I am not sure if Seacoast is trying to be both a Christian Academy AND a Charter Academy for all grade levels, but it's a little confusing. The high school, which is part of the Christian Academy, costs $7,500 a year(2020), which puts it on the low end. According to the Seacoast website, the high school has some academic offerings:
This is a fairly vague representation, probably because these classes vary based on students and faculty at any given time. I understand that some local private schools are going to be small, but I'm also not sure I want my kids to have a grab bag of advanced options, and I'm also not clear on how Seacoast chooses its teachers:
Our teachers meet or exceed the academic and personal qualifications for certification with ACSI. They are committed to providing the best educational environment in order to effectively prepare our students to impact their culture for Christ.
So, ACSI certifies high school teachers who have at least a bachelor's degree with a renewable General Studies designation, but it seems to encourage people to eventually get 20 credit hours from a college. I know from teaching in Duval that a lot of teachers there are also learning to teach as they teach with semi-related degrees, so I'm not going to bash Seacoast or ACSI too much here. However, I also do not know the percentage of teachers who are fully ACSI certified in their fields of study, or whether any current teachers are allowed to teach AP Calculus or "college placement" science courses. Please feel free to ask Seacoast about teacher qualifications, since I can't find much else on the website. I also want my kids to be prepared for college and life beyond just impacting their culture for Christ.
Seacoast's location isn't super-awesome in my book, but it's fairly close to us.
Rating: Even if I would get a job teaching here (as a real English teacher), I'm not sure about this school. It seems to lean towards reality more than Harvest, but I still feel it might be an alternate reality that won't be fit my kids in college.
Providence School of Jacksonville400-500 est. HS / 1200-1500 students (k-12)
$15,000+ tuition and fees
Providence would be our closest "elite" private school, with Episcopal and Bolles being a bit further down the road (and a bit more elite academically). The kids have been talking about "Providence Disease" ever since one friend left for that school, so there's obviously a backlash against the school. I also saw news stories about the sports program getting caught doing something wrong twice in the last several years, though I don't really know (or care about) the details.
I've met a few Providence graduates, and they seem like good kids. I am sure the education is decent, and it's a real school. Providence is the obvious result of mediocre public schools in an expanding part of Jacksonville that includes 100s (maybe 1000s) of $1 million homes. People have found land to develop near the Intracoastal down to JTB, and they are going to need a school for the kids, so Providence is the de facto private school for anyone east of St. John's Bluff in Jacksonville, especially if the parents don't have ties to one of the older private schools.
Providence has this vague description of its high school:
In Upper School, our rigorous curriculum challenges students to integrate critical thinking skills as they learn to search for answers beyond conventional wisdom.
So, does the high school curriculum question Christianity at a Christian school? Or democracy? Or that wealthy people work hard for their money? Marriage? Buy low and sell high? I think I'm misunderstanding Providence's view of a "generally accepted theory or belief." To me, an obviously conservative school is kind of conventional, unless the folks at Providence think we're living in some kind of post-Christian, evil America where conventional wisdom says everyone deserves universal healthcare. (Sorry for that rant; vague, subject/noun-changing mission statements do this to me.)
In trying to sell the school to my kids (and myself), I said things like, "It's good to get to know the kids whose parents have money." Or, "My friends from high school couldn't do much to help me when I got laid off." However, the fact of the matter is that our kids would need scholarships to attend Providence (and be seen as scholarship kids), and those other kids (and their parents) probably aren't any more likely to help our kids out someday as my friends were, so the connections might not be worth the investment of $15,000 a year to attend (2020). That said, one job offer IS worth the $60,000 investment, as long as you know you'll get that offer. With two kids, even with a second-child discount, we'd be looking at an investment of $100,000 or thereabouts. I'd probably rather pay off my rental home in Milwaukee than send my kids to Providence, but it's still a consideration because of where we live.
The big question would be whether parents at Providence would accept that our kids are as smart as theirs, or as good at sports, especially if we got a discount and/or scholarship. That said, it would be fun to have some cocktails on someone's yacht during a Trump boat rally on the Intracoastal. Or for the kids to get invited to Switzerland for the summer. I talked to an obviously wealthy (private island) young man who did NOT attend Providence, and he used as his reasoning that he wasn't looking to go pro in sports and thought that the students there never experienced the real world. The problem with that assessment is that the real world can be kind of harsh, so I can see the allure of staying sheltered.
