BASIS student, have they left the school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ I have little doubt that it's some anti-charter activist who started this thread, sensing what they thought was blood in the water to serve their aims.

It's unbelievably cynical and heartless for anyone to use special needs students and their families and their private lives as pawns in some kind of political chess game, and as such, starting this thread was highly inappropriate.

For anyone to be so intrusive, cold and heartless by posting speculations about special needs students and to drag their personal lives through message boards is awful - and if the OP would treat students at other schools so poorly by doing so, one can only assume they treat their own students as poorly - no true advocate for special needs students would have done the same.

The thread was not started about a special need kid. The original post only said that a child in 5th grade had come back to his/her DC's school. If the posts about the special needs kid is true, it happened before school started not when this thread was started.

My understanding of the question was more along the lines of whether kids were leaving because Basis was too much. Frankly, I find this just as bad because even if the kid is not special needs his/her and the family don't deserve to be discussed on a message board.

Specifics of any particular student aside, the idea behind BASIS is that it's a school that tries to bring back some academic rigor and actually tries to challenge students. As such, sure it might be a bit much for some students, but that's nothing new. I believe some of the DCPS schools like Banneker and Walls have a bar to meet with regard to admissions requirements, whether grade point average or placement test, and obviously not everyone makes the cut there as well, so they are "a bit much" for many students as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's the same old story.

Started out with talk of one child leaving...

Then, some speculation added about why that child left, with a possible reason being the child was failing...

Not unusual or controversial that one or a few students may leave a school, for reasons that may include failing, or instead that there may be other reasons, like family or social reasons.

And 17:07 then somehow leapt to the conclusion that a "large number" of students were failing.

Seems to be this obsessive compulsion to keep speculating, leaping to conclusions and using successive rounds of even more speculating and leaping to conclusions which build upon each other to come up with these spun-out-of-control yarns around here... Hey, I heard some big guy named Paul Bunyan was spotted at the school chasing after an enormous ox.

Speaking of "Paul" the head of school, I heard he smacked a student in a "playful" way. I also heard that 8 students were pulled from the school in the last 2 week! Including one of the staff member's children. I heard she pulled her own kids. When the staff starts pulling their child, its time to go.

[Anonymous]

It's 12:56 and my son just finished his homework. I am not sure how alert he'll be for his quizzes.


Still, I am hopeful, he'll find a way to work more efficiently.

[Anonymous]

I heard they spit on babies and push little old ladies down in the street. </sarcasm>

Oh, come on, people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I heard they spit on babies and push little old ladies down in the street. </sarcasm>

Oh, come on, people.

Natalie you are so funny!

[Anonymous]

Every school is not a perfect fit for every child. Sheesh. This is typical for Basis, many find everything wrong with the school. Yet, their track record shows otherwise.

[Anonymous]

They don't have a track record in DC, 8:29.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They don't have a track record in DC, 8:29.

Honestly, it sounds like you are saying that low SES AA children are unable to do the rigorous work that a school like Basis requires. Truly, it is an outrage to assume, in general, that DC children are unable to do meet higher standards of academics. It is sad that DCPS has set the bar so low which is a dis-service to all DC children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's the same old story.

Started out with talk of one child leaving...

Then, some speculation added about why that child left, with a possible reason being the child was failing...

Not unusual or controversial that one or a few students may leave a school, for reasons that may include failing, or instead that there may be other reasons, like family or social reasons.

And 17:07 then somehow leapt to the conclusion that a "large number" of students were failing.

Seems to be this obsessive compulsion to keep speculating, leaping to conclusions and using successive rounds of even more speculating and leaping to conclusions which build upon each other to come up with these spun-out-of-control yarns around here... Hey, I heard some big guy named Paul Bunyan was spotted at the school chasing after an enormous ox.

Speaking of "Paul" the head of school, I heard he smacked a student in a "playful" way. I also heard that 8 students were pulled from the school in the last 2 week! Including one of the staff member's children. I heard she pulled her own kids. When the staff starts pulling their child, its time to go.

Which staff member? If not by name, by position, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They don't have a track record in DC, 8:29.

Honestly, it sounds like you are saying that low SES AA children are unable to do the rigorous work that a school like Basis requires. Truly, it is an outrage to assume, in general, that DC children are unable to do meet higher standards of academics. It is sad that DCPS has set the bar so low which is a dis-service to all DC children.

Why do you assume that all Basis students come from DCPS? I know some who are struggling came from a well regarded (at least by DCUM standards) charter. Funny that. It is also a disgrace that so called high-performing charters set the bar so low.

[Anonymous]

If you seen one Basis you've seen them all. It is growing pains for each and everyone. Why hell, people thought SWW wouldn't work out, they gave Banneker a year and many thought Wilson should have been closed in 1979. Sheesh!!!

[Anonymous]

Question for all the PP who know struggling students at BASIS...do you know whether these kids are studying, keeping up with homework (finishing all 30 math homework problems, for example), meeting regularly with teachers during their office hours, etc?

