SWoW - What's it really like?"

[Anonymous]

We got accepted last year, shadowed, and my child decided not to go but to stay at BASIS DC and potentially transfer to Wilson after 9th grade (when they start allowing kids to take AP courses at Wilson). The main reason was that the BASIS kids never said anything great about Walls - there were kids eating and texting in class, and all they said was "you'll get used to it." Absolutely NO former BASIS student offered a ringing endorsement either at the interview or on the shadow day and our first year after a few weeks we had a couple of kids at Walls who wanted to come back to BASIS so we changed our charter. While BASIS would probably not have gotten a ringing endorsement from the kids at Walls (they had obviously chosen to leave BASIS), they made no comments about anything at Walls being better than BASIS and that really struck my child as wrong. The kids don't have less homework, but BASIS has been going through so many transitions it has been several different schools. The kids who left last year, for instance, would never have wanted to come back because of the current principal who has now finally been replaced (they should have fired him much earlier).

But the word on the street that these threads have gotten from those who purport to be DC insiders is that Kaya and her friends refer to School Without Walls as "School With Whiners" and the very fact that they put the principal in charge of both schools (and he is from what I understand not making SWW his priority) is shocking. There is no other DCPS school where a principal is in charge of a elementary and MS that is based on boundaries AND a high school that is based on selective admissions. And that is a sign of how little they care at the Superintendent's office about our only nationally ranked high school (last year it was #198 - to put that in perspective, the W schools in Md I think all made it into the top 100.

We left it up to our child but I was very grateful about the choice the child made because I really was not willing to let my child be part of a 4 year experiment with the absent principal and had already heard about him firing good teachers and barely being stopped from an incredibly stupid proposal to make 11th graders be at the MS - divide up SWW in effect. These are two different schools. Going to Francis Stevens at SWW does not guarantee and may not even provide the education sufficient to pass the test for admission for SWW for all I know. We know two who left BASIS and went to Deal and failed the test and never got in.

I was glad SO that our child opted ultimately for Wilson and to stay another year but it was the fact that the former BASIS students at Walls never once encouraged my child to come, said that it was better, or different in a way that was better that really struck my child. They just said our child would "get used to it." There was not a single thing they said was better than BASIS even though at the time we had our own shitty principal.

So I think the future of SWW is a bit uncertain because Kaya clearly hates them.

[Anonymous]

As a parent who was at SWW when the school merged with Francis Stevens the principal was very much a part of the decision. The only part of the merger left is one principal running 2 unrelated schools. Kaya may think the parents are whiners but she gave the HS parents plenty to whine about.

To a different question about counseling, the school does not have designated college counsellors. Your child's counselor loops with them for 4 years and senior year is the college Counselor. We found our counselor great with school issues during our time there but sorely lacking in knowledge of the college process. If you're only doing it once very 4 years, it's impossible to stay on top of everything. And build relationships with colleges and universities. There has long been a push to reorganize the counselors, but the principal refuses.

[Anonymous]

SWW of old is not the current SWW which is a great, because they have become a premier high-school with excellent results. Again, its' diverse but does it really make a difference. You get what you pay for, when you go to private. A good free public school education is worth it's weight in gold.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We got accepted last year, shadowed, and my child decided not to go but to stay at BASIS DC and potentially transfer to Wilson after 9th grade (when they start allowing kids to take AP courses at Wilson). The main reason was that the BASIS kids never said anything great about Walls - there were kids eating and texting in class, and all they said was "you'll get used to it." Absolutely NO former BASIS student offered a ringing endorsement either at the interview or on the shadow day and our first year after a few weeks we had a couple of kids at Walls who wanted to come back to BASIS so we changed our charter. While BASIS would probably not have gotten a ringing endorsement from the kids at Walls (they had obviously chosen to leave BASIS), they made no comments about anything at Walls being better than BASIS and that really struck my child as wrong. The kids don't have less homework, but BASIS has been going through so many transitions it has been several different schools. The kids who left last year, for instance, would never have wanted to come back because of the current principal who has now finally been replaced (they should have fired him much earlier).

But the word on the street that these threads have gotten from those who purport to be DC insiders is that Kaya and her friends refer to School Without Walls as "School With Whiners" and the very fact that they put the principal in charge of both schools (and he is from what I understand not making SWW his priority) is shocking. There is no other DCPS school where a principal is in charge of a elementary and MS that is based on boundaries AND a high school that is based on selective admissions. And that is a sign of how little they care at the Superintendent's office about our only nationally ranked high school (last year it was #198 - to put that in perspective, the W schools in Md I think all made it into the top 100.

