Questions about Potomac Upper School

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s a b*stardized version of Harkness, but it requires a really thoughtful and experienced teacher to execute it well. Recent grad of a party school ain’t it. Shocked that Potomac would hire someone like that. Makes it seem like they are looking after their finances more than their students.

Geez talk about jumping to conclusions. Potomacs finances are flush and I can’t imagine one US math hire has anything to do with that. I have multiple kids there and they have all had great experiences. The math issues arise when parents/students (see the one above) push to get their student in a higher level math class than they should be in. I have one very gifted math student and the honors program is perfect for him. I have one strong language arts student who is ok at math but doesn’t want to prioritize it, and that’s just fine. He has alternated between regular and extended, and these are taught in more traditional ways and have been fine for him.
The school does take one subject to do a deep dive and analyze completely and revamp the program for each year. This year it is math so I would expect a lot of improvements beginning next year. They brought in a new academic dean, and she’s wonderful. One of her main focuses this year is math across k-12. It appears she’s hearing the complaints about it and will implement changes.
As far as homework, the regular classes are fine but the honors classes do have a lot of homework. The schedule is a block system which is nice bc it means they can really only have work due in half of their classes any day. Honors math does have a brutal amount of homework.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s a b*stardized version of Harkness, but it requires a really thoughtful and experienced teacher to execute it well. Recent grad of a party school ain’t it. Shocked that Potomac would hire someone like that. Makes it seem like they are looking after their finances more than their students.

Geez talk about jumping to conclusions. Potomacs finances are flush and I can’t imagine one US math hire has anything to do with that. I have multiple kids there and they have all had great experiences. The math issues arise when parents/students (see the one above) push to get their student in a higher level math class than they should be in. I have one very gifted math student and the honors program is perfect for him. I have one strong language arts student who is ok at math but doesn’t want to prioritize it, and that’s just fine. He has alternated between regular and extended, and these are taught in more traditional ways and have been fine for him.
The school does take one subject to do a deep dive and analyze completely and revamp the program for each year. This year it is math so I would expect a lot of improvements beginning next year. They brought in a new academic dean, and she’s wonderful. One of her main focuses this year is math across k-12. It appears she’s hearing the complaints about it and will implement changes.
As far as homework, the regular classes are fine but the honors classes do have a lot of homework. The schedule is a block system which is nice bc it means they can really only have work due in half of their classes any day. Honors math does have a brutal amount of homework.

Please review statement about kids who have siblings do better because they already have the curriculum which is a secret curriculum in math. Carry on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s a b*stardized version of Harkness, but it requires a really thoughtful and experienced teacher to execute it well. Recent grad of a party school ain’t it. Shocked that Potomac would hire someone like that. Makes it seem like they are looking after their finances more than their students.

Geez talk about jumping to conclusions. Potomacs finances are flush and I can’t imagine one US math hire has anything to do with that. I have multiple kids there and they have all had great experiences. The math issues arise when parents/students (see the one above) push to get their student in a higher level math class than they should be in. I have one very gifted math student and the honors program is perfect for him. I have one strong language arts student who is ok at math but doesn’t want to prioritize it, and that’s just fine. He has alternated between regular and extended, and these are taught in more traditional ways and have been fine for him.
The school does take one subject to do a deep dive and analyze completely and revamp the program for each year. This year it is math so I would expect a lot of improvements beginning next year. They brought in a new academic dean, and she’s wonderful. One of her main focuses this year is math across k-12. It appears she’s hearing the complaints about it and will implement changes.
As far as homework, the regular classes are fine but the honors classes do have a lot of homework. The schedule is a block system which is nice bc it means they can really only have work due in half of their classes any day. Honors math does have a brutal amount of homework.

Please review statement about kids who have siblings do better because they already have the curriculum which is a secret curriculum in math. Carry on.

Again - what? My kids have never overlapped once in a single math class and if they did they wouldn’t share anything with their siblings. Read that one of mine is a math whiz, one loves language arts and one is a Jack of all trades. They also don’t take the same language which seems to dictate a lot of the schedule, so they have had very little overlap even with any teachers. You do also realize that all of the curriculums are online for all of the classes? If you mean sharing old tests that would not happen

[Anonymous]

They wouldn’t share anything -of course they would not. Please just stop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s a b*stardized version of Harkness, but it requires a really thoughtful and experienced teacher to execute it well. Recent grad of a party school ain’t it. Shocked that Potomac would hire someone like that. Makes it seem like they are looking after their finances more than their students.

Don't know about the party school comment, but it's true the math department does not have math people. The one teacher is plagarizing problems from Art of Problem Solving as they could not make them up on their own. They can barely explain basic math. I don't think the admin understands this.

[Anonymous]

Even parents with kids who are doing well in the top track despise the teacher. One told a group of us at an event recently that the teacher sucked any joy out of the subject for their child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s a b*stardized version of Harkness, but it requires a really thoughtful and experienced teacher to execute it well. Recent grad of a party school ain’t it. Shocked that Potomac would hire someone like that. Makes it seem like they are looking after their finances more than their students.

