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

[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…

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.

Well we live in McLean and don’t want to commute to DC. So we would stick with (big) Langley for HS

[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…

Do what is best for your kid but know there are many Langley transfers to Potomac. Not so much the other way. There is a reason.

Langley is a great school. But, it’s not Potomac…I can only speak to Lower Mid and Is- but response time from admin has never been more than 24 hours. And often it’s same day. I have been able to forge personal relationships with each administrator (I am not a big donator). Grades don’t exist in lower and Middle but my kids get all their work back with qualitative comments in a timely fashion. Most work needs a parent signature to ensure child discusses errors with parent. In IS all tests come back graded and parents have to sign. So I have no idea what the PP is taking about that the division leading up to IS is non responsive. The write ups at report card time are literally page long essays (most recent one was 6 pages) with so much depth- not just check the box…

[Anonymous]

Current parent of a senior at Potomac and while no school is perfect our experience at Potomac has been pretty great. I honestly believe that many - not all - of the parents complaining in this thread are ones who thought their kid was brilliant and going to be a straight A student in HS but, when he or she got to Potomac and isn’t, these parents freak out. They can’t handle it. They want to find anyone to blame.

The truth is Potomac US is very intense, very rigorous, and straight As are not common, especially when compared to public schools, even the best publics. The US students have to be very well organized and totally on their game every single day. Getting an A means a lot of work and perseverance. It’s not enough just to be smart.

- From parents whose kid is Not a Lifer & who have experience at other top privates in DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Current parent of a senior at Potomac and while no school is perfect our experience at Potomac has been pretty great. I honestly believe that many - not all - of the parents complaining in this thread are ones who thought their kid was brilliant and going to be a straight A student in HS but, when he or she got to Potomac and isn’t, these parents freak out. They can’t handle it. They want to find anyone to blame.

The truth is Potomac US is very intense, very rigorous, and straight As are not common, especially when compared to public schools, even the best publics. The US students have to be very well organized and totally on their game every single day. Getting an A means a lot of work and perseverance. It’s not enough just to be smart.

- From parents whose kid is Not a Lifer & who have experience at other top privates in DC.

So you are basically repeating the argument of the Potomac administrator that part of the "hard experience" is to encourage teachers not to have transparency, to have no written feedback in a timely manner and for all these smart "together" high schools students to "guess" about what they need to improve in each assignment every week without any grading or feedback from teachers, just so they can all be humbled and taught that they aren't all the smartest students and experience the harsh grading at Potomac in a more, let's say, thoroughly personal way. What a bunch of malarkey! If the school faculty doesn't respect it's own students enough to hold up their end of the bargain to actually provide feedback and grades on assignments, what does that say about what Potomac thinks of it's own students and the culture of trust between student and teacher it is instituting. I would want to say VERY FAR AWAY from a school such as this! it would be an absolute disaster for mental health, self-image, and pedagogical success of the students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Current parent of a senior at Potomac and while no school is perfect our experience at Potomac has been pretty great. I honestly believe that many - not all - of the parents complaining in this thread are ones who thought their kid was brilliant and going to be a straight A student in HS but, when he or she got to Potomac and isn’t, these parents freak out. They can’t handle it. They want to find anyone to blame.

The truth is Potomac US is very intense, very rigorous, and straight As are not common, especially when compared to public schools, even the best publics. The US students have to be very well organized and totally on their game every single day. Getting an A means a lot of work and perseverance. It’s not enough just to be smart.

- From parents whose kid is Not a Lifer & who have experience at other top privates in DC.

So you are basically repeating the argument of the Potomac administrator that part of the "hard experience" is to encourage teachers not to have transparency, to have no written feedback in a timely manner and for all these smart "together" high schools students to "guess" about what they need to improve in each assignment every week without any grading or feedback from teachers, just so they can all be humbled and taught that they aren't all the smartest students and experience the harsh grading at Potomac in a more, let's say, thoroughly personal way. What a bunch of malarkey! If the school faculty doesn't respect it's own students enough to hold up their end of the bargain to actually provide feedback and grades on assignments, what does that say about what Potomac thinks of it's own students and the culture of trust between student and teacher it is instituting. I would want to say VERY FAR AWAY from a school such as this! it would be an absolute disaster for mental health, self-image, and pedagogical success of the students.

