How to help child succeed at BASIS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Awesome is a stretch. Running without facilities, experienced coaches or a competitive program gets old for talented and driven kids who want more than a little fresh air, friendship and exercise on the National Mall. If you want serious extra curriculars, be prepared to foot the bill and do the legwork. If you want your MS or HS student to do Yale Certanum classics competitions, for example, be prepared to shoulder full costs for travel to competitions. Kids represent Basis for this and that competition without the school footing any of the bill. Before you enroll, you should know that Basis just isn't serious about extra curriculars and that parent input on the subject is irrelevant.

BASIS parent of 5 years and who can't argue with this statement.

BASIS obviously doesn't offer serious sports w/out athletic facilities to speak of. If you want real competitive sports, music, drama, you look outside.

True, the most serious ECs are financed by families. The budget doesn't stretch far enough for the school to pay. That's the way it works.

One of the advantages of moving to the burbs is that ECs are much better. Slamming PPs who point this out isn't going to change it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Awesome is a stretch. Running without facilities, experienced coaches or a competitive program gets old for talented and driven kids who want more than a little fresh air, friendship and exercise on the National Mall. If you want serious extra curriculars, be prepared to foot the bill and do the legwork. If you want your MS or HS student to do Yale Certanum classics competitions, for example, be prepared to shoulder full costs for travel to competitions. Kids represent Basis for this and that competition without the school footing any of the bill. Before you enroll, you should know that Basis just isn't serious about extra curriculars and that parent input on the subject is irrelevant.

BASIS parent of 5 years and who can't argue with this statement.

BASIS obviously doesn't offer serious sports w/out athletic facilities to speak of. If you want real competitive sports, music, drama, you look outside.

True, the most serious ECs are financed by families. The budget doesn't stretch far enough for the school to pay. That's the way it works.

One of the advantages of moving to the burbs is that ECs are much better. Slamming PPs who point this out isn't going to change it.

I think some of the frustration at that pp is that no matter what the BASIS thread is about, some hardy perennial posters pop in to complain about the crap facilities and foreign language instruction. We knooooooooow

[Anonymous]

Well I'm not a perennial poster. I'm also not new to BASIS.

Most of the rah rah parents here sound like 5TH + 6TH GRADE types.

OP, it pays to listen to parents who've been around the block.

[Anonymous]

That’s great to hear that some of the extra curricular activities at BASIS are fun and successful. The way we see things right now is that if we enroll at BASIS we may need to supplement certain extra curricular activities related to sports and music, but that would actually not be any different than how we currently have our activities independent from the school setting. It seems easier to supplement extra curricular activities than to supplement core academic subjects. It’s less easy to supplement foreign language skills but if the school will provide a family directory, as a PP mentioned, there may be an opportunity to collaborate with other families in the same boat, even if it must be done entirely independently from the school. It’s interesting that students pay a fee to attend the summer BOSS program and someone else mentioned that the school doesn’t provide payment for competitions. I am wondering what can families expect in terms of how many costs they will incur over the school year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Awesome is a stretch. Running without facilities, experienced coaches or a competitive program gets old for talented and driven kids who want more than a little fresh air, friendship and exercise on the National Mall. If you want serious extra curriculars, be prepared to foot the bill and do the legwork. If you want your MS or HS student to do Yale Certanum classics competitions, for example, be prepared to shoulder full costs for travel to competitions. Kids represent Basis for this and that competition without the school footing any of the bill. Before you enroll, you should know that Basis just isn't serious about extra curriculars and that parent input on the subject is irrelevant.

BASIS parent of 5 years and who can't argue with this statement.

BASIS obviously doesn't offer serious sports w/out athletic facilities to speak of. If you want real competitive sports, music, drama, you look outside.

True, the most serious ECs are financed by families. The budget doesn't stretch far enough for the school to pay. That's the way it works.

One of the advantages of moving to the burbs is that ECs are much better. Slamming PPs who point this out isn't going to change it.

I think some of the frustration at that pp is that no matter what the BASIS thread is about, some hardy perennial posters pop in to complain about the crap facilities and foreign language instruction. We knooooooooow

This thread has offered a new family a bird's eye view of BASIS to help them hit the ground running. It hasn't focused narrowly about how to help a child succeed academically in 5th grade. I think that's a good thing.

We knooooooooooow that you love absolutely everything about BASIS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That’s great to hear that some of the extra curricular activities at BASIS are fun and successful. The way we see things right now is that if we enroll at BASIS we may need to supplement certain extra curricular activities related to sports and music, but that would actually not be any different than how we currently have our activities independent from the school setting. It seems easier to supplement extra curricular activities than to supplement core academic subjects. It’s less easy to supplement foreign language skills but if the school will provide a family directory, as a PP mentioned, there may be an opportunity to collaborate with other families in the same boat, even if it must be done entirely independently from the school. It’s interesting that students pay a fee to attend the summer BOSS program and someone else mentioned that the school doesn’t provide payment for competitions. I am wondering what can families expect in terms of how many costs they will incur over the school year?

