Did anyone find primary day too "academic" or structured?

[Anonymous]

The issue is there is a huge push for dumbing down our kids. Holding them back a year from school, only allowing play vs. learning and basically lazy parenting as that allows you to be hands off and justify being hands off. I don' know much about primary day as we have a fall kid who missed the cut off but we went to an academic preschool and it was amazing for my child, who was vey well prepared to transition to another school. There were no issues in K as others complain here as they prepared him on what to expect. Its ironic that the people pushing play based are also the ones holding back their kids or complaining K is too academic when its really dumbed down for some of our kids who were prepared for it. Kids need a balance and complaining about a school being academic or too structured is bizarre as come at least 3/4 that is what kids need to prepare them for or why send them at all to preschool?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The problem is that people are claiming that everyone gets in therefore they assume the quality of the program is not good and/or that the kids are not smart enough to get into schools with supposedly more selective admissions. Facts can prove this incorrect on all levels.

The school attracts families looking for specific traits in a school. It will not attract the number of applicants that schools like Sidwell and Beauvoir attract. It is not trying to attract those numbers. So yes, the admissions are not as selective as some other schools that go up to 12 grade or that feed into these schools. However, there are kids that get waitlisted and rejected every year from PDS. The numbers have no relationship to the quality of the program.

As kids graduate after 2nd grade, they go to a variety of schools afterward, including some of the most selective schools in the area. If the program was not high quality and the students were not smart enough, they would not get accepted to top private schools after leaving PDS.

Two years ago, there were 6-7 kids from PDS accepted to Sidwell for 3rd grade. There are only 12-15 new spots available for incoming 3rd graders at Sidwell. I would say a 50% + yield rate from a single school is excellent outplacement results. But those type of facts are always ignored by people who want to attack the school.

Why can’t we all just stick to providing perspectives on schools we have actual experience with rather than bad mouthing schools we don’t actually know anything about.

+10000 to all of this. Extremely well-said and most accurate description of the school in this entire thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Omg this school is absurd. Wannabe fancy parents... yikes

What does that even mean? You either didn't get in, or have never even been remotely near the school. Seek counseling.

Everyone gets in.

Your kid didn’t.

in what world would someone mock a school by saying it's not selective if their own kid didn't get in? if they were bitter, wouldn't they focus on something else?

You would think. Yet here we are.

If you’re happy at the school why do you care if their admissions policy is lax? Serious question.

Because it isn't. Plain and simple. If you aren't at the school, why do you make false accusations?

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The issue is there is a huge push for dumbing down our kids. Holding them back a year from school, only allowing play vs. learning and basically lazy parenting as that allows you to be hands off and justify being hands off. I don' know much about primary day as we have a fall kid who missed the cut off but we went to an academic preschool and it was amazing for my child, who was vey well prepared to transition to another school. There were no issues in K as others complain here as they prepared him on what to expect. Its ironic that the people pushing play based are also the ones holding back their kids or complaining K is too academic when its really dumbed down for some of our kids who were prepared for it. Kids need a balance and complaining about a school being academic or too structured is bizarre as come at least 3/4 that is what kids need to prepare them for or why send them at all to preschool?

Fast forward 12 years and they'll be the same parents bribing college officials to get their kids a spot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The issue is there is a huge push for dumbing down our kids. Holding them back a year from school, only allowing play vs. learning and basically lazy parenting as that allows you to be hands off and justify being hands off. I don' know much about primary day as we have a fall kid who missed the cut off but we went to an academic preschool and it was amazing for my child, who was vey well prepared to transition to another school. There were no issues in K as others complain here as they prepared him on what to expect. Its ironic that the people pushing play based are also the ones holding back their kids or complaining K is too academic when its really dumbed down for some of our kids who were prepared for it. Kids need a balance and complaining about a school being academic or too structured is bizarre as come at least 3/4 that is what kids need to prepare them for or why send them at all to preschool?

