School with few toxic parents

[Anonymous]

Reading the dcum threads I noticed that posters from the top schools tend to be super toxic and hyper competitive. Any recommendation of a good schools but without the drama of parents who think too much of themselves?

[Anonymous]

Are you new to DC?

[Anonymous]

Keep in mind that posters here represent a small percent of real parents at these schools.

[Anonymous]

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Reading the dcum threads I noticed that posters from the top schools tend to be super toxic and hyper competitive. Any recommendation of a good schools but without the drama of parents who think too much of themselves?

I am not being glib, but you need to look at public schools. The parent culture you are describing is present at every private school, and it is inevitable given the way that privates are structured economically and socially.

Buy a home in a district with a high end public school and you will get great education and sports (or whatever activity your DC is into) without the toxicity and drama of the parent culture you are describing. In Virginia, I recommend Langley, Yorktown, McLean, and Madison, in that order. I don't know the Maryland publics as well, but someone across the river can chime in with recommendations. I don't think you will find publics in DC of that caliber, but if I am wrong, someone can please share those too.

Best of luck!

[Anonymous]

Obviously not the top schools. You just answered your own question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reading the dcum threads I noticed that posters from the top schools tend to be super toxic and hyper competitive. Any recommendation of a good schools but without the drama of parents who think too much of themselves?

I am not being glib, but you need to look at public schools. The parent culture you are describing is present at every private school, and it is inevitable given the way that privates are structured economically and socially.

Buy a home in a district with a high end public school and you will get great education and sports (or whatever activity your DC is into) without the toxicity and drama of the parent culture you are describing. In Virginia, I recommend Langley, Yorktown, McLean, and Madison, in that order. I don't know the Maryland publics as well, but someone across the river can chime in with recommendations. I don't think you will find publics in DC of that caliber, but if I am wrong, someone can please share those too.

Best of luck!

Toxic culture exists at public schools too. Seriously. I went to one and my friends are sending their kids to them now. Those are all wealthy suburbs with the same type of parents. You have to find your people. The toxic people are loud but at my kids independent schools were not the majority. Classism exists every where and drives much of the toxicity.

[Anonymous]

Toxicity (parents and kids) is directly related to tuition. The higher the price tag, the more toxic the environment.

Directly correlates in public as well, with the price of real estate subbing in for tuition.

[Anonymous]

We never got to know the other parents when our kids were in public schools except for some of our neighbors.

At the private schools most of the other parents were fine. They controlled their kids , supported the school and liked and supported all the other kids. They were glad for the achievements of others.

But with any group you’re going to have the irresponsibles, whose kids seem to have no constraints. The social climbers who are constantly working to position themselves and their offspring. The self-involved who are glad to share everything about their kids, vacations, etc., etc. and who barely acknowledge others even have kids. The vapid trophy wives of workaholics. Those whose reason for being there is to get their kids into the best possible college and think of nothing else. The name droppers including everyone I ever met who went to Princeton and will somehow work that into the first five minutes of any initial conversation.

Most are OK. Just keep a sense of humor and don’t take them too seriously. As I wrote, most are OK. But this is, after all, Washington, DC.

[Anonymous]

Pls remember this board is anonymous. I sweat half the people make stuff u/ don’t attend the schools they say they do.

[Anonymous]

I suggest any schools that aren't brought up constantly here with complaints, such as Gonzaga, DeMatha, SJC, St. Anselm. People only speak up when they have things to complain about, not when things are going well, usually. And from my experience, toxic parents tend to be the loudest.

[Anonymous]

Somebody wrote earlier in the thread, if you want to avoid toxic parents at private schools, then go to public. Yes, there are toxic people there too, but they have no power like the connected parents have at private and therefore they do not impact the culture.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I suggest any schools that aren't brought up constantly here with complaints, such as Gonzaga, DeMatha, SJC, St. Anselm. People only speak up when they have things to complain about, not when things are going well, usually. And from my experience, toxic parents tend to be the loudest.

If your goal is to avoid toxic parents, it’s not a great strategy to rely on the frequency of complaints on DCUM. For example, one of the schools mentioned above, Gonzaga, has some of the most toxic, entitled, country club families in the DMV. Just this past weekend a few of their lacrosse players acted like a complete tools at a tournament, and it wasn’t the first time, ans I heard people commenting that it’s funny how Gonzaga talking points don’t align with some of their students behavior. I’m sure people could cite plenty of examples of the other schools too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Keep in mind that posters here represent a small percent of real parents at these schools.

And many of these poster are not real parents.

[Anonymous]

Consider public schools until high school- where you only get to know parents on your kids sports teams.