Basis PCS

[Anonymous]

16:51 pp

You are wondering why students in 11th grade are leaving BASIS?
How about the final exam grades being so low that the "A" and the "B"s maintained throughout the year transform into all "D"s and a 3.4 GPA after the 2nd trimester suddenly becomes a 2.2 at the end of the year. The report card arrives in the mail with grades that do not make any sense, implying that all year long the student was fine, but at the end of the year, only after the final exam, the student suddenly becomes, as a few personnel so eloquently put it "not BASIS material". Thankfully one teacher spoke out and said the grades on the report card were not the ones that had been submitted ... maybe this is why this teacher was suddenly let go of in July.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:16:51 pp

You are wondering why students in 11th grade are leaving BASIS?
How about the final exam grades being so low that the "A" and the "B"s maintained throughout the year transform into all "D"s and a 3.4 GPA after the 2nd trimester suddenly becomes a 2.2 at the end of the year. The report card arrives in the mail with grades that do not make any sense, implying that all year long the student was fine, but at the end of the year, only after the final exam, the student suddenly becomes, as a few personnel so eloquently put it "not BASIS material". Thankfully one teacher spoke out and said the grades on the report card were not the ones that had been submitted ... maybe this is why this teacher was suddenly let go of in July.

holy crap! not a risk that any 10th grader wants to take with their transcript. Did it have to do with AP scores or is there simply no logical explanation? With finals (not comps) that are only something like 30% of your grade? This really if true should not be allowed to happen. But given the PP above, it sounds like anything can happen...........

PP I liked your "stream of consciousness screed." Quite articulate and to the point. Add that to this and you get a can of worms that every Basis parent should be concerned about and want to find out more about (especially the grades, because I am not sure we can find out anything more about you)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

holy crap! not a risk that any 10th grader wants to take with their transcript. Did it have to do with AP scores or is there simply no logical explanation? With finals (not comps) that are only something like 30% of your grade? This really if true should not be allowed to happen. But given the PP above, it sounds like anything can happen...........

Not the PP who posed above but it could absolutely be comps/finals/AP scores being factored in. Some of the now 11th graders at BASIS, because they started at 7th or 8th grade, are taking classes that require comps (e.g. Algebra 2) in high school. Since the AP scores don't come until July, those final year grades and GPAs aren't calculated until middle of the summer and, some will 'drop.'

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

holy crap! not a risk that any 10th grader wants to take with their transcript. Did it have to do with AP scores or is there simply no logical explanation? With finals (not comps) that are only something like 30% of your grade? This really if true should not be allowed to happen. But given the PP above, it sounds like anything can happen...........

Not the PP who posed above but it could absolutely be comps/finals/AP scores being factored in. Some of the now 11th graders at BASIS, because they started at 7th or 8th grade, are taking classes that require comps (e.g. Algebra 2) in high school. Since the AP scores don't come until July, those final year grades and GPAs aren't calculated until middle of the summer and, some will 'drop.'

And in the case of AP test scores, a student's grade would drop without a teacher knowing it because he/she didn't make, create or write the exam. Not saying that's what happened here - no one really knows except the PP - but there are reasonable explanations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

holy crap! not a risk that any 10th grader wants to take with their transcript. Did it have to do with AP scores or is there simply no logical explanation? With finals (not comps) that are only something like 30% of your grade? This really if true should not be allowed to happen. But given the PP above, it sounds like anything can happen...........

Not the PP who posed above but it could absolutely be comps/finals/AP scores being factored in. Some of the now 11th graders at BASIS, because they started at 7th or 8th grade, are taking classes that require comps (e.g. Algebra 2) in high school. Since the AP scores don't come until July, those final year grades and GPAs aren't calculated until middle of the summer and, some will 'drop.'

And in the case of AP test scores, a student's grade would drop without a teacher knowing it because he/she didn't make, create or write the exam. Not saying that's what happened here - no one really knows except the PP - but there are reasonable explanations.