You are grossly exaggerating if not flat out making up whatever you want to. The students get a tremendous amount of feedback. Most teachers promptly give back graded quizzes, tests and papers. Plus teachers have open office house every week. Any kid who feels s/he isn’t getting sufficient feedback has multiple avenues of recourse - teacher, advisor, learning center, deans, etc…. Again there are only a few 2 or 3 teachers in the US who have poor records for returning papers, labs or tests. Very very unusual.

This thread has gotten utterly ridiculous. Talk the administration if you aren’t happy. If all you are doing is posting crap on DCUM your motives are incredibly suspect as this exercise is not helping your kid.

[Anonymous]

It truly isn’t just two or three teachers. I wish it were.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Current parent of a senior at Potomac and while no school is perfect our experience at Potomac has been pretty great. I honestly believe that many - not all - of the parents complaining in this thread are ones who thought their kid was brilliant and going to be a straight A student in HS but, when he or she got to Potomac and isn’t, these parents freak out. They can’t handle it. They want to find anyone to blame.

The truth is Potomac US is very intense, very rigorous, and straight As are not common, especially when compared to public schools, even the best publics. The US students have to be very well organized and totally on their game every single day. Getting an A means a lot of work and perseverance. It’s not enough just to be smart.

- From parents whose kid is Not a Lifer & who have experience at other top privates in DC.

So you are basically repeating the argument of the Potomac administrator that part of the "hard experience" is to encourage teachers not to have transparency, to have no written feedback in a timely manner and for all these smart "together" high schools students to "guess" about what they need to improve in each assignment every week without any grading or feedback from teachers, just so they can all be humbled and taught that they aren't all the smartest students and experience the harsh grading at Potomac in a more, let's say, thoroughly personal way. What a bunch of malarkey! If the school faculty doesn't respect it's own students enough to hold up their end of the bargain to actually provide feedback and grades on assignments, what does that say about what Potomac thinks of it's own students and the culture of trust between student and teacher it is instituting. I would want to say VERY FAR AWAY from a school such as this! it would be an absolute disaster for mental health, self-image, and pedagogical success of the students.

You are grossly exaggerating if not flat out making up whatever you want to. The students get a tremendous amount of feedback. Most teachers promptly give back graded quizzes, tests and papers. Plus teachers have open office house every week. Any kid who feels s/he isn’t getting sufficient feedback has multiple avenues of recourse - teacher, advisor, learning center, deans, etc…. Again there are only a few 2 or 3 teachers in the US who have poor records for returning papers, labs or tests. Very very unusual.

This thread has gotten utterly ridiculous. Talk the administration if you aren’t happy. If all you are doing is posting crap on DCUM your motives are incredibly suspect as this exercise is not helping your kid.

Why on Earth would multiple people come on this forum and say the same thing? If your kid hasn’t had this experience, great. You are in the minority, and there is nothing wrong with parents wanting to share information without fear of it blowing back on their child. That’s what these forums are for. I agree that it ultimately won’t solve the issues, but that’s not the point.

[Anonymous]

