October waitlist data is up

[Anonymous]

*They new Arizona entrants past 6th grade were admitted by "lottery" in the spring. They weren't really admitted by lottery, because there were more open spots than takers.
*They were encouraged by BASIS to do intense prep over the summer to ensure that they could handle the curriculum for the grade they were in.
*They were given placement tests the week before school started to determine if they would be permitted to start with their grade, or would be forced to repeat one, or even two grades, to enter the program.

The same system could be implemented in DC if it weren't for the obnoxious political climate.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Like droves of parents EotP, we felt a little desperate for an acceptable public MS. The reality is that we (collective we) have somewhat better HS options in the public system. We can swing parochial HS for 4 years if necessary (but couldn't have paid tuition from 5th or 6th on up). Our kid might crack Walls and will probably be admitted to Banneker. We might even rent IB for JR in a pinch.

For the e-record, grateful as I am to have had BASIS for MS, given a choice, I'll take a better-rounded, healthier and happier option. I want less rushing around as a family to seek out serious sports and music. I want nothing more to do with the intransigent HoS.

I'm hoping that my kid can take classes at Walls with excellent former BASIS teachers who bailed to DCPS.

What does that mean? If you had unlimited money and/or didn't live in DC you'd choose something else? That's the part about the BASIS animosity I cannot comprehend. The question for parents in DC is not whether Sidwell is a better than public options (it is!) or whether there are better schools outside of DC (there are!), the question is what is the best available option at any grade. For many families that is BASIS. Does not mean that BASIS is perfect or that there are not things people would change given additional resources. (e.g. obviously the building)

Something else just occurred to me. If there are SOOOOO many BASIS teachers who bailed for Walls (unconfirmed as those reports may be), why were those jobs open in the first place? Wouldn't that mean that teachers left Walls in order to open up those slots? What's wrong at Walls that caused all those teachers to leave!!!! (Kidding, it's a bogus argument in both cases.)

PP is pretty off base about teachers at Walls. One teacher left Walls last year, was replaced by the only former Basis teacher at Walls. As for the teacher being excellent I can’t speak to that. But Walls does not have much teacher turnover.

I'm the poster above who was wondering how there were so many open slots at Walls for BASIS teachers to move into. It didn't make any sense to me. You're saying there is only one former BASIS teacher at Walls. But this forum is rife with posts about all the teachers who left BASIS for Walls last year. Is this another situation where people with an ax to grind just make things up and/or repeat what their friends told them?

What say you DCUM folks who have been posting about all the BASIS teachers who left for Walls because they hate the HoS? Can you name more than one? Or are you all full of it?

I know a lot of Basis HS teachers left last year. One came to Walls. That’s the only one at Walls. These are facts.

Those are facts huh? And you have personal knowledge that Basis high school parents don’t have?

Give us the actual number and name the subjects and schools then.

LOL. Don’t worry. They won’t respond because they are just making things up. They probably don’t even have a kid at BASIS.

-a BASIS high school parent

NP but you all are out there. How else can someone prove there is one former basis teacher at Walls?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:*They new Arizona entrants past 6th grade were admitted by "lottery" in the spring. They weren't really admitted by lottery, because there were more open spots than takers.
*They were encouraged by BASIS to do intense prep over the summer to ensure that they could handle the curriculum for the grade they were in.
*They were given placement tests the week before school started to determine if they would be permitted to start with their grade, or would be forced to repeat one, or even two grades, to enter the program.

The same system could be implemented in DC if it weren't for the obnoxious political climate.

Not clear to me why BASIS DC would want to backfill spots after 6th grade. Doing that would just reduce spots in the middle school, which is more popular than the high school. As somebody pointed out, DC public high school options are an improvement over our middle school options East of Rock Creek.

I'd wager than once we get a more education minded mayor, and city demographics have shifted more, the Arizona backfill system will take root in DC. We're just not there yet.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I can see how this thread about ultimate waitlist results for this year shifted to BASIS. It is one of the few (maybe the only?) school which became much harder to get into. This is really significant and is perhaps the reason nobody else is actually chiming in on this thread with other notable waitlist observations. Indeed, many “HRCS” which used to have long waitlists and few people taken off the waitlist now have much shorter waitlists or no waitlists at all. So many reasons for this, including, of course, the way the schools handled the pandemic. What’s interesting though is that post-pandemic people are not as thrilled about these schools because of the lack of rigor and/or classroom management that has perhaps been that way all along but is now more pronounced. BASIS offers the organization and rigor often missing elsewhere around the city and thus the school should have no trouble continuing to attract more students and keeping an ever-growing waitlist.

