Are Other Upper School Students at Potomac Not Getting Tests and Papers Back for Weeks at a Time?

[Anonymous]

We had many issues in the upper school - course selection, return of graded materials and dealing with the administration among them. We pulled our student and they were happy and suitably challenged elsewhere. You have a choice. My own opinion of one is that they try to show that they are same as top DC privates but in Nova. They used to be kinder while still offering a challenging academic curriculum. Now things have changed. A Potomac upper school administrator made to me: “we basically break them down and in an ideal world build them back up.” Huh? Maybe something related to ability or study habits but not exactly encouraging.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps different requirements from the division administrators?

Interesting thought, especially given the US head. I would guess there isn't a great deal of leadership there.

Please expand on this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We had many issues in the upper school - course selection, return of graded materials and dealing with the administration among them. We pulled our student and they were happy and suitably challenged elsewhere. You have a choice. My own opinion of one is that they try to show that they are same as top DC privates but in Nova. They used to be kinder while still offering a challenging academic curriculum. Now things have changed. A Potomac upper school administrator made to me: “we basically break them down and in an ideal world build them back up.” Huh? Maybe something related to ability or study habits but not exactly encouraging.

As a parent of a student in IS, I am absolutely horrified that a faculty member at the Potomac school said this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have put in an application for Potomac and awaiting decision in March. Thank you for starting this thread, OP. I certainly appreciate the chance to weigh this issue as we consider our options for the fall.

Seriously? You are going to "weigh" an "issue" brought up by a handful of people on an anonymous website that leans toward heavy snark??

Talk to the School, ask to speak with current parents, speak with a few alums. We are an extremely happy lifer Potomac family who appreciates the incredible education, social experiences, athletics, incredible arts programs, gorgeous campus, and lifelong ethical education that our kids are receiving. We have never had an issue with unduly late returns of graded assignments. We have had an incredible number of caring educators who have gone above and beyond to support and meet with my kids when needed, to cheer them on outside of the classroom, and to create a beautifully supportive sense of community.

I guess I feel bad about the direction this thread has taken. I would seriously hope that any student/parent with a concern would bring that to any number of the administrators who are responsible for the best practices to which good schools aspire. Doing so on an anonymous thread has limited constructive outcomes.

Sorry, but how do you know you are not one of the “favored” and that is why your child is getting grades back on time? (Assuming that conspiracy theory is true)

Perhaps because I have more than one child in the US (one of whom is finishing their senior year) so we have had many different teachers. Which leads me to...conspiracy theory?!? I sincerely hope those who are unhappy either withdraw from the school and/or don't bother applying. Again, the school is not perfect but I am incredulous at where this thread has lead. The "conspiracy theory" proposal is bizarre.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Idiotic of you to post here. Talk to Virchow, dean of academics. She’s fantastic at advocating for students. Really your kid should talk to her, not you but you sound like you are the type who wants to do it yourself. BTW - tell your kid this is why he had an advisor. He is supposed to take this issue to his advisor not his mommy.

+1
This is also something for your child to figure out (if in fact it’s actually true). I have multiple kids there and just asked them and none have had this issue or know of their friends having it

Just because your kid isn’t having issues doesn’t mean there’s not an issue. And who said that the kids haven’t talked to teacher/advisor?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Guys this thread is so distasteful. Don’t you have a parent listserv? I can’t believe parents would start a public thread to vent about their school and name teachers.

NP-no, nothing like that exists. There are lot of threads about Potomac lately because parents are frustrated and are dealing with admin who either ignore issues or give lip service and nothing changes. Potomac has a real problem with a lack of consistent standards and accountability.

In the division leading to the US, it is so much worse- no grade transparency at all and grades not released until the end of term. The midpoint update is just qualitative observations. Some teachers never returned HW at all and we had teachers who didn't return tests at all or until end of term. I don't know why it is such a mess but honestly teacher morale doesn't seem to be great either. There seem to be a lot of admin with vague responsibilities. Perhaps teachers are tasked with a lot of useless meetings or are overloaded with covid and backfill tasks?

Anyone with a business background who pays attention quickly observes signs of mismanagement. Communications from the school to parents focus on fundraising and feel-good features highlighting talents of exceptional kids who largely became excellent outside of school.

