NCS and St. Albans misconduct

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes thank you. Neither the NCS middle school head nor the STA admin were interested even when we suggested that the boys were committing criminal acts and should at least be informed that it was not at all a joke to be doing that.
No axe to grind here. Just wanted my child to be able to attend a middle school dance without coarse behavior.

Having met the STA Lower School Head, I highly question (a) the veracity of the account; and (b) that if the alleged (disgusting and harrassing) acts did occur, that he was notified. The Lower School is not slow to take disciplinary action from what I have seen. Thus has the air of an apocryphal story or at a minimum of wild exaggeration. The poster writing about it has the same style/diction of a poster who got an NCS thread shut down after the mods concluded the thread had been taken over by a single individual with a "vendetta" (moderators' word). Any time people try to have a substantive, reasoned discussion about these particular schools (and some real issues) she throws bombs in and makes reasoned discussion impossible. I can accept that this sounds paranoid but her to e, spelling/grammar, and writing style are actually pretty distinctive.

I am not sure who posted this but my husband and I reported this to one of the StA deans who we knew on a personal basis and he said no action was warranted . It occurred at a Middle School NCS dance so we did not speak with the StA lower school head. We have no vendetta. We are reporting something that happened.

This happened to my daughter as well. She came home and cried. I did not report it. She was too embarassed.

I also think the person raising the sibling issues has a point. However, these kids are not siblings and some of them barely know the boys. They are not misbehaving under the watcgful eyes of Mom and Dad and they do not have a close loving relationship with those in authority. So while some of this behavior may fall into realm of normal amongst families, it should be treated very harshly at school to discourage it from becoming normalized behavior. This is really about the way the adults address the issue not vistimizing or villianizing the young men and women involved. And both schools seem to have done a poor job.

[Anonymous]

STA parents: can you post some information describing the number of assemblies per year your child goes to about this topic? What is the school doing to address this problem and what do you think they can do differently or in addition to what they have done in the past?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes thank you. Neither the NCS middle school head nor the STA admin were interested even when we suggested that the boys were committing criminal acts and should at least be informed that it was not at all a joke to be doing that.
No axe to grind here. Just wanted my child to be able to attend a middle school dance without coarse behavior.

Having met the STA Lower School Head, I highly question (a) the veracity of the account; and (b) that if the alleged (disgusting and harrassing) acts did occur, that he was notified. The Lower School is not slow to take disciplinary action from what I have seen. Thus has the air of an apocryphal story or at a minimum of wild exaggeration. The poster writing about it has the same style/diction of a poster who got an NCS thread shut down after the mods concluded the thread had been taken over by a single individual with a "vendetta" (moderators' word). Any time people try to have a substantive, reasoned discussion about these particular schools (and some real issues) she throws bombs in and makes reasoned discussion impossible. I can accept that this sounds paranoid but her to e, spelling/grammar, and writing style are actually pretty distinctive.

I posted some negative posts about NCS in that other thread , for good treason, and it's possible my oats are the reason it was shut down but I didn't post this one. I have no knowledge of this issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a former NCS student, and when I was in Upper School, we had to go to several talks about how to avoid sexual assault (the gist of which was always to stay in a group, not get drunk, not look too slutty). These talks often involved graphic discussions of case studies where girls had had their drinks spiked and been date raped. We had workshops on consent too, condescending as they may have been. The STA boys never had to do anything like this. We asked the counselors and the administration several times whether the boys could be included--we though it would be beneficial for them to actually learn something about what girls have to deal with. The response was always, "We have no control over the STA curriculum; just be patient and maybe they'll change someday." It sounds to me like the current sophomores are tired of being patient. Obviously they want accountability for sexism they've already borne the brunt of, but what girls in my grade wanted more than anything else, and what I would assume these girls probably want too, is for STA to take charge of making sure its students know what's acceptable and what isn't. The STA administration turned a blind eye then, NCS always claimed it was powerless, and by refusing to investigate the claims and forcing the girls to shut down the google doc, the NCS administration is denying its students the ability to take matters into their own hands now.

I appreciate your first-hand experiences, but I don't think that you yourself appreciate the issues with creating a quasi-public document in which students might be writing down very private interactions about other students, for example. Clearly the Google Document did not in fact stay private. Most adults would I think agree with the advice to the girls to take the Google Document offline. It does not sound like they are "refusing to investigate the claims," either. Both schools, STA and NCS, are also constrained by students' anonymity. For example, STA cannot investigate specific behavior if students have not been specifically named (although they can and should work on changing attitudes and educating and guiding all of its students as a whole).

