Feedback on Washington Latin?

[Anonymous]

Thank you for taking the time to share this.

Anonymous wrote:Greetings. We are parents of a current 5th grade student at Washington Latin.

We thought we would recap what we love about Washington Latin:
• School leadership -- ambitious, competent, professional, accessible, and warm
• Small school size (roughly 80 per grade), creating a very warm, family-like atmosphere
• Small class sizes (18-20 students per class), allowing opportunities for individualized attention
• Close relations between students & teachers
• Highly dedicated and energetic teachers, many of whom give considerable time to students outside of class
• A good number of very talented male teachers
• Clear mission that organizes everyone's efforts
• Rigorous, organized curriculum where every student is challenged
• Its emphasis on critical thinking, dialogue (using Socratic seminars), oral expression, written expression, and public speaking
• The 5th grade Latin teacher and grade level head is spectacular: Who would have thought that our son would love Latin and discover how relevant it is?
• Tremendous diversity in student population. Our son has good friends who live in all wards of the city.
• As our son has become more aware of associations between clothing and status, we appreciate the school’s simple uniform
• Clear academic & behavioral expectations (and consistent follow through)
• Easy parent/teacher collaboration -- with online tools and teacher responsiveness (to calls/emails)
• Easy tracking of student progress -- again, with online tools and teacher responsiveness
• A pervasive, clear spirit of fun and positive humor
• Educational and very fun community-wide events (the annual Roman banquet, Fibonacci Day, etc..)

Downsides?
• The current facility is too crowded, a bit grungy, and under-resourced. By September of 2013, it will be moving into a beautiful, fully renovated facility.
• With a high-energy, athletic son, we wish he had more opportunities to exercise during the day. Again, we expect he'll spend more time exercising in the new facility.
• Many of the teachers are relatively young and inexperienced, but clearly the administration has a knack for picking natural talent, and they do a great job supporting their teachers.
• The arts program is less developed than we'd like, but it's good enough. We supplement with private lessons and classes.
• We wish that the school offered Spanish, but it’s not in their charter to do so.
• We live east of the park. It takes us 8-10 minutes to get there. Next year the drive will be roughly 20 minutes (one way). We might continue our carpool arrangement. Alternatively, many kids take a school bus. He might take the bus that goes from Tenleytown to school (and back). There will also be a shuttle from the Fort Totten metro to the school.

We considered Deal very seriously (our neighborhood school). As a solid student who has considerable social ease and many extracurricular interests, we think our child would have done just fine there, but we doubt that he would have thrived there. This year he comes home raving about teachers and learning. He said that his old school "used to hammer stuff into his brain over and over until you got bored," while this year "the teachers throw stuff at you, hope that it sticks, and make learning interesting." We knew that our son would feel challenged and learn a lot this year. What we didn't anticipate, though, is how much fun he would have and how proud he would feel. Finally, since it's a small school, we expect he will continue to have many leadership opportunities --- in the classroom, on competitive athletic teams (beginning in 7th grade), and in other extracurricular areas.

[Anonymous]

We wanted a rigorous, classics-based, college preparatory track school for DC, and Latin was definitely very high on our radar, it looks like a fantastic option. Tough choice, but we ended up going with BASIS for a couple of reasons - we think BASIS will have somewhat greater rigor and academic culture as they don't do social promotion and will not be accepting students at the higher grades - also, for us DC's commute to Latin would have been brutal, but BASIS is much easier for us to get to. Latin would definitely be our alternate.

[Anonymous]

how difficult is it to get into Latin in 6th grade rather than 5th? I know 5th is easier, but what are the odds for 6th?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We wanted a rigorous, classics-based, college preparatory track school for DC, and Latin was definitely very high on our radar, it looks like a fantastic option. Tough choice, but we ended up going with BASIS for a couple of reasons - we think BASIS will have somewhat greater rigor and academic culture as they don't do social promotion and will not be accepting students at the higher grades - also, for us DC's commute to Latin would have been brutal, but BASIS is much easier for us to get to. Latin would definitely be our alternate.

