Good schools EoTP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you’re not committed to staying where you are, why bother with BASIS? Bethesda area middle and high schools offer a much better rounded education with experienced, grown up admins in charge.

+1

Basis has a high teacher turnover and admin turnover.

False.

27% of faculty and staff left in 2020. The data is not out yet for this year but from my personal knowledge there will be lots of new faces at the Hs level.

Wrong.

For the last 2 years turnover has been significantly less than DCPS average.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you’re not committed to staying where you are, why bother with BASIS? Bethesda area middle and high schools offer a much better rounded education with experienced, grown up admins in charge.

+1

Basis has a high teacher turnover and admin turnover.

BASIS also has hopeless facilities, no gym, outdoor space, sports facilities, stage, music program, not much natural light. Students can't even study a language until 8th grade. Bethesda. Language instruction starts in 4th or 5th grade in MoCo and the math is just as advanced. Science teaching may be better at BASIS, but that's about it.

Wrong.

. This Basis parent says correct. If I could persuade my spouse to move to MoCo and we could afford a good house in Bethesda, I’d go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To answer questions on the prior page, the PP is lying about attending PTO meetings in 2014 because she wants to claim that "anyone" could have predicted that Maury would become a sought after elementary back then and could have done what she did before buying IB for Maury. She wants to take credit for her kid attending a great elementary that 10 years, people did not think was that great. She rejects the idea that, to some degree, your school choices on the Hill depend on the luck of timing.

I don't know why people are so determined to convince themselves of this. I guess so they can judge friends and neighbors and random people on the internet? Maybe people don't want to admit the degree to which life is sometimes just a game of chance. The refusal to recognize one's one good fortune, and to attribute all of the good things in your life to your own choices, is common. It is also, generally, wrong.

That's why the PP is digging in so hard on her story, which is almost certainly greatly embellished. We also bought a home on the Hill in 2014, and my recollection is that inventory was painfully low and houses sold incredibly quickly unless you were paying cash. We made a list of acceptable IB schools and looked at houses for all of them. They included Maury, Brent, L-T, the Cluster, and a couple others... I can't remember as it was a while ago. We bought the best house that we could find and get our offer accepted. We didn't yet have kids and we both have demanding jobs, so the idea of attending multiple PTO meetings for schools we weren't even sure we'd attend (one thing we like about the Hill is that there are also quite a few charter options that are a reasonable commute, and we actually wound up at TR anyway despite being IB for L-T) was not even on our radar.

We were lucky to be able to afford to buy, we were lucky that the IB school continued on a good trajectory after we bought, we were lucky to get a lottery spot at a school we really like, etc. We aren't geniuses. We have friends who were not lucky in these ways and we don't think we are better than them. We think it's a huge bummer that education in DC often depends so much on privilege and luck.

DP. Omg let it go! What’s underlying all this? We bought IB for Maury in 2012 and it was clear then it was a solid choice. Not sure why you have such a bee in your bonnet about how that PP went about researching schools. Going to the PTO meetings is actually a really good idea that I’m going to do for MS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you’re not committed to staying where you are, why bother with BASIS? Bethesda area middle and high schools offer a much better rounded education with experienced, grown up admins in charge.

+1

Basis has a high teacher turnover and admin turnover.

BASIS also has hopeless facilities, no gym, outdoor space, sports facilities, stage, music program, not much natural light. Students can't even study a language until 8th grade. Bethesda. Language instruction starts in 4th or 5th grade in MoCo and the math is just as advanced. Science teaching may be better at BASIS, but that's about it.

Wrong.

. This Basis parent says correct. If I could persuade my spouse to move to MoCo and we could afford a good house in Bethesda, I’d go.

Bye bye.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting but is that good or bad? I would have thought that SH would be more popular than that by now.

I think a lot of the people who want to attend already live IB or attend a feeder, so there aren't that many people trying to waitlist in.

It’s also too late. We’ll be making the decision to stay or sell in April after lottery results come out if not sooner. We can’t wait until July to see what happens with the waitlist.

