To everyone who is voting and/or replying, thank you so much.
I never went to kindergarten, but attended various church affiliated schools in Illinois & Vancouver, BC through elementary grades. There was one semester in a govt. school in Dixon, IL. My mother was horrified by the results & pulled me to what was the best school out of all. It was church affiliated, had about 100 students, K-12. Used a work at your own pace curriculum. You had to complete 8 books a year in each subject, but could do as many as you wanted. I went through almost four grades in two years. It was soooo much fun!
Finished middle & high school in govt. schools. There just weren't private schools available with the band & orchestra programs I wanted. Not available in my mom's budget range, at least. Went from being an honor roll (where it meant something) student who gave a damn to being a bored honor roll student who read sci-fi & fantasy novels in class instead of studying.
My husband was educated entirely in government schools. His high school was a math/science magnet school. Turned out to be great, since it was probably one of the few schools in his region to actually teach how to think instead of what to think.
Of my three children, not one fits into the traditional class/school setting. My 12 (13 in 3 days) year old comes closest, but that's only after years of struggle. My 5 y.o. is in kindergarten, and would already rather stay home to read books, play music and teach her stuffed animals math on the whiteboard. I get called in to conferences constantly about my 7 y.o. - not because of his grades. Straight A's, but he sometimes decides he doesn't want to do anything in class. Or, he wants to read a book about sharks, instead of doing math. Or write stories about things blowing up - Thank you, Mythbusters.
The kids are currently in (Govt) charter schools, but we're struggling with what to do as the schools become less suited to their growing brains. We've done private, church affiliated school. Hard to reconcile creationism with a little boy's dreams of studying stars & dinosaur bones. We're considering homeschooling, but that leads to tons of questions about how much freedom to give them in choosing studies outside the math & grammar fundamentals.
This is longer than my normal posts - but you all are helping me compile a list of options & concerns as we're making this HUGE decision. Thank you again!