Parents who have been around a long time stop donating, stop volunteering, and simply try to help kids deal with the challenges. Many of us have had too many experiences where we advocate and either nothing changes or worse, worry about downstream implications for the kid. It's not a healthy dynamic and I do regret not trusting my concerns sooner and moving DC out.

[Anonymous]

The take away I get from this thread...Potomac needs to do a better job with teacher management and communication. It shouldn’t be that you have to take it up the ladder to get a grade back in a timely fashion. And if a semester grade is not on report card for WHATEVER REASON Potomac should communicate with parents before the report card is released. Just basic really.

There needs to be a way for the students to talk openly with the admin - not just with advisor and teacher - when they have issues. What a stupid system where the student is supposed to talk to advisor (who is a peer of the teacher). How awkward for all involved! My kid is a student in the class that did not get a grade. The kid feels really bad for the teacher and doesn’t want them to get in “trouble”. But while the teacher is struggling, these kids are not learning. It’s a huge mess.

As a community, Potomac needs to support each other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Guys this thread is so distasteful. Don’t you have a parent listserv? I can’t believe parents would start a public thread to vent about their school and name teachers.

NP-no, nothing like that exists. There are lot of threads about Potomac lately because parents are frustrated and are dealing with admin who either ignore issues or give lip service and nothing changes. Potomac has a real problem with a lack of consistent standards and accountability.

In the division leading to the US, it is so much worse- no grade transparency at all and grades not released until the end of term. The midpoint update is just qualitative observations. Some teachers never returned HW at all and we had teachers who didn't return tests at all or until end of term. I don't know why it is such a mess but honestly teacher morale doesn't seem to be great either. There seem to be a lot of admin with vague responsibilities. Perhaps teachers are tasked with a lot of useless meetings or are overloaded with covid and backfill tasks?

Anyone with a business background who pays attention quickly observes signs of mismanagement. Communications from the school to parents focus on fundraising and feel-good features highlighting talents of exceptional kids who largely became excellent outside of school.

Parents who have been around a long time stop donating, stop volunteering, and simply try to help kids deal with the challenges. Many of us have had too many experiences where we advocate and either nothing changes or worse, worry about downstream implications for the kid. It's not a healthy dynamic and I do regret not trusting my concerns sooner and moving DC out.

Wow, this is pretty terrible. We applied to both Langley and Potomac for K. Thinking now maybe we should stick to L even if we get in P? Having the same school all throughout is attractive, but the tuition money isn’t meaningless for us so we wouldn’t feel happy if we were getting this.

Side note: they sent us the fall alumni magazine. Recent alums and current students don’t seem that impressive…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Guys this thread is so distasteful. Don’t you have a parent listserv? I can’t believe parents would start a public thread to vent about their school and name teachers.

NP-no, nothing like that exists. There are lot of threads about Potomac lately because parents are frustrated and are dealing with admin who either ignore issues or give lip service and nothing changes. Potomac has a real problem with a lack of consistent standards and accountability.

In the division leading to the US, it is so much worse- no grade transparency at all and grades not released until the end of term. The midpoint update is just qualitative observations. Some teachers never returned HW at all and we had teachers who didn't return tests at all or until end of term. I don't know why it is such a mess but honestly teacher morale doesn't seem to be great either. There seem to be a lot of admin with vague responsibilities. Perhaps teachers are tasked with a lot of useless meetings or are overloaded with covid and backfill tasks?

Anyone with a business background who pays attention quickly observes signs of mismanagement. Communications from the school to parents focus on fundraising and feel-good features highlighting talents of exceptional kids who largely became excellent outside of school.

Parents who have been around a long time stop donating, stop volunteering, and simply try to help kids deal with the challenges. Many of us have had too many experiences where we advocate and either nothing changes or worse, worry about downstream implications for the kid. It's not a healthy dynamic and I do regret not trusting my concerns sooner and moving DC out.

Wow, this is pretty terrible. We applied to both Langley and Potomac for K. Thinking now maybe we should stick to L even if we get in P? Having the same school all throughout is attractive, but the tuition money isn’t meaningless for us so we wouldn’t feel happy if we were getting this.

Side note: they sent us the fall alumni magazine. Recent alums and current students don’t seem that impressive…

Not sure how you define impressiveness?

