Subjective capsule reviews of MD private elementary schools

[Anonymous]

Lay off, people. I think I know the OP and she truly is a happy parent at Barnesville. She is not part of a conspiracy in which Barnesville administration is posting on DCUM pretending to be a satisfied parent in hopes of increasing their enrollment.

Everything she has written is true. She just wants to help people be more knowledgeable about different schools that don't get as much mention on these boards.

No conspiracy - just a nice mom trying to be helpful. Really.

[Anonymous]

Why is it helpful to read one person's subjective opinion of each of these schools? I would never make the decision on whether to visit a school based on this information.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why is it helpful to read one person's subjective opinion of each of these schools? I would never make the decision on whether to visit a school based on this information.

Then why have a private schools forum at all where people can give their subjective opinions on any school? No one should be making a decision whether to visit a school based on what they read on any DCUM thread?

If you don't like reading people's opinions on schools, then don't read this forum and just form your own opinion by visiting the school. Some people do like to hear other's opinions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is it helpful to read one person's subjective opinion of each of these schools? I would never make the decision on whether to visit a school based on this information.

Then why have a private schools forum at all where people can give their subjective opinions on any school? No one should be making a decision whether to visit a school based on what they read on any DCUM thread?

If you don't like reading people's opinions on schools, then don't read this forum and just form your own opinion by visiting the school. Some people do like to hear other's opinions.

Yes, that's true!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why is it helpful to read one person's subjective opinion of each of these schools? I would never make the decision on whether to visit a school based on this information.

Ding, ding, ding! Award for the stupidest post of the day!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why is it helpful to read one person's subjective opinion of each of these schools? I would never make the decision on whether to visit a school based on this information.

Perhaps when what the poster has to say "rings a bell" and sounds a lot like your own child....it's not that big of a stretch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What are these teaching methods you mention? How do you know what methods would be best for your child? If you are not an educator, this entire thread is bogus.

I'm so sick of parents thinking they 'know education'. They don't and neither do you.

NP here - parents may not "know education" per se but I think they do know their own children. I think for the majority of children, they can thrive in a variety of educational environments - but for some kids, the educational environment can make a big difference. Granted, there are probably plenty of parents out there that erroneously believe their kid is "the one that is different"; that just makes it harder for the families that have a valid case. For the families I know that have a child where educational environment makes a big difference, it is not the parent being hyper sensitive - it is also the school and teachers giving them feedback, usually from early ages to help the family guide the child to the best match for success. Schools and classrooms can vary quite a bit on dimensions that don't make a difference to most families, but do make a difference to others.

OP here. I agree with the respondent above. There are two important sides to the coin here; what the educators have to offer, and the child to whom it is being offered. Professional educators have the most information about the first, and parents about the second.

Every child is different. For one child, McLean might be a fine choice and Norwood a problematic one. For another child the reverse might be true. There is no objective best/worst school -- it's an interaction between the child's needs/learning processes, and what the school offers.

In our case we have learned a lot about how our child learns, and the circumstances that enable her to thrive vs becoming frustrated. That experience has been borne of years of experience with schooling, extracurricular classes, social skills teaching sessions, testing, home instruction, and much else.

We have learned to be wary of any teacher/institution who approaches things from the perspective of, "This is what we do because it works best for everyone." In our case that often wasn't true. Fortunately we adapted, and found settings that worked, and now we have a high academic achiever in our household.

Again, I would reiterate that the title of this thread is "Subjective capsule reviews," and that the first post took pains to point out that the reviews referred to the specific match between child and school. If someone objects that some schools that were less attractive to us are objectively "better schools," then they are missing the point of the thread as well as the larger point that what's "best" is a function of several variables, including the child being placed as well as many others ranging from location to price. As the original post noted, Charles E. Smith might be a perfectly fine school, but the percentage of the day spent on Judaic studies made it a suboptimal choice for us. That's not a criticism of Charles E. Smith or of Judaic studies.

In our particular case, we had a strong academic performer needing a socially nurturing environment, so Barnesville rose to the top of our list, and St. Andrews was right behind it. Other parents' priorities may differ. Contrary experiences with the 14 schools reviewed are more than welcome.