My wife had a hard time joining her elite private school late in middle school because social groups had already been formed, and I am sure that also applies to joining Providence for high school. Unless the new kid is wearing a Louis Vuitton backpack and getting dropped off in Daddy's Maserati on the first day of school, you probably get sent to the back of the line. When I went to a tough city school, I could come in as a cool customer because I was a big deal on the undefeated freshman football team, but my daughter doesn't play football or croquet or go sailing or live in Queen's Harbour, so I don't know.
Yes, it's a good school that has all the numbers to prove it. And it's close to our house. However, another parent told me that the tour guide at the school said, "Providence chooses you; you don't choose Providence." That was the final nail.
Rating: This may be the right school if you have a money tree in the back yard or a rich uncle who happens to like you and die right as your kids are ready for high school. For us, the investment would basically mean no travel or gifts or going out or actual meals on Saturdays.
Parsons Christian Academy
80-100 students
$7,200 tuition
Parsons isn't too terribly far away from our house, but I didn't know it existed until one of my kids said a friend's sibling attends the high school. It hadn't turned up in my local searches on Google Maps, most likely because it's listed as a "club" on Maps. The website also lacks vital information that parents might use to decide if it's a decent school, so maybe it is more of a club, anyhow.
I had to work pretty hard to not really find out much information about the high school here. I am not sure about the types of classes or electives. I don't know if students tend to go on to college. No test scores. From scrolling through Facebook, it looked like 25ish students graduated from the high school last year, but the website doesn't seem to list enrollment numbers. I saw photos of some very young middle and high school staff members, but I don't know what they teach or if they have teaching degrees. Here's the philosophy of the school:
With a strong emphasis on academics blended with sound Christian teaching and a sincere interest in the well-being of children, Parsons Christian Academy focuses on embracing and growing the whole child.
The website also mentions art later on. Again, I didn't see examples of the art or know which teachers teach it or if art is a high school focus. There was a lot about tuition and payments, so at least you'll know what you're paying if not what you're paying for.
It was kind of strange to see two people on the website listed as "owners" of the school. I guess if a school is not owned by a church or some kind of group, the owners are individuals, but you don't see it too often. When I tried to find out more about the accreditation of the school, here's how the FACCS describes its standards for academic programs:
A quality Christian school offers a curriculum that is consistent with the school’s vision, mission, and a Biblical worldview, using instructional strategies that are aligned with the goals and objectives, as taught at each grade and subject level, for student learning, and provided in a comprehensive Academic Manual.
Unfortunately, that's even more vague than the Parsons website. I get it that if you know the owners of this school from church, you're probably comfortable with the curriculum being based on their vision and mission, but I don't know them. That said, the school does have a lot of positive online reviews, so people believe it's accomplishing something with their kids.
Lone Star Charter High School Diploma Center Place
168 students
$0 tuition
If your kids get into some kind of situation, then Lone Star might be the alternative to high school for them. It's a high school diploma, or Good Enough Diploma. One Google reviewer said he got his diploma in three days, probably by passing a bunch of tests. For most students, it's a 4-hour per day program. You can be 15-21 years old.
Basically, this is not a liberal arts education. Probably more like daily test prep and learning of core subjects. This high school shouldn't be anyone's first choice, but it might be an OK last option. I guess I don't know why it's a charter school when DCPS probably has its own versions of this.
Rating: Not a high school, but it could be useful in very specific situations.
Sandalwood High School
2,800+ students
$0 tuition
We've been, at various times, both sold on Sandalwood and dead-set against it. Like many public schools, it seems to be an institution that works for students who know what they want out of the school and do the work necessary to meet their goals. While our kids do fit into that category, we've all kind of started to question the objective most students we've talked to from Sandalwood seem to have, which is to not be students at Sandalwood at all. Parents and students alike have told us that the only way to do Sandalwood is to use the early college option, which is basically working hard for two years in high school in order to then work towards a two-year associate's degree from a community college. The reason that doesn't seem glamorous is because it's not; it's practical, at least for anyone who doesn't really care about having a high school life OR a college life. The students we met who talked up this option seemed to be lower-end 4-year college students, meaning a lot of them might be first-generation college or in need of the cost-savings. I have to wonder how many of these students end up finishing a 4-year degree somewhere. Back when my cousin from Indiana was all impressed that she'd gotten an associate's degree, I asked my parents what it meant, and they said it meant she could work as a secretary somewhere. That was the opinion of people who'd graduated from college in the early 70s in the early 90s, but I'm thinking it might still hold true.
Since this isn't Hollywood or one of those weird dreams I still have, you cannot go back to high school to make up for not really attending high school, so one person I talked to said the better option at Sandalwood is really the dual-enrollment, where you stay at the high school and get more like one year of college credits out of the way rather than two, or maybe one semester. You'd still have to navigate the world of a large, public high school, but you wouldn't feel like some odd college kid hanging out at a high school during your senior year to play sports or attend dances.