And I can absolutely imagine a young woman might be willing to share an account of an upsetting/wrongful/inappropriate interaction but not want to go public by naming the boy(s) or identifying herself. Having a specific claim investigated/acted on is much more significant in terms of time and mental stress and generating controversy that focuses on you yourself than talking about something anonymously. I hope girls are encouraged and supported to come forward if they would like, but I do understand if they do not want to and I can imagine that it could be harmful if the school went into investigative mode and tried to force specific girls to identify themselves as the authors of specific accounts and to identify specific boys. Putting myself in the girls' shoes and thinking as a teenager, it also might be hard for me to come forward if it means telling my parents that I was drinking, for example.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes thank you. Neither the NCS middle school head nor the STA admin were interested even when we suggested that the boys were committing criminal acts and should at least be informed that it was not at all a joke to be doing that.
No axe to grind here. Just wanted my child to be able to attend a middle school dance without coarse behavior.

Having met the STA Lower School Head, I highly question (a) the veracity of the account; and (b) that if the alleged (disgusting and harrassing) acts did occur, that he was notified. The Lower School is not slow to take disciplinary action from what I have seen. Thus has the air of an apocryphal story or at a minimum of wild exaggeration. The poster writing about it has the same style/diction of a poster who got an NCS thread shut down after the mods concluded the thread had been taken over by a single individual with a "vendetta" (moderators' word). Any time people try to have a substantive, reasoned discussion about these particular schools (and some real issues) she throws bombs in and makes reasoned discussion impossible. I can accept that this sounds paranoid but her to e, spelling/grammar, and writing style are actually pretty distinctive.

I am not sure who posted this but my husband and I reported this to one of the StA deans who we knew on a personal basis and he said no action was warranted . It occurred at a Middle School NCS dance so we did not speak with the StA lower school head. We have no vendetta. We are reporting something that happened.

Then I would suggest that rather than reporting this anonymously on a forum you get in touch directly with the Lower School Head at St. Albans. He is in charge of grades 4-8 so that corresponds to "Middle School." If the boys are acting this horribly at dances hosted by another school he would still want to get this stopped. I understand that people perhaps don't want to get involved or have their own child's name brought into this but if people don't contact St. Albans directly it is hard to say they are turning a blind eye.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes thank you. Neither the NCS middle school head nor the STA admin were interested even when we suggested that the boys were committing criminal acts and should at least be informed that it was not at all a joke to be doing that.
No axe to grind here. Just wanted my child to be able to attend a middle school dance without coarse behavior.

Having met the STA Lower School Head, I highly question (a) the veracity of the account; and (b) that if the alleged (disgusting and harrassing) acts did occur, that he was notified. The Lower School is not slow to take disciplinary action from what I have seen. Thus has the air of an apocryphal story or at a minimum of wild exaggeration. The poster writing about it has the same style/diction of a poster who got an NCS thread shut down after the mods concluded the thread had been taken over by a single individual with a "vendetta" (moderators' word). Any time people try to have a substantive, reasoned discussion about these particular schools (and some real issues) she throws bombs in and makes reasoned discussion impossible. I can accept that this sounds paranoid but her to e, spelling/grammar, and writing style are actually pretty distinctive.

I am not sure who posted this but my husband and I reported this to one of the StA deans who we knew on a personal basis and he said no action was warranted . It occurred at a Middle School NCS dance so we did not speak with the StA lower school head. We have no vendetta. We are reporting something that happened.

Then I would suggest that rather than reporting this anonymously on a forum you get in touch directly with the Lower School Head at St. Albans. He is in charge of grades 4-8 so that corresponds to "Middle School." If the boys are acting this horribly at dances hosted by another school he would still want to get this stopped. I understand that people perhaps don't want to get involved or have their own child's name brought into this but if people don't contact St. Albans directly it is hard to say they are turning a blind eye.

Different poster. There are two people in this string saying they ALREADY DID report the problem to STA admin. See underlined. But it sounds like STA admin brushed them both off. I'm not sure why you'd put the burden on these parents to track down yet another STA admin who might listen to their story. If my daughter had faced this abuse, I'd be pissed too. I don't blame them for complaining here after STA refused to listen. Isn't an opportunity to air grievances one of the more beneficial, non-gossipy functions DCUM provides?

