September 2007: Page 24 Contents
24 PREMIER LIFESTYLES Educators recognize that a child's cognitive ability is very adaptive. Many teachers purport a child can learn up to five foreign languages with ease in their early years, so some San Diego schools use a bilingual platform to teach their elementary curriculum. La Petite cole/English-French Learning Academy offers bi-lingual classes that follow both French and California educational standards. For $7,800/year, your child will be fluent in French long before they graduate from 5th Grade. Educators at bilingual schools assert that learning a second language helps develop higher thinking processes, interdisciplinary connections, and a worldwide viewpoint in children. With a bilingual education, students can also further their education in a foreign country. The San Diego French-American School, on Soledad Mountain Road, also offers a bilingual course of study for preschoolers to 8th graders. For around $10,000 per year, students receive 80% of their course work in French; Spanish is added as a third language for students in grades 5-8. Both of these language schools are fully accredited and ensure that students will be overly prepared to matriculate into the San Diego school system (or a French lyce) upon graduation. Due to lengthy waiting lists, parents are smart to start thinking about preschool long before their child is old enough to enroll. "You don't want to play the lottery," a parent warns, "Because if you're planning on moving your kid into a private school after 4th Grade, you might be out of luck."The waiting list for popular private preschools (and even nursery schools) can be up to one year or more in certain areas. For many schools, enrollment is done on an annual basis with some years designated as "entry years." For example, if a school starts middle school enrollment after the 5th grade, the class size for the 6th grade will be higher with the influx of new students.These entry years will further congest the matriculation of students on a waiting list, making the move up the list close to impossible. Because of the popularity of private schools in San Diego County, many parents and teachers agree that enrolling your child early will guarantee their spot in the private Upper Division school of your choice. Some private schools offer preschool - 8th Grade education, while many extend through High School. Although many neighborhood parishes offer preschools with a religious affiliation, oftentimes enrolling your child in an extended private school is the head start they will need in order to beat out the fierce competition for spots in middle school and beyond. Enroll your Children Early One premium private school offering education from preschool through 12th Grade is La Jolla Country Day. Offering classes from nursery school through Grade 12, they pride themselves on getting students ready to for higher education at a very young age. A true college preparatory school, the core curriculum of La Jolla Country Day Lower Level classes focuses on language arts, mathematics, and science to serve as "a foundation for the development of critical and creative thinking" in a child's later years. Schools like La Jolla Country Day are privately run and privately funded. A fullday Pre-Kindergarten class is $18,090 per
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