"Cathedral Schools"

[Anonymous]

On this board I see frequent reference to "Cathedral Schools" as if NCS and STA are a single school. But, to my understanding, these are two separate schools (both episcopal) located near each other. Unless I missed something, the schools are both single gender -- NCS for girls and STA for boys. I assume that hasn't changed and IMHO that is the most important feature of these schools. The choice between single gender and coed high school education is like the choice between apples and oranges. One may have a preference for one or the other, but they can't be easily compared.

[Anonymous]

NCS and STA share a coordinate program that includes a number of academic classes and performing-arts productions in the middle and upper schools. Apples and oranges don't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NCS and STA share a coordinate program that includes a number of academic classes and performing-arts productions in the middle and upper schools. Apples and oranges don't.

Apples and oranges both have seeds, but that doesn't make them easily comparable.

More to the point, almost all brother/sister school pairings offer limited interaction among the genders (not to mention socials), but that doesn't make them coed schools. A single gender environment is very, very different form a coed environment and there is plenty of research to back it up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NCS and STA share a coordinate program that includes a number of academic classes and performing-arts productions in the middle and upper schools. Apples and oranges don't.

Apples and oranges both have seeds, but that doesn't make them easily comparable.

More to the point, almost all brother/sister school pairings offer limited interaction among the genders (not to mention socials), but that doesn't make them coed schools. A single gender environment is very, very different form a coed environment and there is plenty of research to back it up.

Apples and oranges don't share the same seeds. You may have taken the metaphor too far.

The point is not that NCS and STA are coed; they are not. The point is that these two schools, together with Beauvoir, are called the Cathedral Schools because they share some things, most salient of which is the location of all three on the Cathedral close. Just the shared location on the Cathedral close is good reason the call them the Cathedral Schools.

[Anonymous]

I thought STA and NCS take some (not all) classes together in high school.

[Anonymous]

OP, I think that is why you hear folks say "Cathedral Schools," not "Cathedral School."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I thought STA and NCS take some (not all) classes together in high school.

This is also true at Holton and Landon. Not sure about other schools, but I think this is a good thing for single gender schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I think that is why you hear folks say "Cathedral Schools," not "Cathedral School."

The usage isn't all that common outside of this board, which was sort of the point. In my 40+ years here, Cathedral has always meant NCS only. That said, I recognize that not everyone has been in DC as long as I have.

[Anonymous]

PP, really? I hear lots of folks with children at all three schools use the phrase. Most of the DCs in our neighborhood attend one of these three schools - two families are second or third generation - and all of them refer to the triumvirate as "Cathedral Schools." Perhaps you do not get out as much as you did back in the day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought STA and NCS take some (not all) classes together in high school.

This is also true at Holton and Landon. Not sure about other schools, but I think this is a good thing for single gender schools.

Holton and Landon used to do this (they called it cross-registation) but do not at the moment. Getting to the other campus was too complicated and wasted too much of a student's time when Holton revised it's schedule several years ago. You had to have a free period on either side of the cross-registered class to make it in time, and very few students had that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought STA and NCS take some (not all) classes together in high school.

This is also true at Holton and Landon. Not sure about other schools, but I think this is a good thing for single gender schools.

Holton and Landon used to do this (they called it cross-registation) but do not at the moment. Getting to the other campus was too complicated and wasted too much of a student's time when Holton revised it's schedule several years ago. You had to have a free period on either side of the cross-registered class to make it in time, and very few students had that.

They do the classes before the start of the normal school day.

[Anonymous]

I think of it just as an identifier "My kids are at the Cathedral Schools" (Maybe one at Beauvoir and 2 at NCS or something) while other folks say "Catholic schools" or others "Montgomery County schools." They are all 3 separate schools but there is no denying the closeness of their students. I would venture that the majority of students that have siblings would have them at one of the Cathedral schools - especially those families that started out at Beauvoir.

I never see it used if someone is only referring to single gender schools - "We're applying to Landon, Mater Dei and the the Cathedral Schools" . . . That wouldn't make sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think of it just as an identifier "My kids are at the Cathedral Schools" (Maybe one at Beauvoir and 2 at NCS or something) while other folks say "Catholic schools" or others "Montgomery County schools." They are all 3 separate schools but there is no denying the closeness of their students. I would venture that the majority of students that have siblings would have them at one of the Cathedral schools - especially those families that started out at Beauvoir.

I never see it used if someone is only referring to single gender schools - "We're applying to Landon, Mater Dei and the the Cathedral Schools" . . . That wouldn't make sense.

Well since, as noted, "Cathedral" is taken by many to mean NCS, saying "We're applying to Landon, Mater Dei and the the Cathedral Schools" would be VERY strange becuase Landon and Mater Dei are all boys schools and NCS is an all girls school --- I've yet to see someone who could apply to all.

On the other hand, it is common to hear "We're applying to Holton, Viz and Cathedral."

Not denying that NCS and STA have a close sister/brother school realationship -- perhaps the closest of single gender schools, but we all know that these are single gender schools (which doesn't mean cloistered)

[Anonymous]

Say what you will about NCS and STA,” it’s impressive that they’ve been able to remain more or less untouched by the turmoil in the Episcopal Church. Maybe the use of “Cathedral Schools” is an effort to reinforce the connection of the schools to the Episcopal Church.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I think that is why you hear folks say "Cathedral Schools," not "Cathedral School."

The usage isn't all that common outside of this board, which was sort of the point. In my 40+ years here, Cathedral has always meant NCS only. That said, I recognize that not everyone has been in DC as long as I have.

The "Cathedral schools" is, in fact, common outside of this board. It's used by many in our community. The schools don't just share the close, they are also all legal subsidiaries of the Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Foundation. So the phrase is short-hand for all 3 educational instiutions under that umbrella.

That said, if you say only "Cathedral" and not "Cathedral schools," then you are in fact refering to NCS alone.