Walls open house

[Anonymous]

Did anyone attend the Walls open house on Saturday? I attended with my kid but have some friends who are planning to go to the December one and wanted to pass on if any parent or kids had different experiences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did anyone attend the Walls open house on Saturday? I attended with my kid but have some friends who are planning to go to the December one and wanted to pass on if any parent or kids had different experiences.

Well, let’s start with you. What was your experience at the open house?

[Anonymous]

It is crowded but gives your child a sense of the building and location. Lots of friendly students to answer questions and directions. Get to see a few teachers speak about curriculum. Admissions info hard to hear and follow so not as useful. Definitely worth going.

[Anonymous]

The open house last year was one of the reasons I didn't really want my kid going there.

To keep it brief, the Walls open house parent vibe was 'entitlement.'

The Banneker open house vibe was 'work.'

I'm sure it would've been fine, our now-high schooler does great interpersonally, on tests, etc., but I'm a lot more at ease dealing with parents who haven't gone to college than ones who went to Oxford.

Just my personal biases, so take it with a grain of salt.

[Anonymous]

Walls?

Hard pass.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The open house last year was one of the reasons I didn't really want my kid going there.

To keep it brief, the Walls open house parent vibe was 'entitlement.'

The Banneker open house vibe was 'work.'

I'm sure it would've been fine, our now-high schooler does great interpersonally, on tests, etc., but I'm a lot more at ease dealing with parents who haven't gone to college than ones who went to Oxford.

Just my personal biases, so take it with a grain of salt.

My kid graduated from Walls. He mostly enjoyed it. I barely dealt with any parents at all. No idea if they were entitled or not. Parents I met were friendly. The kids were nice, at least the kids my son hung out with

[Anonymous]

This parent who rejected Walls because of the "parent vibe" is so odd.

This is high school, not elementary school. My kid commutes there on their own, and does clubs and homework on their own. I never even interact with other parents enough to know if they're entitled, let alone where/if they went to college.

I think your reaction says more about you than the school.

[Anonymous]

I did not go this year, but went to Walls and ones at 3 other selective schools last year plus MacArthur, and Walls was by far the most unpleasant. It was overly crowded, both in the hallways and in the classrooms, the teachers seemed to just be regurgitating information about what levels of each of their subjects were offered at the school (Spanish 1, 2, 3, 4, AP, etc.).
I'm sure this info was based on what kinds of questions parents ask, but there was no attempt to engage students or get them excited about anything. Everyone was kind and the student guides were helpful, but it almost seemed like they felt like they didn't have to try because they are generally the most sought-after. I still encouraged my child to apply, but if we based our ranking on open houses alone, they would have been last.

[Anonymous]

The recent Walls Open House was absurdly crowded. On the recent virtual OH, the presenter said they had failed to close registration at the cap of 400 families and let like 600 families register. Yay DCPS.

I agree with PP that the teachers must misunderstand the purpose of an OH since all most of them just said, "We have these classes" (just like all other DCPS high schools...).

My DD liked the school, but I have to say that my early impression of the admin and some teachers is weak (physics/anatomy teacher excepted). They seem to pitch that it's a great school because it's students score relatively well on standardized tests and get into decent colleges, but then of course they do because that's built into the students they start with. They need to spend more effort explaining what Walls does to provide a distinctive educational opportunity for its students rather than just crowing about the students.

Meanwhile, because a lame bus company once employed a drunk driver to drive around ES students, now the students at Walls cannot easily leave the building. So forget the whole "without walls" thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The recent Walls Open House was absurdly crowded. On the recent virtual OH, the presenter said they had failed to close registration at the cap of 400 families and let like 600 families register. Yay DCPS.

I agree with PP that the teachers must misunderstand the purpose of an OH since all most of them just said, "We have these classes" (just like all other DCPS high schools...).

My DD liked the school, but I have to say that my early impression of the admin and some teachers is weak (physics/anatomy teacher excepted). They seem to pitch that it's a great school because it's students score relatively well on standardized tests and get into decent colleges, but then of course they do because that's built into the students they start with. They need to spend more effort explaining what Walls does to provide a distinctive educational opportunity for its students rather than just crowing about the students.

Meanwhile, because a lame bus company once employed a drunk driver to drive around ES students, now the students at Walls cannot easily leave the building. So forget the whole "without walls" thing.

I didn’t get a weak impression of teachers. And the information shared was helpful. How else would you present to a room of 50 people? Anyway ultimately the school doesn’t need to spend more effort explaining why Walls is unique. They get plenty of strong applicants each year.

[Anonymous]

It was crowded but other than that I thought it was good and helpful. My kid really liked it

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: Meanwhile, because a lame bus company once employed a drunk driver to drive around ES students, now the students at Walls cannot easily leave the building. So forget the whole "without walls" thing.

What a weird, uniformed thing to say. So far THIS school year my kids who are current students at Walls have:

- walked with their French class to a bakery for croissants
- walked with their Latin class to the West End library
- spent 2 days on the Mall doing an experiential cross-functional scavenger hunt with their grade
- gone with their history class to polling station for 18 year olds in their class to vote
- participated in a ceremony at the White House with fellow students
- eaten lunch at Western Market dozens of times
- run to the Memorials for PE more times than they can count

So much for forgetting the whole "without walls" thing....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: Meanwhile, because a lame bus company once employed a drunk driver to drive around ES students, now the students at Walls cannot easily leave the building. So forget the whole "without walls" thing.

What a weird, uniformed thing to say. So far THIS school year my kids who are current students at Walls have:

- walked with their French class to a bakery for croissants
- walked with their Latin class to the West End library
- spent 2 days on the Mall doing an experiential cross-functional scavenger hunt with their grade
- gone with their history class to polling station for 18 year olds in their class to vote
- participated in a ceremony at the White House with fellow students
- eaten lunch at Western Market dozens of times
- run to the Memorials for PE more times than they can count

So much for forgetting the whole "without walls" thing....

That’s good to know. I’m not the person you’re responding to but I heard two different teachers at the open house say they aren’t able to leave campus as easily as they used to, for liability reasons. I didn’t know what that was referring to.

[Anonymous]

My kid liked it, but not nearly as much as the Banneker open house