Bullying at NCS
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Anonymous
| My daughter started in 4th grade and I was surprised by a mother of a new freshman who said her daughter was applying to transfer out because she was being shunned. My daughter said that the girl was perfectly nice and people liked her- they were just too busy to really reach out. My daughter did reach out and included the new girl in several groups, and they became great friends, and the girl made other friends and stayed until graduation. But the new girl still felt intimidated by the seriousness of the other girls committment to their special interests. People are super busy at that school. You need to make a special effort to help your daughter connect if she is new in 9th grade. |
Anonymous
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Having said that- my daughter was shunned by her 5th grade friends starting in the 6th grade, and it was painful and horrible. I kept asking her if she wanted to leave and she said no. Later the girls all kissed her behi-- when in the 12th grade she got into all ivies. Sickening really!! But, my daughter did have very nice friends there, really nice people. She doesnt have a lot of respect for the nasty girls.
The school did try to instill some proper things in them in 4th grade but not after that. |
Anonymous
I went to a hippie alternative school in the early 1970s and the mean girls were the modern dance clique !! |
Anonymous
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There are many different posters discussing NCS issues. This is a long thread and so I might have posted on it although I do not think I have.
I could have. I contend that for every poster there are many more lurkers who do not feel the need to repeat the same negative experience over and over. There is absolutely a problem with the administration and culture at NCS. The teachers know it, the counselors know it, the students know it and the parents know it. |
Anonymous
| My DD does not go to NCS but is at an expensive private, and I could see some of the stuff happening everywhere. What I see is that unfortunately so many gravitate to the mean girls so they have power. My DD avoids them (for the most part) follows the golden rule and is by no means popular but is self assured with a great group of friends. The ones that are picked on the worst unfortunately are generally the cliqueist parents kids whose kids don't fit the mold. These kids are forced to only choose cliquey mom kids as friends but they are outcasts in that group. If these parents would let their kids have other friends their kids would do better. I feel so bad for these kids and just want to hug them. |
Anonymous
I have no doubt whatsoever that 1) you see some of the stuff happening everywhere; 2) it happens more at NCS than most schools. Not sure most schools even have parent cliques. |
Anonymous
Ah yes, the Chevy Chase mafia. |
Anonymous
| Every school has parent cliques, are you kidding? Even sad little private schools. Luckily, at most sane schools, the parents realize the clique parents (e.g., moms who think bleach blond gotta-be-long-even-if-fake hair, skinny jeans, tons of makeup, bright red nails, boob implants, and high heels are appropriate to any event, including carpool, where it's gotta be a Mercedes, BMW, Range Rover, or Jag) are just sad wanna bes. |
Anonymous
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Hi, I'm the ncs student who wrote a little while ago. I wasn't intending on returning to the site before but thought i'd check in.
