BASIS DC will seek to expand to include K to 4th grade

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a vanity project! Not filling a gap. There are plenty of high quality elementary seats. If they cared about the educational landscape they should double the seats at the middle and high school level.

Someone in the Brent catchment decides to weigh in. The bolded is not true. BASIS isn't "Brent's" school, much as many of you seem to think. There are not nearly enough high quality ES school seats. What you mean to say here is that you like having a guaranteed seat at Brent and then having a path to BASIS in 5th. If people have to send their kids to JOW or a bunch of other W5, W7 and W8 ES that you wouldn't even drive by, that is a sacrifice they should be willing to make so you get to keep what you want.

After all these years reading DCUM I can still be surprised by the self-centered words of the entitled. Seriously, PP. re-read the bolded and consider whether people who don't live adjacent to your house think there are plenty of high quality ES seats.

Not the poster you are responding to, but there actually are a ton of high quality elementary school seats in all of the wards surrounding where BASIS plans to locate this elementary school. There’s a reason they’re not going to plop this thing in Ward 8. BASIS is absolutely obsessed with their ranking and test scores, and they’re going to want to draw from Wards 1,2, 3, 5 and 6, which are the wards surrounding BASIS. Realistically those are the folks that can make it there given it’s location. Maybe the westernmost of Hill East/Ward 7, which also had solid elementary schools.

Are you IB for JOW? That’s a solid school too. Maybe you should take a hard look at your prejudices.

LOL. You are a self centered jerk.

[Anonymous]

Again, BASIS DC isn’t allowed to backfill. The Arizona BASIS schools do backfill. They also administer a placement test at every grade, and have no qualms about making your child repeat several grades if necessary, whether your kid enters in kindergarten or 11th grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a vanity project! Not filling a gap. There are plenty of high quality elementary seats. If they cared about the educational landscape they should double the seats at the middle and high school level.

Someone in the Brent catchment decides to weigh in. The bolded is not true. BASIS isn't "Brent's" school, much as many of you seem to think. There are not nearly enough high quality ES school seats. What you mean to say here is that you like having a guaranteed seat at Brent and then having a path to BASIS in 5th. If people have to send their kids to JOW or a bunch of other W5, W7 and W8 ES that you wouldn't even drive by, that is a sacrifice they should be willing to make so you get to keep what you want.

After all these years reading DCUM I can still be surprised by the self-centered words of the entitled. Seriously, PP. re-read the bolded and consider whether people who don't live adjacent to your house think there are plenty of high quality ES seats.

Not the poster you are responding to, but there actually are a ton of high quality elementary school seats in all of the wards surrounding where BASIS plans to locate this elementary school. There’s a reason they’re not going to plop this thing in Ward 8. BASIS is absolutely obsessed with their ranking and test scores, and they’re going to want to draw from Wards 1,2, 3, 5 and 6, which are the wards surrounding BASIS. Realistically those are the folks that can make it there given it’s location. Maybe the westernmost of Hill East/Ward 7, which also had solid elementary schools.

Are you IB for JOW? That’s a solid school too. Maybe you should take a hard look at your prejudices.

LOL. You are a self centered jerk.

Says the person who thinks they’re too good for JO Wilson. Ok.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCUM needs to slow down. The person who posted this did BASIS a disservice.

Allow the school to discuss their plans with the school community first.

We don’t know the details yet. Endless speculation without facts is unhelpful.

+1
We don't even know if the city will approve it. It was denied the last time that Basis tried.

What makes them think it will be approved this time? And how would it be different from many existing elementary schools, other than the feeder pattern and retention policy?

Will BASIS be offering the Equitable Action preference, like so many other schools do?

“Many” schools is a gross exaggeration.

The equitable access preference is pure pandering. The lottery is already equitable by its very nature.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Again, BASIS DC isn’t allowed to backfill. The Arizona BASIS schools do backfill. They also administer a placement test at every grade, and have no qualms about making your child repeat several grades if necessary, whether your kid enters in kindergarten or 11th grade.

Why would it not be allowed?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because the BASIS mantra is literally “getting your student into the college of their dreams.” We want to see how good it is in achieving that goal.