We are not yet ready for either school. In scanning the BASIS website for curriculum offerings, I see rigor for sure but I don't really see that it provides superior offerings in the classics. Or a classics-driven curriculum if you will, in the manner of Columbia College's core curriculum.

If you're still here, would you come back and point me to what you mean?

(for Latin, this aspect jumps out at you immediately)

[Anonymous]

Not pp, but BASIS is not a "classics" school and does not claim to be. While Latin language is part of the middle school curriculum, starting in 5th grade (and 5th graders also take "Classics", which is an ancient history course), the main focus is on science and math.

[Anonymous]

Actually Latin and Basis 5th grades take the exact same classes, except for math.

[Anonymous]

We liked Latin very much as well, and the curriculum encourages creativity and thought. But DC is now at Basis and doing much better. He is beginning to take responsibility and now actively wants the good grades, since the school culture makes it clear how success is achieved.

Add to the list of Latin's downsides the fact that teachers rely more heavily on parents to make sure the child stays organized and working hard (heavier emphasis on homework as part of the grade). Also, teachers tend to leave soon after school ends, making it hard for the child to follow up with a teacher (at least, that was our experience). And finally, the after-school program is not good at all, if it even exists any more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Actually Latin and Basis 5th grades take the exact same classes, except for math.

That's the only grade that their classes are the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We liked Latin very much as well, and the curriculum encourages creativity and thought. But DC is now at Basis and doing much better. He is beginning to take responsibility and now actively wants the good grades, since the school culture makes it clear how success is achieved.

Add to the list of Latin's downsides the fact that teachers rely more heavily on parents to make sure the child stays organized and working hard (heavier emphasis on homework as part of the grade). Also, teachers tend to leave soon after school ends, making it hard for the child to follow up with a teacher (at least, that was our experience). And finally, the after-school program is not good at all, if it even exists any more.

I respectfully disagree. My child has been at Latin for four years and I find that DC has always been well organized and on task. The kids have planners and use them. My kid meets with teachers regularly to get help (in fact they have a schedule where every teacher has a day that they are available after school). My favorite part of Latin is the really cool discussion topics that the kids prepare for their socratic seminars. I enjoy talking to my DC and DC's friends. They have a fairly sophisticated conversational ability (much more than I did at that age).

[Anonymous]

If Washington Latin offers anything in Classics beyond Latin, I'm missing it... http://www.latinpcs.org/programs/curriculum.html

[Anonymous]

What do you view as classic curriculum?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not pp, but BASIS is not a "classics" school and does not claim to be. While Latin language is part of the middle school curriculum, starting in 5th grade (and 5th graders also take "Classics", which is an ancient history course), the main focus is on science and math.

I'd characterize Basis as with accelerated math and science, but also with some traditional liberal arts and classics foundations (though not deep, as they don't offer Greek). They go beyond Latin on math and science offerings and class hours, but will in some grades also double up on courses like English (for example separate language and literature classes) - also, heavy focus on college preparatory work with a lot of AP offerings. Some parallels to Latin, but also somewhat different.

They both look to be excellent schools - better offerings than what I had growing up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The PPs disregarded my argument.

Yes, I think it is somewhat suspicious that Washington Latin has around 7-8% FARMS. But much of that can probably be explained away by the fact that they are in upper northwest, far away from a metro station. The low rate of FARMS in itself is not my beef with the school or its boosters. HOWEVER, because the school is 90% upper-middle class, which is not the case with any other public middle school in the city, you cannot compare its test scores with other schools.

This just is not the case. Latin has some Upper Middle Class, some Middle Class, some wealthy, some FARMS and quite a lot of working class. Come visit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What do you view as classic curriculum?

I think this is an excellent college-level example. Possibly the gold standard:

http://www.college.columbia.edu/core/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:how difficult is it to get into Latin in 6th grade rather than 5th? I know 5th is easier, but what are the odds for 6th?

Historically, there is very little attrition after 5th grade, but I believe they are expanding the grade size a little bit this summer. There may be more attrition than usual because of the move, but I'm not aware of families planning on leaving. If you plan on applying (worth doing!), you should turn in your application as soon as it will be accepted. Acceptance is based on a lottery, but they take names off the waiting list according to the order in which the applications were received.