First, yeah haha I guess lacrosse players would be popular at other schools? I am not one of the clique that parties and drinks all the time (some details: one smokes, several do drugs, at least one has some 'questionable' piercings. I used to be friends with them, but I'm not interested in any of that). I guess you could say wherever I have been (at camps, on teams, in clubs, in all my jobs, basically anywhere but ncs) I have had a ton of friends and you could say I was one of the more popular girls. However NCS has a really strange social environment, and what makes you popular anywhere else (being kind, outgoing, funny, friendly, as well as the more shallow things like playing lacrosse or field hockey and being pretty, etc.) would help here but certainly not make you 'popular'. It is so much weirder/more complex than that here :p. Second, no I'm not some parent/mom/dad?/any adult who created another account or something to validate certain posts. Yes I put a lot of detail about some things that happen at NCS but let me be clear, I could have written a lot more. I can't help but include detail about something I feel strongly about. Why do I feel strongly about it? Because I have been hurt by this school and so have the majority of people here, and I don't think it's right. So to whoever thought I was fishy or whatever, I assure you I have no agenda besides protecting other girls my age and speaking out however I can (definitely not with my friends or students in general, lol). It is not so much the school itself as the students who are in it, but maybe the school is unintentionally encouraging people to act a certain way, I don't know. I haven't put all that much thought into why the situation is what it is (some thought sure, but besides the competitive environment I'm more or less at a loss honestly) I just have observed what I've observed! Please know I did not exaggerate or make up any events I described, and that not all of these things happened to me. I am only trying to provide a different perspective. Also know that if you have not heard of any bullying, that's because there is little outright, straightforward "bullying"; I wish! It is so much more behind-the-back, subtle things, like when I described people getting kicked out of their cliques; nobody tells them, they never realized there was even a problem. They just eventually figured it out. It's cruel and emotionally devastating. This is not a unique thing; I could (but won't for obvious reasons) name quite a few people and tell you exactly what happened in their situation, but what I said above was true in all of them. And again, it is basically extremely 'weird' if someone actually brought up any of this in conversation in the way I have here. People gossip (ALL the time) and talk about how some girl's friends hate her now because she's so annoying and laughs weird or something, but nobody EVER says 'this is a form of bullying, not "just drama"'. It is always "just drama" here, and a lot of people don't care enough to notice that these people are incredibly hurt, and now they have no friends to get them through the tough situation. Another thing; depression, eating disorders, etc. If we were, say, discussing them in chapel or on diversity day or some assembly, then we all go oh yes they're bad, they're diseases whose victims need help and our prayers go out to them, and we mean it. But it is not unheard of/uncommon for someone to be gossiped about because they're too skinny, and they therefore have anorexia. Not in a "we need to help her" way but in a "lol she's so weird" way. I have an ex-friend who was a skeleton last year for Halloween and decided it would be funny to make a joke, saying "haha I'm katie for halloween". Katie (not her real name) is extremely skinny and has some emotional issues directly related to being kicked out of her friend group in the typical NCS way I described. She probably does have anorexia frankly because she is SO thin and doesn't eat enough, but I don't actually know. All of my ex-friend's friends (who I wasn't friends with; how many times can I say 'friends' in a sentence haha) laughed at it and it wasn't viewed as mean at all. THAT'S messed up. Another girl, who literally has no friends, is in that situation (not wholly but a lot) because she let it be made known that she has depression (from sharing overly personal things with us through english assignments, missing school for weeks and telling people why, not covering up the fact that she goes to the guidance counselor all the time, not covering up her depression in general or trying to look happy, and more) as well as gaining weight and talking in a very high voice. I feel reaalllyy bad for her and if I were her I would have switched schools years ago. OK LONNNGGG reply but I thought I should really make it clear that this isn't a fake post and these are detailed definitely but 100% true. As for identifiers? I don't think NCS administrators are looking at this site. If they are, I am not necessarily in whatever grade I said I was in. I will say I play lacrosse because that seemed to become more important? Anyways just please be aware of NCS for what it is before you send any of your kids here. Oh and grades 4-6 are nothing like this; it starts in middle school and gets worse (sort of sink or swim). Bye! |
Anonymous
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ncs student again etc.:
as for people coming from Beauvoir or not, it really does not make a difference. Most 4th graders did come from Beauvoir but it really doesn't impact the social environment. I put those tweets out there not to comment on "mean girls culture" or indicate the NCS students are the only ones who are tired and stressed, but just to give a "real-life" sample of the fact that NCS students complain about it ALL the time to the point where it's boring and if you do it in conversation (not twitter) people are annoyed with you unless you make it funny or something because it is SOOO overdone in our conversations! Again I won't say NCS is the only school with these problems (like, of course not that would be dumb). I WILL say that NCS has a reputation of not effectively addressing these problems, and of having these problems (of fatigue and general i wanna not do school/life attitude) maybe a bit worse (according to what others tell me only though, I'm an NCS lifer). For the guidance counselors: yes, this behavior from them is tolerated. as far as i know it's encouraged because it NEVER changes at ALL. and no, ncs is not at all working on fixing that. also, ncs generally DOES NOT CARE about us students beyond our academics, that is true. the guidance counselors probably care a little by definition, idk, and i recall a bit of mean-girls-movie-style (kind of) action being taken in seventh grade the one time, but in general the school doesn't do *crap* (word changed  ) about it and i don't see that changing soon.
