What do we think about Latin second campus

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If Latin actually knocked it out of the park in prioritizing intellectual development, they wouldn't toss 5th-8th graders who work one, two, even three of four grade levels behind many of their peers in all subjects into the very same EL, social studies and science classes as the most advanced students. It's very easy to proclaim that intellectual development is their strong suit. The reality is more complicated, particularly for the strongest MS humanities and science students and their families.

I have a very strong 7th grader and have reached the end of my patience with Latin. Is there any recourse for advanced kids there? Just hold on til 9th grade (oooh, in 8th you get to take a foreign language! That is .....fine, but doesn't help the A+ average in English, and Science, and Math, and every other subject)?

I feel badly for parents of advanced kids who are going to try to lottery into the second campus. It's a bait and switch - we're great! but really we're mediocre for advanced kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If Latin actually knocked it out of the park in prioritizing intellectual development, they wouldn't toss 5th-8th graders who work one, two, even three of four grade levels behind many of their peers in all subjects into the very same EL, social studies and science classes as the most advanced students. It's very easy to proclaim that intellectual development is their strong suit. The reality is more complicated, particularly for the strongest MS humanities and science students and their families.

I have a very strong 7th grader and have reached the end of my patience with Latin. Is there any recourse for advanced kids there? Just hold on til 9th grade (oooh, in 8th you get to take a foreign language! That is .....fine, but doesn't help the A+ average in English, and Science, and Math, and every other subject)?

I feel badly for parents of advanced kids who are going to try to lottery into the second campus. It's a bait and switch - we're great! but really we're mediocre for advanced kids.

Should have sent kid to BASIS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If Latin actually knocked it out of the park in prioritizing intellectual development, they wouldn't toss 5th-8th graders who work one, two, even three of four grade levels behind many of their peers in all subjects into the very same EL, social studies and science classes as the most advanced students. It's very easy to proclaim that intellectual development is their strong suit. The reality is more complicated, particularly for the strongest MS humanities and science students and their families.

I have a very strong 7th grader and have reached the end of my patience with Latin. Is there any recourse for advanced kids there? Just hold on til 9th grade (oooh, in 8th you get to take a foreign language! That is .....fine, but doesn't help the A+ average in English, and Science, and Math, and every other subject)?

I feel badly for parents of advanced kids who are going to try to lottery into the second campus. It's a bait and switch - we're great! but really we're mediocre for advanced kids.

+1000. Lack of academic tracking at Latin MS for advanced humanities and foreign language students is a real problem. We didn't go with BASIS because the building seemed inhumane (come on, no library, green space, gym, stage), and we didn't like the kill and drill test prep culture, or the many inexperienced teachers. If I could go back to 5th grade we'd probably have moved to Fairfax to try to test into MS GT. Parents get fed up with paying for humanities and language challenge through Johns Hopkins CTY, Concordia language camps etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If Latin actually knocked it out of the park in prioritizing intellectual development, they wouldn't toss 5th-8th graders who work one, two, even three of four grade levels behind many of their peers in all subjects into the very same EL, social studies and science classes as the most advanced students. It's very easy to proclaim that intellectual development is their strong suit. The reality is more complicated, particularly for the strongest MS humanities and science students and their families.

I have a very strong 7th grader and have reached the end of my patience with Latin. Is there any recourse for advanced kids there? Just hold on til 9th grade (oooh, in 8th you get to take a foreign language! That is .....fine, but doesn't help the A+ average in English, and Science, and Math, and every other subject)?

I feel badly for parents of advanced kids who are going to try to lottery into the second campus. It's a bait and switch - we're great! but really we're mediocre for advanced kids.

Give your kid some books and some extracurriculars. See if your kid can start or lead a club, maybe start a book club among his/her advanced peers. Ask the teachers how they can provide more challenge in the classroom--I'm sure this came up during conferences. What did they say? I'm sure they had ideas for you. In the meantime, your...12 year old...will be just fine unles: Is your child unhappy? misbehaving? Bored to tears?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If Latin actually knocked it out of the park in prioritizing intellectual development, they wouldn't toss 5th-8th graders who work one, two, even three of four grade levels behind many of their peers in all subjects into the very same EL, social studies and science classes as the most advanced students. It's very easy to proclaim that intellectual development is their strong suit. The reality is more complicated, particularly for the strongest MS humanities and science students and their families.

