School without Walls High Admission test results

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a child at Wilson and Walls. Both have there pluses and minuses. The big minus regarding Walls is the administration. The PP said she/he finds it does not suffer from a lack of structure/organization, but I would strongly disagree. Comparing the two schools, Wilson with over 2,000 students and Walls with under 600, it is amazing to me how much better organized Wilson is. Even just dealing with Parent Teacher sign-up. At Wilson you can select all classes at one time schedule each appointment and then get a confirming email with your schedule. At Walls, you have to go into the system anew for each class and be sure to write your appointment down because there is no confirmation with times and schedule. This is merely one example.

Back to school night is another. Wilson had a well organized operation at which you followed your child's schedule and each teacher gave a 10 minute presentation on the class. On the contrary, at Walls they have all humanities teachers in one room with about 100 parents and they speak generally about humanities at Walls, but nothing about an individual class. The worst is the foreign language presentation as they have every foreign language together, which of course is completely useless.

The PP definitely got it right that the admissions process is chaos. This is ridiculous given how long they have been doing it. I guess that is the most frustrating part of Walls is the administration never learns from their mistakes. Mistakes are expected, but I cannot stand seeing the same ones year after year! It is clear that they are arrogant enough to believe that people will just overlook these stumbles and come anyway, and to an extent they are right, but it just seems so unnecessary and is a turnoff to many families.

As another parent with experience at both schools I completely agree with PP about organization. There's no comparison between the two. Wilson is far more organized. There are pros and cons to each but there is no excuse for the lack of organization at SWW. It might be fine freshman year but by the time your DC is a senior it can be quite exasperating.

[Anonymous]

Just to give one example (the latest) of the kind of disorganization you can anticipate at SWW, I just got two emails from SWW telling me for the first time that tomorrow is an all-day field trip for 9th graders and that they are having an off-site event at UDC. My child is instructed to report to UDC, Building 41, by 8:45 am. There are no instructions; there is no map; there will apparently be no administrators at the metro telling kids which way to go. I'm just supposed to send my kid, by herself, to a part of town she's not familiar with so that she can wander around the UDC campus until she finds Building 41.

On the one hand, my kid is pretty resourceful, and she'll probably make it. On the other hand, this total disregard for planning, giving timely and meaningful help and direction, and last-minute notice (which probably a huge percentage of parents won't see) seems to be par for the course. This kind of stuff makes you crazy, and it is absolutely the way they do things.

[Anonymous]

Can anyone tell me about what the interview is like? What kinds of questions they ask? Any info?? Thanks!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just to give one example (the latest) of the kind of disorganization you can anticipate at SWW, I just got two emails from SWW telling me for the first time that tomorrow is an all-day field trip for 9th graders and that they are having an off-site event at UDC. My child is instructed to report to UDC, Building 41, by 8:45 am. There are no instructions; there is no map; there will apparently be no administrators at the metro telling kids which way to go. I'm just supposed to send my kid, by herself, to a part of town she's not familiar with so that she can wander around the UDC campus until she finds Building 41.

On the one hand, my kid is pretty resourceful, and she'll probably make it. On the other hand, this total disregard for planning, giving timely and meaningful help and direction, and last-minute notice (which probably a huge percentage of parents won't see) seems to be par for the course. This kind of stuff makes you crazy, and it is absolutely the way they do things.

See, I had a very different take on that email. For us, it was an opportunity to discuss how one takes responsibility for finding one's own way. I thought it was a good experience, that my DD was ready for it, and that this shifting of wayfinding responsibility to the students was very good preparation.

My kid does have a passing familiarity with that part of Connecticut Ave, but not with the UDC campus. I discussed the email with DD, instructed her to find and print out a campus map, and to present plans A and B (bus and Metro) for getting there in the morning. I also told her to scope out lunch options. She passed my tests and managed just fine today.

The metro station is *right there*, so no wandering through less-than-walkable parts of DC, and Walls kids really should have Metro figured out.

And while I agree that last year's admission ordeal was disorganized, partly because of the unwelcome intrusion of the MySchools lottery into a process where (at least for us) it was irrelevant, we haven't had any real complaints about disorganization at Walls.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Parent of a 9th grader here. Our experience has been that everything seems more difficult than it needs to be, from unsupportive or ineffective teachers to disorganized administrators. It's a very nice group of kids, but they sure aren't being given much to work with.

+1000000. Some of the teacher seem borderline... I don't know, insane? There were several incidents with multiple teachers which made me question even the existence of an administration.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parent of a 9th grader here. Our experience has been that everything seems more difficult than it needs to be, from unsupportive or ineffective teachers to disorganized administrators. It's a very nice group of kids, but they sure aren't being given much to work with.

+1000000. Some of the teacher seem borderline... I don't know, insane? There were several incidents with multiple teachers which made me question even the existence of an administration.

What about support for kids with IEPs? Is that also a disaster? We REALLY need to know....

[Anonymous]

Sigh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parent of a 9th grader here. Our experience has been that everything seems more difficult than it needs to be, from unsupportive or ineffective teachers to disorganized administrators. It's a very nice group of kids, but they sure aren't being given much to work with.

+1000000. Some of the teacher seem borderline... I don't know, insane? There were several incidents with multiple teachers which made me question even the existence of an administration.

What about support for kids with IEPs? Is that also a disaster? We REALLY need to know....

Is the sigh above in reference to support for kids with IEPs?