I ask because my DS was struggling in a couple of his classes during the first grading period. As soon as he got a low grade for the mid-term grading period he was called down to student support services and talked through his problems with them. In addition to giving him advice on how to get on top of things, student support wrote in his CJ the specific times he was expected to go meet with his teachers for extra help. The teachers had to sign the CJ as proof that he went in and then he had follow up with student support. To me, this sort of fast, specific kind of support was far and away better than he ever had at his old school. At his old school he never really knew exactly what the expectations were or how he was doing. I'm happy to report that DS is absolutely on the right track now and he is doing really well. He is learning how to study and how to take notes. He now goes and meets with his teachers after school or during AERO on his own when he feels he needs extra help.

One thing that I was nervous about going in to this year was that BASIS would be too cold or too heartless of a school. That has not been our experience at all. We have found that the teachers and administration are interesting, kind and caring, and they go above and beyond to help students (or my kid, at least). You can call me an unabashed BASIS booster because we are very happy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
They don't have a track record in DC, 8:29.


Honestly, it sounds like you are saying that low SES AA children are unable to do the rigorous work that a school like Basis requires. Truly, it is an outrage to assume, in general, that DC children are unable to do meet higher standards of academics. It is sad that DCPS has set the bar so low which is a dis-service to all DC children.

I'm not sure where you're getting that conclusion from what I said.

I reminded the PP at 8:29 that BASIS doesn't have a track record of either success or failure in DC. BASIS fans seem to forget that a lot when they talk about how great they think BASIS is. It may be great, but there is no track record to prove any positive or negative conclusions about BASIS at this time.

That was my first post to the thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Question for all the PP who know struggling students at BASIS...do you know whether these kids are studying, keeping up with homework (finishing all 30 math homework problems, for example), meeting regularly with teachers during their office hours, etc?

I ask because my DS was struggling in a couple of his classes during the first grading period. As soon as he got a low grade for the mid-term grading period he was called down to student support services and talked through his problems with them. In addition to giving him advice on how to get on top of things, student support wrote in his CJ the specific times he was expected to go meet with his teachers for extra help. The teachers had to sign the CJ as proof that he went in and then he had follow up with student support. To me, this sort of fast, specific kind of support was far and away better than he ever had at his old school. At his old school he never really knew exactly what the expectations were or how he was doing. I'm happy to report that DS is absolutely on the right track now and he is doing really well. He is learning how to study and how to take notes. He now goes and meets with his teachers after school or during AERO on his own when he feels he needs extra help.

One thing that I was nervous about going in to this year was that BASIS would be too cold or too heartless of a school. That has not been our experience at all. We have found that the teachers and administration are interesting, kind and caring, and they go above and beyond to help students (or my kid, at least). You can call me an unabashed BASIS booster because we are very happy.

That's fascinating and certainly a great thing they did. Interestingly, the 2 kids I know directly who are really struggling have been going to the tutoring/homework hour most every day after school all year. They both come from (2 separate) DCPS's, have extremely supportive home lives with parents there to help with homework (both moms work part-time to facilitate this), and are bright and hard working. Not brilliant or gifted, but not bad students at all. They both have report cards full of F's. In the case of 1 of them, there was certainly no call down to student support services and the mother has combed through the CJ for any indication that there was this kind of academic crisis going on. No indication of missed homework or failed quizzes/tests. No notes, no phone calls, no e-mails. Definitely was a tough start-up for that particular child as the expectations were ramped up, but this is a hard working kid and has been doing what they thought was an adequate if not above-adequate job (not failing or even close). I am hearing other similar stories that people have shared with the mother as she has expressed her upset, though I don't know the people directly so I have no way of confirming those situations.

I want to believe in BASIS and would like an academic program like it to be available. I have no problem with the idea that some kids won't be able to hang in there. However, once a child is in the school, every effort needs to be made for EVERY kid to make sure that they make it through the year successfully. To leave a kid looking for a school in December, interestingly after the funding count has been done, is really hard on a family. When a kid is sitting there every day after school doing homework and available to be helped (also did the STARS program), why would that kid be failing? I'm glad they went the extra mile for your kid, I really am, just wondering why they didn't for my friend's kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
They don't have a track record in DC, 8:29.


Honestly, it sounds like you are saying that low SES AA children are unable to do the rigorous work that a school like Basis requires. Truly, it is an outrage to assume, in general, that DC children are unable to do meet higher standards of academics. It is sad that DCPS has set the bar so low which is a dis-service to all DC children.

I'm not sure where you're getting that conclusion from what I said.

I reminded the PP at 8:29 that BASIS doesn't have a track record of either success or failure in DC. BASIS fans seem to forget that a lot when they talk about how great they think BASIS is. It may be great, but there is no track record to prove any positive or negative conclusions about BASIS at this time.

That was my first post to the thread.

They do however have a nationally-recognized track record for their achievements in several other cities - to include communities with significant constituencies of low-income, minority and otherwise disadvantaged student populations, and they are applying the same management, techniques and are following the same approach here in DC that have already been working for over 10 years elsewhere. It's not as though this is really such a brand new, untried, untested experiment for them. There really aren't nearly as many unknowns and hurdles and nowhere near the learning curve for them as there would be for most other startup charters - they already had most of it in the can before even coming to DC. And, anyone who's traveled and worked around the far corners of this great nation can tell you that DC and its challenges aren't really that special, unique or unusual. It stands to reason they will likely have a decent likelihood of doing well here also. Well worth giving them a chance.