That’s why it’s hard to grasp that none of the 42 seniors were even accepted to an ivy this year. Other DC publics had multiple ivy commits so one would presume the number of acceptances would be even greater. I completely understand committing to a different school because it offers better merit but they have worked so hard and crammed so much into 3 years. I hope they all believe it was worth it but prior threads about the BASIS high school indicate more focus is still needed at this level.

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/135/1103719.page

Weird post. Not sure why you are assuming kids aren't being accepted to Ivies.

BASIS has at least 5 kids matriculating this fall to colleges that UN&WR ranks higher than one or more Ivy League colleges. Why would a STEM kid pick, say, Cornell over Caltech or Hopkins?

Last year, BASIS had kids accepted to every single Ivy League college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because the BASIS mantra is literally “getting your student into the college of their dreams.” We want to see how good it is in achieving that goal.

That’s why it’s hard to grasp that none of the 42 seniors were even accepted to an ivy this year. Other DC publics had multiple ivy commits so one would presume the number of acceptances would be even greater. I completely understand committing to a different school because it offers better merit but they have worked so hard and crammed so much into 3 years. I hope they all believe it was worth it but prior threads about the BASIS high school indicate more focus is still needed at this level.

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/135/1103719.page

Weird post. Not sure why you are assuming kids aren't being accepted to Ivies.

BASIS has at least 5 kids matriculating this fall to colleges that UN&WR ranks higher than one or more Ivy League colleges. Why would a STEM kid pick, say, Cornell over Caltech or Hopkins?

Last year, BASIS had kids accepted to every single Ivy League college.

Not assuming, the list of acceptances has been shared with the BASIS community. You indicate that BASIS kids were accepted to every ivy last year so one would have expected a few to be accepted this year as well. Was last year a fluke or this year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Again, BASIS DC isn’t allowed to backfill. The Arizona BASIS schools do backfill. They also administer a placement test at every grade, and have no qualms about making your child repeat several grades if necessary, whether your kid enters in kindergarten or 11th grade.

Why would it not be allowed?

Because the BASIS network requires that, if you backfill, you must administer a placement test at every grade & have kids repeat however many grades the testing seems necessary. Regardless of the grade the student is attempting to enter.

Do you really think that would fly around here?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Again, BASIS DC isn’t allowed to backfill. The Arizona BASIS schools do backfill. They also administer a placement test at every grade, and have no qualms about making your child repeat several grades if necessary, whether your kid enters in kindergarten or 11th grade.

Why would it not be allowed?

Because the BASIS network requires that, if you backfill, you must administer a placement test at every grade & have kids repeat however many grades the testing seems necessary. Regardless of the grade the student is attempting to enter.

Do you really think that would fly around here?

So you're saying that BASIS headquarters is *choosing* not to allow BASIS DC to backfill in a way that DC charter governance will allow. BASIS headquarters could make an exception to their rule, and they're choosing not to.

[Anonymous]

Would a BASIS elementary school also be part-owned by Chinese investors? What would the children be taught about China in this school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Would a BASIS elementary school also be part-owned by Chinese investors? What would the children be taught about China in this school?

You post this all the time. It has been explained to you over and over that the investment was NOT made into BASIS charter schools. The BASIS Independent Private schools took the investment. If you were actually concerned with Chinese investment you'd grasp this concept and move on. But you are a troll.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a vanity project! Not filling a gap. There are plenty of high quality elementary seats. If they cared about the educational landscape they should double the seats at the middle and high school level.

Someone in the Brent catchment decides to weigh in. The bolded is not true. BASIS isn't "Brent's" school, much as many of you seem to think. There are not nearly enough high quality ES school seats. What you mean to say here is that you like having a guaranteed seat at Brent and then having a path to BASIS in 5th. If people have to send their kids to JOW or a bunch of other W5, W7 and W8 ES that you wouldn't even drive by, that is a sacrifice they should be willing to make so you get to keep what you want.

After all these years reading DCUM I can still be surprised by the self-centered words of the entitled. Seriously, PP. re-read the bolded and consider whether people who don't live adjacent to your house think there are plenty of high quality ES seats.