[Anonymous]

13:19 Are you suggesting that parents of girls go straight to St albans with complaints? Do you really feel the NCS administration would be supportive of that?

[Anonymous]

Do you think she is interested? Might as well go straight to STA.

[Anonymous]

Sarah Pelmas has in the past directed NCS parents to take complaints to StAlbans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Your little daughter knows what going on at a middle school dance. All of these girls have a smart phone and access to the internet - stop pretending your daughter has never grinded with a boy at a dance . This style of dancing has been present for 20 plus years.

This is not a school problem

I am assuming this is a reference to the number of boys who view sexual content on their phones. The poster is assuming that girls do also. This is an important topic for the schools and the parents to consider. How much is viewing violent pornography influencing their behavior ?

[Anonymous]

This thread has made ncs and sta parents look line a bunch of uber protective parents . Shit like this happens everywhere.

Welcome to the real world! Get out of Cleveland Park !

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes thank you. Neither the NCS middle school head nor the STA admin were interested even when we suggested that the boys were committing criminal acts and should at least be informed that it was not at all a joke to be doing that.
No axe to grind here. Just wanted my child to be able to attend a middle school dance without coarse behavior.

Having met the STA Lower School Head, I highly question (a) the veracity of the account; and (b) that if the alleged (disgusting and harrassing) acts did occur, that he was notified. The Lower School is not slow to take disciplinary action from what I have seen. Thus has the air of an apocryphal story or at a minimum of wild exaggeration. The poster writing about it has the same style/diction of a poster who got an NCS thread shut down after the mods concluded the thread had been taken over by a single individual with a "vendetta" (moderators' word). Any time people try to have a substantive, reasoned discussion about these particular schools (and some real issues) she throws bombs in and makes reasoned discussion impossible. I can accept that this sounds paranoid but her to e, spelling/grammar, and writing style are actually pretty distinctive.

I am not sure who posted this but my husband and I reported this to one of the StA deans who we knew on a personal basis and he said no action was warranted . It occurred at a Middle School NCS dance so we did not speak with the StA lower school head. We have no vendetta. We are reporting something that happened.

Then I would suggest that rather than reporting this anonymously on a forum you get in touch directly with the Lower School Head at St. Albans. He is in charge of grades 4-8 so that corresponds to "Middle School." If the boys are acting this horribly at dances hosted by another school he would still want to get this stopped. I understand that people perhaps don't want to get involved or have their own child's name brought into this but if people don't contact St. Albans directly it is hard to say they are turning a blind eye.

Different poster. There are two people in this string saying they ALREADY DID report the problem to STA admin. See underlined. But it sounds like STA admin brushed them both off. I'm not sure why you'd put the burden on these parents to track down yet another STA admin who might listen to their story. If my daughter had faced this abuse, I'd be pissed too. I don't blame them for complaining here after STA refused to listen. Isn't an opportunity to air grievances one of the more beneficial, non-gossipy functions DCUM provides?

Mentioning it to your a social friend who works at the school vs. making a complaint to a Head of School are fairly different things. I'm not blaming the parents -- if this occurred, the blame ultimately lies with the boys themselves for doing it and for adults for not properly supervising the dance and apparently allowing this to go on unchecked -- but I used to be a teacher and I can say that when members of the community or parents at other schools got in touch to report misconduct it got attention. Also, I have trouble believing that a school employee (a "dean") said "no action" was warranted if the allegation was as described. I think something's probably being lost in translation here. But if this did happen there's a way to get action -- pick up the phone and call the STA Lower School Head of School.

[Anonymous]

We spoke to the person who was at that time a dean in charge of health and counseling. We really thought that if he could not help that it was not worthwhile going further. Why didn't he do anything? I haven't any idea. Why don't you go to the lower school dean and ask why the admin deans don't communicate. Really. I am so sorry we did not inform the only person you consider could possibly have done something. It really isn't such a huge bureaucracy. Or maybe it is!! Maybe that's why nothing could be done.

[Anonymous]

Same poster. We also went to the NCS middle school head and got no response. From the combination of both schools saying it wasn't a problem for them we concluded that we had different standards than the Cathedral schools.

[Anonymous]

Does anyone have an idea whether NCS would let a Beauvoir family who applied early to NCS out of the commitment if her family didn't want to commit at this time waiting to find out how the schools address these issues over the next few months?