I am the poster who spoke about some kids needing specific environments while others don't. I find it amazing that so many parents out there are so critical of others and don't understand that not everyone's child is the same as your own. And...just because one child might need something specific to really thrive, it doesn't mean that the child's parent believes their child is any more special than other children - it is because they are trying to help their child. It has nothing to do with other parents/children or what they even "think about other parents/children". In fact, they are probably not even thinking about other parents and children at all...not nearly as much as other parents are "thinking about them".

As I noted earlier - I know a couple of these kids via family and via friends we met when kids were very little. I see these families get judged all the time (even by close friends and family!!) and people project all these erroneous ideas onto them - it's ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is it helpful to read one person's subjective opinion of each of these schools? I would never make the decision on whether to visit a school based on this information.

Then why have a private schools forum at all where people can give their subjective opinions on any school? No one should be making a decision whether to visit a school based on what they read on any DCUM thread?

If you don't like reading people's opinions on schools, then don't read this forum and just form your own opinion by visiting the school. Some people do like to hear other's opinions.

When a poster asks for specific information about a particular school fine. The OP decided her to bless us with her wonderful opinions about all the schools she visited. Somehow she decided that we all wanted to know her thoughts.

In particular she decided that one school was unprofessional. Did she look at the backgrounds of administrators and teacher's? Teacher turnover? How is the curriculum developed? What is the turnover of families? No.

In particular, she denigrated Maddux, a school that has had considerable growth and popularity for families with kids with social and learning issue, The founder, Andrea Mullins, has grown the school from a preschool and pre k class to one that now goes through 2nd grade, all in 9 years. They receive far more applications then they have space available every year.

The teacher's background and dedication is second to none. OP decided because they did not call her back, the school was not recommended by her. Had she actually taken the time to research the program where the teacher's come from and their success rate with kids, she might have seen why the school is so good for so many.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lay off, people. I think I know the OP and she truly is a happy parent at Barnesville. She is not part of a conspiracy in which Barnesville administration is posting on DCUM pretending to be a satisfied parent in hopes of increasing their enrollment.

Everything she has written is true. She just wants to help people be more knowledgeable about different schools that don't get as much mention on these boards.

No conspiracy - just a nice mom trying to be helpful. Really.

So what? If she doesn't like the negative comments, then she shouldn't have posted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is it helpful to read one person's subjective opinion of each of these schools? I would never make the decision on whether to visit a school based on this information.

Then why have a private schools forum at all where people can give their subjective opinions on any school? No one should be making a decision whether to visit a school based on what they read on any DCUM thread?

If you don't like reading people's opinions on schools, then don't read this forum and just form your own opinion by visiting the school. Some people do like to hear other's opinions.

When a poster asks for specific information about a particular school fine. The OP decided her to bless us with her wonderful opinions about all the schools she visited. Somehow she decided that we all wanted to know her thoughts.

In particular she decided that one school was unprofessional. Did she look at the backgrounds of administrators and teacher's? Teacher turnover? How is the curriculum developed? What is the turnover of families? No.

In particular, she denigrated Maddux, a school that has had considerable growth and popularity for families with kids with social and learning issue, The founder, Andrea Mullins, has grown the school from a preschool and pre k class to one that now goes through 2nd grade, all in 9 years. They receive far more applications then they have space available every year.

The teacher's background and dedication is second to none. OP decided because they did not call her back, the school was not recommended by her. Had she actually taken the time to research the program where the teacher's come from and their success rate with kids, she might have seen why the school is so good for so many.

OP here. As I said in my original post, contrary impressions of these schools are more than welcome, and I'm glad your experience with Maddux was more positive. And also, my original post stated clearly that it reflected our subjective experience, not a definitive opinion on which schools are best for everybody.

Just in the sake of clarity, we actually did research all those factors you mentioned. It's one reason why it was so frustrating for us that Maddux was so unresponsive -- not once, but twice. We wouldn't have looked into them if we hadn't thought there was something there worth investigating.