Not a question we can ask in the interview

[Anonymous]

Are you asking about the quality of service for children with IEPs? I mean, legally, they have to "support" kids with IEPs. They can't just disregard the IEP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parent of a 9th grader here. Our experience has been that everything seems more difficult than it needs to be, from unsupportive or ineffective teachers to disorganized administrators. It's a very nice group of kids, but they sure aren't being given much to work with.

+1000000. Some of the teacher seem borderline... I don't know, insane? There were several incidents with multiple teachers which made me question even the existence of an administration.

What about support for kids with IEPs? Is that also a disaster? We REALLY need to know....

My kid has a 504 Plan. I thought the response was very supportive--- and also well-organized.

[Anonymous]

I would love to know more about the interview process. Our amazing nanny's super accomplished and lovely daughter got in, and they have an interview coming up. But she (our nanny) is worried about the interview (though I think her daughter is very well composed and smart and will do fine). She is an immigrant and speaks english very well, but not perfectly and does not have a college degree, and is worried about the question "what will you do to support the school?" I suggested that since she and her daughter both do community service for spanish-speaking population in DC that she could help connect SWS to various community organizations, but is that appropriate? What else? Its not like she can afford to give lots of $$$$. I am so proud of her daughter, and want to help them succeed. TIA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would love to know more about the interview process. Our amazing nanny's super accomplished and lovely daughter got in, and they have an interview coming up. But she (our nanny) is worried about the interview (though I think her daughter is very well composed and smart and will do fine). She is an immigrant and speaks english very well, but not perfectly and does not have a college degree, and is worried about the question "what will you do to support the school?" I suggested that since she and her daughter both do community service for spanish-speaking population in DC that she could help connect SWS to various community organizations, but is that appropriate? What else? Its not like she can afford to give lots of $$$$. I am so proud of her daughter, and want to help them succeed. TIA.

how did you learn that was one of the questions they ask?

[Anonymous]

how did you learn that was one of the questions they ask?

she told me that. I'm not sure where she heard it from. She's not worried about her daughter's interview, but she is nervous about herself.

[Anonymous]

SWW has the best students, some half-ass teachers and one arrogant multi-tasking principal, with the full support of Kaya. The students, by nature of their qualifications and the far they come from every ward in the city, are what makes it an awesome school. It is a shame and disgusting that DCPS values the input of Trogisch and his willingness to bend over and run two (3 if you consider ES, MS and HS) rather than do what is right and place a new singular principal at Walls. While the guy is obviously talented, they HS needs a FT dedicated leader and Henderson's dismissal of this suggests some unhealthy hostility toward the culture that Walls is. She should be fired.

[Anonymous]

Info on the interview:http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/15/218881.page

Looks like SWW got Jeff to delete the student's first reply, but they forgot the second.

Some Gems:

"I know the high school transition was extremely hard for me- the last thing I would want is to set up a kid who would not be able to succeed at this school to fail. The middle school involved was one a sibling of mine went to, so I knew that the work load wasn't as hard or extensive at SWW. Both of the teachers who were in the room with me were also worried about the ability of the student to succeed here, it wasn't just me. "

This is talking about a student who this student interviewer nixed because, and I quote, "The student was getting all As in middle school."

"And as for allowing students to interview: her is something that will probably scare you out of your mind: there were 3-4 students per room, with 2 teachers. All of us had equal weight in the decision."

So, in theory, if the 3-4 kids don't like how your kid looks, or the fact your kid is smart, good luck.

"The reason they did this was because as students we know the school, and we know how to succeed at the school. I would like to point out that only issue with my example was not that he spent so much time with homework. "

Yes, because empower the students.

"As for the 'ungrounded' view that he wouldn't be able to succeed, its a fact that high school, especially at an academically challenging high school such as walls, is harder then most middle schools."

How do you choose who is going to succeed at your high school? I guess spidey sense, as that is the only explanation given by this interviewer.

" Is seeing a kid spending 3+ hours working on homework during middle school send up a big red flag? At least to this panel it certainly does. Maybe to you it seems like nothing, go ahead... Start interviewing students yourself. At this point I am going off to college, I'm almost done with school, I don't need to argue about this shit with you."

This just in, give up now if your kid spends more then 15 minutes on homework...

Now, most of you will say this is a troll. BUT THE SCHOOL ADMITTED THAT THIS WAS A LEGITIMATE STUDENT BY SENDING A "PARENT" TO DO DAMAGE CONTROL (http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/60/218881.page)

"-Students on the panel had an equal voice in theory, but the teachers could nullify any student's answers if the teacher felt that the decision was biased or not based on fact. When a student was on the line between passing the process/failing it, the teacher's response was weighted better. "

Can I point out this makes no sense? So students have an equal voice, except when they don't? The entire reply sounds like a simple case of damage control, likely by an administrator.

"-While part of this interview was to learn more about the personality of the students, their extracurricular activities, experience, etc... It was more just to look at them as people, and see what they would gain by going to SWW, both socially and academically. Questions asked related to extra-curricular activities, academic integrity, and more general questions to get to know about them. "

And then there is this, which pretty much says that the student was right.

"As for the "student", if you are a student, and you are reading this, please talk to the administration. They would (and to be honest I would) like to know where you got your information, as it definitely isn't true. "

This sounds like they know exactly who the "student" is. And are trying to get him/her to come forward themselves.