What you're going to pay all depends on what you're trying to achieve through outside enrichment and achievement of course. Some families pay hundreds per school year, we paid thousands. Immersion families at BASIS commonly arrive determined to supplement foreign language skills. But without support or encouragement from admins, flexibility in the curriculum or appropriate classes and a demanding science and math-focused curriculum from the get go (with the expectation that at least six AP exams will be taken by the end of junior year in HS with scores of 4 or 5), they run out of steam. BASIS language teachers may offer immersion grads who've kept up with a language tougher assignments than beginning students, but you can't expect this. What's going to happen if you supplement is that your kid will either land in language classes that are ridiculously easy, years behind their level of achievement, or they'll start a new language from 8th grade, with little time or incentive to keep up with language #1. Supplementing starts to seem both pointless, particularly if your kid isn't a math whiz and you're going to stay at BASIS for HS. Students aren't encouraged to take AP language exams in 8th or 9th grade with a view to scoring high (which many immersion grads could easily do with encouragement). In our experience, half the battle at is embracing the mindset of BASIS knows best, march in step with other students. If you're a contrarian who can't adjust, you leave or become unhappy.

[Anonymous]

If learning languages matters to you, OP, I wouldn't go with BASIS. This idea of connecting with parents you don't know to jointly supplement doesn't sound realistic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If learning languages matters to you, OP, I wouldn't go with BASIS. This idea of connecting with parents you don't know to jointly supplement doesn't sound realistic.

Does that make less sense than making a decision by "connecting" with anonymous parents on DCUM to crowdsource info on a school???!!!

[Anonymous]

NP. We left BASIS after 7th grade.. OP sounds set on BASIS but can’t accept the reality that their kid will regress on language skills there. My guess is that OP is going to learn the hard way. BASIS Arizona just isn’t interested in serious language study and the young admins running the show in DC couldn’t do a thing about that even if they wanted to. The next group of young admins won’t be any different. Silly for posters to go around in circles on this one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If learning languages matters to you, OP, I wouldn't go with BASIS. This idea of connecting with parents you don't know to jointly supplement doesn't sound realistic.

Does that make less sense than making a decision by "connecting" with anonymous parents on DCUM to crowdsource info on a school???!!!

. Probably not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP. We left BASIS after 7th grade.. OP sounds set on BASIS but can’t accept the reality that their kid will regress on language skills there. My guess is that OP is going to learn the hard way. BASIS Arizona just isn’t interested in serious language study and the young admins running the show in DC couldn’t do a thing about that even if they wanted to. The next group of young admins won’t be any different. Silly for posters to go around in circles on this one.

Not our experience at Basis.

Glad you left.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP. We left BASIS after 7th grade.. OP sounds set on BASIS but can’t accept the reality that their kid will regress on language skills there. My guess is that OP is going to learn the hard way. BASIS Arizona just isn’t interested in serious language study and the young admins running the show in DC couldn’t do a thing about that even if they wanted to. The next group of young admins won’t be any different. Silly for posters to go around in circles on this one.

This is OP. I’m not the language poster. I don’t care about language - although it would be nice to have. I’m really just interested in how I can help my kid adjust to BASIS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. We left BASIS after 7th grade.. OP sounds set on BASIS but can’t accept the reality that their kid will regress on language skills there. My guess is that OP is going to learn the hard way. BASIS Arizona just isn’t interested in serious language study and the young admins running the show in DC couldn’t do a thing about that even if they wanted to. The next group of young admins won’t be any different. Silly for posters to go around in circles on this one.

Not our experience at Basis.

Glad you left.

. We’re much gladder than you. The private we moved on to with great fi aid celebrates humanities, language skills, young musicians and artists, STEM with great technology and all manner of outdoor activities. Make no mistake, OP, the best way for a kid to succeed at BASIS is to put up, shut up and salute the narrow-minded dingbats in charge for 7 years. At least senior year in HS is seems somewhat fun.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. We left BASIS after 7th grade.. OP sounds set on BASIS but can’t accept the reality that their kid will regress on language skills there. My guess is that OP is going to learn the hard way. BASIS Arizona just isn’t interested in serious language study and the young admins running the show in DC couldn’t do a thing about that even if they wanted to. The next group of young admins won’t be any different. Silly for posters to go around in circles on this one.

This is OP. I’m not the language poster. I don’t care about language - although it would be nice to have. I’m really just interested in how I can help my kid adjust to BASIS.

To be fair, not caring about language makes for a promising start.

[Anonymous]

"It’s interesting that students pay a fee to attend the summer BOSS program and someone else mentioned that the school doesn’t provide payment for competitions. I am wondering what can families expect in terms of how many costs they will incur over the school year?"

It depends on your student's interests and your family income. If there is financial need, there are scholarships, even for Certamen and BOSS and sports. The fees for sports include uniforms and transportation on weekdays to the event. My current student is in 3 sports and 2 clubs and each run about $200 for the season/year. Other clubs are free.