When parents are putting themselves and their child through a school search, it can be very stressful. You are aware that your child is being judged in the process, and a good school should be sensitive to that and responsive to prospective parents who are putting their child out there. We experienced a range of professionalism in visiting 14 schools (and we called even more than that). Unfortunately Maddux handled our inquiries with the worst manners on both occasions. We were truly appreciative whenever other schools gave us a warmer reception.

I don't allege that Maddux hasn't been able to offer good things to the children who attend; but in our experience (and apparently the experience of at least two others on this thread) this is in spite of the unresponsiveness of the school administrators, not because of it. If Maddux is growing as fast as you say than they ought to be able to hire someone who makes sure that when parents are told that they will be contacted, that they actually will be, rather than being left hanging time and again.

And as others have pointed out, if you don't want to know of others' thoughts about schools, it might not make sense to read the DCUM message boards about schools. And if Maddux doesn't want parents to denigrate them, they can return prospective parents' calls.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lay off, people. I think I know the OP and she truly is a happy parent at Barnesville. She is not part of a conspiracy in which Barnesville administration is posting on DCUM pretending to be a satisfied parent in hopes of increasing their enrollment.

Everything she has written is true. She just wants to help people be more knowledgeable about different schools that don't get as much mention on these boards.

No conspiracy - just a nice mom trying to be helpful. Really.

So what? If she doesn't like the negative comments, then she shouldn't have posted.

OP here again.

To the first poster above -- thank you for the kind defense. Yes, I'm just trying to share information that other parents might find useful, info we wish we had had.

To the second poster -- no worries, I actually agree with you, too. I fully understood when I posted that others can post whatever they like in response, and I'm untroubled by disagreement with anything I've written. In fact, I encourage people to post their own thoughts about these schools, even if they disagree with mine. The goal is just to acquaint parents with options and with others' experiences with them.

Though I will admit -- I actually did laugh out loud when I read a few of the posts in response, the ones pointing somberly to an FB link to this thread as concerning evidence of a dark conspiracy, and a few others that were apparently implying that school PR reps were going through the trouble of inventing a fake parent persona, complete with a fake child educational profile, fake information about family circumstances, and inventing imaginary visits to other schools, all of this effort being for the purpose of duping readers into checking out their program on false pretenses. Yes, so much more plausible than that a parent might actually be posting information they hoped would be of use to other parents. Fortunately, the dastardly plot has been exposed by those meddling kids, who are now off in the Mystery Machine to crack another case.

If one is going to post in a public forum as I have, one can't be too concerned about those folks except to laugh over the glorious diversity of human nature. Fortunately the majority of responses to this thread are indicative that there actually is a desire to share and receive information about and impressions of these schools, more than justifying the investment of my time in putting up my original post.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: OP here. As I said in my original post, contrary impressions of these schools are more than welcome, and I'm glad your experience with Maddux was more positive. And also, my original post stated clearly that it reflected our subjective experience, not a definitive opinion on which schools are best for everybody.

Just in the sake of clarity, we actually did research all those factors you mentioned. It's one reason why it was so frustrating for us that Maddux was so unresponsive -- not once, but twice. We wouldn't have looked into them if we hadn't thought there was something there worth investigating.

When parents are putting themselves and their child through a school search, it can be very stressful. You are aware that your child is being judged in the process, and a good school should be sensitive to that and responsive to prospective parents who are putting their child out there. We experienced a range of professionalism in visiting 14 schools (and we called even more than that). Unfortunately Maddux handled our inquiries with the worst manners on both occasions. We were truly appreciative whenever other schools gave us a warmer reception.

I don't allege that Maddux hasn't been able to offer good things to the children who attend; but in our experience (and apparently the experience of at least two others on this thread) this is in spite of the unresponsiveness of the school administrators, not because of it. If Maddux is growing as fast as you say than they ought to be able to hire someone who makes sure that when parents are told that they will be contacted, that they actually will be, rather than being left hanging time and again.

And as others have pointed out, if you don't want to know of others' thoughts about schools, it might not make sense to read the DCUM message boards about schools. And if Maddux doesn't want parents to denigrate them, they can return prospective parents' calls.

OP here again -- I do want to follow up so as not to leave an unfair impression of Maddux.