The problem with that theory is that if you take the AP exam, it is your final. If you took the World History Exam last year in 8th grade, you did not take a comp. So you knew you were waiting for the AP scores to be released in July and to have your grade adjusted accordingly (although one student's grade was not released until October - what if they do that in 12th grade and you are ED?). I assume with AP electives in 9th-12th if you have the option of not taking the AP exam (don't know about that) you would take a final, which is only usually 30% of your grade - so I think everyone must have to take the AP or an "AP alternative exam" that probably gets graded and counted the same..........

otherwise it would not be fair to the rest of the students. But if you are sick and cannot reschedule (because you can only reschedule one AP for late testing a year and some of them are compulsory) I suppose that is what you would do with the elective because it is easy to blow an AP if you take it while you have the flu or something. I think maybe 8th grade is an exception because they don't force anyone technically to take AP exams (although all the kids in AP Calc did).

But this makes no sense. The teacher at least would realize that the grade would be adjusted. The student would know that the ultimate grade depended on an AP score. I am not buying that this is what happened here, because they would have just explained the situation. This "not BASIS material" business is starting to really get to me. Yet another scantron scandal but worse, and let us all remember they did not get in front of that (the machine misgraded a retake and the parent checked and found the mistake) - it had to come out on the now non-operative list serve, and I bet they didn't like that one little bit.

It is so ironic that Olga Block came from a communist country (that is why we have no uniforms) and has created her own dictatorship. Not ironic, sad. Sad for BASIS, sad for our students, sad for the teachers who leave every year disillusioned, and even worse for students who leave with their chances for getting into college adversely affected. The later they leave, the worse off they are. And what if they are not zoned for Wilson? Here was a student who was in it for the long haul. They have a way of kicking out real troublemakers because of behavior, but I seriously doubt you get through 8th -10th grade if you are a serious troublemaker. This one really had me puzzled before, now it is another uncertainty in my mind. Who were the personnel. Who was running the school at the time. Did they kick it up any higher than the HOS? Teacher or parent.

"Not Basis material" = what? Parents used to say = not the right color and I laughed. Not laughing so much. People used to say = children with pushy parents. Not laughing now. People have always said = kids with special needs, and OCR agreed after the first year on that one, BASIS paid their settlement, made compensation to their victims, and allegedly learned their lesson. Not laughing at all now.

Anyone have any other categories to contribute? What category did this poor kid fit into?

[Anonymous]

What a dysfunctional conversation.

[Anonymous]

17:02 - Honestly life is too short to be this miserable. Just transfer your kids to Wilson and Deal since you are IB and don't look back. Many others would give their right arm for that choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:16:51 pp

You are wondering why students in 11th grade are leaving BASIS?
How about the final exam grades being so low that the "A" and the "B"s maintained throughout the year transform into all "D"s and a 3.4 GPA after the 2nd trimester suddenly becomes a 2.2 at the end of the year. The report card arrives in the mail with grades that do not make any sense, implying that all year long the student was fine, but at the end of the year, only after the final exam, the student suddenly becomes, as a few personnel so eloquently put it "not BASIS material". Thankfully one teacher spoke out and said the grades on the report card were not the ones that had been submitted ... maybe this is why this teacher was suddenly let go of in July.

if you did understand how kids are graded during the year and how the final grade is constructed, you would know that it is totally possible to get to the comprehensive exam with a goog grade, say b+ or even a-, and end up with a c. No foul play necessary.
I think you should develop an understanding of the system before making these accusations (your children would also benefit from it too).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:16:51 pp

You are wondering why students in 11th grade are leaving BASIS?
How about the final exam grades being so low that the "A" and the "B"s maintained throughout the year transform into all "D"s and a 3.4 GPA after the 2nd trimester suddenly becomes a 2.2 at the end of the year. The report card arrives in the mail with grades that do not make any sense, implying that all year long the student was fine, but at the end of the year, only after the final exam, the student suddenly becomes, as a few personnel so eloquently put it "not BASIS material". Thankfully one teacher spoke out and said the grades on the report card were not the ones that had been submitted ... maybe this is why this teacher was suddenly let go of in July.

if you did understand how kids are graded during the year and how the final grade is constructed, you would know that it is totally possible to get to the comprehensive exam with a goog grade, say b+ or even a-, and end up with a c. No foul play necessary.
I think you should develop an understanding of the system before making these accusations (your children would also benefit from it too).