Don’t the charters start in 5th? Why would you leave immediately in April and not attend your current elementary school for 5th?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you’re not committed to staying where you are, why bother with BASIS? Bethesda area middle and high schools offer a much better rounded education with experienced, grown up admins in charge.

+1

Basis has a high teacher turnover and admin turnover.

BASIS also has hopeless facilities, no gym, outdoor space, sports facilities, stage, music program, not much natural light. Students can't even study a language until 8th grade. Bethesda. Language instruction starts in 4th or 5th grade in MoCo and the math is just as advanced. Science teaching may be better at BASIS, but that's about it.

Wrong.

. This Basis parent says correct. If I could persuade my spouse to move to MoCo and we could afford a good house in Bethesda, I’d go.

Bye bye.

This is why our by-right ms and ms options in the public school system EotP remain subpar. The myopic--voters, politicians and ed leaders--vindictively cheer the departure of the very parents that the District should be fighting to keep in our public schools. As long as parents have to vote with their feet to MC or VA to find a high-performing ms with good facilities, academics AND enrichment programs, we get nowhere. Where is the DC public ms with a serious orchestra? Where is the partial immersion ms language program that comes with advanced humanities classes that feeds into a high-performing International Baccalaureate Diploma program? Where is the public hs offering math, humanities and language past AP level? There is none in every case.

We turned down our spot at DCI's ms for a private because their humanities and science classes seemed lame, their IBD program didn't seem very good, and the commute seemed brutal (more than 2 hours round trip by public transportation for a preteen coming from our neighborhood). DCI was our only ms option other than Eliot-Hine, which is a non-starter (whatever the small group of well-intentioned Maury families there might claim).

[Anonymous]

This. Want a first rate public school? Don’t look in DC past elementary in upper nw.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you’re not committed to staying where you are, why bother with BASIS? Bethesda area middle and high schools offer a much better rounded education with experienced, grown up admins in charge.

+1

Basis has a high teacher turnover and admin turnover.

False.

27% of faculty and staff left in 2020. The data is not out yet for this year but from my personal knowledge there will be lots of new faces at the Hs level.

Wrong.

For the last 2 years turnover has been significantly less than DCPS average.

Who cares what the DCPS turnover rate is? Basis boosters are always touting what a great school it is so compare it to other well regarded schools. If you want me to compare Basis to Ballou then yes the turnover is lower. You just don’t want to admit that teachers do not like teaching at Basis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To answer questions on the prior page, the PP is lying about attending PTO meetings in 2014 because she wants to claim that "anyone" could have predicted that Maury would become a sought after elementary back then and could have done what she did before buying IB for Maury. She wants to take credit for her kid attending a great elementary that 10 years, people did not think was that great. She rejects the idea that, to some degree, your school choices on the Hill depend on the luck of timing.

I don't know why people are so determined to convince themselves of this. I guess so they can judge friends and neighbors and random people on the internet? Maybe people don't want to admit the degree to which life is sometimes just a game of chance. The refusal to recognize one's one good fortune, and to attribute all of the good things in your life to your own choices, is common. It is also, generally, wrong.

That's why the PP is digging in so hard on her story, which is almost certainly greatly embellished. We also bought a home on the Hill in 2014, and my recollection is that inventory was painfully low and houses sold incredibly quickly unless you were paying cash. We made a list of acceptable IB schools and looked at houses for all of them. They included Maury, Brent, L-T, the Cluster, and a couple others... I can't remember as it was a while ago. We bought the best house that we could find and get our offer accepted. We didn't yet have kids and we both have demanding jobs, so the idea of attending multiple PTO meetings for schools we weren't even sure we'd attend (one thing we like about the Hill is that there are also quite a few charter options that are a reasonable commute, and we actually wound up at TR anyway despite being IB for L-T) was not even on our radar.

We were lucky to be able to afford to buy, we were lucky that the IB school continued on a good trajectory after we bought, we were lucky to get a lottery spot at a school we really like, etc. We aren't geniuses. We have friends who were not lucky in these ways and we don't think we are better than them. We think it's a huge bummer that education in DC often depends so much on privilege and luck.