Not the poster you are responding to, but there actually are a ton of high quality elementary school seats in all of the wards surrounding where BASIS plans to locate this elementary school. There’s a reason they’re not going to plop this thing in Ward 8. BASIS is absolutely obsessed with their ranking and test scores, and they’re going to want to draw from Wards 1,2, 3, 5 and 6, which are the wards surrounding BASIS. Realistically those are the folks that can make it there given it’s location. Maybe the westernmost of Hill East/Ward 7, which also had solid elementary schools.

Are you IB for JOW? That’s a solid school too. Maybe you should take a hard look at your prejudices.

LOL. You are a self centered jerk.

Says the person who thinks they’re too good for JO Wilson. Ok.

I am not IB for JOW. And JOW is not good enough for me. Nor is Watkins. Have you seen their PARCC scores? These are not high quality options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would a BASIS elementary school also be part-owned by Chinese investors? What would the children be taught about China in this school?

You post this all the time. It has been explained to you over and over that the investment was NOT made into BASIS charter schools. The BASIS Independent Private schools took the investment. If you were actually concerned with Chinese investment you'd grasp this concept and move on. But you are a troll.

Sorry but there are just too many stories of weird essay assignments about China at BASIS DC for me to feel comfortable with. And ultimately, it's all one organization even if it has two distinct parts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a BASIS parent, I don’t like this because I’ve seen the chaos that results when DCPCSB takes a solid school and has it replicate/expand. Mundo Verde was an amazing, highly sought after school and then it opened a second campus (that current parents fought and delayed because they knew what would happen) and now it’s a total mess. Two Rivers - same thing - second campus. People are bailing because it’s too much to manage and it’s a chaotic disaster. LAMB: opened new campuses and realized it was a shitshow after the school basically fell apart - then consolidated.

There is no denying that this elementary school project is going to draw time and resources away from the current school. It seems wholly unnecessary given that we have a wealth of solid elementary DCPS and charter school options already in the city. BASIS really should not get cocky, given that much of their success is based on being able to draw kids who have the resources and support to keep up with the BASIS model, and those folks are unlikely to leave their elementary schools (but are willing to leave for middle).

I think this is a bad call, and it makes me second guess choosing BASIS.

Apples and oranges. I too suffered from another charter school that tried to replicate and instead destroyed what they had and created something not nearly as good as the original. That is not what is happening here. BASIS isn't duplicating or replicating anything. They are not expanding the current classes or replicating the school. They are creating K-4, which logically comes before 5-12. The teachers who teach 7th grade aren't going to be also teaching 1st. This is also (unlike MV, TR) not an experiment in the unknown. BASIS has @40 other K-12 charter schools; they know how to do this.

Disagree. Here’s an apples to apples example: Cap Hill Mont at Logan. Highly sought after fairly strong program. Expanded into middle school. Now its a mess.

Anytime you’re taking existing resources and stretching them more thin, you risk f’ing up what you have. Standing up an entirely new school *AND* a new facility is a huge project, that is going to pull a ton of resources from the existing school. Resources that are already stretched very thin.

This isn’t good for the city and it isn’t good for BASIS families, faculty or staff.

Nope, you missed the mark again. CHML added on a MS in a Montessori model that was failing in upper ES to begin with. The model was designed for ECE and the MS addition was a matter of first impression. They were trying something new. As has been explained several times on this thread, BASIS operates @40 other K-12 charter schools across the country. This is not an expansion that requires them to build something new.

You seem to be trying very hard to make a case for why this is bad for DC and/or BASIS. This in only bad for the Hill ES that use BASIS as their god given right of passage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would a BASIS elementary school also be part-owned by Chinese investors? What would the children be taught about China in this school?

You post this all the time. It has been explained to you over and over that the investment was NOT made into BASIS charter schools. The BASIS Independent Private schools took the investment. If you were actually concerned with Chinese investment you'd grasp this concept and move on. But you are a troll.

Sorry but there are just too many stories of weird essay assignments about China at BASIS DC for me to feel comfortable with. And ultimately, it's all one organization even if it has two distinct parts.

So you won't let facts get in the way of what you believe? Hard to argue with crazy. Why are so many DCUM posters so similar to MAGA nit jobs?