Beauvoir

[Anonymous]

We are trying to decide between Beauvoir and WES for kindergarten. I've heard some people comment that the Beauvoir parent-community may not be as open and welcoming as that of WES. We are not wealthy or connected, so I worry a little bit about my son (and frankly, about whether my husband and I) would fit in at Beauvoir. Any thoughts?

[Anonymous]

My guess is that you would fit in superficially but that you may not find a lot of depth in the relationships you make. I recall not too long ago when a bunch of moms were at a lunch party, and a fairly "influential" parent mentioned to a real upper-middle class parent who received a little bit of financial aid: "Isn't it nice that we can have families at yours at Beauvoir?" While the comment was, I think, well-intended, it was tremendously condescending... which can be typical of many Beauvoir parents.

Also, one thing that frustrates me about Beauvoir is the pressure families are undero send their child(ren) to St. Albans or NCS after third grade. Whatever Beauvoir may be like, STA and NCS are much snobbier, and there's a tremendous sense of entitlement that runs rampant there (both among parents and students).

[Anonymous]

go with WES.

[Anonymous]

Why is Beauvoir getting such a bad rap????

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My guess is that you would fit in superficially but that you may not find a lot of depth in the relationships you make. I recall not too long ago when a bunch of moms were at a lunch party, and a fairly "influential" parent mentioned to a real upper-middle class parent who received a little bit of financial aid: "Isn't it nice that we can have families at yours at Beauvoir?" While the comment was, I think, well-intended, it was tremendously condescending... which can be typical of many Beauvoir parents.

Also, one thing that frustrates me about Beauvoir is the pressure families are undero send their child(ren) to St. Albans or NCS after third grade. Whatever Beauvoir may be like, STA and NCS are much snobbier, and there's a tremendous sense of entitlement that runs rampant there (both among parents and students).

Is this first hand experience? Are you a current or former Beauvoir parent? If so I cannot question your experience. However speaking as a current beauvoir parent who is not in any way rich or connected, I have not found this to be the case at all. There will be snobby people in any setting -especially in the DC metro area- but overall we have found the parents at the school to be very down to earth and normal. We have not felt out of place or condescended to in any way. We have only been there for one year so time will tell whether or not the connection is superficial though it does not seem that way now.
Op, good luck in making your choice.

[Anonymous]

I can't tell for sure, but maybe Beauvoir deserves it? Beauvoir does a lot of things well, but it also definitely has some not insignificant flaws.

I think Beauvoir's biggest problem is that it presents itself as such a wonderful school that it's pretty difficult to live up to what it claims (either explicitly or implicitly). Beauvoir lives to pretend that it's perfect... and while it may be good, it's certainly not perfect. Beauvoir, St. Albans, and NCS all suffer from this flaw -- which makes sense since Beauvoir parents/students dominate the STA/NCS parent body and a number of teachers/administrators have worked at more than one Cathedral school.

As Vance Wilson, headmaster of STA, wrote last year:

"I know the greatest of my many sins, and I believe I know the besetting sin of our great School, and that is undue and self-destructive pride. As we sit in our exquisite buildings and look out at a national landmark, it is an easy sin to fall prey to..."

This statement is all too applicable to the Cathedral Schools (Beauvoir, STA, and NCS).

[Anonymous]

To 20:57, I'm the person you quoted. I am a recent Beauvoir parent and have a Beauvoir-age child who is not there by choice. I also have a family member who is a current Beauvoir parent.

There are many wonderful people at Beauvoir, but after you spend a number of years at the school, you realize that some parents, administrators, and teachers are extremely genuine... and others aren't. Also, each year is different. Just like the students of any given class have their own unique character, so too do the parents. I have many friends who have children at different grade levels, and there are definite commonalities in the experiences of those who have children at a given grade level (some positive, some negative). It's interesting to talk to the people who have/had three, four, or five children at Beauvoir (of which there's no shortage). I was recently speaking with one super down-to-earth mom whom I adore, and she said, to pharaphrase, "Oh my god, I still refuse to spend time with my [oldest son's class's parents]. They're so catty. But I feel totally comfortable with [my second son's class's parents]."

By the way, just wait until second/third grade when the outplacement process gears up. That's when a lot of parents really start to show their true colors. It's not a particularly pleasant time unless you're a huge gossip.

Also, note that I didn't give an opinion on WES, so I'm not suggesting that it's better or worse than Beauvoir. The school my other child attends is a little better but certainly not by leaps and bounds.

[Anonymous]

The school my other child attends is a little better but certainly not by leaps and bounds.

So you chose to send this child to a school other than Beauvoir do you mind providing your reasons? Also where does this child attend school?

[Anonymous]

Op there is a post on the thread entitled "Current beauvoir parents" that you might find insightful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are trying to decide between Beauvoir and WES for kindergarten. I've heard some people comment that the Beauvoir parent-community may not be as open and welcoming as that of WES. We are not wealthy or connected, so I worry a little bit about my son (and frankly, about whether my husband and I) would fit in at Beauvoir. Any thoughts?