I think this thread has illuminated some of the important reasons why BASIS attracts students/families initially and why it has trouble keeping them, which has seemingly always been an issue at BASIS. The school, including the HOS (which I personally find extremely responsive and informative, especially compared to our prior school experiences) wants to work with parents to fix retention and improve school morale in whatever ways are feasible. This will take time and effort from both the admins and the parents. To me, it seems that people who might otherwise move or go private might not do so at the same rates in the near future due to the rising costs of both of those options and that may have the consequence of families feeling more invested in the BASIS high school program and hopefully creating the change that they feel would improve the school.

This line could easily have been posted a year ago, or five, or ten. Fact is, 9th grade enrollment continues to fluctuate widely. One year, four dozen 8th graders will re-enroll, the next year 80 will. The state of admissions to Walls seems more relevant than "families feeling more invested in the BASIS HS" in determining how many 8th graders return for 9th grade than what goes on at BASIS.

From what I gather, almost all of my kid's friends will leave for Walls if they get a spot. Pre Covid, these kids would've had a better chance of cracking Walls, with testing dropped from the application during the pandemic, a permanent seeming change.

There's only so much that can be done to convince somewhere between a third and half of the BASIS 8th graders to return to a program with weak facilities, a cramped building jammed with MS students, a v. limited choice of serious extra-curriculars, and an increasingly unstable faculty. BASIS isn't just competing with Walls, it's competing with GW Univ, where Walls students can take college classes. At BASIS, other than for math, no subjects are taught past the AP level. We will leave BASIS for another reason: we don't like how the program crams almost all HS classes into just three years, with senior year devoted to independent research and applying to colleges.

We don't think that this HoS is capable of improving morale. He might retain more 8th graders, given the tough Walls admissions situation, but we doubt that he'll retain more of his best HS teachers going forward.

He won't succeed, as measured by 9th grade enrollments. But if enrollments do increase it won't have anything to do with him. Hmmm.

I find it strange that people like PP who were at BASIS for 4 years in MS, whose kids excelled and are able to test into and gain admission to HS so easily complain about BASIS without any acknowledgement of what came before.

I agree with this sentiment. As the parent of an 8th grader, I feel that my kid has gotten an excellent middle school education at BASIS. I find it hard to believe that the quality somehow becomes subpar in high school. If my kid gets in to Walls, we will have the discussion then about where kid wants to go (and I think a lot of it will depend on whether there will be a "reunion" with elementary school friends at Walls since they all scattered to different middle schools). WRT chances of Walls admission . . . I think there are currently approx 85 8th graders at BASIS. I would guess roughly 30% have the requisite 3.7-3.8 GPA required to get an interview at Walls (last year's GPA cutoff). Applying last year's 64% admit rate to those who got an interview, somewhere around 17 or 18 kids will have the option to go to Walls . . . .others will head to private, leaving (my guess) a 9th grade cohort of 65 or so.

Does BASIS fill the seats of those who leave for ninth grade?

They do not because DC won't let them do a placement test to place kids in the year appropriate to their grade level. DC insists on social promotion. BASIS doesn't socially promote at any of their schools. Hence, no backfilling.

Convenient.

Childish and conspiratorial response.

BASIS schools in other cities do backfill where they are allowed to give placement tests. It would be a heck of a lot easier for BASIS to backfill than to refill the school population with 5th graders based on attrition in 7 other grades.

Wonder why they can’t figure it out in DC. How about a GPA cut off like Walls? Not good enough for BASIS?

Your reply makes no sense. Walls is an application HS. BASIS is a pure lottery. There are no admissions requirements. That's how the charter was set up. BASIS wasn't seeking to create a test in program, merely to conduct placement tests for kids who matched. DC said no.

Things are different in Arizona, Texas and Louisiana (the states with BASIS public school campuses). My sibling's children arrived at a BASIS AZ campus in 7th and 9th grades. Technically, there are no admissions requirements in the BASIS universe. Actually, there are a number if a student enters after 6th grade to avoid repeating a school year, possibly two years, once they matriculate.