Fast forward 12 years and they'll be the same parents bribing college officials to get their kids a spot.

Wanting your child to be prepared for kindergarten and being involved in a corrupt scam are completely unrelated. Shame on you for trying to make such a pathetic comparison.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The issue is there is a huge push for dumbing down our kids. Holding them back a year from school, only allowing play vs. learning and basically lazy parenting as that allows you to be hands off and justify being hands off. I don' know much about primary day as we have a fall kid who missed the cut off but we went to an academic preschool and it was amazing for my child, who was vey well prepared to transition to another school. There were no issues in K as others complain here as they prepared him on what to expect. Its ironic that the people pushing play based are also the ones holding back their kids or complaining K is too academic when its really dumbed down for some of our kids who were prepared for it. Kids need a balance and complaining about a school being academic or too structured is bizarre as come at least 3/4 that is what kids need to prepare them for or why send them at all to preschool?

Fast forward 12 years and they'll be the same parents bribing college officials to get their kids a spot.

Wanting your child to be prepared for kindergarten and being involved in a corrupt scam are completely unrelated. Shame on you for trying to make such a pathetic comparison.

My correlation was for the parents who want to dumb down their kids with playing all day instead of incorporating academics and the parents who spent half a million bucks so that their kids can post about their college parties on IG.

[Anonymous]

That "correlation" is only in your mind. Although we like the balance of academics and play at PDS, there's nothing wrong IMO with the private schools that are much more play-based.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That "correlation" is only in your mind. Although we like the balance of academics and play at PDS, there's nothing wrong IMO with the private schools that are much more play-based.

Good for you. I hope that you start saving now for those bribes later.

[Anonymous]

Why would we need to save for bribes? I'm perfectly confident in the abilities of my kids to get into colleges on their own merits. Sounds like you're the one with the enormous insecurities, which are completely off-topic in this thread anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why would we need to save for bribes? I'm perfectly confident in the abilities of my kids to get into colleges on their own merits. Sounds like you're the one with the enormous insecurities, which are completely off-topic in this thread anyway.

+1. The PP talking about bribes has huge insecurities, which are blatant in their responses all over this thread. Lots of PDS families are extremely happy and our kids are thriving. Move on with your life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would we need to save for bribes? I'm perfectly confident in the abilities of my kids to get into colleges on their own merits. Sounds like you're the one with the enormous insecurities, which are completely off-topic in this thread anyway.

+1. The PP talking about bribes has huge insecurities, which are blatant in their responses all over this thread. Lots of PDS families are extremely happy and our kids are thriving. Move on with your life.

I'm not that poster but what does it have to do with insecurities? They're not even talking about PDS. You sound SO defensive.

[Anonymous]

If they're not talking about PDS, then why bother ranting in this thread specifically (which seems to have become the de facto place on DCUM to discuss the school, unfortunately).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would we need to save for bribes? I'm perfectly confident in the abilities of my kids to get into colleges on their own merits. Sounds like you're the one with the enormous insecurities, which are completely off-topic in this thread anyway.

+1. The PP talking about bribes has huge insecurities, which are blatant in their responses all over this thread. Lots of PDS families are extremely happy and our kids are thriving. Move on with your life.

I'm not that poster but what does it have to do with insecurities? They're not even talking about PDS. You sound SO defensive.

Thanks. I'm the PP and I was NOT talking about PDS, but rather PDS detractors. Calm down. I love PDS. See you at the birthday party on Saturday.

[Anonymous]

We have been pretty frustrated with the lack of academics and work ethic at our progressive lower school. We regret looking in to PDS so late in our application season and then not pursuing it as we have 3 kids and didn’t want them spread all about for years and years.

Now we are looking at catholic schools or our MCPS public for the younger two.

[Anonymous]

Our impression of about half the families in play based non-academic programs is that they (a) don’t want to know if their kids can be pushed until the last possible grade, and (b)are worried their kid wouldn’t get in in later intake grades where tests, speaking, grades, ECs matter.