I like the fact that there are plenty of course options for students at Sandalwood, but, as you can tell, I am not a huge believer in accelerating past high school and into college while IN high school. Personally, I enjoyed high school, but that was in-part because I was able to take interesting classes like woodworking, drafting, and yearbook. I also had options for classes like art and media broadcasting that I couldn't even fit into my schedule. For us specifically, if Sandalwood offered German, it might have swayed us in its favor, but when I looked into it a few years back, only Lee had a German program. Actually, I'm not entirely sure Sandalwood offers that many more electives than the smaller schools, since so many schools have gone to concentrating on core classes that matter for assessments, which is kind of sad.
Almost everyone we've talked to about Sandalwood agrees that the negative perception of the school is now unwarranted and that it's a pretty good school. And it really ought to be, based on the location. I don't know if anything specific happened in the past or if it's just a case of Stanton and the private schools being seen as better alternatives, but I don't think Sandalwood is a bad option at all, particularly for students who want to attend college early.
Sandalwood is a huge school. I talked to a man who went there a while back who said it was a middle AND high school at the time. And I think it also uses portables, meaning it's the size of two schools plus some extra classrooms. I mean, I don't know if there were 2,800 people at the Jaguars game I attended in December of 2018. It's like the size of the college my wife attended, and it's more populated than nearly half the municipalities in Florida. A single high school that's more than double the size of Providence's k-12 school, and twice the size of the high school I attended. Or 35 times the size of Beaches Chapel High School or Seacoast. It's big, so you might meet future murderers or murder victims, as well as future mayors or congressmen. And you'll have to keep clear of some kids to make it through unscathed. I do appreciate the creativity in the Sandalwood nicknames that resulted from its past (hopefully) problems: Scandalwood, Sandalweed, and Scandalweed. You could probably add Skankyhood, Amplewood, Handandfoot, etc.
Rating: A month before this article, Sandalwood was our choice. As of writing this article, it's not. However, I think it's a decent school, especially for people in the East Arlington area with kids who aren't really sure about college, since it kind of pushes kids in the direction. I do wish it had a strong tech ed (autos / skilled trades) program rather than so much focus on college credits, just based on the people I've met living here. Sandalwood is probably the best school for lots of kids, but I don't think it's the all-around number-one for us.
[Update]
After spending time watching Sandalwood athletic teams and being on campus for events, I'm glad we didn't send our kids to the school. Sandalwood students seem kind of mean. Plus, my kids have heard stories about the school being a bit scary. Again, I'm sure most students are fine, but my kids didn't grow up attending Duval middle schools to toughen them up, so I'm glad we chose another school.
Fletcher High School
2,150 students
$0 tuition
When we moved to Jacksonville, we heard about how the local public schools weren't all that great except for maybe Fletcher. At least one family we know had moved to The Beaches in order to send their kids to Fletcher, but that's not really an option for us. Even though this school does have a low rating on Greatschools.net right now (because it's not currently improving), it's still one of the better schools around based on college preparedness, so the lack of continual improvement doesn't bother me all that much. I think the problem might be that good students at Fletcher kind of underperform. I am hoping that would not be the case with my kids.
Like most public schools in Jacksonville, Fletcher is neighborhood school that also allows some open enrollment options. We know one family that lives in the Terry Parker section of town with one kid now at Fletcher, which should allow all the siblings to attend. They use the open seats, but if we choose Fletcher, then we'd apply to their Cambridge AICE program, which also has open seats for outsiders. I'm sure anyone who wants early college can apply to Sandalwood for its program, as well. While I'm not a huge fan of AP, IB, or other such programs, the AICE option is OK because it has a writing focus and allows a lot more choice in courses. I believe there are four AICE schools in Jacksonville, but Fletcher's the only one in the Arlington/Intracoastal/Beaches part of town.
Generally, if you find a school you like in Jacksonville that isn't Stanton, you might be able to get in to the school if your kids qualify for AICE, AP, or IB, so keep that in the back pocket. While we'd love to live closer to the ocean, a house our size would cost twice as much anywhere near Fletcher. Open enrollment seats are not guaranteed, but a student who gets into a special academic program should have a seat.
