School Without Walls High School- Pros and Cons and Social Atmosphere?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a little concerned to hear about so-called bad teachers at SWW. I realize that every school can have not so good teachers here and there, but currently I would say all of my kid's teachers have been either great or good for the past 4 years. We really had no complaints about the teachers and I did meet with every teacher multiple times and kept on top of what the assignments and course work was.

I would really appreciate any info about what these bad teachers are like without naming names or subjects taught. When I hear bad teacher I think of a teacher who is not knowledgeable in the subject matter or who is unfair or boring or who repeatedly gives wrong information. Is this what several posters are referring too? Also, it would help to hear about the not bad teachers but not so good teachers too. I would also be interested in hearing about how many of these teachers your child has had each year.

Are you a Walls parents?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a little concerned to hear about so-called bad teachers at SWW. I realize that every school can have not so good teachers here and there, but currently I would say all of my kid's teachers have been either great or good for the past 4 years. We really had no complaints about the teachers and I did meet with every teacher multiple times and kept on top of what the assignments and course work was.

I would really appreciate any info about what these bad teachers are like without naming names or subjects taught. When I hear bad teacher I think of a teacher who is not knowledgeable in the subject matter or who is unfair or boring or who repeatedly gives wrong information. Is this what several posters are referring too? Also, it would help to hear about the not bad teachers but not so good teachers too. I would also be interested in hearing about how many of these teachers your child has had each year.

Are you a Walls parents?

No, I am possibly interested in sending my DC there and I am concerned to here that there a bad teachers in the plural Even in my own schooling, I recall only one "bad" teacher and a couple of acceptable but not really good teachers in high school.

[Anonymous]

Current SWW parent here. The teacher quality is VERY uneven -- much more so than the highly-regarded DCPS middle school we came from. Expect 2-4 lousy teachers per year, depending on your luck. The freshmen teachers are particularly weak. By lousy, I mean things like not giving a student a single grade for any test, project, or assignment over the entire course of a quarter. That particular teacher had done that for years, and was apparently untouchable because of his connections to Central. A math teacher refused to answer questions in class and bullied students. Another teacher played obvious favorites. Things have gotten better, but ask around and go in with your eyes open. We had not heard about any of this from current parents before we started.

That said, there are some good-to-great teachers also, and the students are lovely. But be prepared to supplement with tutoring to compensate for lackluster classroom performance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Current SWW parent here. The teacher quality is VERY uneven -- much more so than the highly-regarded DCPS middle school we came from. Expect 2-4 lousy teachers per year, depending on your luck. The freshmen teachers are particularly weak. By lousy, I mean things like not giving a student a single grade for any test, project, or assignment over the entire course of a quarter. That particular teacher had done that for years, and was apparently untouchable because of his connections to Central. A math teacher refused to answer questions in class and bullied students. Another teacher played obvious favorites. Things have gotten better, but ask around and go in with your eyes open. We had not heard about any of this from current parents before we started.

That said, there are some good-to-great teachers also, and the students are lovely. But be prepared to supplement with tutoring to compensate for lackluster classroom performance.

How do you work around this? Is that half the the teachers for freshman students?
How many subjects per year? Would you stick with it? How is your student doing? Are you happy overall?

[Anonymous]

We were a Deal family choosing between Wilson, Walls and private. Basically everyone said that the quality of teaching isn't terribly different between Walls and Wilson (i.e. some great, some meh, some horrible). It is the student body that makes the difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We were a Deal family choosing between Wilson, Walls and private. Basically everyone said that the quality of teaching isn't terribly different between Walls and Wilson (i.e. some great, some meh, some horrible). It is the student body that makes the difference.

Yes, but more than one horrible teacher is way too much let alone one horrible teacher. The school is small enough that more than one horrible teacher means that a student would likely have several horrible teachers which is not good at all. What subjects are the horrible and meh teachers teaching? Core subjects like math and english and science and history?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Current SWW parent here. The teacher quality is VERY uneven -- much more so than the highly-regarded DCPS middle school we came from. Expect 2-4 lousy teachers per year, depending on your luck. The freshmen teachers are particularly weak. By lousy, I mean things like not giving a student a single grade for any test, project, or assignment over the entire course of a quarter. That particular teacher had done that for years, and was apparently untouchable because of his connections to Central. A math teacher refused to answer questions in class and bullied students. Another teacher played obvious favorites. Things have gotten better, but ask around and go in with your eyes open. We had not heard about any of this from current parents before we started.

