Why does Sidwell seem so hypocritical?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They have been cancelling meets and games for MS but then they send their US girls' bball team out to Minnesota? When did they become Spire Academy? What happened to equity? I hate that they are all Quaker until the NBA or ESPN comes calling. So hypocritical. And yes, I WENT TO SIDWELL.

Is the sidwell coach’s daughter the star player? So coach drives the travel schedule and budget to show off her daughter. Whatever.
And for the record I don’t think any indoor meets or games should be canceled. This city is nuts and ruining kids experiences, skills, friends, and dreams.

There are three other "stars" on the team. One is home grown.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps, if CS were to become a department instead of a program. Find a way to keep the stars.

And then people complain that the fundraising office is being expanded

Odd to send a superstar stem kid to a sfs or gds or cathedral school. So many better options with the best classes, clubs, teachers, peers, network.

Other than TJ, which requires living in Virginia, where would you suggest?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They have been cancelling meets and games for MS but then they send their US girls' bball team out to Minnesota? When did they become Spire Academy? What happened to equity? I hate that they are all Quaker until the NBA or ESPN comes calling. So hypocritical. And yes, I WENT TO SIDWELL.

and the girls team practiced over the holidays even htough other teams could not

i am an alum and a parent, deeply disturbed by how the school is now trying to become an athletics powerhouse. Donors $$s and college admissions seem to be the motivation. Meanwhile there are no full time art teachers and kids have to choose either CS or Art because the schedules conflict and both are both basically afterthoughts. The school has really lost its way, very sad to see. I mean WTF ramping up the football program and hiring a big name coach.

Have they ever played SJC?

I don’t know what rinky dink leagues these small private schools are in.

-Long Beach Poly grad

They will likely play in the DCSAA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ladies, lay off on the coach and the players. I have many things to gripe about the school, but please draw the line somewhere.

It answers the question. The nationally competitive team gets the court time to practice and gets to travel.

The other sports and court times get cancelled due to DC DoH and SFS Covid restrictions they themselves put in place. Exceptions get made.

It’s your local governing and school governing make up all their own nut job rules here. Call them up! And if they made exception to their nutjob egregious self-imposed rules, call them out!

Just ask Boris Johnson.

All of the other varsity and JV teams have had as full a season as the rules and other schools comfort levels will allow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They have been cancelling meets and games for MS but then they send their US girls' bball team out to Minnesota? When did they become Spire Academy? What happened to equity? I hate that they are all Quaker until the NBA or ESPN comes calling. So hypocritical. And yes, I WENT TO SIDWELL.

Correct. That is THE definition of hypocritical when the rules don’t apply to you.
Change the rules or follow the rules. Good luck digging out of that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They have been cancelling meets and games for MS but then they send their US girls' bball team out to Minnesota? When did they become Spire Academy? What happened to equity? I hate that they are all Quaker until the NBA or ESPN comes calling. So hypocritical. And yes, I WENT TO SIDWELL.

Is the sidwell coach’s daughter the star player? So coach drives the travel schedule and budget to show off her daughter. Whatever.
And for the record I don’t think any indoor meets or games should be canceled. This city is nuts and ruining kids experiences, skills, friends, and dreams.

There are three other "stars" on the team. One is home grown.

What’s that mean? A non-relational lifer or someone recruited before 9 or 10th grade?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ladies, lay off on the coach and the players. I have many things to gripe about the school, but please draw the line somewhere.

It answers the question. The nationally competitive team gets the court time to practice and gets to travel.

The other sports and court times get cancelled due to DC DoH and SFS Covid restrictions they themselves put in place. Exceptions get made.

It’s your local governing and school governing make up all their own nut job rules here. Call them up! And if they made exception to their nutjob egregious self-imposed rules, call them out!

Just ask Boris Johnson.

All of the other varsity and JV teams have had as full a season as the rules and other schools comfort levels will allow.

Speaking of rules….

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps, if CS were to become a department instead of a program. Find a way to keep the stars.

And then people complain that the fundraising office is being expanded

Odd to send a superstar stem kid to a sfs or gds or cathedral school. So many better options with the best classes, clubs, teachers, peers, network.

Other than TJ, which requires living in Virginia, where would you suggest?

Blair

[Anonymous]

Omg, do some schools really have mascots like frogs and grasshoppers. Squash!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here- As usual, a completely off-the-rails discussion about Sidwell, no surprise. Also unsurprising is that the school is hiring THREE development officers (full time, benefits, to drum up money for the school) while they are also hiring for three part-time teaching positions in academic departments with NO benefits. Nice, Sidwell, nice. What did you spend that PPP loan on?