Beauvoir is very tempting, but you should go with your gut - WES. It's an outstanding school that does not have the elements that make anyone wonder "will we fit in". It's a very solid academic and nurturing school without the fuss. I know of some parents who turned down WES because it didn't have the glamour attached to it -- such folks are naturally weeded out and WES is better for it. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

I have been looking into this, as well. I am very excited about WES and the families I talk to seem great. I admit that Beauvoir was our first choice, but I have had this little voice telling me it might not be the right place for my DC or for us as a family.

By way of background, we are doing well financially, but we both come from humble backgrounds, and we try hard to be low-key, focus on values, etc. Education is very important to us, but in the "we want our children to love to learn and contribute to the world at large" sense, not the "pedigree" sense of the word. I am not trying to imply that Beauvoir is the latter. It seems like a great place, but we are going with our gut which leads us to WES.

I wish you the best with your decision. It is a happy conundrum.

[Anonymous]

I hate to sound cynical OP but there may be some people on beauvoir's waitlist that may try to discourage you from accepting for selfish reasons - it will move them up on the list. Of course i may be wrong but the thought just occured to me so i decided to mention it FWIW.

[Anonymous]

I'm the parent who didn't send the second child to Beauvoir.

The parent community at Beauvoir actually had just about nothing to do with my decision not to send my second to Beauvoir. A lot of the relationships my husband and I had with other families were superficial, but we definitely found our niche and were happy enough. I hope you don't mind, but I'm not going to mention where my other child goes because that (combined with "recent Beauvoir parent") could give a lot of people a pretty good idea of who I am, and I just don't want to go there.

I also don't want to "rant" or whatever against Beauvoir, so I'm not going to go into real particulars, but I will give a summary of 10 of my issues (and there are more):

1) Many administrators are charming people, but they talk a much better talk than they walk.

2) The teaching is highly inconsistent. There are some great teachers, a lot of all right teachers, and a few truly absent ones who just don't really even teach -- they just give out work. We had a great new teacher for our third grade year, for example, who we were nervous about at first since it was a new teacher who talked a lot about "progressive education". After only one year more parents requested that teacher than there was room in the class. Now that teacher is leaving. That should tell you something I think. I guess I will tell you that our second child now attends a progressive school because of the influence of this teacher's ideas on us -- for which we're very thankful and happy!

3) Beauvoir is known as a bit conservative in terms of its approach. We liked that at first but then found out that it was too much so. My child groused consistently about being forced to line up, single-file, wait while everyone was slight and still (which could take a long time), and then walk in a straight line at a snail's pace against the right wall without saying a word. At Beauvoir the students do a lot of transitioning, so this was particularly annoying. It may seem odd to worry about this, but my child complains about very few things -- doesn't really talk much about school unless probed very deeply -- but this was one thing that came up regularly.

4) The writing instruction was highly inconsistent. Some teachers did a really exciting writing workshop model, but others hardly did any writing at all, or there was no apparent cohesion or structure to the writing instruction. Students were just given prompts and told to write a story or whatever else.

5) We weren't very big fans of the math program, or... not even really the program but the implementation. The biggest problem was that the instruction wasn't very differentiated in most classrooms (there were exceptions) for either the low or high end kids. In most classes there wasn't really a lot of time spent on math. Every elementary teacher loves teaching reading, of course, but we view math as just as important.

6) The Beauvoir's science teachers are wonderful, but the 1st through 3rd graders only do science once a week for 50 minutes. Theoretically the teachers are supposed to supplement the lab work in the classroom, but we only ever had one teacher who did any amount of substantive science work in class.

7) A number of teachers and administrators seemed to be rather keen on saying, "Oh, everything is just fine," and were very hesistent to point out either notable academic strengths or weaknesses.

8) The academic standards were pretty high, but there wasn't really a lot of time spent on academics. There is a ton of time spent in resource classes, going to special events or assemblies, community meetings and chapels, parent guest speakers, etc. All of these things are valuable, but when you have 10-15 days less than the typical public school, there's a real squeeze. The best, most honest teachers we had talked about that problem too.

9) On the more traditional side, there was no grammar instruction whatsoever that was part of the curriculum. Now, like I said, we're fans of progressive education, but nothing about progressive education means that you can't leave third grade knowing what nouns and verbs are at the very least.

10) The administration, while they say wonderful things about the faculty, does a lot of things that override the faculty and suggest that they don't trust the faculty. For example, apparently right before the summer all of the teachers of one grade meet to put together the class lists for the next year. They really carefully put students together with what they feel is the right mix of students and with the right teacher. The administration then goes in over the summer and makes inexplicable changes that make no sense to either the past or new teachers. Apparently all the newsletters that are sent home by the teachers are also edited/approved by administrators (and not just for grammar/spelling/style).

[Anonymous]

21:44 Wow, I thought I had heard it all on this forum. That is crazy. I do not think that is the case, certainly not for us, and I was a PP. The insights seem honest from current parents. From those looking at or at WES they, too, seem candid and well-intentioned.

[Anonymous]

As a current beauvoir parent your 10 points are very intetesting. i am going to print them out and discuss them with Ms. Carreiro at the next coffee morning or lunch as i'd love to hear her responses to each of the issues. So far we are very happy with the school but as i said it's only been a year so I must reservse final judgement.