Geez talk about jumping to conclusions. Potomacs finances are flush and I can’t imagine one US math hire has anything to do with that. I have multiple kids there and they have all had great experiences. The math issues arise when parents/students (see the one above) push to get their student in a higher level math class than they should be in. I have one very gifted math student and the honors program is perfect for him. I have one strong language arts student who is ok at math but doesn’t want to prioritize it, and that’s just fine. He has alternated between regular and extended, and these are taught in more traditional ways and have been fine for him.
The school does take one subject to do a deep dive and analyze completely and revamp the program for each year. This year it is math so I would expect a lot of improvements beginning next year. They brought in a new academic dean, and she’s wonderful. One of her main focuses this year is math across k-12. It appears she’s hearing the complaints about it and will implement changes.
As far as homework, the regular classes are fine but the honors classes do have a lot of homework. The schedule is a block system which is nice bc it means they can really only have work due in half of their classes any day. Honors math does have a brutal amount of homework.

Ha.
They did that the last time they fired the (same) math chair. All those parents left, they put the same (non-math) guy in charge, and nothing changed. By the time you realize that your kids will be gone and another batch will be subjected to this.

The curriculum is fine. It is the teachers who are terrible. And the administration doesn’t know math either, so they listen to and repeat what the math dept feeds them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is common with many of the better high schools. Similar to college approach.

What? No. The college approach is a lecture section followed by recitation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like lazy teaching to me!

It’s more discussion, guiding students into a deeper understanding also fosters different perspectives.

I don’t see that as lazy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like lazy teaching to me!

It’s more discussion, guiding students into a deeper understanding also fosters different perspectives.

I don’t see that as lazy.

This is not happening what above poster is describing.

[Anonymous]

Another good thread on the subject-note the dates-same stuff has been going on many years:

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/804955.page

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s a b*stardized version of Harkness, but it requires a really thoughtful and experienced teacher to execute it well. Recent grad of a party school ain’t it. Shocked that Potomac would hire someone like that. Makes it seem like they are looking after their finances more than their students.

Geez talk about jumping to conclusions. Potomacs finances are flush and I can’t imagine one US math hire has anything to do with that. I have multiple kids there and they have all had great experiences. The math issues arise when parents/students (see the one above) push to get their student in a higher level math class than they should be in. I have one very gifted math student and the honors program is perfect for him. I have one strong language arts student who is ok at math but doesn’t want to prioritize it, and that’s just fine. He has alternated between regular and extended, and these are taught in more traditional ways and have been fine for him.
The school does take one subject to do a deep dive and analyze completely and revamp the program for each year. This year it is math so I would expect a lot of improvements beginning next year. They brought in a new academic dean, and she’s wonderful. One of her main focuses this year is math across k-12. It appears she’s hearing the complaints about it and will implement changes.
As far as homework, the regular classes are fine but the honors classes do have a lot of homework. The schedule is a block system which is nice bc it means they can really only have work due in half of their classes any day. Honors math does have a brutal amount of homework.

If you are referring to the assistant academic dean who just left Langley for Potomac, good luck with that! Many Langley parents were glad to see her go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s a b*stardized version of Harkness, but it requires a really thoughtful and experienced teacher to execute it well. Recent grad of a party school ain’t it. Shocked that Potomac would hire someone like that. Makes it seem like they are looking after their finances more than their students.

Geez talk about jumping to conclusions. Potomacs finances are flush and I can’t imagine one US math hire has anything to do with that. I have multiple kids there and they have all had great experiences. The math issues arise when parents/students (see the one above) push to get their student in a higher level math class than they should be in. I have one very gifted math student and the honors program is perfect for him. I have one strong language arts student who is ok at math but doesn’t want to prioritize it, and that’s just fine. He has alternated between regular and extended, and these are taught in more traditional ways and have been fine for him.
The school does take one subject to do a deep dive and analyze completely and revamp the program for each year. This year it is math so I would expect a lot of improvements beginning next year. They brought in a new academic dean, and she’s wonderful. One of her main focuses this year is math across k-12. It appears she’s hearing the complaints about it and will implement changes.
As far as homework, the regular classes are fine but the honors classes do have a lot of homework. The schedule is a block system which is nice bc it means they can really only have work due in half of their classes any day. Honors math does have a brutal amount of homework.

Ha.
They did that the last time they fired the (same) math chair. All those parents left, they put the same (non-math) guy in charge, and nothing changed. By the time you realize that your kids will be gone and another batch will be subjected to this.

The curriculum is fine. It is the teachers who are terrible. And the administration doesn’t know math either, so they listen to and repeat what the math dept feeds them.

I agree the teachers are not qualified and fake their way through the math because they themselves do not really understand a lot of. I am baffled by how some of the teachers have managed to trick the administration for so long.

[Anonymous]

Is the problem the same non-math guy does not want to question the poor teachers under him because he does not have enough knowledge to be confident of their failures?

[Anonymous]

OP on the tour ask the Potomac HS student who will be leading or joining your tour about math and homework load. Better from the horses mouth.
Our DD asked student and the math response was lack luster and the homework load was enough to turn her off and not apply--i.e it is ALOT even after using study halls during the day