CHECKING OUT : One Choice That Didn’t Fit the Pupil

Ellen Regan, a Van Nuys actress, was looking for just the right school for her 5-year-old son and her biggest concern was the milieu of the public schools.

“From what I heard, it was not an environment that was an extension of the values I was trying to instill at home,” she said. “And I wanted my son challenged.”

She interviewed eight private schools, so when she decided on one $2,000-a-year parochial school in North Hollywood, “I thought I had made a decent decision.”

Her son, Phillip, started school there in September. At registration, Regan, who at the time had a 3-week-old baby, began to have concerns.

“There was a great deal of pressure to participate in church functions, and I found that very off-putting. I was not prepared for it. It was like, ‘Your kid is going here now, and we want this, this and this from you.’ There were batteries of tables you had to stop at--to sign up for bake sales, the church fair, room mother, helping out in the cafeteria on Fridays. Every table you went to they were hitting you up for something else,” she said.

‘Disliked the Attitude’

“I’m trying to educate my child; I don’t need part-time volunteer employment. I really disliked the attitude, and I understand it’s very common in private schools,” Regan said.

She then became concerned about the philosophy of the school. She discovered that because her family attends a different church, Phillip was not allowed to be a part of some extracurricular activities, such as music. “If he couldn’t be at all church functions, he couldn’t participate,” she said.

The difference in denominations (the school is Lutheran, Regan is Congregationalist) also became a problem as Phillip became confused about the differences in church services, the prayers and the way other things were done at the services at school. “And then I learned they teach creationism exclusively, and I was very upset,” Regan said. “The school’s vision of the world is less than broad.”

As minor problems have come up during the school year, Regan has been frustrated. “The hierarchy is rather intimidating. It’s sort of like, ‘If you don’t like it, then your child doesn’t have to be here,’ or ‘We don’t do it like that here.’ I don’t feel that there’s a great deal of input that’s appreciated.”

The expense of the private school is a problem, too, she said. “If you spend all this now, what’s left for college? And there are a lot of things available in the public schools that are not available in the more expensive private schools--like computer labs.”

This fall, Phillip will attend his neighborhood public elementary school, Kester Avenue.