Templteton Academy - a micro school

[Anonymous]

Anyone know them? The high school has been around for something like 6 years. The middle school was new this year and I understand that they're working to expand it along w/their high school next year.

Would love to hear of any experiences with them, either first or third hand.

[Anonymous]

It was Blythe-Templeton and it was in the Hill Center on Capitol Hill. Now it's downtown, near BASIS. Don't know much more than that. I feel like it probably overlaps a bit with Friends Community School and Nora in its student body...quirky, but roughly average or above-average IQs. Mild learning disabilities at most, but some kids with ADHD, anxiety, etc. Wealthy parents (because who else can afford it) but not super-rich and definitely liberal-leaning. Committed to living in the city (and not IB for Wilson) but also feel that their inbounds school just wouldn't work for their kid.

[Anonymous]

The price is on par with Catholic schools so more affordable than Nora or Friends school. I definitely would not consider the families there to be wealthy. They take the DC private school grant so if you qualify for that it’s about $4k above the grant.

[Anonymous]

I have a student at Templeton (2nd year there) and it is a great school. The leadership is impressive and responsive. The teachers to date all have been outstanding. My student doesn't have any learning differences, but struggles with executive function. Templeton is great because they have four terms and the students only take two classes per term, they have built in study hall each day, and they meet with their advisor once per week. They do a lot of really cool experiential learning with the students and the schedule is really great - most Friday's are half days, but they are there longer M-Th (there until 4:30 ish). The space is really cool and the move the Gallery Place has been great. I highly recommend Templeton if you want your student to be engaged and not lost among hundreds of other kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The price is on par with Catholic schools so more affordable than Nora or Friends school. I definitely would not consider the families there to be wealthy. They take the DC private school grant so if you qualify for that it’s about $4k above the grant.

However, for a single parent and one child household, the cutoff for the DC Opportunity Scholarship program is just over $32,000 of annual income. I don't think there are a ton of folks who qualify for it and are spending an extra $4000 for private school, though it is certainly possible.

[Anonymous]

I don’t think Templeton Academy has anything specific that makes it overlap with Community Friends School. Similar to a place like The Sycamore School, it’s a small hands-on learning school that can work with students that don’t necessarily do well in more traditional large school settings (for various reasons—executive functioning, mild LD, bullying, mental health/anxiety, school refusal, etc.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a student at Templeton (2nd year there) and it is a great school. The leadership is impressive and responsive. The teachers to date all have been outstanding. My student doesn't have any learning differences, but struggles with executive function. Templeton is great because they have four terms and the students only take two classes per term, they have built in study hall each day, and they meet with their advisor once per week. They do a lot of really cool experiential learning with the students and the schedule is really great - most Friday's are half days, but they are there longer M-Th (there until 4:30 ish). The space is really cool and the move the Gallery Place has been great. I highly recommend Templeton if you want your student to be engaged and not lost among hundreds of other kids.

The title mentioned that it was a "Microschool". How small is the school or your child's grade level/classes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a student at Templeton (2nd year there) and it is a great school. The leadership is impressive and responsive. The teachers to date all have been outstanding. My student doesn't have any learning differences, but struggles with executive function. Templeton is great because they have four terms and the students only take two classes per term, they have built in study hall each day, and they meet with their advisor once per week. They do a lot of really cool experiential learning with the students and the schedule is really great - most Friday's are half days, but they are there longer M-Th (there until 4:30 ish). The space is really cool and the move the Gallery Place has been great. I highly recommend Templeton if you want your student to be engaged and not lost among hundreds of other kids.

The title mentioned that it was a "Microschool". How small is the school or your child's grade level/classes?

Another parent- my child has classes as low as 7-8. Most seem between 7-12

[Anonymous]

Term micro school refers to the number of kids overall. I think they have about 100

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure how Friends Community School got brought into this conversation at all. It's a K-8 Quaker school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure how Friends Community School got brought into this conversation at all. It's a K-8 Quaker school.

Lots of Capitol Hill kids at both. Similarly left-leaning parents. Both offer middle school (though one also offers elementary and the other doesn't, but offers high school).

[Anonymous]

We have a TA graduate. Our kid suffered from serious anxiety, and benefitted from a school with very few behavioral problems. I am less confident that is the case under the current administration, but we are still considering it for another child. It is, in any event, a very warm and supportive environment. Everyone has a story for why they’re there, and everyone’s ok with that. Very LGBTQI+ friendly. Very flexible academically—they developed a class because of strong interest from one or two kids (mine was one of them). Academics are challenging, although plenty of students get lower grades and are still big parts of the community.
Oh, my kid also exceeded our expectations in the college admissions process (not Ivy level (to which my kid did not apply), but scholarships at good small schools.. (Before you ask, as I recall from the graduation ceremony, there was a decent mix among the 15 or so grads from
good to decent SLACs to not particularly competitive schools—see above for how different students handled the academic challenges. But every kid who spoke at graduation had clearly found it to be a transformative experience (as did our kid).)

[Anonymous]

Oh, the school is also racially diverse. I have no idea of the socio-economic make up, but the price tag is definitely (or at least when we were there) about half of most privates.

[Anonymous]

How serious are the academics? The Head of School's bio is riddled with grammatical errors and run-on sentences..wondering for an anxious kid who is also very advanced academically--if they would be challenged or find like-minded students in the cohort ( High school).

[Anonymous]

I went to an open house for the middle school last year and it felt like there were a ton of questions they couldn't yet answer fully. I got the sense things hadn't been fully fleshed out yet.

How has the middle school experience been for students?