That said, there are some good-to-great teachers also, and the students are lovely. But be prepared to supplement with tutoring to compensate for lackluster classroom performance.

How do you work around this? Is that half the the teachers for freshman students?
How many subjects per year? Would you stick with it? How is your student doing? Are you happy overall?

Yes, it was pretty much half the teachers freshmen year. It was pretty awful. I think we were particularly unlucky with scheduling, but it's a possibility that this could happen to you. DC studied hard, tried to keep his/her head down, and we hired a math tutor (although not nearly as soon as we should have). Sophomore year, there are only a couple of teachers that aren't good, but none that are as bad as the bad ones freshman year. This year the math teacher is good (so no need for tutoring) but the chemistry teacher is not (so we pay for chemistry tutoring).

DC likes school, for the most part, and very much likes friends/social environment. We would probably make the same choice again -- DC really did not want to go to the Big 3 we were looking at as an alternative, and Wilson seems to be its own set of problems -- but we would have had our eyes open. We heard nothing but rainbows and flowers when we were considering it, from people who later expressed all sorts of complaints. And we would have hired tutors at the first sign of a problem, rather than trying to push child to try to get more help from ineffective teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Current SWW parent here. The teacher quality is VERY uneven -- much more so than the highly-regarded DCPS middle school we came from. Expect 2-4 lousy teachers per year, depending on your luck. The freshmen teachers are particularly weak. By lousy, I mean things like not giving a student a single grade for any test, project, or assignment over the entire course of a quarter. That particular teacher had done that for years, and was apparently untouchable because of his connections to Central. A math teacher refused to answer questions in class and bullied students. Another teacher played obvious favorites. Things have gotten better, but ask around and go in with your eyes open. We had not heard about any of this from current parents before we started.

That said, there are some good-to-great teachers also, and the students are lovely. But be prepared to supplement with tutoring to compensate for lackluster classroom performance.

2-4 lousy teachers per year is quite a lot. I never had more than one lousy teacher in multiple years of high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Current SWW parent here. The teacher quality is VERY uneven -- much more so than the highly-regarded DCPS middle school we came from. Expect 2-4 lousy teachers per year, depending on your luck. The freshmen teachers are particularly weak. By lousy, I mean things like not giving a student a single grade for any test, project, or assignment over the entire course of a quarter. That particular teacher had done that for years, and was apparently untouchable because of his connections to Central. A math teacher refused to answer questions in class and bullied students. Another teacher played obvious favorites. Things have gotten better, but ask around and go in with your eyes open. We had not heard about any of this from current parents before we started.

That said, there are some good-to-great teachers also, and the students are lovely. But be prepared to supplement with tutoring to compensate for lackluster classroom performance.

2-4 lousy teachers per year is quite a lot. I never had more than one lousy teacher in multiple years of high school.

I don't mean this snarkily but are you new to DCPS? There is a pattern of very uneven secondary teaching at even the best DCPS schools.

[Anonymous]

I think the hardest part about the poor teachers there is that they are longstanding and well know and seem supported by the administration. As a long time Dcps parent I've certainly had poor teachers but agree with Some earlier posters that depending on the year and schedule, your DC could have poor teachers in most of their core subjects. That was our experience some years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Current SWW parent here. The teacher quality is VERY uneven -- much more so than the highly-regarded DCPS middle school we came from. Expect 2-4 lousy teachers per year, depending on your luck. The freshmen teachers are particularly weak. By lousy, I mean things like not giving a student a single grade for any test, project, or assignment over the entire course of a quarter. That particular teacher had done that for years, and was apparently untouchable because of his connections to Central. A math teacher refused to answer questions in class and bullied students. Another teacher played obvious favorites. Things have gotten better, but ask around and go in with your eyes open. We had not heard about any of this from current parents before we started.

That said, there are some good-to-great teachers also, and the students are lovely. But be prepared to supplement with tutoring to compensate for lackluster classroom performance.

2-4 lousy teachers per year is quite a lot. I never had more than one lousy teacher in multiple years of high school.