Fletcher is a typical high school, in that most students treat it as a four-year endeavor. With over 2,100 kids, this is a large school in my book, but it's not quite as huge as Sandalwood. 500 students per grade level is manageable, I think, though the school I attended and the one I taught at were both closer to 1,500 students. One thing we do acknowledge is that there will be some bad actors at a public school of over 2,000 students. Based on former students I've met, I'd say pot smoking is a thing at Fletcher. Hopefully, it's a small percentage of the kids.
One of the main reasons that we started leaning towards Fletcher was based on a conversation I had with a Sandalwood graduate. He said that he was glad he did not do the early college program at Sandalwood, but he also said that if he had to do it over again, he would have gone to Fletcher. Not Providence or Stanton or any of the private schools his parents could have afforded. He also mentioned the AICE program, which had been recommended by others we've asked.
As long as the rest of the school isn't in total chaos and smoking weed in the halls between classes, Fletcher should provide a decent mix of opportunities for our kids. Sports, clubs, a decent academic program. Four blocks to the ocean. If I had to choose a high school for myself in this area, it would probably have been Fletcher. The main issue when compared to Sandalwood might be transportation, but that's really the case for any non-neighborhood or private school you might choose. I'd also have liked German as a World Language option rather than sign language (which is about as useful as Turkish to most students), but you can't always get what you want.
I also wanted to address the auditory handicap faced by the AICE program. Since everyone just pronounces it as ACE rather than spelling it out, I assumed it was the ACE program, which sounds a lot like some kind of program for reforming derelicts rather than something that competes with AP Capstone. I suppose IB (without knowing it's International Baccalaureate, sounds like a disease treatable with a steroid-free ointment, so whatevs.
Rating: As of the writing of this article, Fletcher is the front-runner for our kids, but we'll have to take a tour and sign up for the AICE program. Did I mention completion of the AICE qualifies students for the Florida Bright Futures scholarship without worrying about SAT scores and whatnot? Anyhow, if the school looks like a decent facsimile of a high school, we're probably going for it. With $0 tuition (we do pay property taxes), it's good if at least a few of the public schools are worth considering, and Fletcher should be on your radar if you live in the Ft. Caroline area, especially since the actual time to get there is basically the same as going to Sandalwood.
[UPDATE]
We took a family tour of Fletcher, and it was good enough. Smallish gym and cafeteria. Some portables that might disappear with referendum money. But students who were not bouncing off walls, a decent auditorium, and some cool outdoor spaces. Basically, it didn't feel like a prison (memories of my own high school), and the staff didn't seem like prison guards (memories of teaching at other Duval schools). I could imagine Mr. Shoop teaching summer school here, and that's pretty radical.
Also, we talked to a couple more students who confirmed that there are enough go-getters at the school, meaning the AICE or AP or Dual Enrollment classes that are offered are not just joke classes that anyone can sail through, and that's what we're looking for.
[UPDATE 2]
Duval's online system is a new kind of awful, which I pretty much knew from the time I was applying for a position in the district. I had to create my third Focus account (one to apply, one as an employee, and one as a parent) in order to begin the enrollment process. You can't even bookmark the focus login page because, terrible. And then, there's a
hidden application for students new to the district. This needs to be fully completed before you can choose a program with which to apply, even though the link you get if you didn't finish the application sends you elsewhere. What's insane is that someone is probably going to print all of the documents off to look at them, so why not just have me print them and mail them in rather than this mess, which reminds me of my last two mortgage application programs and the Florida unemployment system.
[Update 3]
After a couple of years, both kids are on track to achieve full Bright Futures status through AICE. However, I have been somewhat disappointed with a couple of social studies teachers who assign way too much homework. We stayed away from Stanton because every student I talked to kept complaining about homework, yet my kids seem to do Stanton-amounts of work at home. Some electives end up kind of being study halls so students can get work done. The theatre program is OK, but it's enough for me that it exists at all. I'm also generally disappointed in all Duval Schools in the slow construction of new classrooms based on referendum money, but I guess my kids will be able to return to a nice school for a visit after they graduate. Overall, it's been a good mix of challenging work, lots of clubs and sports to try, and fairly friendly students. Sure, some leave campus to surf and / smoke pot, but that's just some.
Beaches Chapel High School
80-ish students
$8,500 tuition and fees
I kind of knew Beaches Chapel had a high school because my kids have played basketball at the gym there, and the school has all kinds of giant photos on the walls of the high school kids. What I didn't realize was that the high school was on the same campus as the K-8 school, and that the enrollment is less than 100 students. Like Harvest or Seacoast, it's doubtful Beaches Chapel can offer a substantial mix of honors, AP, and elective courses to make it a perfect choice. Fewer than 100 students at a high school is, without a doubt, small. 1/20th the size of Fletcher small. Too small?
