Feedback from uptown all girls for K?

[Anonymous]

She has a friend she spends most of her time with, but there are three or other obviously brilliant girls who literally go all day without talking to anyone. Girls schools are supposed to bring out girls like that. These are just shut down (I went to a girls high school and loved it).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They redshirt so many girls that the younger nerdy ones who didn’t take an extra year to be academically ready at the right age are socially non-entities. My daughter has no social problems in any other group of smart kids, buzzes around like a happy bee, except at Brearley where she spends all day reading because the older girls only want to talk about skin care and stanleys. She figures it’s better to be quiet than bullied.

This is surprised to me, I thought Brearly girls are only caring about studying (in a good way)....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They redshirt so many girls that the younger nerdy ones who didn’t take an extra year to be academically ready at the right age are socially non-entities. My daughter has no social problems in any other group of smart kids, buzzes around like a happy bee, except at Brearley where she spends all day reading because the older girls only want to talk about skin care and stanleys. She figures it’s better to be quiet than bullied.

A lot of this sounds really awful. But I wish you were more specific about what schools you see as an alternative and to what degree, since you are warning us so sternly about Brearley.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My oldest takes dance classes with a bunch of Brearley girls and she reports that while they're clearly well trained their answers to questions tend to be stiff and rote; even "how did you feel about such-and-such today" produces a little spoken introduction+evidence+conclusion paragraph.

Funny, after our tour of spence with a pretty clueless guide, my daughter remarked: "weird. not only couldn't she answer questions about the school, she couldn't even answer questions about herself!"

[Anonymous]

Your oldest daughter is astute. They have changed the way they taught writing in the last to emphasize presentation rather than content. They told me this when I asked.

Anonymous wrote:My oldest takes dance classes with a bunch of Brearley girls and she reports that while they're clearly well trained their answers to questions tend to be stiff and rote; even "how did you feel about such-and-such today" produces a little spoken introduction+evidence+conclusion paragraph.

[Anonymous]

Not a girls school but since it's otherwise relevant: I was looking at Dalton's course catalog today and was alarmed that they list "write a single expository paragraph" as a 5th grade skill and "produce a 5-paragraph essay" as a 7th grade one; even a GenEd public teaches those skills in 4th/5th, and they're major components of the state ELA assessments in those years. (when my kid was in public 6th grade she had to churn out a 5-paragraph essay every few weeks at least)

[Anonymous]

Dalton has this right. All the research backs it. Teaching kids presentation too young doesn’t actually build the right skills to be able to write at a high school or academic level. It does, however, produce work so that parents feel like they are getting their money’s worth.

If you teach writing this way, they never learn to do anything other than present what you want to hear. You really should just stuff them with as much content as you can until they gain executive skills at 11 or 12.

Everyone on this board should read about Lucy Calkins and how her methods destroyed literacy in this country and the Mississippi miracle if they need examples of how bad pedagogy can infect these schools.


quote=Anonymous]Not a girls school but since it's otherwise relevant: I was looking at Dalton's course catalog today and was alarmed that they list "write a single expository paragraph" as a 5th grade skill and "produce a 5-paragraph essay" as a 7th grade one; even a GenEd public teaches those skills in 4th/5th, and they're major components of the state ELA assessments in those years. (when my kid was in public 6th grade she had to churn out a 5-paragraph essay every few weeks at least)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not a girls school but since it's otherwise relevant: I was looking at Dalton's course catalog today and was alarmed that they list "write a single expository paragraph" as a 5th grade skill and "produce a 5-paragraph essay" as a 7th grade one; even a GenEd public teaches those skills in 4th/5th, and they're major components of the state ELA assessments in those years. (when my kid was in public 6th grade she had to churn out a 5-paragraph essay every few weeks at least)

Don't assume that focusing on a skill earlier is always better. "Churning out" is not something you want to encourage in young writers.

[Anonymous]

I don’t want to say where my daughter is going because I don’t want to out her even retroactively.


I also in the past, convinced 2 families their very smart lovely daughters who reminded me of my own and would love it, too and now feel guilty. I am not going to vouch for a school until I am totally sure I am right. I might not ever again. I unlike some of the these schools feel responsible to little ones.