I don't mean this snarkily but are you new to DCPS? There is a pattern of very uneven secondary teaching at even the best DCPS schools.

Walls has problems but it's the best option unless you go private or move to the burbs. Does anyone have suggestions for making it better?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Current SWW parent here. The teacher quality is VERY uneven -- much more so than the highly-regarded DCPS middle school we came from. Expect 2-4 lousy teachers per year, depending on your luck. The freshmen teachers are particularly weak. By lousy, I mean things like not giving a student a single grade for any test, project, or assignment over the entire course of a quarter. That particular teacher had done that for years, and was apparently untouchable because of his connections to Central. A math teacher refused to answer questions in class and bullied students. Another teacher played obvious favorites. Things have gotten better, but ask around and go in with your eyes open. We had not heard about any of this from current parents before we started.

That said, there are some good-to-great teachers also, and the students are lovely. But be prepared to supplement with tutoring to compensate for lackluster classroom performance.

2-4 lousy teachers per year is quite a lot. I never had more than one lousy teacher in multiple years of high school.

I don't mean this snarkily but are you new to DCPS? There is a pattern of very uneven secondary teaching at even the best DCPS schools.

Walls has problems but it's the best option unless you go private or move to the burbs. Does anyone have suggestions for making it better?

Early retirement packages?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Current SWW parent here. The teacher quality is VERY uneven -- much more so than the highly-regarded DCPS middle school we came from. Expect 2-4 lousy teachers per year, depending on your luck. The freshmen teachers are particularly weak. By lousy, I mean things like not giving a student a single grade for any test, project, or assignment over the entire course of a quarter. That particular teacher had done that for years, and was apparently untouchable because of his connections to Central. A math teacher refused to answer questions in class and bullied students. Another teacher played obvious favorites. Things have gotten better, but ask around and go in with your eyes open. We had not heard about any of this from current parents before we started.

That said, there are some good-to-great teachers also, and the students are lovely. But be prepared to supplement with tutoring to compensate for lackluster classroom performance.

2-4 lousy teachers per year is quite a lot. I never had more than one lousy teacher in multiple years of high school.

I don't mean this snarkily but are you new to DCPS? There is a pattern of very uneven secondary teaching at even the best DCPS schools.

Walls has problems but it's the best option unless you go private or move to the burbs. Does anyone have suggestions for making it better?

Curious why you think that. DD took the test and will interview, but likely would turn down walls in favor of Wilson for sports, social and academic reasons. The people we know with kids at Wilson are really happy, and I honestly can't see any reason at all to suggest she go to Walls --- especially given what I've seen of the principal and what I've heard about the teaching.

Why do you think Walls is best for your kid?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Current SWW parent here. The teacher quality is VERY uneven -- much more so than the highly-regarded DCPS middle school we came from. Expect 2-4 lousy teachers per year, depending on your luck. The freshmen teachers are particularly weak. By lousy, I mean things like not giving a student a single grade for any test, project, or assignment over the entire course of a quarter. That particular teacher had done that for years, and was apparently untouchable because of his connections to Central. A math teacher refused to answer questions in class and bullied students. Another teacher played obvious favorites. Things have gotten better, but ask around and go in with your eyes open. We had not heard about any of this from current parents before we started.

That said, there are some good-to-great teachers also, and the students are lovely. But be prepared to supplement with tutoring to compensate for lackluster classroom performance.

2-4 lousy teachers per year is quite a lot. I never had more than one lousy teacher in multiple years of high school.

I don't mean this snarkily but are you new to DCPS? There is a pattern of very uneven secondary teaching at even the best DCPS schools.

Walls has problems but it's the best option unless you go private or move to the burbs. Does anyone have suggestions for making it better?

Curious why you think that. DD took the test and will interview, but likely would turn down walls in favor of Wilson for sports, social and academic reasons. The people we know with kids at Wilson are really happy, and I honestly can't see any reason at all to suggest she go to Walls --- especially given what I've seen of the principal and what I've heard about the teaching.

Why do you think Walls is best for your kid?

NP - Not everyone can go to Wilson / lives within the boundary.

[Anonymous]

Wilson has its own set of problems -- including some not so great teachers and teachers that seem exhausted.