I have a very strong 7th grader and have reached the end of my patience with Latin. Is there any recourse for advanced kids there? Just hold on til 9th grade (oooh, in 8th you get to take a foreign language! That is .....fine, but doesn't help the A+ average in English, and Science, and Math, and every other subject)?

I feel badly for parents of advanced kids who are going to try to lottery into the second campus. It's a bait and switch - we're great! but really we're mediocre for advanced kids.

Highly suggest you take advantage of their free summer school to advance in math. That way your rising 8th grader can move ahead one full year in math plus taking a second language, which will allow that advancement. They don’t really advertise this as I believe they should, but it had been an option for kids in the past. Kids who want to move ahead that is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If Latin actually knocked it out of the park in prioritizing intellectual development, they wouldn't toss 5th-8th graders who work one, two, even three of four grade levels behind many of their peers in all subjects into the very same EL, social studies and science classes as the most advanced students. It's very easy to proclaim that intellectual development is their strong suit. The reality is more complicated, particularly for the strongest MS humanities and science students and their families.

I have a very strong 7th grader and have reached the end of my patience with Latin. Is there any recourse for advanced kids there? Just hold on til 9th grade (oooh, in 8th you get to take a foreign language! That is .....fine, but doesn't help the A+ average in English, and Science, and Math, and every other subject)?

I feel badly for parents of advanced kids who are going to try to lottery into the second campus. It's a bait and switch - we're great! but really we're mediocre for advanced kids.

Highly suggest you take advantage of their free summer school to advance in math. That way your rising 8th grader can move ahead one full year in math plus taking a second language, which will allow that advancement. They don’t really advertise this as I believe they should, but it had been an option for kids in the past. Kids who want to move ahead that is.

+1. Summer school is a great way to do a bit of acceleration. For free. Since you are sick of paying for everything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If Latin actually knocked it out of the park in prioritizing intellectual development, they wouldn't toss 5th-8th graders who work one, two, even three of four grade levels behind many of their peers in all subjects into the very same EL, social studies and science classes as the most advanced students. It's very easy to proclaim that intellectual development is their strong suit. The reality is more complicated, particularly for the strongest MS humanities and science students and their families.

I have a very strong 7th grader and have reached the end of my patience with Latin. Is there any recourse for advanced kids there? Just hold on til 9th grade (oooh, in 8th you get to take a foreign language! That is .....fine, but doesn't help the A+ average in English, and Science, and Math, and every other subject)?

I feel badly for parents of advanced kids who are going to try to lottery into the second campus. It's a bait and switch - we're great! but really we're mediocre for advanced kids.

+1000. Lack of academic tracking at Latin MS for advanced humanities and foreign language students is a real problem. We didn't go with BASIS because the building seemed inhumane (come on, no library, green space, gym, stage), and we didn't like the kill and drill test prep culture, or the many inexperienced teachers. If I could go back to 5th grade we'd probably have moved to Fairfax to try to test into MS GT. Parents get fed up with paying for humanities and language challenge through Johns Hopkins CTY, Concordia language camps etc.

Do you have to have a Fairfax address for GT test in middle school?

[Anonymous]

Latin also allowed kids to take an accelerated Algebra class in 7th and Geometry in 8th. A few kids were taking Geometry in 7th. This didn't happen this year because of COVID but I am sure this will be an option again in the future.

[Anonymous]

Latin has certainly improved on the advanced MS math front in the last several years, I'll give them that. The push for more math challenge was parent-led, after admins had put up considerable resistance to offering more advanced MS math since the program's inception. Admins like to pretend that humanities and foreign language challenge is there in the same way, when it's not. The fact that the brightest MS kids aren't particularly challenged outside math in MS becomes a problem in the HS, helping explain why the strongest students from UMC families still tend to leave for the burbs and privates between 8th and 9th grades. Families of the strongest humanities and science students who can't afford privates and don't want to move tend to supplement more than they expected to or wanted to. Latin doesn't send grads to top engineering or technical programs like MIT, Cornell engineering, CalTech, Princeton engineering etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If Latin actually knocked it out of the park in prioritizing intellectual development, they wouldn't toss 5th-8th graders who work one, two, even three of four grade levels behind many of their peers in all subjects into the very same EL, social studies and science classes as the most advanced students. It's very easy to proclaim that intellectual development is their strong suit. The reality is more complicated, particularly for the strongest MS humanities and science students and their families.