I was so wrong, and Brearley changed so much so fast, that I just don’t think I could do it with integrity. They wrote that they were doing a full on equity audit and becoming an anti-racist school and I didn’t really take in that might change the way they taught 3rd grade writing or completely overhaul a curriculum they’d spent a 100 years building.


My one piece of good advice is to look at linked in and glassdoor, see if the place you are interested in has faculty that has been there for decades. The head of the learning skills at Brearley has switched like 3 times in 5 years. That’s person making academic decisions bout your kid. No way that person knows nothing about 600 girls if it changes every year, so your kid is just a document to them or what some psych person said.

I didn’t care about DEI or dislike it very much until all this. I know a lot more know about equity vs merit than I ever wanted to because I just wanted to figure out what was going on with my kid. Other parents have just assumed that I am coming from misguided conservatism, but it’s not actually accurate.

I don’t have an axe to grind, I am
disappointed.

[Anonymous]

I didn’t believe my daughter when she told me about some of the weird things the psychologist was asking the girls of the weird sex curriculum then it turned out she was accurately reporting it.

don’t want anyone else to make their daughter feel unheard the way one did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They redshirt so many girls that the younger nerdy ones who didn’t take an extra year to be academically ready at the right age are socially non-entities. My daughter has no social problems in any other group of smart kids, buzzes around like a happy bee, except at Brearley where she spends all day reading because the older girls only want to talk about skin care and stanleys. She figures it’s better to be quiet than bullied.

A lot of this sounds really awful. But I wish you were more specific about what schools you see as an alternative and to what degree, since you are warning us so sternly about Brearley.

Sounds like homeschooling may be the best bet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How are the sciences at Brearley upper school? Biology, Physics, Chemistry? Those don’t seem to be much discussed or emphasized. Are there research opportunities, advanced topic classes, lab/mentor relationships?

The courses are solid and they have all the things you listed. But Spence has invested more in science related opportunities and has higher participation in their research program than Brearley. If your girl is more STEM than liberal art I would look at Spence more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How are the sciences at Brearley upper school? Biology, Physics, Chemistry? Those don’t seem to be much discussed or emphasized. Are there research opportunities, advanced topic classes, lab/mentor relationships?

The courses are solid and they have all the things you listed. But Spence has invested more in science related opportunities and has higher participation in their research program than Brearley. If your girl is more STEM than liberal art I would look at Spence more.

This bums me out because Spence isn’t taking any more kids from our school. They already took four siblings/ legacies

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t want to say where my daughter is going because I don’t want to out her even retroactively.


I also in the past, convinced 2 families their very smart lovely daughters who reminded me of my own and would love it, too and now feel guilty. I am not going to vouch for a school until I am totally sure I am right. I might not ever again. I unlike some of the these schools feel responsible to little ones.

I was so wrong, and Brearley changed so much so fast, that I just don’t think I could do it with integrity. They wrote that they were doing a full on equity audit and becoming an anti-racist school and I didn’t really take in that might change the way they taught 3rd grade writing or completely overhaul a curriculum they’d spent a 100 years building.


My one piece of good advice is to look at linked in and glassdoor, see if the place you are interested in has faculty that has been there for decades. The head of the learning skills at Brearley has switched like 3 times in 5 years. That’s person making academic decisions bout your kid. No way that person knows nothing about 600 girls if it changes every year, so your kid is just a document to them or what some psych person said.

I didn’t care about DEI or dislike it very much until all this. I know a lot more know about equity vs merit than I ever wanted to because I just wanted to figure out what was going on with my kid. Other parents have just assumed that I am coming from misguided conservatism, but it’s not actually accurate.

I don’t have an axe to grind, I am
disappointed.

I agree that consistency in the head of learning skills would be ideal, but from what we learned while applying, the learning skills department is for kids who need remedial work. Wouldn't the people making academic decisions for most of the kids be the Academic Dean, school heads and teachers?

[Anonymous]

I’d assume that, too, but no, the head of learning skills and the head of the psych department actually make the decisions.

