Landon and Bullis -- schools that are evolving?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My impression is that Farquar didn't want to be seen as "using" kids they way the current administration does. If grades and SAT scores don't qualify a kid for the NCAA clearinghouse, then ultimately, that kid will likely fail. If you want a credible academic institution, then you also need student athletes who can make the grade (and the Clearinghouse). Otherwise, everyone loses. That is the direction of the new regime at Bullis.

+1 and yes there is more than one person on this board who sees this and has posted about it. If you want to be considered a credible school, then Bullis parents are going to have to stand up and demand that the practice stops. If not, parents are saying that this is ok.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody cares Sisyphus, move on.

You stand alone in your opinion.

Anonymous wrote:Wrong. There was no balance at Bullis under Farquhar. Lots of families interested in a balance between academics and athletics left under his tenure. Farquhar apparently believed a strong academic school and a strong athletic program were mutually exclusive, and sought to de-emphasize sports at Bullis.

Well, if "strong academic school" is synonymous with a school that doesn't require the SSAT for athletic admits, redshirts players during high school, and takes senior sports transfers (one of whom only stayed the three months of the football season), then yes, the new regime at Bullis is achieving the balance! (Just know that whatever you all are telling yourself out there on Falls Road, the rest of the area isn't buying it.)

Nope, everyone's laughing at Bullis. Joke's on you, Jocasta.

You should see a doctor about those other voices that you call "everyone".

Your retort shows how bitter you are.

[Anonymous]

Go on Bullis website. Unimpressive college admits.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody cares Sisyphus, move on.

You stand alone in your opinion.

Anonymous wrote:Wrong. There was no balance at Bullis under Farquhar. Lots of families interested in a balance between academics and athletics left under his tenure. Farquhar apparently believed a strong academic school and a strong athletic program were mutually exclusive, and sought to de-emphasize sports at Bullis.

Well, if "strong academic school" is synonymous with a school that doesn't require the SSAT for athletic admits, redshirts players during high school, and takes senior sports transfers (one of whom only stayed the three months of the football season), then yes, the new regime at Bullis is achieving the balance! (Just know that whatever you all are telling yourself out there on Falls Road, the rest of the area isn't buying it.)

Nope, everyone's laughing at Bullis. Joke's on you, Jocasta.

You should see a doctor about those other voices that you call "everyone".

Your retort shows how bitter you are.

There are multiple posters on this issue. Boarman may have a good strategy in terms of marketing, but people like you who insist that it has not had any impact on the academic reputation of the school (at least at the current point in time) are wearing rose-colored glasses. Now, perhaps this is a transitional period and they'll create enough of a positive buzz that they don't have to p,ay he games hey're p,ain't to make a name in sports.

And lastly, if you break out a "Sisyphus" reference don't go cryin' if someone sees your Sisyphus and raises you a Jocasta (a woman who failed to recognize some key facts if there ever were one!).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody cares Sisyphus, move on.

You stand alone in your opinion.

Anonymous wrote:Wrong. There was no balance at Bullis under Farquhar. Lots of families interested in a balance between academics and athletics left under his tenure. Farquhar apparently believed a strong academic school and a strong athletic program were mutually exclusive, and sought to de-emphasize sports at Bullis.

Well, if "strong academic school" is synonymous with a school that doesn't require the SSAT for athletic admits, redshirts players during high school, and takes senior sports transfers (one of whom only stayed the three months of the football season), then yes, the new regime at Bullis is achieving the balance! (Just know that whatever you all are telling yourself out there on Falls Road, the rest of the area isn't buying it.)

Nope, everyone's laughing at Bullis. Joke's on you, Jocasta.

You should see a doctor about those other voices that you call "everyone".

Your retort shows how bitter you are.

[Repeat post -- Edited to adjust for hideous phone typing!]
There are multiple posters on this issue. Boarman may have a good strategy in terms of marketing, but people like you who insist that it has not had any impact on the academic reputation of the school (at least at the current point in time) are wearing rose-colored glasses. Now, perhaps this is a transitional period and they'll create enough of a positive buzz that they don't have to play the games they're playing to compete in sports.

And lastly, if you break out a "Sisyphus" reference don't go cryin' if someone sees your Sisyphus and raises you a Jocasta (a woman who failed to recognize some key facts if there ever were one!).

[Anonymous]

NCS beat Bullis girls in lacrosse this year, Bullis' first year in the lower division. I have a young daughter who goes to a K-8 and loves lax. She wants to go to a highschool with at least a decent team. Bullis seems to be decreasing its strength in the girl sports.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NCS beat Bullis girls in lacrosse this year, Bullis' first year in the lower division. I have a young daughter who goes to a K-8 and loves lax. She wants to go to a highschool with at least a decent team. Bullis seems to be decreasing its strength in the girl sports.

