Lab School

[Anonymous]

I'm not thrilled. Progress has been minimal academically for my child and lots of social and behavioral problems have cropped up. Everyone seems to love the school though. Has anyone ever left there and gone to public school? Has anyone felt disappointed there?

[Anonymous]

While I know they really try to only admit kids who fit their program perhaps it is just not a good fit for your child. Depends on the age but some kids go on to field and Burke. Not sure if kids switch to McLean. Many kids come from public rather than the other way around. But again it depends what your child's needs are and whether they can be met in public school.

[Anonymous]

I know of a family who left and went to Siena. They did not like Lab for many reasons, but loved Siena.I also hear good things about Oakwood in Annandale, VA.

[Anonymous]

Lab is pretty specific about the students they best serve. Sounds like it wasn't a good fit for your child.

Good luck in public school.

[Anonymous]

What were the reasons the Sienna family did not like Lab?

[Anonymous]

They spent 2 years at Lab and didn't like the parent communication/ participation, the academics, or the behavior of some students. I think their DC was probably less disabled than many at Lab. As other posters have said, the fit needs to be right, although the leap from an intensive program like Lab to a mainstream public school is pretty drastic.

[Anonymous]

OP and 15:04, what grades? We are in DC and public is out of the question.

OP, without getting too personal, could you explain a little about problems?

TIA

[Anonymous]

We were not happy at all with the consistent volume of behavioral issues at Lab. All schools have these issues to an extent but Lab had a ridiculous amount of fairly serious problems. It has been consistent for several years. The problems persist because the administration sweeps them under the rug and often looks the other way.

Lab is geared toward kids with LANGUAGE BASED DISABILITIES, so it is concerning they accept kids with emotional issues.
The classes at Lab may only be 8 or so kids in size but when the teachers are constantly putting out fires revolving around one of those eight kids, you may as well be in a class of 25.

Academics at Lab has definaty slipped over the years. My child and his Lab friends actually joke that the main thing they learn at Lab is that there are no consequences for bad choices. Lots of negativity in that building-- fag, queer, homo, N word, slut are just a few vocabulary words that my child and his friends hear on a daily basis. It's to a point where these words no longer evoke no response because they are so frequeby used among Lab's students-- and those are the nicer phrases heard in the halls. The same offenders, time and time again and everyone realizes that these habitual offenders never have to take responsibility for their actions.
We don't expect any school (unless it's a religious school) to be responsible for teaching our kids values or right vs. Wrong but it is helpful for a school to enforce an honor code or at least have some expected standard of conduct.

[Anonymous]

Does it seem that money talks there?

[Anonymous]

Lab has taken a sharp decline in the quality of its education since the new head of school, Katherine Schantz started. She's focused on small group learning instead of individualized learning. A LOT of the original teachers and outstanding staff has since left within the past 2 years, especially in the lower school. 15 out of the 20 speech-language therapists have left within the past year (they have since hired all new young inexperienced (affordable) therapists right out of grad school). Very sad situation since Lab WAS a extraordinary learning environment for amazing students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We were not happy at all with the consistent volume of behavioral issues at Lab. All schools have these issues to an extent but Lab had a ridiculous amount of fairly serious problems. It has been consistent for several years. The problems persist because the administration sweeps them under the rug and often looks the other way.

Lab is geared toward kids with LANGUAGE BASED DISABILITIES, so it is concerning they accept kids with emotional issues.
The classes at Lab may only be 8 or so kids in size but when the teachers are constantly putting out fires revolving around one of those eight kids, you may as well be in a class of 25.

Academics at Lab has definaty slipped over the years. My child and his Lab friends actually joke that the main thing they learn at Lab is that there are no consequences for bad choices. Lots of negativity in that building-- fag, queer, homo, N word, slut are just a few vocabulary words that my child and his friends hear on a daily basis. It's to a point where these words no longer evoke no response because they are so frequeby used among Lab's students-- and those are the nicer phrases heard in the halls. The same offenders, time and time again and everyone realizes that these habitual offenders never have to take responsibility for their actions.
We don't expect any school (unless it's a religious school) to be responsible for teaching our kids values or right vs. Wrong but it is helpful for a school to enforce an honor code or at least have some expected standard of conduct.

PP, it's really, really weird that you resurrected a thread from two years ago. I really do not believe you that your kid jokes that he learned that there are no consequences for bad choices. If this is the case, look at your parenting and not just the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We were not happy at all with the consistent volume of behavioral issues at Lab. All schools have these issues to an extent but Lab had a ridiculous amount of fairly serious problems. It has been consistent for several years. The problems persist because the administration sweeps them under the rug and often looks the other way.

Lab is geared toward kids with LANGUAGE BASED DISABILITIES, so it is concerning they accept kids with emotional issues.
The classes at Lab may only be 8 or so kids in size but when the teachers are constantly putting out fires revolving around one of those eight kids, you may as well be in a class of 25.

Academics at Lab has definaty slipped over the years. My child and his Lab friends actually joke that the main thing they learn at Lab is that there are no consequences for bad choices. Lots of negativity in that building-- fag, queer, homo, N word, slut are just a few vocabulary words that my child and his friends hear on a daily basis. It's to a point where these words no longer evoke no response because they are so frequeby used among Lab's students-- and those are the nicer phrases heard in the halls. The same offenders, time and time again and everyone realizes that these habitual offenders never have to take responsibility for their actions.
We don't expect any school (unless it's a religious school) to be responsible for teaching our kids values or right vs. Wrong but it is helpful for a school to enforce an honor code or at least have some expected standard of conduct.

PP, it's really, really weird that you resurrected a thread from two years ago. I really do not believe you that your kid jokes that he learned that there are no consequences for bad choices. If this is the case, look at your parenting and not just the school.

What is so "really, really weird" about pulling a post from two years ago? Also, feel free to doubt that my son and his friends joke about there being no consequence for the same, habitual offenders at Lab. I did not say that my son has conduct issues or that he expects there to be no consequence for poor choices at home. I simply said that the kids who toe the line and follow the rules find it amusing that there are rules written in a handbook that are never enforced. It doesn't exactly set a great example to let kids habitually go against stated conduct rules without a fair response.

If Lab is going to do the great disservice of letting kids repeatedly break rules without consequence, why even have a handbook with rules, expectations snd guidelines? I was under the impression there were basic rules, but suggestions. Lab students know they can get away with murder and face no repercussions, so what do you think most kids are going to do?
I guess my remarks wold be suspicious to parents who forget that the word parent means you actually have to parent a kids.

[Anonymous]

Wow. My dd is at Baltimore Lab and we've seen none of the type of issues mentioned. We're pleased with the school on almost every level, and have seen none of the negativity mentioned above.

I realize the schools are now financially independent from one another. Philosophically, they're supposed to be the same.

[Anonymous]

Ugh... We've noticed a step decline I'm academics at Lab but we're hoping we just had a bad crop of instructors over the past two years. Lab is very poor with communication and they are very disorganized with everything except constant fundraising. Contracts for returning students will be due in about a month and we are really not sure if returning is a good idea. Not a lot of options but returning almost seems like picking the least awful choice for our child.

Tough decision. I've heard about some nasty conduct issues not being addressed at Lab from other families but we have not (fortunately) had to deal with that type of difficulty.
Does any other current Lab family has input on their experience? We need all the info possible....

[Anonymous]

Wow, this thread is a revelation. Looks like it's helping us to dodge a bullet.