I am not the poster whom you are addressing, and I am completely familiar with the system, and neither of these stories makes sense within it.

And your holier than thou, we are just ignorant peons, does not serve as an appealing advertisement for future Basis parents. You can only dismiss what does not make sense due to ignorance. This does not fall in that category. So you are piling on to the Basis parents we have seen before - you don't know, you don't understand, your claims are specious and your kid is stupid Piece of advice - stop pulling these antics, they endear you to no one.

In general, comps are supposed to be taken only 6th-8th grade (I think the only exception, which someone has brought up here, is maths, for the kids who started behind in 8th, or even whilst starting in 5th cannot catch up), but the child in question would have taken the traditional system in 8th grade, and then moved to the high school system in 9th and 10th in every subject other than maths.

Last year at the end of the year I felt very sorry for some of the new parents who did not understand the grading system. But I was also a bit frustrated. We always knew what the stakes were, and my sympathy was not, as yours is, tinged with disdain. We patiently explained the facts and the reasons behind it, and the fact is the grades from the comps come back fairly quickly, because having had a kid who failed a comp, they start setting up meetings with families the following week.

But I assure you that the fact that precomps 6th-8th are half of GP3, and comps are half the grade in the class, is not news to anyone in 10th grade, even, or in fact, especially, if if they are delayed in maths. But kids in 9th-12th grade can only have comps in maths the way I understand it, even if they started in 8th grade. Our kids in LEAP Chemistry were told that their "final" (worth 30%) is typical of the weighting of final exams in the high school non-AP classes at Basis. Remember, comps are only 6th-8th (except if, like us in DC, you start so behind in math you are still taking classes at levels that have comps in high school).

The poster was not clear about when the report card came, but I do have to say, having had a kid fail a comp, that you know the week after Project Week, because they start trying to set up meetings with the families. And again, the AP grading must have been straightforward to this family because of the mandatory AP class (US Gov't) in 9th grade that Mr. Klein teaches. And he is a fantastic teacher.

Not much about this story makes sense. Either that, or it makes a lot of sense, which as usual, ostriches are unwilling to accept. Not much about the other one does either.

But neither of them rest on "Basis is racist" or extremely simplistic explanations for extrinsic events to explain the failures of their own children. How many of you would have believed that the scantron could be wrong? If a teacher spoke up in a class where there was a final that those grades were not the ones s/he submitted, the implication is that those that were submitted were intended to be final. All these other benign explanations are smokescreens. If what this former Basis parent says is true, everyone else is being wilfully blind.

And then we have this other poster whose children are getting good grades. If it all adds up to "keep your head down" and hope they don't decide that "your child is not Basis material" in 10th grade with apparently no warning, and the only teacher who speaks up on your child's behalf gets "let go." The only person I can think of at this point is one of the best English teachers we had, and I can completely imagine her doing something like this - standing up for her student. May she have luck, and the compensation she deserves, across the river.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:16:51 pp

You are wondering why students in 11th grade are leaving BASIS?
How about the final exam grades being so low that the "A" and the "B"s maintained throughout the year transform into all "D"s and a 3.4 GPA after the 2nd trimester suddenly becomes a 2.2 at the end of the year. The report card arrives in the mail with grades that do not make any sense, implying that all year long the student was fine, but at the end of the year, only after the final exam, the student suddenly becomes, as a few personnel so eloquently put it "not BASIS material". Thankfully one teacher spoke out and said the grades on the report card were not the ones that had been submitted ... maybe this is why this teacher was suddenly let go of in July.

if you did understand how kids are graded during the year and how the final grade is constructed, you would know that it is totally possible to get to the comprehensive exam with a goog grade, say b+ or even a-, and end up with a c. No foul play necessary.
I think you should develop an understanding of the system before making these accusations (your children would also benefit from it too).

I am not the poster whom you are addressing, and I am completely familiar with the system, and neither of these stories makes sense within it.

And your holier than thou, we are just ignorant peons, does not serve as an appealing advertisement for future Basis parents. You can only dismiss what does not make sense due to ignorance. This does not fall in that category. So you are piling on to the Basis parents we have seen before - you don't know, you don't understand, your claims are specious and your kid is stupid Piece of advice - stop pulling these antics, they endear you to no one.