I'm one of the people who is a bit dubious, to say the least, about Bullis and the big push with boys' athletics, but they are fairly good in girls' sports too. I believe they won the league in field hockey and tied for the title in girls' basketball this year. Their girls' lacrosse coach is well respected, and Bullis will be back in the Upper Division next year because they won the regular season ISL A title (they were undefeated in the regular season, including beating NCS). They are generally a top 4 ISL AA team in lacrosse and probably will go back to that level soon -- and certainly would qualify as a "decent team" (again, the coach is quite good). Next year the ISL is changing its procedures so that the team that wins the tournament shares the title, but for this year, all ISL championships are still determined by the regular season results (in field hockey, similarly, Bullis won the championship by having the best regular season record, although they lost in the finals of the tournament).

With that said, the center of gravity at Bullis is still boys' sports, and then some.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NCS beat Bullis girls in lacrosse this year, Bullis' first year in the lower division. I have a young daughter who goes to a K-8 and loves lax. She wants to go to a highschool with at least a decent team. Bullis seems to be decreasing its strength in the girl sports.

So Bullis lost a girls lacrosse game to NCS, so that means Bullis is "decreasing its strength in the girls sports". LOL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NCS beat Bullis girls in lacrosse this year, Bullis' first year in the lower division. I have a young daughter who goes to a K-8 and loves lax. She wants to go to a highschool with at least a decent team. Bullis seems to be decreasing its strength in the girl sports.

So Bullis lost a girls lacrosse game to NCS, so that means Bullis is "decreasing its strength in the girls sports". LOL.

Read more carefully, PP. Bullis dropped down from the top level teams (A division) to the second tier and then, in their first year in B division lost to NCS,which BTW, is not known for its lax teams at all. So, the next payer clarified they lost the tournament, not the regular season but, they still lost to NCS AND they still dropped down to the B Division, all in the same year. That is bad for Bullis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NCS beat Bullis girls in lacrosse this year, Bullis' first year in the lower division. I have a young daughter who goes to a K-8 and loves lax. She wants to go to a highschool with at least a decent team. Bullis seems to be decreasing its strength in the girl sports.

So Bullis lost a girls lacrosse game to NCS, so that means Bullis is "decreasing its strength in the girls sports". LOL.

Read more carefully, PP. Bullis dropped down from the top level teams (A division) to the second tier and then, in their first year in B division lost to NCS,which BTW, is not known for its lax teams at all. So, the next payer clarified they lost the tournament, not the regular season but, they still lost to NCS AND they still dropped down to the B Division, all in the same year. That is bad for Bullis.

The ISL has two leagues in most sports (it only has one league in field hockey, in which some of the ISL league teams don't play that sport). It is done like the English premier league "relegation" system. If you finish at the bottom of the AA (top division), you go down to the A (second) division. The top team from the A division goes up to the top division. For many years, including this year, the formal league championship in every sport, and the relegation teams, were determined ONLY by the regular season. Starting next year, if you win the post-season tournament you will be considered a co-champion of the league even if you did not win the regular season. (I haven't heard how they are handling relegation if a different team wins the tournament and the regular season.)

I've had a number of kids playing lacrosse in this area over the past decade. While Visitation and Saint Stephens Saint Agnes have remained at the top of the heap throughout that time, otherwise there has been movement in the AA division. Bullis, Episcopal, Holton-Arms, NCS, Stone Ridge, Potomac, and Holy Child are all teams that have been in both the AA and A division during that time period (I believe there are eight schools in the AA division). The two teams that have stayed up at the top both have structural advantages. The Saints have recruited for lacrosse long before other schools did (most girls schools don't), and had a club team in Alexandria that was used as a farm team. They have also had terrific, visionary coaching -- no disrespect to them. Visitation has by far the most Upper School girls (500) in the league -- even other all-girls school have considerably less (e.g. NCS with 280-300 or so). They also start at 9th grade so students' athletic abilities are known by then in terms of giving credit for athletic excellence in admissions.

From my recollection, this is the first year Bullis has been relegated to the A division, and they won it in their first year and moved right back up. So I would not see any sign of structural weakness in their program there. In addition, I believe they have two players currently playing for University of Maryland, which both shows the strength of their program and suggests that they may have a younger, less experienced team at present. Finally, NCS has always had a very solid lacrosse program, at least for the past several decades. NCS won the overall "strongest sports program" across all sports ISL award in 2009, and benefits, as do all the girls' schools, from generally having a deeper pool of potential athletes (at least numerically) than co-ed schools like Potomac, Bullis, Sidwell.

