Whittle School
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Anonymous
True. The Post article about the school says that he led the launch in 2012 as CEO and resigned in 2015. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/private-school-with-global-ambition-to-open-in-dc-and-china-in-2019/2018/02/07/c101aaa2-0b4b-11e8-95a5-c396801049ef_story.html?utm_term=.7120bea11fb0 All it says on his wikipedia page (citing a WSJ article I can't read) is that he left to launch Whittle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Whittle. That does seem like a very short amount of time to abandon a school you just led through its founding. |
Anonymous
| To then start a competing venture... |
Anonymous
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Is anyone going to the information sessions they are holding? I went to one and was not impressed.
Grand schemes and plans but little transparency on how the schools are being funded or what the costs are. A lot of flash and little substance, or at least that's how it seemed to me. |
Anonymous
| I would be interested to learn how they plan to get 2,500 students at that price. Especially if they only have a thousand in the NYC avenues school. What was the planned number there? |
Anonymous
500 will be boarding students (I guess from China, and there are plenty of Chinese students looking to come to American school) but 2,000 is still a ton for an unproven expensive school in an area with a ton of school options already. |
Anonymous
Last night they said 400 boarders full time. They will also have a category of weekly boarders - so kids who live somewhat locally who are at school for 5 days and then go home for the weekend. DH thought local DC parents who work long hours would take advantage of this option. Whittle used China as an example here saying it was very popular there and 250,000 kids commute every weekend. He did not say if this was a national number or confined to one area. They also intend to ramp up the student body slowly. I think they said they plan on starting in 2019 with less than 500 kids. They said the they were partnering with Friendship Charter in DC (?) to identify students and they would be giving 15% of the student body financial aid. And the head of the Lower School is from Beauvoir, Susan Stossel. She is the only Administrator at the school who is a local and I imagine she will be their reference on how private schools in the area work. |
Anonymous
He is no longer with Avenues. |
Anonymous
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I can't imagine why that Burke, Sheridan and Field would worry. These "fringe" schools offer an entirely different product than Whittle.
BTW, these are not fringe schools. |
Anonymous
There’s also one in OP’s first sentence. |
Anonymous
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A huge school owned by Chinese investors is of no interest to this Burke mom. We wanted a small school for individual attention and where the students and teachers all know each other. I know I can always call the HOS if I needed to. At a school like the Whittle, I can’t imagine the levels of people you’d have to get through to get an answer of any sort.
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Anonymous
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Fascinating. The only money in private schools these days is from full-pay Chinese parents anyway, so someone finally thought to start a school funded by the Chinese, in the U.S., offering Chinese language, for Chinese students. In a few years it may be the only private school in the area turning a profit.
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Anonymous
| I just learned the school is incorporated in the Cayman Islands! It's like an Enron school. |
Anonymous
Do you have a source? Not that I don't believe you but I'd like to share it with some people. |
Anonymous
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A friend applied for a position there and in the online application they asked about pre existing medical conditions (and stated that being less than honest in answering those questions on the application may cause denial of medical benefits if hired).
Sounds like a scary place to work. |
Anonymous
| I heard that all teachers were required to live on the campus as well |