Hello-I have been watching this thread with some interest as a Potomac longtime parent. I am not sure I agree on papers taking forever to come back at any of the Divisions. I also categorically disagree that there is no feedback. The papers my kids have received back are so detailed and it has been so impressive that I tend to let some other things go. I understand the frustration with the closed grade book but do not think there is a conspiracy there. I believe their rationale is they don't want kids obsessed with grades, but the opposite happens. Knowing where you are throughout the semester is less stressful and once you receive a grade (on an official report card) it is really impossible to have it changed even if it did not make sense. Does that make sense? The area the school really needs work is communication. There seems to be a bit of arrogance to answering questions from parents or fixing things as things come up through the course of attending any school. This started at admissions (old days so do know what current admissions is like) and continues. You tend to get either no email back or when you do get something back, it is short and at times rude. This is not just teachers, it is everything. There is usually no attempt to fix whatever is the issue and just a justification. Good luck getting on the phone. I have had years where I actually didn't talk to an advisor (other than conferences). I get that by US the kids do most leg work but if I send an email, I am doing it for a reason. I also am concerned that the Director of College Placement is leaving. The college placement this year is excellent, and I give her credit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Current parent of a senior at Potomac and while no school is perfect our experience at Potomac has been pretty great. I honestly believe that many - not all - of the parents complaining in this thread are ones who thought their kid was brilliant and going to be a straight A student in HS but, when he or she got to Potomac and isn’t, these parents freak out. They can’t handle it. They want to find anyone to blame.

The truth is Potomac US is very intense, very rigorous, and straight As are not common, especially when compared to public schools, even the best publics. The US students have to be very well organized and totally on their game every single day. Getting an A means a lot of work and perseverance. It’s not enough just to be smart.

- From parents whose kid is Not a Lifer & who have experience at other top privates in DC.

So you are basically repeating the argument of the Potomac administrator that part of the "hard experience" is to encourage teachers not to have transparency, to have no written feedback in a timely manner and for all these smart "together" high schools students to "guess" about what they need to improve in each assignment every week without any grading or feedback from teachers, just so they can all be humbled and taught that they aren't all the smartest students and experience the harsh grading at Potomac in a more, let's say, thoroughly personal way. What a bunch of malarkey! If the school faculty doesn't respect it's own students enough to hold up their end of the bargain to actually provide feedback and grades on assignments, what does that say about what Potomac thinks of it's own students and the culture of trust between student and teacher it is instituting. I would want to say VERY FAR AWAY from a school such as this! it would be an absolute disaster for mental health, self-image, and pedagogical success of the students.

You are grossly exaggerating if not flat out making up whatever you want to. The students get a tremendous amount of feedback. Most teachers promptly give back graded quizzes, tests and papers. Plus teachers have open office house every week. Any kid who feels s/he isn’t getting sufficient feedback has multiple avenues of recourse - teacher, advisor, learning center, deans, etc…. Again there are only a few 2 or 3 teachers in the US who have poor records for returning papers, labs or tests. Very very unusual.

This thread has gotten utterly ridiculous. Talk the administration if you aren’t happy. If all you are doing is posting crap on DCUM your motives are incredibly suspect as this exercise is not helping your kid.

Why on Earth would multiple people come on this forum and say the same thing? If your kid hasn’t had this experience, great. You are in the minority, and there is nothing wrong with parents wanting to share information without fear of it blowing back on their child. That’s what these forums are for. I agree that it ultimately won’t solve the issues, but that’s not the point.

Another parent of three lifers here - I do not believe for a minute that the parents who are extremely happy with the teaching and education their children are getting at Potomac are in the minority. We have had incredible teachers in every division and, while the US is very academically rigorous, I have seen nothing but teachers who are willing to go the extra mile. As it is at most independent schools.

My children have learned how to be good learners - from teachers who give detailed feedback and offer their time and energy in spades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Current parent of a senior at Potomac and while no school is perfect our experience at Potomac has been pretty great. I honestly believe that many - not all - of the parents complaining in this thread are ones who thought their kid was brilliant and going to be a straight A student in HS but, when he or she got to Potomac and isn’t, these parents freak out. They can’t handle it. They want to find anyone to blame.

The truth is Potomac US is very intense, very rigorous, and straight As are not common, especially when compared to public schools, even the best publics. The US students have to be very well organized and totally on their game every single day. Getting an A means a lot of work and perseverance. It’s not enough just to be smart.

- From parents whose kid is Not a Lifer & who have experience at other top privates in DC.