The people I've met from Beaches Chapel Middle School seem nice, and I've generally been impressed with their sportsmanship in games compared to some of the other local Christian schools. My wife was just talking to a current student who seems to like it, as well. It's also cheaper than the Providence or BK options.
We offer an advanced academic tract that includes college dual enrollment, fine arts department, international student program and a full athletic program in our new gymnasium and weight room.
The gym is nice, and using articles properly in sentences with lists is also a good idea. I think the quote from the website is probably reflective of what any small school deals with in trying to recruit: it can't have everything be perfect or new, so it promotes what it does have in kind of a disjointed list. Since dual enrollment isn't imperative to me, and neither of my kids are really weight room material, the gym and some kind of international student program stand out. However, if "international" simply means bringing wealthy Chinese kids to Beaches Chapel to help pay for costs, then it's not really anything...I looked it up, and that's kind of the thing, except all the kids look like they are from Italy rather than China. Anyhow, means nothing, so there's a gym. And the school is near the beach rather than sitting next to a seedy apartment complex in Arlington.
Rating: Just based on the kids, parents, and teachers I've seen at Beaches Chapel, I have to say it's probably our choice for a tiny high school over Harvest or Seacoast (or any other little high school hiding in the local woodwork). Luckily, there doesn't seem to be a waiting list, so if we need a backup school or feel like something smaller would be better once the kids start, Beaches Chapel will probably be available.
River City Science Academy HS
500+/- high school students
$0 tuition
Full disclosure here, I was hired to
teach at RCSA back in spring of 2019 for the 19-20 school year, and we had it settled that both kids would be attending that charter school with me (when they started high school). About a month after I was hired, the offer was rescinded. It doesn't matter whether the school no longer had two openings or decided to go with nepotism. The school lost an excellent English teacher, but its real loss was two students who would have considerably improved the student body.
When I was researching the school, someone told me to watch out for the Turks running it. I wasn't really sure what that meant, but maybe my experience was commonplace. When I looked the Turks up, it seems the people associated with River City Science Academy in Jacksonville are considered to be terrorists by the Turkish government, which is kind of the pot calling the kettle black. The other Turkish connection is that world languages offered at the school include Spanish and Turkish. That's pretty laughable, since no one wants to learn Turkish, and it's probably just another job for a family member. I believe I saw somewhere that students could take some sort of class trip to Turkey, too. Just weird, but probably a way for staff members to get a free plane ride home. I guess some immigrants run gas stations while others run schools.
As far as other curriculum, I noticed the English Department was teaching the dumb-kid-book version of MacBeth, and it sounded like there was all kinds of test prep time before the yearly testing. I was told that teachers had a decent amount of freedom to teach, which is a good idea if your teachers are qualified. I can't really speak to that, as I only met the principal and two English teachers who seemed a bit self-important for teachers at a charter school. Yes, I'm a little bitter, but you would be, too. I was also very concerned with the school's teacher-mentor program where the teacher is expected to meet students on weekends at restaurants or libraries--I can't imagine this is a good idea or completely legal, and I was a little uncomfortable with the mandate when I was hired.
I am sure that a school that claims to focus on math and science probably does an OK job teaching STEM, and the school's been around for some time, so it's not like one of those charter schools that will fold next year. Unless it really is a terrorist front, but I don't think it is. The gym was new, too, though the school building and location were slightly odd and on a busy street, since it was not originally built as a high school.
The main purpose of a charter school is to siphon off the best students (who can't afford private school) from the local public schools, and it seems that RCSA has done well in this role, at least for kids interested in science. However, here's one parent who was not impressed:
This school does not offer anything special. If you want your child to succeed this is not the place. There is no challenge for smart kids.
I'm not sure I buy this sentiment, and most of the other negative reviews focused on students not liking the dress code. It seems the school DOES offer something special in science, at least. And kids seem to do well on state tests in English as well as math, so the school is consistently ranked in the top 20% of Florida schools. Another parent used questionable spelling to say these positives:
I believe the elementary version of RCSA is probably pretty decent (at least the one in Mandarin), and I also believe a lot of those parents send their kids elsewhere for a college-prep high school rather than stick with the program, but I don't have stats on that opinion. Ask the school if that's the case; they probably won't tell you the truth.
: RCSA is probably mostly a decent school that my kids cannot attend. Lower average ACT scores than Fletcher is kind of sad, especially since the school preps so hard for the Florida test (where it ranks higher than Fletcher). I'd rather the school prep kids for college/career and then hope for the best on Florida tests.