My sibling tells me that the Arizona campuses don't merely "conduct placement tests" when they admit new students after 6th grades. They publish their curricula by grade and strongly encourage the families of late entrants to try to get their students up to speed in core classes before starting at BASIS. My nephews attended intensive summer school to try to learn enough science and math to enter without needing to repeat at least one grade. The younger boy succeeded while the older boy failed and wound up doing 8th grade twice. They were part of a self-selecting group of new students mostly with high GPAs who'd put their names in the hat for the lottery at their local BASIS campus. I'm told that there was no waiting list any grade past 6th at their campus (so no lottery, they simply enrolled).

Are you aware that you just took two paragraphs to confirm what I typed? Also that you are confusing "admissions tests" with "placement tests"? The placement tests are AFTER admission. They are used to put kids at grade level. If kids don't want to repeat they need to test into the grade level. They encourage families to help their kids be ready for the grade they want them to be in. And (like BASIS DC 5th grade) it is a self selecting population of kids who want a test heavy, no BS environment.

BASIS DC wanted to do the same here. DC requires social promotion. As they said on In Living Color, "Homey don't play dat."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:*They new Arizona entrants past 6th grade were admitted by "lottery" in the spring. They weren't really admitted by lottery, because there were more open spots than takers.
*They were encouraged by BASIS to do intense prep over the summer to ensure that they could handle the curriculum for the grade they were in.
*They were given placement tests the week before school started to determine if they would be permitted to start with their grade, or would be forced to repeat one, or even two grades, to enter the program.

The same system could be implemented in DC if it weren't for the obnoxious political climate.

In fact this is what BASIS DC wanted to do here as well. As I have said many times before, DC requires social promotion and age level class assignment, not grade level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can see how this thread about ultimate waitlist results for this year shifted to BASIS. It is one of the few (maybe the only?) school which became much harder to get into. This is really significant and is perhaps the reason nobody else is actually chiming in on this thread with other notable waitlist observations. Indeed, many “HRCS” which used to have long waitlists and few people taken off the waitlist now have much shorter waitlists or no waitlists at all. So many reasons for this, including, of course, the way the schools handled the pandemic. What’s interesting though is that post-pandemic people are not as thrilled about these schools because of the lack of rigor and/or classroom management that has perhaps been that way all along but is now more pronounced. BASIS offers the organization and rigor often missing elsewhere around the city and thus the school should have no trouble continuing to attract more students and keeping an ever-growing waitlist.

I think this thread has illuminated some of the important reasons why BASIS attracts students/families initially and why it has trouble keeping them, which has seemingly always been an issue at BASIS. The school, including the HOS (which I personally find extremely responsive and informative, especially compared to our prior school experiences) wants to work with parents to fix retention and improve school morale in whatever ways are feasible. This will take time and effort from both the admins and the parents. To me, it seems that people who might otherwise move or go private might not do so at the same rates in the near future due to the rising costs of both of those options and that may have the consequence of families feeling more invested in the BASIS high school program and hopefully creating the change that they feel would improve the school.

This line could easily have been posted a year ago, or five, or ten. Fact is, 9th grade enrollment continues to fluctuate widely. One year, four dozen 8th graders will re-enroll, the next year 80 will. The state of admissions to Walls seems more relevant than "families feeling more invested in the BASIS HS" in determining how many 8th graders return for 9th grade than what goes on at BASIS.

From what I gather, almost all of my kid's friends will leave for Walls if they get a spot. Pre Covid, these kids would've had a better chance of cracking Walls, with testing dropped from the application during the pandemic, a permanent seeming change.

There's only so much that can be done to convince somewhere between a third and half of the BASIS 8th graders to return to a program with weak facilities, a cramped building jammed with MS students, a v. limited choice of serious extra-curriculars, and an increasingly unstable faculty. BASIS isn't just competing with Walls, it's competing with GW Univ, where Walls students can take college classes. At BASIS, other than for math, no subjects are taught past the AP level. We will leave BASIS for another reason: we don't like how the program crams almost all HS classes into just three years, with senior year devoted to independent research and applying to colleges.

We don't think that this HoS is capable of improving morale. He might retain more 8th graders, given the tough Walls admissions situation, but we doubt that he'll retain more of his best HS teachers going forward.

He won't succeed, as measured by 9th grade enrollments. But if enrollments do increase it won't have anything to do with him. Hmmm.