This is more detail than people want to read, but as a former college athlete and current parent of active kids, I am frustrated by how quickly parents jump to conclusions about the health of an athletic program (or lack thereof) from one or two years' worth of results. At the risk of being preachy, I would also say that the most important thing is whether the relevant coach is knowledgeable, effective, and positive -- all traits that everyone in the league would ascribe to the Bullis coach.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NCS beat Bullis girls in lacrosse this year, Bullis' first year in the lower division. I have a young daughter who goes to a K-8 and loves lax. She wants to go to a highschool with at least a decent team. Bullis seems to be decreasing its strength in the girl sports.

So Bullis lost a girls lacrosse game to NCS, so that means Bullis is "decreasing its strength in the girls sports". LOL.

Read more carefully, PP. Bullis dropped down from the top level teams (A division) to the second tier and then, in their first year in B division lost to NCS,which BTW, is not known for its lax teams at all. So, the next payer clarified they lost the tournament, not the regular season but, they still lost to NCS AND they still dropped down to the B Division, all in the same year. That is bad for Bullis.

The ISL has two leagues in most sports (it only has one league in field hockey, in which some of the ISL league teams don't play that sport). It is done like the English premier league "relegation" system. If you finish at the bottom of the AA (top division), you go down to the A (second) division. The top team from the A division goes up to the top division. For many years, including this year, the formal league championship in every sport, and the relegation teams, were determined ONLY by the regular season. Starting next year, if you win the post-season tournament you will be considered a co-champion of the league even if you did not win the regular season. (I haven't heard how they are handling relegation if a different team wins the tournament and the regular season.)

I've had a number of kids playing lacrosse in this area over the past decade. While Visitation and Saint Stephens Saint Agnes have remained at the top of the heap throughout that time, otherwise there has been movement in the AA division. Bullis, Episcopal, Holton-Arms, NCS, Stone Ridge, Potomac, and Holy Child are all teams that have been in both the AA and A division during that time period (I believe there are eight schools in the AA division). The two teams that have stayed up at the top both have structural advantages. The Saints have recruited for lacrosse long before other schools did (most girls schools don't), and had a club team in Alexandria that was used as a farm team. They have also had terrific, visionary coaching -- no disrespect to them. Visitation has by far the most Upper School girls (500) in the league -- even other all-girls school have considerably less (e.g. NCS with 280-300 or so). They also start at 9th grade so students' athletic abilities are known by then in terms of giving credit for athletic excellence in admissions.

From my recollection, this is the first year Bullis has been relegated to the A division, and they won it in their first year and moved right back up. So I would not see any sign of structural weakness in their program there. In addition, I believe they have two players currently playing for University of Maryland, which both shows the strength of their program and suggests that they may have a younger, less experienced team at present. Finally, NCS has always had a very solid lacrosse program, at least for the past several decades. NCS won the overall "strongest sports program" across all sports ISL award in 2009, and benefits, as do all the girls' schools, from generally having a deeper pool of potential athletes (at least numerically) than co-ed schools like Potomac, Bullis, Sidwell.

This is more detail than people want to read, but as a former college athlete and current parent of active kids, I am frustrated by how quickly parents jump to conclusions about the health of an athletic program (or lack thereof) from one or two years' worth of results. At the risk of being preachy, I would also say that the most important thing is whether the relevant coach is knowledgeable, effective, and positive -- all traits that everyone in the league would ascribe to the Bullis coach.

Sidwell is another school that has been in both the AA and the A division in lacrosse within the past decade (including the past five years). There's lots of movement, by design, other than the powerhouse programs of SSSAS and Georgetown Visitation.

[Anonymous]

Going back to the original question, with respect to Landon: Landon hired a woman as the Middle School Head this year, which suggests (to me, at least) that they are really trying to get serious about improving the experience (and probably the image too) of Landon when it comes to the culture (e.g., respect for girls and women).

[Anonymous]

Landon should go co-ed.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't be shocked if Landon went co - ed with in the next 10 years. This is coming from an alum.

[Anonymous]

Doubtful mainly because the demand for single gender education is increasing, not decreasing and interest in schools founded by religious groups is waning. The religious schools will continue to become more secular, but there is only one secular boys school at the moment.

If there is any likely development it's that the non catholic religious schools will become secular and formally separate from the churches they are associated with.