Feedback from uptown all girls for K?

[Anonymous]

Some of the specific pathologies are different, but this thread makes it sound like Brearley is undergoing a process very similar to Fieldston’s downfall in the early ‘10s.

[Anonymous]

(Not a “woke” thing but more the level of infighting and internal turmoil and frequent administrator swaps and people operating outside of their portfolios)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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?

Wow that is nuts

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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?

Are you a plant from Spence admissions? What a thing to read through the night before decisions… sorry it’s been tough!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some of the specific pathologies are different, but this thread makes it sound like Brearley is undergoing a process very similar to Fieldston’s downfall in the early ‘10s.

Or they are making room for others and the previous homogeneous community is not happy about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some of the specific pathologies are different, but this thread makes it sound like Brearley is undergoing a process very similar to Fieldston’s downfall in the early ‘10s.

This "thread" seems to be all from the same person. And she shouted down and belittled the perspective of the one other parent who pushed back such that we never heard from them again. One piece of advice I will take from her, though, is to ask questions and make the decision for myself. If tomorrow goes well, of course! Good luck everyone!

[Anonymous]

It is only me, hi! The other person called me a racist and an idiot and told me I needed some humility, and I responded calmly talking about my thoughts on books and learning, mentioning some real problems. I wished his daughter well, and we continued to chat until he had a good memory about an English class in college. Someone else called me racist, not realizing the writers I was talking about were all Black writers who had been taken out of the curriculum, but they lost interest. I am glad he had that memory. Teaching such as that is such a gift.

I’d love if these changes were being made to diversity, as a financial aid kid at private school, the new policy on aid is pretty brilliant, but I think they are admin donors and the people they are making room for is the bigger money donors. None of them are being made for the sake of the girls who aren’t stupidly wealthy.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, the wokeness is what people focus on, but it’s mainly a smoke screen. It’s just a standard corporate takeover, people knifing each other in the back. I focus on it because the curriculum was the reason for my season at the school. Pretty sure a lot of this was the old head taking our grudges on her way out the door and hiring consultants to make her look not racist because of an insta account.

Anonymous wrote:Some of the specific pathologies are different, but this thread makes it sound like Brearley is undergoing a process very similar to Fieldston’s downfall in the early ‘10s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is only me, hi! The other person called me a racist and an idiot and told me I needed some humility, and I responded calmly talking about my thoughts on books and learning, mentioning some real problems. I wished his daughter well, and we continued to chat until he had a good memory about an English class in college. Someone else called me racist, not realizing the writers I was talking about were all Black writers who had been taken out of the curriculum, but they lost interest. I am glad he had that memory. Teaching such as that is such a gift.

I’d love if these changes were being made to diversity, as a financial aid kid at private school, the new policy on aid is pretty brilliant, but I think they are admin donors and the people they are making room for is the bigger money donors. None of them are being made for the sake of the girls who aren’t stupidly wealthy.

I’m afraid you’re conflating several people here, I brought up the English class memory but I was not the person who called you a racist/idiot/etc.

[Anonymous]

I’d love to bring this back to the original topic of feedback from girls schools. We had positive feedback from 3 and meh feedback from Spence. We really loved two, first choiced one of them and am really hoping for good news tomorrow — especially because we loved the second choice almost as much as the first. How’s everyone else feeling?

[Anonymous]

We joined Brearley upper school from another private. Teachers are overall great with a few odd ones here and there, though not significantly better than at her previous school. The peers are amazing! Very talented and driven, great inspiration for each other. My daughter has many good friends there and they have lots of fun learning together. She loves going to school everyday. No the school didn’t pay me to post this lol.

Parents are expected to join one diversity/community event a year I believe, but the ones we went to were not particularly woke, more like just another school event. Nothing my daughter mentioned about school sounded particularly progressive or DEI driven. There is a lot of diversity in upper school student body and more financial aid students who are just excellent. Funny thing is that my daughter’s previous school was far more progressive, yet whiter and there is more flaunt of wealth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:. There is a lot of diversity in upper school student body and more financial aid students who are just excellent.

On this point - do they have more fin aid spots in the upper school than in the earlier grades? Or is it specifically for prep-for-prep students? And how do you know who the financial aid kids are?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:. There is a lot of diversity in upper school student body and more financial aid students who are just excellent.

On this point - do they have more fin aid spots in the upper school than in the earlier grades? Or is it specifically for prep-for-prep students? And how do you know who the financial aid kids are?

The girls know and talk about the fin aid students in lower and middle, mainly because they themselves are so obsessed with katie j and stanley’s and who goes to what camp and who goes to what resort. It’s just in the culture.

There is a weird upper east side world of supper clubs and country clubs I had never heard of and won’t hear about after we leave. I think the older are more academic superstar types. I am not sure the ones who have been at the school have been as well educated and will do well against them. I don’t quite get the point of a program that doesn’t prep the kind of kids you say you want to succeed for later success in your own program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:. There is a lot of diversity in upper school student body and more financial aid students who are just excellent.

On this point - do they have more fin aid spots in the upper school than in the earlier grades? Or is it specifically for prep-for-prep students? And how do you know who the financial aid kids are?

The girls know and talk about the fin aid students in lower and middle, mainly because they themselves are so obsessed with katie j and stanley’s and who goes to what camp and who goes to what resort. It’s just in the culture.

There is a weird upper east side world of supper clubs and country clubs I had never heard of and won’t hear about after we leave. I think the older are more academic superstar types. I am not sure the ones who have been at the school have been as well educated and will do well against them. I don’t quite get the point of a program that doesn’t prep the kind of kids you say you want to succeed for later success in your own program.

My DD only went to SS for high school, but her friends’ tales of what middle school was like at the UES girls schools are fairly wild. Brutal stuff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:. There is a lot of diversity in upper school student body and more financial aid students who are just excellent.

On this point - do they have more fin aid spots in the upper school than in the earlier grades? Or is it specifically for prep-for-prep students? And how do you know who the financial aid kids are?

The girls know and talk about the fin aid students in lower and middle, mainly because they themselves are so obsessed with katie j and stanley’s and who goes to what camp and who goes to what resort. It’s just in the culture.

There is a weird upper east side world of supper clubs and country clubs I had never heard of and won’t hear about after we leave. I think the older are more academic superstar types. I am not sure the ones who have been at the school have been as well educated and will do well against them. I don’t quite get the point of a program that doesn’t prep the kind of kids you say you want to succeed for later success in your own program.

My DD only went to SS for high school, but her friends’ tales of what middle school was like at the UES girls schools are fairly wild. Brutal stuff.

Like what?