There are a bunch of impressive kids at Potomac (and in the public high schools of NOVA). I realize that you are talking about Little Langley, not Langley HS. I don’t have any personal experience with Little Langley, but realize that if you send your kid there they will have to apply to another school later or go to public for HS. The average caliber of graduates from Potomac far exceeds the average caliber of any non magnet DMV public HS.

[Anonymous]

I suspect Potomac admin will fix this problem before the end of the school year.

[Anonymous]

If they can build a 70 million dollar gym, they can purchase some software to start reporting grades online and have the teachers update it regularly.

[Anonymous]

This issue isn’t unique to Potomac-see this thread from SSSAS:

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1031829.page

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This issue isn’t unique to Potomac-see this thread from SSSAS:

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1031829.page

Sounds like they have taken steps to fix it. Potomac and others should move quickly to fix it as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Guys this thread is so distasteful. Don’t you have a parent listserv? I can’t believe parents would start a public thread to vent about their school and name teachers.

NP-no, nothing like that exists. There are lot of threads about Potomac lately because parents are frustrated and are dealing with admin who either ignore issues or give lip service and nothing changes. Potomac has a real problem with a lack of consistent standards and accountability.

In the division leading to the US, it is so much worse- no grade transparency at all and grades not released until the end of term. The midpoint update is just qualitative observations. Some teachers never returned HW at all and we had teachers who didn't return tests at all or until end of term. I don't know why it is such a mess but honestly teacher morale doesn't seem to be great either. There seem to be a lot of admin with vague responsibilities. Perhaps teachers are tasked with a lot of useless meetings or are overloaded with covid and backfill tasks?

Anyone with a business background who pays attention quickly observes signs of mismanagement. Communications from the school to parents focus on fundraising and feel-good features highlighting talents of exceptional kids who largely became excellent outside of school.

Parents who have been around a long time stop donating, stop volunteering, and simply try to help kids deal with the challenges. Many of us have had too many experiences where we advocate and either nothing changes or worse, worry about downstream implications for the kid. It's not a healthy dynamic and I do regret not trusting my concerns sooner and moving DC out.

Wow, this is pretty terrible. We applied to both Langley and Potomac for K. Thinking now maybe we should stick to L even if we get in P? Having the same school all throughout is attractive, but the tuition money isn’t meaningless for us so we wouldn’t feel happy if we were getting this.

Side note: they sent us the fall alumni magazine. Recent alums and current students don’t seem that impressive…

Please, please, please chose a school other than Potomac. Please. You are not the kind of family we want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Guys this thread is so distasteful. Don’t you have a parent listserv? I can’t believe parents would start a public thread to vent about their school and name teachers.

NP-no, nothing like that exists. There are lot of threads about Potomac lately because parents are frustrated and are dealing with admin who either ignore issues or give lip service and nothing changes. Potomac has a real problem with a lack of consistent standards and accountability.

In the division leading to the US, it is so much worse- no grade transparency at all and grades not released until the end of term. The midpoint update is just qualitative observations. Some teachers never returned HW at all and we had teachers who didn't return tests at all or until end of term. I don't know why it is such a mess but honestly teacher morale doesn't seem to be great either. There seem to be a lot of admin with vague responsibilities. Perhaps teachers are tasked with a lot of useless meetings or are overloaded with covid and backfill tasks?

Anyone with a business background who pays attention quickly observes signs of mismanagement. Communications from the school to parents focus on fundraising and feel-good features highlighting talents of exceptional kids who largely became excellent outside of school.

Parents who have been around a long time stop donating, stop volunteering, and simply try to help kids deal with the challenges. Many of us have had too many experiences where we advocate and either nothing changes or worse, worry about downstream implications for the kid. It's not a healthy dynamic and I do regret not trusting my concerns sooner and moving DC out.

Wow, this is pretty terrible. We applied to both Langley and Potomac for K. Thinking now maybe we should stick to L even if we get in P? Having the same school all throughout is attractive, but the tuition money isn’t meaningless for us so we wouldn’t feel happy if we were getting this.

Side note: they sent us the fall alumni magazine. Recent alums and current students don’t seem that impressive…

Please, please, please chose a school other than Potomac. Please. You are not the kind of family we want.

+1
Those kids are a million times more impressive than I am, and I don’t need to walk around thinking fellow parents are judging me. Enjoy Langley! It is a lovely school and I hope some of their kind culture rubs off on you while your child is there.