aarau.
• Today, few people, except educators or trivia buffs, know who Froebel is, even though was profound.

One feature of Froebel's approach to teaching children was the use of gifts.

• He developed five gifts to be given to the child in ascending order.
• The gifts were designed to teach awareness of shapes, spatial relationships, and many other concepts to even the youngest child.

This video offers an overview of Froebel.

Dr. Maria Montessori

Italian physician and pedagogue Dr.

Litchfield County, Connecticut, is home to a couple of dozen excellent schools catering to just about every need. The setting about 90 miles north of New York City is convenient to one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world. Picturesque vistas, rolling hills, ancient stone walls as well as quaint New England villages and towns dot the county's landscape. Plenty of acceptable restaurants and accommodations can be found for those inevitable parents' weekends and other family occasions.

• Saint Peter School, Torrington

The answer to that questions hangs on whether you look at statistics or community. Having 10% of your student population from a certain ethnic group does not necessarily mean a diverse school community. Diversity is more than numbers and statistics. Diversity is an attitude.

Teaching children to be tolerant and accepting of people and views which are different from their own is a huge task. It requires teamwork. Parents, administration and teachers set the tone. Nothing will be accomplished without the cooperation of these three groups.

Teaching children to be tolerant means getting involved and setting the right kind of example. Getting involved is not the same as sitting on the sidelines and observing what children are saying and doing. Getting involved means addressing issues of tolerance and diversity in the home and in the classroom.

The Past

Decades ago private schools were infamous for being elitist and exclusive. If you were Jewish or if your skin color was something other than white, you probably were not going to be admitted to a private school if you even dared to apply. Fortunately that has changed. ²ÝÁñÉçÇø schools have come to understand their leadership role in creating an inclusive, accepting community of students, teachers, staff and parents. Now the push is on to heighten that understanding of others and how they live with many fine initiatives such as The Institute for Student Leaders sponsored by NAIS. ²ÝÁñÉçÇø schools are proud of their diversity which truly is fact and not