It is an embarrassment to say I graduated from Sidwell these days. Very glad I sent my kids elsewhere. Sidwell, if you're wondering why we don't give any money, THIS IS WHY. Get your house in order. I am not a troll- just an incredibly frustrated alum who feels like this is the only venue to vent (and yes, I've spoken with the school- they did not respond, but still send mail to my *parents* asking for money. Honestly- what a joke.)

I too am a Sidwell alum and a current parent. When I attended, the lack of appreciation for girls' sports was a major source of frustration amongst the student body. The fact is, this team has become an incredible source of pride for current students, by all accounts the players are model students and citizens, and and it's icing on the cake that it's a girls' team.

We spend a lot of time here fretting over how things affect us as parents and adults (and alums in this case), but instead of being in our own feelings all the time maybe we should focus on what this means to those who matter most. The team has galvanized the student community unlike anything else I've seen over my years as an alum and parent, and that's what matters most to me.

[Anonymous]

That’s great and I love sports.

But no need to galavanize by selectively applying (as stupid as they are) Covid rules and not. I’m sure everyone tells the other teams to shut up.

[Anonymous]

Lady, the only thing stupid are these comments. Just stop embarrassing yourself and griping about successful young ladies with brilliant futures ahead

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:SFS is a reflection of power & privilege in DC. Those families with connections will be treated very differently than the non-connected families.

AD only cares about the big sports and his career. He does not attend other sports competitions only winning teams.

Girls BB is doing great. However, of the starters, only Rice has been at SFS since middle school. 3 new players were all brought over by the new coach!

However, the school insist that they don't recruit for sports (admin has stated that)

NP here (only posted on page 1 about MS being second tier to US).

The bold is just false. US parent here and the AD was, by far, the best person in administrative team during COVID. He was creative, flexible, and persistent from the start (Summer of 2020) to find ways to get US kids who wanted to participate in sports in person on campus. (Disclaimer - Whether this was equally true for MS is another question. I don't know. I suspect not. But that's not uncommon for k-12.)

I have found him to be a thoughtful and thorough leader in his position. When parents reach out, he is not dismissive. He responds and is welcoming of useful feedback on families'/students' experiences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They have been cancelling meets and games for MS but then they send their US girls' bball team out to Minnesota? When did they become Spire Academy? What happened to equity? I hate that they are all Quaker until the NBA or ESPN comes calling. So hypocritical. And yes, I WENT TO SIDWELL.

and the girls team practiced over the holidays even htough other teams could not

i am an alum and a parent, deeply disturbed by how the school is now trying to become an athletics powerhouse. Donors $$s and college admissions seem to be the motivation. Meanwhile there are no full time art teachers and kids have to choose either CS or Art because the schedules conflict and both are both basically afterthoughts. The school has really lost its way, very sad to see. I mean WTF ramping up the football program and hiring a big name coach.

It's not "trying" to become a powerhouse. The boys basketball team is as it has been for years. The girls team has a new coach after decades of the old one. Coaching matters. Talent matters. The AD is fantastic and gets the ability for talented kids who work hard in the classroom and with their sport. He has hired coaches who actually care, and teach their crafts through both Middle and Upper School. As a result, ALL of the sports are doing better.

And to the OP, the issue is MS versus US. It is also likely that other MS doesn't want the kids playing other schools and SFS is a casualty of that.

I agree with the above post for the most part but let's not kid ourselves. Sidwell didn't get to be the #1 girl's team in the US because they got "talanted kids who work hard in the classroom". I have no inside info but can almost guarantee that they're doing what schools in te WCAC(in B-ball, football and lax) and to a lesser extent the IAC (especially in Lax) have been doing for years. The coaching staff likely is deeply connected to the local middle school girls basketball community and is heavily recruiting. This sort of thing has really ramped up in the past decade across the region in boys sports and now appears to be spreading to girls sports as well.

Sidwell, will never be an "athletics powerhouse". They don't have 200+ boys/class. They can however pluck 5 or 6 girls from around the region (which is loaded with basketball talent) and now all of a sudden they are competing on a national level. There's no way that SFS admin looks at a 10 year old boys game the same as it does their HS girls team. It's a commitment the school clearly seems to have made and like anything there are tradeoffs which appear to be ruffling some feathers.

You wouldn't ask Gonzaga to put the same resources into freshman fencing as varsity football. Or Landon to treat their lax program like they do their model UN team.

My kid says the girls on the bball team are really really good kids, they are not just sports recruits who were plucked to perform on the court with not thought of how they would fit in as students. They are active students, great classmates, and good community members. And this is coming from a kid who would agree with earlier poster that said the HS kids find the SFS admin to be highly hypocritical (not in the way the OP is saying and not on the silly prom issue being thrown around, but just in general on a wide range of issues).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lady, the only thing stupid are these comments. Just stop embarrassing yourself and griping about successful young ladies with brilliant futures ahead

exactly. the team is excellent so rules don't apply, be quiet and comply.