I find it strange that people like PP who were at BASIS for 4 years in MS, whose kids excelled and are able to test into and gain admission to HS so easily complain about BASIS without any acknowledgement of what came before.

I agree with this sentiment. As the parent of an 8th grader, I feel that my kid has gotten an excellent middle school education at BASIS. I find it hard to believe that the quality somehow becomes subpar in high school. If my kid gets in to Walls, we will have the discussion then about where kid wants to go (and I think a lot of it will depend on whether there will be a "reunion" with elementary school friends at Walls since they all scattered to different middle schools). WRT chances of Walls admission . . . I think there are currently approx 85 8th graders at BASIS. I would guess roughly 30% have the requisite 3.7-3.8 GPA required to get an interview at Walls (last year's GPA cutoff). Applying last year's 64% admit rate to those who got an interview, somewhere around 17 or 18 kids will have the option to go to Walls . . . .others will head to private, leaving (my guess) a 9th grade cohort of 65 or so.

Does BASIS fill the seats of those who leave for ninth grade?

They do not because DC won't let them do a placement test to place kids in the year appropriate to their grade level. DC insists on social promotion. BASIS doesn't socially promote at any of their schools. Hence, no backfilling.

Convenient.

Childish and conspiratorial response.

BASIS schools in other cities do backfill where they are allowed to give placement tests. It would be a heck of a lot easier for BASIS to backfill than to refill the school population with 5th graders based on attrition in 7 other grades.

Wonder why they can’t figure it out in DC. How about a GPA cut off like Walls? Not good enough for BASIS?

Your reply makes no sense. Walls is an application HS. BASIS is a pure lottery. There are no admissions requirements. That's how the charter was set up. BASIS wasn't seeking to create a test in program, merely to conduct placement tests for kids who matched. DC said no.

My sibling tells me that the Arizona campuses don't merely "conduct placement tests" when they admit new students after 6th grades. They publish their curricula by grade and strongly encourage the families of late entrants to try to get their students up to speed in core classes before starting at BASIS. My nephews attended intensive summer school to try to learn enough science and math to enter without needing to repeat at least one grade. The younger boy succeeded while the older boy failed and wound up doing 8th grade twice. They were part of a self-selecting group of new students mostly with high GPAs who'd put their names in the hat for the lottery at their local BASIS campus. I'm told that there was no waiting list any grade past 6th at their campus (so no lottery, they simply enrolled).

Not mutually exclusive. "No waiting list" doesn't mean "no lottery". That is how it works in DC too. The slots are filled by lottery. If not all slots are filled then anyone can enroll on a first come first serve basis until the slots are filled.

[Anonymous]

So how is this failure to figure out how to admit smart rising ninth graders who want to fill empty seats at BASIS reflected in the these WL data?

[Anonymous]

DC Bilingual at ZERO seats available for 5th grade. But ended up making 19 offers for 5th grade by August. That seems like a really significant number of kids, thats almost a third of the 5th graders not returning for the school year? and the school has no way to know that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So how is this failure to figure out how to admit smart rising ninth graders who want to fill empty seats at BASIS reflected in the these WL data?

Not remotely clear what you are asking/saying. As has been explained several times on this thread alone, BASIS DC does not admit 9th graders because DC won't allow them to give placement tests. As such, there are no "empty seats". Available seats (as calculated by max student occupancy according to their charter) are filled in 5th grade, which is flexed up and down based on enrollments in older grades. Unless and until BASIS DC is allowed to use placement tests the "WL data" for 9th grade is irrelevant. For instance, 138 kids are on the WL for 9th grade at BASIS DC this year. Whether it was 1 or 500 would have made no difference; zero were going to be admitted.

What about this is not clear to you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So how is this failure to figure out how to admit smart rising ninth graders who want to fill empty seats at BASIS reflected in the these WL data?

Not remotely clear what you are asking/saying. As has been explained several times on this thread alone, BASIS DC does not admit 9th graders because DC won't allow them to give placement tests. As such, there are no "empty seats". Available seats (as calculated by max student occupancy according to their charter) are filled in 5th grade, which is flexed up and down based on enrollments in older grades. Unless and until BASIS DC is allowed to use placement tests the "WL data" for 9th grade is irrelevant. For instance, 138 kids are on the WL for 9th grade at BASIS DC this year. Whether it was 1 or 500 would have made no difference; zero were going to be admitted.

