Georgia Irvin is a well known educational consultant with a national reputation. As a long time member of the Independent Educational Consultants Association (IECA) and a Certified Educational Planner (CEP), she prepared this book to help guide parents in finding the right school for their child.
Although she writes about many specific schools in the metropolitan Washington DC area, her advice and suggestions in doing a school search can be helpful for parents anywhere. She includes sections describing in easily understood language the most common academic tests, hints on interviewing schools and suggested questions to ask, a checklist for assessing your child's needs, and a host of other topics that will be helpful to all parents searching for a school anywhere.
Irvin also describes the defining characteristics of public schools and independent schools, which include discussions of parochial schools, proprietary schools and nonprofit independent schools.
In the last section, titled "A Conversation with Georgia Irvin," she shares what she has learned in her career about many timely issues. Topics included hints on how parents can help their children to be successful in school as well as some of her thoughts on Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and Learning Disabilities. She also shares her ideas on teen issues such as substance abuse and depression, and when it is time to worry about them. When their child starts "going down the wrong road," Irvin strongly suggests that because there is no supervision by official governmental bodies, a parent needs to work with an independent educational consultant such as a member of the IECA who visits and knows these programs well. She has a good section that briefly describes the widening choices in the rapidly expanding world of quality schools and programs for teens making poor decisions.
This is a guidebook whose value goes far beyond the narrow geographical area described in the title.