We left it up to our child but I was very grateful about the choice the child made because I really was not willing to let my child be part of a 4 year experiment with the absent principal and had already heard about him firing good teachers and barely being stopped from an incredibly stupid proposal to make 11th graders be at the MS - divide up SWW in effect. These are two different schools. Going to Francis Stevens at SWW does not guarantee and may not even provide the education sufficient to pass the test for admission for SWW for all I know. We know two who left BASIS and went to Deal and failed the test and never got in.

I was glad SO that our child opted ultimately for Wilson and to stay another year but it was the fact that the former BASIS students at Walls never once encouraged my child to come, said that it was better, or different in a way that was better that really struck my child. They just said our child would "get used to it." There was not a single thing they said was better than BASIS even though at the time we had our own shitty principal.

So I think the future of SWW is a bit uncertain because Kaya clearly hates them.

because I really was not willing to let my child be part of a 4 year experiment

Wow! You put your child in a new school 4 years ago as an experiment...but yet you claim Walls is too risky.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We got accepted last year, shadowed, and my child decided not to go but to stay at BASIS DC and potentially transfer to Wilson after 9th grade (when they start allowing kids to take AP courses at Wilson). The main reason was that the BASIS kids never said anything great about Walls - there were kids eating and texting in class, and all they said was "you'll get used to it." Absolutely NO former BASIS student offered a ringing endorsement either at the interview or on the shadow day and our first year after a few weeks we had a couple of kids at Walls who wanted to come back to BASIS so we changed our charter. While BASIS would probably not have gotten a ringing endorsement from the kids at Walls (they had obviously chosen to leave BASIS), they made no comments about anything at Walls being better than BASIS and that really struck my child as wrong. The kids don't have less homework, but BASIS has been going through so many transitions it has been several different schools. The kids who left last year, for instance, would never have wanted to come back because of the current principal who has now finally been replaced (they should have fired him much earlier).

But the word on the street that these threads have gotten from those who purport to be DC insiders is that Kaya and her friends refer to School Without Walls as "School With Whiners" and the very fact that they put the principal in charge of both schools (and he is from what I understand not making SWW his priority) is shocking. There is no other DCPS school where a principal is in charge of a elementary and MS that is based on boundaries AND a high school that is based on selective admissions. And that is a sign of how little they care at the Superintendent's office about our only nationally ranked high school (last year it was #198 - to put that in perspective, the W schools in Md I think all made it into the top 100.

We left it up to our child but I was very grateful about the choice the child made because I really was not willing to let my child be part of a 4 year experiment with the absent principal and had already heard about him firing good teachers and barely being stopped from an incredibly stupid proposal to make 11th graders be at the MS - divide up SWW in effect. These are two different schools. Going to Francis Stevens at SWW does not guarantee and may not even provide the education sufficient to pass the test for admission for SWW for all I know. We know two who left BASIS and went to Deal and failed the test and never got in.

I was glad SO that our child opted ultimately for Wilson and to stay another year but it was the fact that the former BASIS students at Walls never once encouraged my child to come, said that it was better, or different in a way that was better that really struck my child. They just said our child would "get used to it." There was not a single thing they said was better than BASIS even though at the time we had our own shitty principal.

So I think the future of SWW is a bit uncertain because Kaya clearly hates them.

Dear Helicopter Mom,

It was your child who was accepted, not you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:SWW of old is not the current SWW which is a great, because they have become a premier high-school with excellent results. Again, its' diverse but does it really make a difference. You get what you pay for, when you go to private. A good free public school education is worth it's weight in gold.

SWW gets "excellent results" because it sets admissions standards so high that the kids are in the 90th percentiles when they arrive. What they experience after they arrive is, well, mixed. Again, some teachers are very good, others are decidedly not.

[Anonymous]

Can someone please explain the steps to admission in order? Do you in fact have to rank it first of your lottery picks and only if you get picked in the lottery do you test and interview? Thank you so much as it's very confusing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can someone please explain the steps to admission in order? Do you in fact have to rank it first of your lottery picks and only if you get picked in the lottery do you test and interview? Thank you so much as it's very confusing.

Lottery has little bearing on SWW

1. Rank it as first.

2. Apply to the school

3. If child qualifies for admittance, he gets invited to test.

4. If test scores qualify child( there is not a standard qualifying score because they take a percentage of the top scorers), he gets invited to interview.

5. Finds out if accepted.

[Anonymous]

How much does the entrance test count in the final decision vs. the interview?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone please explain the steps to admission in order? Do you in fact have to rank it first of your lottery picks and only if you get picked in the lottery do you test and interview? Thank you so much as it's very confusing.

Lottery has little bearing on SWW

1. Rank it as first.

2. Apply to the school

3. If child qualifies for admittance, he gets invited to test.

4. If test scores qualify child( there is not a standard qualifying score because they take a percentage of the top scorers), he gets invited to interview.