Learning skills is actually an incredibly important department in schools aimed at smart kids. Some smart kids are pretty typical but the younger ones at the school are usually ready younger because they are gifted and gifted kids are curve balls to teachers who aren’t used to them. Very few of the new hires have the background to teach them and don’t really know how.

Gifted high IQ hits some marks absurdly young and others kind of late. If a kid isn’t doing what they think that kid should be doing or in anyway not just like everyone else, The psych department is often called in. All the sudden instead of meetings about math fluency or hearing about greek mythology, you are having all these calls where they are telling you there is something seriously wrong and “they” are watching and won’t tell you who they is.
I know someone who was told to medicate against the advice of an actual psychiatrist and the advice of a neuropsych who suggested the kid (all kids actually) still needed recess in 5th grade and was inside too much. They recommended fresh air, the school said drugs. They left.

At least in lower school, the head has no power anymore. Hard to tell in middle, but if your kid isn’t peppy enough or wants to read an unassigned book during lunch, it becomes a weirdly big deal and she’s considered asocial even if she has always had friends, but is just an introvert.

The psych department is so involved in the kids on a day to day basis, but they won’t give you the notes or let you know they are meeting with your MINOR child until after, but the answer is always medicate, and then you talk to an OT or a psychologist and they’re like God, no, it’s just a little thing, here’s how to fix it. The psych department meets with all the girls once a week starting in middle and it’s like — maybe recess might be a better way to teach them social skills? Its weird.

So like my kid said she didn’t like talking in front of other people about her feelings, and I lost two weeks dealing with these kooky people treating her like she was some sort of psychopath because she didn’t feel like emoting that day (my final straw). You spend all this time on calls and all this money hiring other experts who tell you Brearley’s expert doesn’t know what they are talking about.
it ruins your life with worry and calls and trying to figure out whose saying what and calling another expert to see if what the expert at the school makes sense and it rarely does.

There are some very spoiled protected children whose parents seem to somehow use the psych department against people they don’t like. There are at least two, if not three families left after that child stole from theirs and wasn’t ever punished, and it got all caught up with the psych department saying the kid bullying their kid didn’t need to apologize, and it was clearly all about money. They just got sick of it and left.

The head of upper school and the academic dean, the dean of faculty, the head of school and now the head of admissions have all changed in the past three years. DEI went from like two people to a whole department, and they do almost all the programming of lectures, etc. The girls make fun of it, the parents roll their eyes, but it is the bulk of the programming. Getting them throw a seder after October 7th was like pulling teeth.

It all sounds so strange because it is. It’s a strange place, getting stranger. I am still a little stunned at how deep and weird the quagmire of the place can get.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t want to say where my daughter is going because I don’t want to out her even retroactively.


I also in the past, convinced 2 families their very smart lovely daughters who reminded me of my own and would love it, too and now feel guilty. I am not going to vouch for a school until I am totally sure I am right. I might not ever again. I unlike some of the these schools feel responsible to little ones.

I was so wrong, and Brearley changed so much so fast, that I just don’t think I could do it with integrity. They wrote that they were doing a full on equity audit and becoming an anti-racist school and I didn’t really take in that might change the way they taught 3rd grade writing or completely overhaul a curriculum they’d spent a 100 years building.


My one piece of good advice is to look at linked in and glassdoor, see if the place you are interested in has faculty that has been there for decades. The head of the learning skills at Brearley has switched like 3 times in 5 years. That’s person making academic decisions bout your kid. No way that person knows nothing about 600 girls if it changes every year, so your kid is just a document to them or what some psych person said.

I didn’t care about DEI or dislike it very much until all this. I know a lot more know about equity vs merit than I ever wanted to because I just wanted to figure out what was going on with my kid. Other parents have just assumed that I am coming from misguided conservatism, but it’s not actually accurate.

I don’t have an axe to grind, I am
disappointed.

I agree that consistency in the head of learning skills would be ideal, but from what we learned while applying, the learning skills department is for kids who need remedial work. Wouldn't the people making academic decisions for most of the kids be the Academic Dean, school heads and teachers?