We actually do know families with children at Maddux who are quite happy with it. Nothing in my original review should be taken as a disparagement of the expertise of the teachers there.

Our negative experiences with Maddux pertained to the callousness with which potential applicants, both parents and child, were treated. We also took this to be a possible negative indicator of the quality and frequency of parent communication after enrollment. In our experience, we have found a high correlation between how well we were treated in the admissions process and how we were treated after enrollment.

I stand by my criticisms of Maddux but this should not be taken as condemning everything the school has to offer. My original post had, I thought, made that distinction clear, but at least one respondent received a contrary impression, hence this clarification.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Some further thoughts on the admissions process that might be useful.

One of the things that visiting 14 schools did for us was to expose us to the vast differences in how different schools treat potential applicants. Until we had visited several, we hadn't developed a full sense of whether certain schools' admissions processes were typical or atypical.

My bottom-line message to prospective parents is that the admissions process is a window into the degree of interest a school will take in reaching your specific child. Our past experience has borne this out; our child has thrived in the environments where the school has shown interest and enthusiasm in getting to know what she has to offer, whereas we had a very bad prior experience with one school that treated her as just one more applicant to fill the rolls.

Our experience also indicates that schools may not be fully aware of how much better some of their competitors do, and how their own conduct can really be off-putting in the admissions process. Earlier in this thread I criticized Maddux as the worst of these; I double-checked with my spouse last night to revisit whether I had been unfair. I hadn't been; my spouse reminded me of some other details I had forgotten. Suffice it to say that Maddux was one (the worst) example of a type of school we encountered -- the school that knows that they have more applicants than slots, and makes you feel like they are doing you a favor to sit down with you, that you have to sell your child to the school, while limiting your opportunity to do so. The attitude we found there was of limited interest in getting to know our child, and of "we'll get back to you when we feel like it." Not exactly the sort of environment one can plop one's child into and feel confident.

We did run into versions of this at other schools. My spouse and I had split reactions to Norwood's presentation. I found them perfectly pleasant but my spouse felt that Norwood was similarly a case where they showed little interest in getting to know the child, trusting that they had the luxury of just picking the kids they wanted based on a quick pass through the applications. Again, my reaction was less negative, I thought they had been more open than that, but Norwood was clearly on the side of the line of putting forth less effort to determine the right fit between child and school.

As a positive counter-example, let me mention St. Andrews (SAES) so as not to further elaborate on our praise for Barnesville. But St. Andrews was an example of how to do this right -- there was a great amount of interest (directly from the head of school) in getting to know our child and then in exploring why exactly what they do would be a good fit for the child. Everything they presented was directly responsive to our mutual sense of what would best serve the specific child.

Again, my bottom line to parents is -- if a school is making you feel like a supplicant, that's a bad sign and you should consider other options. You shouldn't have to beg for their attention or to get your calls returned. You shouldn't be in the position of selling your child to the school. It should be a two-way street -- a good school will understand that they also need to show you why their school fits what you're looking for, at the same time you are hopefully presenting a child that fits what they are looking for. And if they make you feel like they're doing you a favor just to admit your child, walk away, because that attitude won't change after admission.

Our child is now in a place where she was welcomed and embraced with enthusiasm the moment she walked in. Every child deserves that, and parents have a right to insist upon it.

[Anonymous]

Take other's opinions with a grain of salt. One school can be perfect for one family and not for another. Just don't listen too closely to other people. Go to open houses. Talk to families currently at the school. Ask good questions. Meet the students - perhaps they even give tours during open houses. That's how you learn about a school. A lot of it is a gut feeling and you should ask yourself how you feel when you are at the school and how your child would feel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Take other's opinions with a grain of salt. One school can be perfect for one family and not for another. Just don't listen too closely to other people. Go to open houses. Talk to families currently at the school. Ask good questions. Meet the students - perhaps they even give tours during open houses. That's how you learn about a school. A lot of it is a gut feeling and you should ask yourself how you feel when you are at the school and how your child would feel.

OP here. I totally agree with this! So much of it comes down to imagining your child at the school, and your sense of how they would feel. Well put.