You either really do not know what you are talking about or you are one of those who likes to blame everybody else but themselves. At any rate, there is no point in talking with people like you. There is no amount of facts that could prevent you from thinking that the system is stacked against you. You probably don't believe in vaccines, don't believe we sent a man on the moon, and think that 9/11 was an inside job.

In general, comps are supposed to be taken only 6th-8th grade (I think the only exception, which someone has brought up here, is maths, for the kids who started behind in 8th, or even whilst starting in 5th cannot catch up), but the child in question would have taken the traditional system in 8th grade, and then moved to the high school system in 9th and 10th in every subject other than maths.

Last year at the end of the year I felt very sorry for some of the new parents who did not understand the grading system. But I was also a bit frustrated. We always knew what the stakes were, and my sympathy was not, as yours is, tinged with disdain. We patiently explained the facts and the reasons behind it, and the fact is the grades from the comps come back fairly quickly, because having had a kid who failed a comp, they start setting up meetings with families the following week.

But I assure you that the fact that precomps 6th-8th are half of GP3, and comps are half the grade in the class, is not news to anyone in 10th grade, even, or in fact, especially, if if they are delayed in maths. But kids in 9th-12th grade can only have comps in maths the way I understand it, even if they started in 8th grade. Our kids in LEAP Chemistry were told that their "final" (worth 30%) is typical of the weighting of final exams in the high school non-AP classes at Basis. Remember, comps are only 6th-8th (except if, like us in DC, you start so behind in math you are still taking classes at levels that have comps in high school).

The poster was not clear about when the report card came, but I do have to say, having had a kid fail a comp, that you know the week after Project Week, because they start trying to set up meetings with the families. And again, the AP grading must have been straightforward to this family because of the mandatory AP class (US Gov't) in 9th grade that Mr. Klein teaches. And he is a fantastic teacher.

Not much about this story makes sense. Either that, or it makes a lot of sense, which as usual, ostriches are unwilling to accept. Not much about the other one does either.

But neither of them rest on "Basis is racist" or extremely simplistic explanations for extrinsic events to explain the failures of their own children. How many of you would have believed that the scantron could be wrong? If a teacher spoke up in a class where there was a final that those grades were not the ones s/he submitted, the implication is that those that were submitted were intended to be final. All these other benign explanations are smokescreens. If what this former Basis parent says is true, everyone else is being wilfully blind.

And then we have this other poster whose children are getting good grades. If it all adds up to "keep your head down" and hope they don't decide that "your child is not Basis material" in 10th grade with apparently no warning, and the only teacher who speaks up on your child's behalf gets "let go." The only person I can think of at this point is one of the best English teachers we had, and I can completely imagine her doing something like this - standing up for her student. May she have luck, and the compensation she deserves, across the river.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:16:51 pp

You are wondering why students in 11th grade are leaving BASIS?
How about the final exam grades being so low that the "A" and the "B"s maintained throughout the year transform into all "D"s and a 3.4 GPA after the 2nd trimester suddenly becomes a 2.2 at the end of the year. The report card arrives in the mail with grades that do not make any sense, implying that all year long the student was fine, but at the end of the year, only after the final exam, the student suddenly becomes, as a few personnel so eloquently put it "not BASIS material". Thankfully one teacher spoke out and said the grades on the report card were not the ones that had been submitted ... maybe this is why this teacher was suddenly let go of in July.

if you did understand how kids are graded during the year and how the final grade is constructed, you would know that it is totally possible to get to the comprehensive exam with a goog grade, say b+ or even a-, and end up with a c. No foul play necessary.
I think you should develop an understanding of the system before making these accusations (your children would also benefit from it too).

I am not the poster whom you are addressing, and I am completely familiar with the system, and neither of these stories makes sense within it.

And your holier than thou, we are just ignorant peons, does not serve as an appealing advertisement for future Basis parents. You can only dismiss what does not make sense due to ignorance. This does not fall in that category. So you are piling on to the Basis parents we have seen before - you don't know, you don't understand, your claims are specious and your kid is stupid Piece of advice - stop pulling these antics, they endear you to no one.



