| Anecdotally Latin allows this. Just don’t expect it to be written in policy anywhere or demand pre-approval before you accept a spot there. Create a relationship with the school and then talk to them about it. Very civilized-like. |
Come on, BASIS is hardly the only rigorous middle school on planet earth. My kid was bored in BASIS English and language classes throughout middle school. She took AP English lit, biology and a language in 9th grade at a private international school and scored 5s. |
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BASIS DC is inflexible. They could easily let kids take a year off for travel enrichment if the family wanted, then test them when they returned to see if they've kept enough up in core subjects to advance to the next grade. They don't and won't because they're inflexible.
Our kid learned more in 7th grade as a homeschooled student sailing on a yacht internationally they would have learned at BASIS (based on our 6th grade experience), particularly in STEM subjects. We did Stanford and Johns Hopkins GT virtual courses for science and math that year. |
Weird, since BASIS doesn't actually do language classes till 8th (lord I wish they would, but that's a different story. We're focusing here on your BS.) |
Is this satire? Merely another entitled DCUM poster? Who's to say. |
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No, reality for an off beat few. I'm a prof who gets a year-long sabbatical every decade and we're a sailing family. BASIS wouldn't save our spot after 6th. Not difficult to find equally advanced virtual STEM course work for MS. We enrolled in Stanford Pre Collegiate and Johns Hopkins CTY. My kid claims that his Stanford PC and JH CTY teachers (older) were much better than his 6th grade math and sci teachers BASIS (right out of grad school). Kid is at a private now, much happier, enjoying a livelier curriculum.
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Just because BASIS doesn't offer language classes until 8th, and then only at the beginning level, doesn't prevent a few families from homeschooling on language. We're a bilingual family where kids have attended a heritage language weekend program in the burbs for many years. We put up with 8th grade beginning language nonsense at BASIS before moving onto a private where our kid jumped to an AP language class in 9th. The BS is BASIS' language policy. I never got why kids who were allowed to accelerate like crazy for math but doing your own thing for pre AP advanced language was taboo. Supply and demand I guess; they have a long 5th grade WL, don't need to work with you to accelerate per your preferences (incl. year-off plans), and don't mind if you leave even if your kid is an academic star. Contrarians look elsewhere. |
Did you not do any research before accepting a lottery spot at BASIS? Because anyone could have told you that they would be unlikely to accommodate your sabbatical year away, and would not give a rat's a$$ that you're "a sailing family." That's on you for pursuing a spot at a school that was not a good fit for your family, not on BASIS for... being BASIS. |
LOL. Well, that is great news for all the yacht-owning BASIS parents who can quit their jobs, sail around the world, and yacht-school their kids. |
Typical yacht-school class for BASIS DC dropouts:
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| If BASIS DC leaders were smarter, they’d work with interesting and highly academic families like the sabbatical lady’s. What could it hurt? Hint: zero members of the class of 2023 were admitted to Ivies. Inflexible doesn’t seem to be paying off for them like is used to. |
No ship, Sherlock. I'm sure the BASIS DC leaders are having a hull of a time without yacht boy! |
Dude. Thank god you aren’t in charge of anything. |
Fair point. High-performing charter students who leave the area temporarily shouldn't be let go because they have unusually adventurous parents. Dumb. |
You'd think the professor could have swung a spot at Walls or Banneker, at least. |