Summer Shorts #3
For those of us in the United States, the 4th of July marks the middle of the summer. It’s a time for fireworks, hot dogs, and parades. It’s also the time when busy parents and students have had a moment to breathe and reflect on the previous school year.
You may have received your children’s final report cards or an updated IEP. Maybe you are realizing that your daughter’s current school just isn’t the right fit; she's not being challenged in the way you know she should be. Or maybe you are seeing that your SEN son isn’t receiving the right amount of support at his current school. It may feel like it’s too late to find a new school, but it may not be!
If you think it’s time to find a school that will be a better fit, the summer months may be the right time to see what’s available for your children. Although admission offices are often lightly staffed in the summer, it is likely there will be someone who picks up the phone or answers an email to let you know if they have space and if your child or children could potentially be a good fit.
The process moves quickly in the summer, and you could potentially identify a new school, go through the application process, and be offered a space in the span of a few weeks. If you decide to take on a school search in the summer, be ready to move quickly and be responsive to any questions schools may have.
It’s also helpful to think outside the box. For example, the teacher from whom you would like a letter of reference might be somewhere where she doesn’t have access to a computer. You can ask the admissions office if they are willing to have a phone conversation rather than a formal letter.
The brief summer holidays can be a great time to explore new schooling options if you are ready to move quickly and make a decision in a short period of time.
Erin Brady wears several hats at Bennett as Co-Director of Private Client Services and as one of our Global Team Leads (GTLs). As a GTL, she supports a consultant team that works with families headed to the greater NYC area, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Canada, overseeing their casework and providing updates to our corporate and RMC clients. She also serves as Account Manager of one of Bennett’s largest financial services clients in New York.
Over the years, Bennett International Education Consultancyhas worked with hundreds of corporations across the globe, many of them Fortune 500 companies, providing domestic and international school advisement & placement services - preschool through university - to the dependents of relocating employees. In addition to education placement, our team provides customized consulting for corporations with a range of education issues: education policy writing & benchmarking, tuition studies, group move advisement & planning, and remote education solutions.