St Marys versus St Louis

[Anonymous]

Church’s of all denominations are stopping the sponsoring of scout troops because of huge increases in insurance costs. The awards on scout abuse cases necessitate increasing insurance rates.

The Methodist Church was the largest sponsor of scout troops until recently. They stopped doing this because of the threat of lawsuits.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Math instruction here is ABYSMAL. Anyone thinking of going here should do their due diligence and ask a very simple question: What were the average, median, and standard deviations of your MAP RIT scores in 3rd - 5th grades. Will give you everything you need to know.

Another poster nailed the fundamental problem — not enough differentiation, so 7 or so children who need a lot of help slow down and derail the other 20 kids in the class.

TBH math instruction was never great. I know they tried with the Singapore Math program, but it didn't really work.

for those who are hungry up on Mass attendance, the Diocese of Arlington is more Orthodox than ADW. St. Mary's is ground zero for Catholic orthodoxy in the diocese. If weekly mass is too much, then you should probably look at a different school.

I’m fine with weekly mass. Or daily mass. But not at the expense of ACADEMICS. It’s a SCHOOL, not a monastery. So get the teaching and academics in order first.

[Anonymous]

St Rita is known as the most conservative parish in Alexandria. St Mary is just the largest parish and school with three classes per grade, whereas St Rita has one class per grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Math instruction here is ABYSMAL. Anyone thinking of going here should do their due diligence and ask a very simple question: What were the average, median, and standard deviations of your MAP RIT scores in 3rd - 5th grades. Will give you everything you need to know.

Another poster nailed the fundamental problem — not enough differentiation, so 7 or so children who need a lot of help slow down and derail the other 20 kids in the class.

TBH math instruction was never great. I know they tried with the Singapore Math program, but it didn't really work.

for those who are hungry up on Mass attendance, the Diocese of Arlington is more Orthodox than ADW. St. Mary's is ground zero for Catholic orthodoxy in the diocese. If weekly mass is too much, then you should probably look at a different school.

I’m fine with weekly mass. Or daily mass. But not at the expense of ACADEMICS. It’s a SCHOOL, not a monastery. So get the teaching and academics in order first.

Most parochial schools in this area have weekly mass. If that doesn’t suit you, public school is probably the better choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Math instruction here is ABYSMAL. Anyone thinking of going here should do their due diligence and ask a very simple question: What were the average, median, and standard deviations of your MAP RIT scores in 3rd - 5th grades. Will give you everything you need to know.

Another poster nailed the fundamental problem — not enough differentiation, so 7 or so children who need a lot of help slow down and derail the other 20 kids in the class.

TBH math instruction was never great. I know they tried with the Singapore Math program, but it didn't really work.

for those who are hungry up on Mass attendance, the Diocese of Arlington is more Orthodox than ADW. St. Mary's is ground zero for Catholic orthodoxy in the diocese. If weekly mass is too much, then you should probably look at a different school.

I’m fine with weekly mass. Or daily mass. But not at the expense of ACADEMICS. It’s a SCHOOL, not a monastery. So get the teaching and academics in order first.

Most parochial schools in this area have weekly mass. If that doesn’t suit you, public school is probably the better choice.

Most parochial schools in the area aren’t suffering from a mass exodus of teachers/staff and declining academics. St Mary’s needs to focus like a laser on academics. Period.

[Anonymous]

Yes, St. Mary's needs to focus like a laser on academics and on getting and keeping great teachers and administrators.

But weekly mass is obviously not the cause of teacher turnover nor of any math curriculum challenges.

There are always lukewarm or non-Catholics who come to parochial schools for the affordable private education and then start complaining about the religion.

It's bad enough to join something good and try to reshape it away from one of the reasons it's good. It's like being a bad, subversive guest.

But it's even worse to dishonestly blame the religious aspects they resent for unrelated problems like teacher turnover.

There is a grain of truth here, though, which is that the school leadership may not have their "hair on fire" as much as they should about the turnover and teaching issues, because they feel good about how things are going with their faith formation mission. They should feel good about that, but they also should be working very hard to hire and retain the best teachers and administrators they possibly can.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, St. Mary's needs to focus like a laser on academics and on getting and keeping great teachers and administrators.

But weekly mass is obviously not the cause of teacher turnover nor of any math curriculum challenges.

There are always lukewarm or non-Catholics who come to parochial schools for the affordable private education and then start complaining about the religion.



It's bad enough to join something good and try to reshape it away from one of the reasons it's good. It's like being a bad, subversive guest.

But it's even worse to dishonestly blame the religious aspects they resent for unrelated problems like teacher turnover.

There is a grain of truth here, though, which is that the school leadership may not have their "hair on fire" as much as they should about the turnover and teaching issues, because they feel good about how things are going with their faith formation mission. They should feel good about that, but they also should be working very hard to hire and retain the best teachers and administrators they possibly can.

These are great comments.

St. Louis also has mass once per week. I think it would be hard to find a parochial that doesn’t. That’s part of the deal with a Catholic school and why most people send their kids there. I don’t think it impacts the academics at all.

St. Mary’s and St. Louis are both good choices. Sounds like BSSM may be having a rough patch, but really, there are no perfect schools in the Greater Alexandria area. You just pick the one that’s the best fit for your family overall.

[Anonymous]

Life is about trade offs. There are opportunity costs to everything. Those of you who are content with weekly masses (which, beginning to end, eat up at least 2 hrs per week), the variety shows, the student of the month assemblies, all the recesses, the half days, etc, etc — you have NO reason to whine about the poor academics (the little that there are).

[Anonymous]

Uh, when I was growing up, we went to mass on SUNDAY. What happened to that? When did we start doing mass twice a week now? Why not three times a week? Or every morning before classes?

Or are Friday masses during school intended to be a substitute for Sunday mass, so parents can sleep in?

[Anonymous]

Studies show that students perform better academically when schools move from one to two recesses per day.

The problem is not how many hours kids are in the classroom.

The problem is that there aren't enough great, experienced teachers coming to the school and staying at the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Uh, when I was growing up, we went to mass on SUNDAY. What happened to that? When did we start doing mass twice a week now? Why not three times a week? Or every morning before classes?

Or are Friday masses during school intended to be a substitute for Sunday mass, so parents can sleep in?

Friday mass is not a substitute for Sunday mass. If you don’t know that you honestly have no business chiming in on this thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Studies show that students perform better academically when schools move from one to two recesses per day.

The problem is not how many hours kids are in the classroom.

The problem is that there aren't enough great, experienced teachers coming to the school and staying at the school.

This is a universal problem, and parochials are especially feeling it due to the lower pay they can afford to offer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's not "hate" to not feel compelled to host the Boy Scouts forever. The Boy Scouts went through a scandal and a bankruptcy and a rebrand, and now this religious school hosts a religious scouting organization. Seems pretty reasonable.

And then why was Girl Scouts not suppprted either???

[Anonymous]

St. Louis has Girl Scouts. And Trail Life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Uh, when I was growing up, we went to mass on SUNDAY. What happened to that? When did we start doing mass twice a week now? Why not three times a week? Or every morning before classes?

Or are Friday masses during school intended to be a substitute for Sunday mass, so parents can sleep in?

Friday mass is not a substitute for Sunday mass. If you don’t know that you honestly have no business chiming in on this thread.

Why not? I don’t recall a commandment that says “though shall honor Fridays.” So where is Friday Mass coming from? To give teachers a break? (Asking as a 40-year Catholic).