What about this is not clear to you?

So why is there even a discussion about the WL at BASIS? How is BASIS relevant to this thread? Who cares about the BASIS WL ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC Bilingual at ZERO seats available for 5th grade. But ended up making 19 offers for 5th grade by August. That seems like a really significant number of kids, thats almost a third of the 5th graders not returning for the school year? and the school has no way to know that?

Keep in mind that # offers does not equal # of open seats. It might take 2 or 5 or 9 offers to fill one seat. Schools (all of them, but just DCB) use the intent to return forms to calculate how many open seats they have for the initial lottery. 5th grade is the year kids peel off for BASIS and Latin. But those families don't know whether they got a spot in the lottery until after intent to return forms are due. So every kid at DCB (and every other charter school) submits an intent to return while they wait for lottery results. I guess they could assume some amount of BASIS/Latin attrition, but what would you (or other DCB families) say if DCB was overenrolled because they guessed wrong. I'd also observe, so what if they did have slots they didn't know about? Who cares? They filled them post-lottery.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So how is this failure to figure out how to admit smart rising ninth graders who want to fill empty seats at BASIS reflected in the these WL data?

Not remotely clear what you are asking/saying. As has been explained several times on this thread alone, BASIS DC does not admit 9th graders because DC won't allow them to give placement tests. As such, there are no "empty seats". Available seats (as calculated by max student occupancy according to their charter) are filled in 5th grade, which is flexed up and down based on enrollments in older grades. Unless and until BASIS DC is allowed to use placement tests the "WL data" for 9th grade is irrelevant. For instance, 138 kids are on the WL for 9th grade at BASIS DC this year. Whether it was 1 or 500 would have made no difference; zero were going to be admitted.

What about this is not clear to you?

So why is there even a discussion about the WL at BASIS? How is BASIS relevant to this thread? Who cares about the BASIS WL ?

Because there were 100+ kids who did not get off the WL. Because BASIS is a popular choice for 5th grade families, particularly the UMC Hill demo that populates DCUM. Because it is a school in DC in the common lottery?

Lots of DCUM threads that have nothing to do with BASIS turn into BASIS discussions. This thread is about WL data and the discussion occurring is about WL and enrollments. Most ironically the discussion to which you object is actually (for once) on topic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So how is this failure to figure out how to admit smart rising ninth graders who want to fill empty seats at BASIS reflected in the these WL data?

Not remotely clear what you are asking/saying. As has been explained several times on this thread alone, BASIS DC does not admit 9th graders because DC won't allow them to give placement tests. As such, there are no "empty seats". Available seats (as calculated by max student occupancy according to their charter) are filled in 5th grade, which is flexed up and down based on enrollments in older grades. Unless and until BASIS DC is allowed to use placement tests the "WL data" for 9th grade is irrelevant. For instance, 138 kids are on the WL for 9th grade at BASIS DC this year. Whether it was 1 or 500 would have made no difference; zero were going to be admitted.

What about this is not clear to you?

So why is there even a discussion about the WL at BASIS? How is BASIS relevant to this thread? Who cares about the BASIS WL ?

Because there were 100+ kids who did not get off the WL. Because BASIS is a popular choice for 5th grade families, particularly the UMC Hill demo that populates DCUM. Because it is a school in DC in the common lottery?

Lots of DCUM threads that have nothing to do with BASIS turn into BASIS discussions. This thread is about WL data and the discussion occurring is about WL and enrollments. Most ironically the discussion to which you object is actually (for once) on topic.

So no WL for ninth grade for BASIS? Ever? Not even to fill seats left open by departing eighth graders? Not even for kids with high GPAs at other DC MSs?

Interesting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC Bilingual at ZERO seats available for 5th grade. But ended up making 19 offers for 5th grade by August. That seems like a really significant number of kids, thats almost a third of the 5th graders not returning for the school year? and the school has no way to know that?

The schools has no way to know who is returning to school on March when the lottery happens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC Bilingual at ZERO seats available for 5th grade. But ended up making 19 offers for 5th grade by August. That seems like a really significant number of kids, thats almost a third of the 5th graders not returning for the school year? and the school has no way to know that?

The schools has no way to know who is returning to school on March when the lottery happens.

*in