I have a very strong 7th grader and have reached the end of my patience with Latin. Is there any recourse for advanced kids there? Just hold on til 9th grade (oooh, in 8th you get to take a foreign language! That is .....fine, but doesn't help the A+ average in English, and Science, and Math, and every other subject)?

I feel badly for parents of advanced kids who are going to try to lottery into the second campus. It's a bait and switch - we're great! but really we're mediocre for advanced kids.

+1000. Lack of academic tracking at Latin MS for advanced humanities and foreign language students is a real problem. We didn't go with BASIS because the building seemed inhumane (come on, no library, green space, gym, stage), and we didn't like the kill and drill test prep culture, or the many inexperienced teachers. If I could go back to 5th grade we'd probably have moved to Fairfax to try to test into MS GT. Parents get fed up with paying for humanities and language challenge through Johns Hopkins CTY, Concordia language camps etc.

Do you have to have a Fairfax address for GT test in middle school?

Yes, not only an address, but a 5th grade report card linked to a Fairfax address, with very spots for private school students. Fairfax starts full-time GT in 3rd or 4th grade and looks after its own.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If Latin actually knocked it out of the park in prioritizing intellectual development, they wouldn't toss 5th-8th graders who work one, two, even three of four grade levels behind many of their peers in all subjects into the very same EL, social studies and science classes as the most advanced students. It's very easy to proclaim that intellectual development is their strong suit. The reality is more complicated, particularly for the strongest MS humanities and science students and their families.

I have a very strong 7th grader and have reached the end of my patience with Latin. Is there any recourse for advanced kids there? Just hold on til 9th grade (oooh, in 8th you get to take a foreign language! That is .....fine, but doesn't help the A+ average in English, and Science, and Math, and every other subject)?

I feel badly for parents of advanced kids who are going to try to lottery into the second campus. It's a bait and switch - we're great! but really we're mediocre for advanced kids.

How is it a bait-and-switch? Did you believe the school was "great" because of some bs mission statement and the school leaders said so at an open house? Look at the test scores, etc--it's a fine MS, HS but nothing more.
We are planning on trying to get in for the lottery for 5th grade next year, while looking at private school options. But I'm under no delusion that Latin is a "great" school.

[Anonymous]

Not the poster you're responding to but perhaps the Webster's definition of" bait and switch" will be instructive here:

The action of advertising goods which are an apparent bargain, with the intention of substituting inferior or more expensive goods.

This is what Latin admins do. They assure you that the program will offer formidable rigor for your advanced rising 5th grader up through the HS years. They declare that more robust MS and HS course offerings will be offered at Latin with each passing year. But the promised challenge mostly fails to materialize.

If you're on the ball and have the means, you wind up paying to send your kid to summer and weekend programs to take better taught AP classes. You add a few AP scores to the measly number your kid is permitted to accumulate at Latin.

If your kid sailed through a DCPS ES program, think twice about turning up your nose at BASIS, or Walls later on, along with failing to scrape together the dough for a private.

[Anonymous]

Latin's second campus won't be different than its first. The leadership does it best to draw in gifted students to create "higher tides" than they could without them ("all boats rise with the tide"), not to serve or push the most advanced students.

If you want rigor that would push a very strong student, you need it find it yourself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Latin's second campus won't be different than its first. The leadership does it best to draw in gifted students to create "higher tides" than they could without them ("all boats rise with the tide"), not to serve or push the most advanced students.

If you want rigor that would push a very strong student, you need it find it yourself.

Isn't the second campus a warehouse in a high-crime area that Latin will occupy for a couple years maybe before moving some place else, likely EOTR?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Latin's second campus won't be different than its first. The leadership does it best to draw in gifted students to create "higher tides" than they could without them ("all boats rise with the tide"), not to serve or push the most advanced students.

If you want rigor that would push a very strong student, you need it find it yourself.

Isn't the second campus a warehouse in a high-crime area that Latin will occupy for a couple years maybe before moving some place else, likely EOTR?

Plus it will be filled with at risk kids.