So you are basically repeating the argument of the Potomac administrator that part of the "hard experience" is to encourage teachers not to have transparency, to have no written feedback in a timely manner and for all these smart "together" high schools students to "guess" about what they need to improve in each assignment every week without any grading or feedback from teachers, just so they can all be humbled and taught that they aren't all the smartest students and experience the harsh grading at Potomac in a more, let's say, thoroughly personal way. What a bunch of malarkey! If the school faculty doesn't respect it's own students enough to hold up their end of the bargain to actually provide feedback and grades on assignments, what does that say about what Potomac thinks of it's own students and the culture of trust between student and teacher it is instituting. I would want to say VERY FAR AWAY from a school such as this! it would be an absolute disaster for mental health, self-image, and pedagogical success of the students.

You are grossly exaggerating if not flat out making up whatever you want to. The students get a tremendous amount of feedback. Most teachers promptly give back graded quizzes, tests and papers. Plus teachers have open office house every week. Any kid who feels s/he isn’t getting sufficient feedback has multiple avenues of recourse - teacher, advisor, learning center, deans, etc…. Again there are only a few 2 or 3 teachers in the US who have poor records for returning papers, labs or tests. Very very unusual.

This thread has gotten utterly ridiculous. Talk the administration if you aren’t happy. If all you are doing is posting crap on DCUM your motives are incredibly suspect as this exercise is not helping your kid.

Why on Earth would multiple people come on this forum and say the same thing? If your kid hasn’t had this experience, great. You are in the minority, and there is nothing wrong with parents wanting to share information without fear of it blowing back on their child. That’s what these forums are for. I agree that it ultimately won’t solve the issues, but that’s not the point.

Another parent of three lifers here - I do not believe for a minute that the parents who are extremely happy with the teaching and education their children are getting at Potomac are in the minority. We have had incredible teachers in every division and, while the US is very academically rigorous, I have seen nothing but teachers who are willing to go the extra mile. As it is at most independent schools.

My children have learned how to be good learners - from teachers who give detailed feedback and offer their time and energy in spades.

+1 I’ve always thought teacher feedback on assignments was one of Potomac’s biggest strengths.

[Anonymous]

I think people have acknowledged that there are wonderful teachers at Potomac. However, over the last few years, there seems to be a growing number of US teachers who are returning assignments late or not at all. Based upon my child’s experiences, I would say that it is about 70/30 at best(seventy being teachers who respond to emails, return assignments in a timely fashion, are readily available to help students when needed). It might be a little lower but I want to avoid being too harsh. Perhaps it is pandemic-related, but there were instances before the pandemic as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This sounds like a systemic problem at Potomac. The parents need to step-up and talk to the admin asap. Why is this happening? Sounds like the admin is not doing a good job monitoring the teachers and/or not making the expectations clear. This is for adults to discuss and resolve, not the kids.

I have not known this to be a problem in the US at Potomac. So I would argue that it is not a "systemic problem."

T[b]rust me. It is[/b]!

No, it is not. It’s a very small number of teachers. Like 2-3.

Different poster here to say it has not been a problem for my two kids in the US, one of whom is a senior. So no, it is not a systemic problem in the US.

I'm on my third kid in US and I would say the issue has gotten worse over time. Grades are typically, while not quite a surprise, at least a slight mystery, when they come out mid-semester and at the end of the semester. Sometimes it's a good surprise, sometimes devastating. My kid has not had one single final paper returned in an English class in the last 4 semesters. My kid is an amazing self-advocate, but figures this is just the culture and goes with it. I don't think it's great and have always felt the school lacks any transparency at all. After all, if they published all the grades, then those who are put into the middle and low bucket might have a fighting chance of rising up to the top students. This is their way of keeping the "caste" system in place. They determine very early on who the top students are and make sure there's enough distinction to keep them high enough in front of the others to get them into the very top schools. Transparency would make this more difficult.

