From personal experience, my advice to you is to go and see/meet the teacher yourself.
I find that people want their school to be a good school (not like those OTHER bad public schools); so, they will ignore the fact that this school is only marginally better. I had many people tell me about what a great school the local elem school was, and a certain teacher was a must. So, I sent my youngest to that public kindergarten. I figured, hey, kindergarten, what could go wrong. (We put both our girls into Catholic schools starting in 1st grade.)
Well, the first week I begin getting notes from the teacher about how I need to "teach" my child this or that. I asked that the teacher please make sure my daughter put her jacket on when she went out to recess, because she seemed like she might be getting the sniffles. I get a note back telling me I need to teach her how to button her jacket. This is a teacher who had two "student" teachers and an aide helping her. Yet, couldn't help with a kid's jacket. When I spoke to a couple of teachers at the Catholic School where my daughters attended, they were shocked. They expressed the view that, these were just things you had to do when teaching at that grade level. The kids need help. Anyway, final straw, I get a note telling me that my daughter needs to be taken out of her class a couple of times a week to be "helped" by a specialist. Now, this daughter was not the easiest to deal with; but, she was a smart kid. My husband went balistic, and we pulled her from that public kindergarten and placed her into a Montessori School nearby. She did just fine. Need to learn how to button, they have a little wooden mold with a small jacket on it for the kids to practice on. Same with tying shoes. In a week, she could do both.
So, again, go see for yourself.
Interesting experience.
I/we sent our daughter to an all girl Catholic School from Kindergarten to 5th grade at $12,000 a year. By the third grade we were told that she was “A.D.D.” and needed to be medicated. We rejected their claims. Apparently she asked to many questions and wasn’t falling in line with what they expected. She endured two more years of social abuse from her peers and educators while excelling in every academic class. After moving her to the public school system she was two years ahead of her class and was quickly put on an accelerated tract. She attended one of the best public High Schools in the country since most of the students came from very wealthy parents. They actually cared and were very involved with their kids education.
Her public school experience allowed her to be free to express herself and focus on her education without worrying about being accepted socially. For what it’s worth, her mother nor myself never had to tell her to do her homework, ever. If you ask her today what makes her so responsible, respectful and mature, she will tell you about her Catholic School experience.