Washington Episcopal School - feedback needed

[Anonymous]

Anyone with experience at Washington Episcopal School (WES) for middle school? What do you love? Anything you would change? It seems like a great school and I like how they will reevaluate in 8th for high school fit.
Looking for 6th/middle school. Thank you!

[Anonymous]

The middle school experience at WES is outstanding. There are full class trios to Utah, Italy, and Spain/France as well as great local trips—overnights to more close by locations—that are included in the tuition. Kids have the opportunity to play sports every season and while not an athletic powerhouse type school, this has been an outstanding experience for DC. Teachers are supportive and administrative is receptive to suggestions/open to discussing issues should they arise. It’s a small school with 35 or so kids per class (grade) so cohort matters. Finding a hs and that process is not fun, but DC loved MS and there aren’t a lot of kids who can say that. Not sure I’d recommend WES for early grades but upper ES and MS were great.

[Anonymous]

Two kids there—DD is able to get some additional learning supports and DS is on advanced math track. Agree on the trips in MS being a bug part of what drew us to the school. Community has been welcoming and warm and surprisingly down to earth for this area. Quite a few families from other countries which brings an interesting diversity of perspectives. One DC’s grade has more drama than I’d like but it’s nothing compared to what we hear from friends at other schools.

[Anonymous]

Former WES parent with recent middle school graduate. Agree that middle school is the strength of the school. Teachers and the middle and overall head of the school are great. Applying out in 8th is a lot of work, but our child loved middle school at WES so it was worth it to us. Highly recommend.

[Anonymous]

Thank you PP x 3 for your detailed feedback!

[Anonymous]

Why did you all leave after MS? Just curious.
We are at a different k-8 and looking at HS options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why did you all leave after MS? Just curious.
We are at a different k-8 and looking at HS options.

WES is also a K-8.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why did you all leave after MS? Just curious.
We are at a different k-8 and looking at HS options.

We left after 8th because the school only goes to 8th grade. We did have a couple of classmates transfer to K-12 schools prior to MS because 6th grade is often an expansion year at K-12s and those families felt that would be an easier transition/admit to their high school of choice. Our eldest went to a K-12 school and MS was very much the weakest part of the school, but they survived and had a good HS experience. We purposefully only looked at K-8s for second DC because we wanted a more pleasant experience in MS and because we didn't have a good sense of what type of HS would be a good fit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why did you all leave after MS? Just curious.
We are at a different k-8 and looking at HS options.

WES is also a K-8.

Oh, lol. Thank you

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why did you all leave after MS? Just curious.
We are at a different k-8 and looking at HS options.

Well WES is not one of your options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The middle school experience at WES is outstanding. There are full class trios to Utah, Italy, and Spain/France as well as great local trips—overnights to more close by locations—that are included in the tuition. Kids have the opportunity to play sports every season and while not an athletic powerhouse type school, this has been an outstanding experience for DC. Teachers are supportive and administrative is receptive to suggestions/open to discussing issues should they arise. It’s a small school with 35 or so kids per class (grade) so cohort matters. Finding a hs and that process is not fun, but DC loved MS and there aren’t a lot of kids who can say that. Not sure I’d recommend WES for early grades but upper ES and MS were great.

How was the support in finding HS placement at WES? HS placement is certainly daunting! Thank you.

[Anonymous]

We've had one child graduate from WES and one currently in middle school; both excellent experiences. I can't say enough good things about the middle school. The teachers are devoted and caring, while also holding the students to high standards. My current child's cohort is a good group of kids who look out for each other. Middle school is hard no matter where you are (hormones! changing bodies! changing brains!), but this school has really thought about the pedagogy alongside the social development that will be most beneficial for this age group. The field trips and trips abroad build up independence and confidence together.

We're in the midst of go-round #2 with HS advising, which is excellent. Summer meetings happen with the head of the whole school and the head of the middle school to talk together with the parent(s) about their child and what might be a good fit. I think everyone in my first child's cohort ended up in a good place that has been a good fit, and we've gotten good advice for current kid, who is a very different student than the older one. Support comes from the administration and the staff at each step, and they are organized and absolutely on top of the process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We've had one child graduate from WES and one currently in middle school; both excellent experiences. I can't say enough good things about the middle school. The teachers are devoted and caring, while also holding the students to high standards. My current child's cohort is a good group of kids who look out for each other. Middle school is hard no matter where you are (hormones! changing bodies! changing brains!), but this school has really thought about the pedagogy alongside the social development that will be most beneficial for this age group. The field trips and trips abroad build up independence and confidence together.

We're in the midst of go-round #2 with HS advising, which is excellent. Summer meetings happen with the head of the whole school and the head of the middle school to talk together with the parent(s) about their child and what might be a good fit. I think everyone in my first child's cohort ended up in a good place that has been a good fit, and we've gotten good advice for current kid, who is a very different student than the older one. Support comes from the administration and the staff at each step, and they are organized and absolutely on top of the process.

I think WES does the 9th grade admissions problems about as well as it can be done. I doubt that there is any K-8 that does it better. But keep in mind, that the profile of your specific kid and your family is what is going to drive admissions. People often think there is more of a horse trading process between the K-8s and the K-12s than there is in reality. Your specific child is likely to get into the same set of schools regardless of whether they are at Sheridan or Norwood or St. Patrick’s or WES. There’s no special pull any one school has generally (there are always exceptions but this is more rare than people think in our experience). So you should pick WES (or Norwood or Sheridan or whatever) because you like the school and think your child will be happy and put their best foot forward. The admissions outcome is likely going to be similar at any of the schools for your specific kid.

The admissions profiles of schools do differ some, but this is almost entirely because the family/student cohorts of each school is slightly different rather than specific pull or any kind of feeder relationship.

[Anonymous]

Another parent with a WES graduate and a current middle schooler. I agree with PPs that MS is the school’s strength. If I had it to do over again, I would skip ES but definitely put both kids in MS at WES. The environment is supportive for those awkward years, and the classes become very close. And the trips are great for developing independence.

HS placement was fine. The process is painful, but the school is supportive and goes to each school for an in-person meeting to advocate for their students.

[Anonymous]

HS “placement” is a bit of a misnomer, but the administration at WES were very good at helping families focus their list based on students’ personality, performance, interests, and goals. They did an excellent job leading families through the process and then the head of MS and HOS met with the admissions teams at each of the schools were students were applying. I’m not sure how much of this is standard operating procedure, but we had no complaints outside of struggling to find a HS we liked as much as WES.