As painful as it is to admit, I think there is some truth to what seems like a wild conspiracy theory. The school seems to give the spotlight to the very, very few kids (and or their parents) who demand it in some way (that includes the couple in each class who might be superstars, the ones whose parents are restless think they are superstars, and the very, very wealthy). The rest seem to get vague “everything’s fine, don’t worry” messages all along the way. No matter how well some kids do, they are often told they are in the middle of the pack. Nothing is transparent.

Many of the teachers are truly terrific — caring and engaging and dedicated to kids. The teachers are the reason our kids have stayed. Some of the administration is a different story.

And to the PP who asked why a school would do this, I think it is because so many people evaluate a school by where it sends kids to college. Potomac seems focused on getting the few who might have a shot into the top schools so they can look like Potomac competes with the DC schools. Same reason they look for parents who went to top colleges, in case the legacy thing helps. Those may not be the only reasons, of course.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This sounds like a systemic problem at Potomac. The parents need to step-up and talk to the admin asap. Why is this happening? Sounds like the admin is not doing a good job monitoring the teachers and/or not making the expectations clear. This is for adults to discuss and resolve, not the kids.

I have not known this to be a problem in the US at Potomac. So I would argue that it is not a "systemic problem."

T[b]rust me. It is[/b]!

No, it is not. It’s a very small number of teachers. Like 2-3.

Different poster here to say it has not been a problem for my two kids in the US, one of whom is a senior. So no, it is not a systemic problem in the US.

I'm on my third kid in US and I would say the issue has gotten worse over time. Grades are typically, while not quite a surprise, at least a slight mystery, when they come out mid-semester and at the end of the semester. Sometimes it's a good surprise, sometimes devastating. My kid has not had one single final paper returned in an English class in the last 4 semesters. My kid is an amazing self-advocate, but figures this is just the culture and goes with it. I don't think it's great and have always felt the school lacks any transparency at all. After all, if they published all the grades, then those who are put into the middle and low bucket might have a fighting chance of rising up to the top students. This is their way of keeping the "caste" system in place. They determine very early on who the top students are and make sure there's enough distinction to keep them high enough in front of the others to get them into the very top schools. Transparency would make this more difficult.

As painful as it is to admit, I think there is some truth to what seems like a wild conspiracy theory. The school seems to give the spotlight to the very, very few kids (and or their parents) who demand it in some way (that includes the couple in each class who might be superstars, the ones whose parents are restless think they are superstars, and the very, very wealthy). The rest seem to get vague “everything’s fine, don’t worry” messages all along the way. No matter how well some kids do, they are often told they are in the middle of the pack. Nothing is transparent.

Many of the teachers are truly terrific — caring and engaging and dedicated to kids. The teachers are the reason our kids have stayed. Some of the administration is a different story.

And to the PP who asked why a school would do this, I think it is because so many people evaluate a school by where it sends kids to college. Potomac seems focused on getting the few who might have a shot into the top schools so they can look like Potomac competes with the DC schools. Same reason they look for parents who went to top colleges, in case the legacy thing helps. Those may not be the only reasons, of course.

+1 There is a lot of gatekeeping happening, from who is approved for more advanced classes, who is accepted into the academies like GPAC and SERC with special classes and opportunities that strengthen college apps, who is tapped for leadership, etc. it is demoralizing for the rest of the kids.

[Anonymous]

Don’t we hear this kind of thing about other schools though? Are the Saint Albans academic awards pure meritocracy? Does Sidwell help every student with college equally? Is GDS not filled with children of Ivy grads? Et cetera.

Even if the case that a subjective selection is through its very nature (humans decide) intrinsically flawed, it is no different from what many schools do for a variety of reasons. I would want to know more about the selection process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don’t we hear this kind of thing about other schools though? Are the Saint Albans academic awards pure meritocracy? Does Sidwell help every student with college equally? Is GDS not filled with children of Ivy grads? Et cetera.

Even if the case that a subjective selection is through its very nature (humans decide) intrinsically flawed, it is no different from what many schools do for a variety of reasons. I would want to know more about the selection process.

Stop deflecting.