5. Finds out if accepted.

6. May or may not have time for a shadow day

Alternative scenario

1. rank it first

2. apply to the school

3. Child qualifies for admittance, but does not pass the test so is on bottom of waitlist OR

3. Child qualifies for admittance, but does not pass the interview, and is top of waitlist

4. Sometime after you can shadow, you get off the waitlist and assuming you are choosing between a school you like and a school you might love, you have a HUGE decision to make

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We got accepted last year, shadowed, and my child decided not to go but to stay at BASIS DC and potentially transfer to Wilson after 9th grade (when they start allowing kids to take AP courses at Wilson). The main reason was that the BASIS kids never said anything great about Walls - there were kids eating and texting in class, and all they said was "you'll get used to it." Absolutely NO former BASIS student offered a ringing endorsement either at the interview or on the shadow day and our first year after a few weeks we had a couple of kids at Walls who wanted to come back to BASIS so we changed our charter. While BASIS would probably not have gotten a ringing endorsement from the kids at Walls (they had obviously chosen to leave BASIS), they made no comments about anything at Walls being better than BASIS and that really struck my child as wrong. The kids don't have less homework, but BASIS has been going through so many transitions it has been several different schools. The kids who left last year, for instance, would never have wanted to come back because of the current principal who has now finally been replaced (they should have fired him much earlier).

But the word on the street that these threads have gotten from those who purport to be DC insiders is that Kaya and her friends refer to School Without Walls as "School With Whiners" and the very fact that they put the principal in charge of both schools (and he is from what I understand not making SWW his priority) is shocking. There is no other DCPS school where a principal is in charge of a elementary and MS that is based on boundaries AND a high school that is based on selective admissions. And that is a sign of how little they care at the Superintendent's office about our only nationally ranked high school (last year it was #198 - to put that in perspective, the W schools in Md I think all made it into the top 100.

We left it up to our child but I was very grateful about the choice the child made because I really was not willing to let my child be part of a 4 year experiment with the absent principal and had already heard about him firing good teachers and barely being stopped from an incredibly stupid proposal to make 11th graders be at the MS - divide up SWW in effect. These are two different schools. Going to Francis Stevens at SWW does not guarantee and may not even provide the education sufficient to pass the test for admission for SWW for all I know. We know two who left BASIS and went to Deal and failed the test and never got in.

I was glad SO that our child opted ultimately for Wilson and to stay another year but it was the fact that the former BASIS students at Walls never once encouraged my child to come, said that it was better, or different in a way that was better that really struck my child. They just said our child would "get used to it." There was not a single thing they said was better than BASIS even though at the time we had our own shitty principal.

So I think the future of SWW is a bit uncertain because Kaya clearly hates them.

because I really was not willing to let my child be part of a 4 year experiment

Wow! You put your child in a new school 4 years ago as an experiment...but yet you claim Walls is too risky.

experimenting in MS paid off - and BASIS is a chain with at least half of all precomps and comps being universal throughout the schools - experimenting for high school is a completely different risk, one I would not take. My child has thrived at BASIS and is math and science oriented so Latin really was not a good fit, but after the spiral model started boring child in 7th, is more than ready to leave when child can take APs at Wilson where as someone else said the "high fliers" do well in terms of college admissions with far less work than BASIS or Walls requires!

Thank you for your touching concern.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can someone please explain the steps to admission in order? Do you in fact have to rank it first of your lottery picks and only if you get picked in the lottery do you test and interview? Thank you so much as it's very confusing.

What's confusing -- and OSSE does a poor job of explaining -- is that lottery schools and selective admission schools are done through the same process, and OSSE calls that process "the lottery" even though only some of the schools do admissions by lottery.

In that process, you rank the schools you are interested in, and you are assigned to the highest-ranked school that you get into. Both lottery and selective admissions schools are ranked together. So if you put Wilson higher than Walls on your ranking and get into Wilson in the lottery, you won't even be considered for Walls.

To get into Walls your child has to take an admissions test. If he scores well on it he will be called back for an interview. If he does well on the interview he will be accepted. As others have noted, the school does not do much to promote itself. You won't be able to do a shadow day or even tour the building until your child has been admitted. The window between when admissions are announced and decisions have to be made is very short, about a month, and they don't always have time to schedule everyone for a shadow day. So you basically have to decide based on the school's reputation.

[Anonymous]

Not every kid who does well on the interview and test are admitted. With the exception of fall 2014 there is always a wait list of kids who didn't get in although they went through the test and interview.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How much does the entrance test count in the final decision vs. the interview?

I think the "interview" should be replaced by lottery number.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How much does the entrance test count in the final decision vs. the interview?

I think the "interview" should be replaced by lottery number.

Totally agree the interview should be dropped. The lottery number could break 'ties' in case dozens kids get exactly the same score on the exam, which probably happens.