DP. Omg let it go! What’s underlying all this? We bought IB for Maury in 2012 and it was clear then it was a solid choice. Not sure why you have such a bee in your bonnet about how that PP went about researching schools. Going to the PTO meetings is actually a really good idea that I’m going to do for MS.

I never said it wasn't a solid choice. I just don't believe PP that she did this and I get annoyed when people on these boards act like navigating schools in DC is easy if you just do what they did, when often they just had some good fortune and good timing. PP is lying about going to PTO meetings or she is lying about how useful they were -- one or the other. I've been to enough PTO meetings to find her story incredibly suspect.

You can go to PTO meetings for MS if you want, but since which MS you attend is based entirely on luck in the lottery or where you are IB (or where you are already attending elementary) it's irrelevant. But I guess I look forward to you coming to these boards in a few years after your kid lucks into Latin or you move IB for Deal, to explain condescendingly to others that if they'd just put the legwork in, they'd be in the same advantageous situation as you.

Money and luck, folks.

[Anonymous]

Money and sheer dumb luck just isn't the whole story.

When we researched CH elementary schools back in 2013 (no PTO meeting observation involved), it wasn't difficult to read trends. Brent's star was rising, Maury's star was rising (maybe 3-4 years behind Brent), but Watkins' star was falling. Families IB for Watkins were running to YuYing, Inspired Teaching, Tyler Spanish, LAMB, Brent, Maury etc.

It also wasn't difficult to tell that Ludlow's IB parents weren't on the same page as Principal Cobbs. Her polarizing leadership was pushing the IB percentage down. If I recall, SWS was on track to lose its boundary.

We bought a fixer house IB for Brent for what we could just as easily have spent in a different Hill district.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you’re not committed to staying where you are, why bother with BASIS? Bethesda area middle and high schools offer a much better rounded education with experienced, grown up admins in charge.

+1

Basis has a high teacher turnover and admin turnover.

False.

27% of faculty and staff left in 2020. The data is not out yet for this year but from my personal knowledge there will be lots of new faces at the Hs level.

Wrong.

For the last 2 years turnover has been significantly less than DCPS average.

Who cares what the DCPS turnover rate is? Basis boosters are always touting what a great school it is so compare it to other well regarded schools. If you want me to compare Basis to Ballou then yes the turnover is lower. You just don’t want to admit that teachers do not like teaching at Basis.

Pure gaslighting.

Retention is fine and most teachers are happy.

Since when do you speak for all Basis teachers?

[Anonymous]

Since when do you speak for most?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This. Want a first rate public school? Don’t look in DC past elementary in upper nw.

I don’t think people consider Mt Pleasant and Shepherd park upper NW. There are other options outside of the Hill. Can CH folks start another thread already? There is some promise with Wells that many Ward 4 families have as an option.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This. Want a first rate public school? Don’t look in DC past elementary in upper nw.

I don’t think people consider Mt Pleasant and Shepherd park upper NW. There are other options outside of the Hill. Can CH folks start another thread already? There is some promise with Wells that many Ward 4 families have as an option.

I mean, it would be weird for CH folks to start their own thread when this one is about good schools EOTP, of which the Hill has many.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Money and sheer dumb luck just isn't the whole story.

When we researched CH elementary schools back in 2013 (no PTO meeting observation involved), it wasn't difficult to read trends. Brent's star was rising, Maury's star was rising (maybe 3-4 years behind Brent), but Watkins' star was falling. Families IB for Watkins were running to YuYing, Inspired Teaching, Tyler Spanish, LAMB, Brent, Maury etc.

It also wasn't difficult to tell that Ludlow's IB parents weren't on the same page as Principal Cobbs. Her polarizing leadership was pushing the IB percentage down. If I recall, SWS was on track to lose its boundary.

We bought a fixer house IB for Brent for what we could just as easily have spent in a different Hill district.

What did you pay, pray tell?