Homeschooling is your best option unless you can afford private. Public school should be your last choice.
Washington ping
Depends of the area of WA state and the local school district, even the principal. We homeschool and have one in a charter school.
What part of Washington State? Western (especially urban Puget Sound) Washington and Eastern Washington (flyover country) are two completely different cultures. You should be able to guess the character of each.
Avoid public schools if at all possible.
If you’re moving to western Washington, this becomes even more crucial.
A summer break is a great time to get the homeschool train moving. I recommend AlphaOmega’s LifePac curriculum and the EdHelper.com website. One of the great things about LifePacs is that you can buy an assessment test that will tell you exactly where in their curriculum you should be starting your kids. Then each child works in a workbook for each of 5 subjects (4 if you aren’t teaching Bible) and continues working through the books with adult supervision until they’ve completed the grade. This allows a pretty structured program while allowing children to work at their own pace and even have different grade levels in different subjects.
EdHelper’s good if you’re trying to do things on a very inexpensive basis (the resource pool at the site is just enormous and it only costs $20 a year), but it’s not as well orgaized and you have to evaluate the materials carefully because they’re written mainly by public school teachers.
We moved here about two years ago from Pennsylvania. The schools are waay better than PA. Both of my children are in advanced classes. There are very few minority children in our district. We live in western WA. Two teachers at my children’s elementary school are also Sunday School teachers at my church. I have lived in LA, Tex, PA, and now Washington, and I consider the schools here to be the best I have seen.
Where in WA state are you moving? If you are moving to the Seattle area, homeschooling would be best. The Puget Sound area is very left-wing. The eastern side of the state can be more conservative.
We live in the Gig Harbor area and the schools are definitely liberal. My child has had to deal with bullies also. We are going to put her in private school when she gets into the 6th grade.
Any time my daughter brings home some liberal propaganda from school, my husband and I go over and and debunk it with her on the computer.
As long as you are able to give your child answers to the liberal crap they teach at school, your child should be ok.
We also had to supplement my daughter’s math and reading.
The school in my area also has a damn late start wednesday. The kids start an hour later on that day so the teachers can have their weekly conferences.
Pierce County - avoid like the plague.
My condolences.