In general, comps are supposed to be taken only 6th-8th grade (I think the only exception, which someone has brought up here, is maths, for the kids who started behind in 8th, or even whilst starting in 5th cannot catch up), but the child in question would have taken the traditional system in 8th grade, and then moved to the high school system in 9th and 10th in every subject other than maths.

Last year at the end of the year I felt very sorry for some of the new parents who did not understand the grading system. But I was also a bit frustrated. We always knew what the stakes were, and my sympathy was not, as yours is, tinged with disdain. We patiently explained the facts and the reasons behind it, and the fact is the grades from the comps come back fairly quickly, because having had a kid who failed a comp, they start setting up meetings with families the following week.

But I assure you that the fact that precomps 6th-8th are half of GP3, and comps are half the grade in the class, is not news to anyone in 10th grade, even, or in fact, especially, if if they are delayed in maths. But kids in 9th-12th grade can only have comps in maths the way I understand it, even if they started in 8th grade. Our kids in LEAP Chemistry were told that their "final" (worth 30%) is typical of the weighting of final exams in the high school non-AP classes at Basis. Remember, comps are only 6th-8th (except if, like us in DC, you start so behind in math you are still taking classes at levels that have comps in high school).

The poster was not clear about when the report card came, but I do have to say, having had a kid fail a comp, that you know the week after Project Week, because they start trying to set up meetings with the families. And again, the AP grading must have been straightforward to this family because of the mandatory AP class (US Gov't) in 9th grade that Mr. Klein teaches. And he is a fantastic teacher.

Not much about this story makes sense. Either that, or it makes a lot of sense, which as usual, ostriches are unwilling to accept. Not much about the other one does either.

But neither of them rest on "Basis is racist" or extremely simplistic explanations for extrinsic events to explain the failures of their own children. How many of you would have believed that the scantron could be wrong? If a teacher spoke up in a class where there was a final that those grades were not the ones s/he submitted, the implication is that those that were submitted were intended to be final. All these other benign explanations are smokescreens. If what this former Basis parent says is true, everyone else is being wilfully blind.

And then we have this other poster whose children are getting good grades. If it all adds up to "keep your head down" and hope they don't decide that "your child is not Basis material" in 10th grade with apparently no warning, and the only teacher who speaks up on your child's behalf gets "let go." The only person I can think of at this point is one of the best English teachers we had, and I can completely imagine her doing something like this - standing up for her student. May she have luck, and the compensation she deserves, across the river.

You either really do not know what you are talking about or you are one of those who likes to blame everybody else but themselves. At any rate, there is no point in talking with people like you. There is no amount of facts that could prevent you from thinking that the system is stacked against you. You probably don't believe in vaccines, don't believe we sent a man on the moon, and think that 9/11 was an inside job.

[Anonymous]

Let me repeat, s-l-o-w-l-y, except possibly for math, there are no comps in high school. Finals, which is what the parent called these, tend to be around 30% of the grade. That would not move a 3.5 to a 2. whatever. And if you are taking an AP course, you either take the AP exam, in which case you know you are in a waiting game, or you don't. You are positing a situation where a 3 year BASIS family got no warning their child was getting D's from the CJ, and where a teacher just for the hell of it decided to risk their job by saying the grade in their class was not the (presumably intended to be final) grade they submitted? That is the man not walking on the moon and leave 9/11 out of it please.

[Anonymous]

Enough with the bold font!

And I call BS on OP being IB for Wilson. Maybe they USED to be, but aren't now. Why else would OP subject their children to a school that obviously is out to get their, and only their, family?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Enough with the bold font!

And I call BS on OP being IB for Wilson. Maybe they USED to be, but aren't now. Why else would OP subject their children to a school that obviously is out to get their, and only their, family?

what is wrong with bold font?
Maybe Wilson is too big for that poster's child?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Enough with the bold font!

And I call BS on OP being IB for Wilson. Maybe they USED to be, but aren't now. Why else would OP subject their children to a school that obviously is out to get their, and only their, family?

what is wrong with bold font?
Maybe Wilson is too big for that poster's child?

Reposting with bold font in the middle of 10 paragraphs to make a point is annoying.

If BASIS is anti-OP's family and Wilson is too big, it's a shame there aren't any other public, private or parochial options in all of DC.