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Anonymous
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also (same student) I was asked by my mom in middle school a couple times if I wanted to switch out but I thought the other schools in the area weren't as good in both academics and lacrosse/athletics so I always said no and insisted on staying. BIG MISTAKE! If I had a time machine I would tell my 7th grade self to switch to a boarding school and if not that then Visi or Sidwell. just don't stay at ncs, 12-year-old me! haha
and parent cliques: yep. they're hilarious. there are the 'cool' moms who literally act more immature than their daughters. also, it's these girls who have the most access to alchohol and parties, and these girls who were most of the "trouble children" in middle school. My mom loves to secretly be super amused by these moms (secretly meaning she is friendly and doesn't laugh at their uggs to their faces). A NOTE TO MOMS: Please don't wear uggs. Just don't. Please. and the leggings-northface-uggs look is for middle school kids. I just wanna help out by being honest (also, please don't act like you're in highschool and have to be one of the clique of moms that's "cool"/has a lot of the "party" daughters. it's funny and not in a good way) Not bashing certain NCS students and their moms are perfectly nice, but way too obsessed with the things even I got over in middle school. On a lighter note that twitter thing (poster, as some were calling it?) was legitimately exactly what was on my feed. I didn't make up any of it or get it from other sources, and I didn't omit ANY posts, even totally irrelevant ones. Just saying, because I feel like a couple people were wondering whether it was real <3 |
Anonymous
| oh and (student again, i want a user name or something...) what is DD?? jw |
Anonymous
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OH and people aren't made fun of (behind their backs of course) for complaining. literally every student complains about that stuff, if anything it's just common ground (though I wouldn't go so far as to say it really unified us too much within grades). people are made fun of/gossiped about/JUDGED (judgement is EVERRYYWHHEERREEEE oh my god) for other things/anything else. the twitter thing was not at all supposed to be about mean people, it was just a humorous confirmation of part of NCS' reputation.
also I have to say I'm surprised at how many people commented on the whole twitter thing? it was just intended to be somewhat funny, not controversial or deep or anything |
Anonymous
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(still the student I'm replying to everyone)
yeah I'm not a person who's weird and is trying to be someone i'm not to fit in? one poster was kind of implying that. I dress in the clothes I like, I play my sport because I love it, I do the activities I do because I enjoy them, I try to be my friendly, outgoing frank self 100% of the time. i'm generally well-liked and i'm not known for having a weird sense of style or anything like that, but honestly i wouldn't gaf if i did! NCS isn't a place where people HAVE to fit a cookie-cutter mold. Yes you will stick out in a bad way if you decide to randomly come to school wearing rainbow plaid harem pants and yes there are certain things that are designated 'uncool' (examples: anime club, sitting in a certain lounge, rock climbing) but no one feels like they have to completely change who they are. that's just not a thing here. and yep ncs students are totally nice to people outside the school, always! and we're nice in a first-glance-i-met-you-once kind of way, but just because someone is nice enough to someone 'weird' so that the first girl isn't seen as a bitch, doesn't mean those two would ever be friends. more often than not girl A will talk about girl B and treat her weirdly like everyone else who is "above"her social standing. I've done this. Not proud of it, but I've done it  but more recently I really try to get around doing that.
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Anonymous
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maybe i read too many of those replies but can i just say i have self esteem i am very confident and i personally am not bullied. yeah i have some issues kinda definitely caused by ncs, but i figured out dealing with them myself ages ago (kind of had to, NCS is unhelpful). i do see others much worse off though, and i have been worse off in the past. i'm not trying to be like hey i'm a sad ncs student cautionary tale haha
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