SSSAS - what is the culture like currently?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No dog in the fight here — my kids go to Big 3 schools.

However, it is totally disingenuous to say that a grade is “lovely,” then say just because there’s a few bad eggs doesn’t mean it ain’t.

Middle school dynamics are challenging everywhere. However, if even a few kids are being bullied, that reflects badly on the entire school.

If an administration can’t respond effectively to social aggression among a few kids, those kids will set the tone for the school. So sad that people are delegitimizing the experience of girls who were bullied, saying it’s just a few parents with “sour grapes.”

If my daughters had been bullied and the school did not respond effectively, I certainly would sour on the school.

The fact that supposedly mature adults would say this about the way little girls were treated and minimize their pain says some ugly things about the SSSAS parent community,

No - we’re saying the school HAS responded as best they can to a difficult situation. Schools can stop actual bullying, but they can’t stop hurt feelings. If someone with inside information wants to share actual details about what the school failed to do, I’d love to hear it. But my understanding is this stems from a couple of parents who are upset they can’t 100% protect their kids from friendship drama.

Also goodness as well as knowledge has been their motto for decades, it isn’t new.

20:09 here. Sorry, you still sound like you are minimizing. What you call friendship drama, another parent might call bullying. I’ve seen schools refuse to call bullying by it’s right name, because then they’d have to do something about it. Instead they use words like “relational aggresssion” or “friendship drama.” There is a way to stop this kind of behavior. It’s like correcting a toddler. You have to respond every single time, and be willing to escalate the disciplinary response, including and up to expulsion.

BTW, hurt feelings can be caused by bullying.

[Anonymous]

I agree. As a parent with a daughter in the 8th grade at SSSAS, I find it very hard to believe that there was bullying that the school didn’t respond to appropriately. In my experience the school handles these situations quite well. The MS counselor is universally loved and everyone trusts and respects her approach. The MS dean of students is also a much loved member of the SSSAS community and he is known for his thoughtful and sincere approach. This is something SSSAS is known to do exceptionally well, and I think that reputation has been earned.
There is obviously someone on here who left the school after a bad experience, and that is unfortunate, especially if her daughter was unhappy, but I think OP should seek out actual parents to talk to rather than let one person with a unique history to dominate this discussion by posting repeatedly.
OP, the school will surely be happy to provide names for you.

[Anonymous]

There is more than one SSSAS family on here posting re bully and mean girl behavior in the 8th grade and now parents are talking about the thread. Many involve lax. And many people are starting to figure out who is who.

KK and JJ are just ok. They seem nice, but when faced with difficult situations have caved into parent pressure on minor and major things. I live QG but even she can give out the PR laced responses that sound like a press release. The only time I’ve gotten a decent response to a concern is when I went directly to Adams. It will be interesting to see if the behavior continues in 9th when they’re not the top dog anymore and suddenly are freshmen. Who knows.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is more than one SSSAS family on here posting re bully and mean girl behavior in the 8th grade and now parents are talking about the thread. Many involve lax. And many people are starting to figure out who is who.

KK and JJ are just ok. They seem nice, but when faced with difficult situations have caved into parent pressure on minor and major things. I live QG but even she can give out the PR laced responses that sound like a press release. The only time I’ve gotten a decent response to a concern is when I went directly to Adams. It will be interesting to see if the behavior continues in 9th when they’re not the top dog anymore and suddenly are freshmen. Who knows.

8th grade girl parent here and I’m confused. I’ve never heard about any bullying among girls in this grade. Who is doing the bullying? Lax players? Or are lax players being bullied? If this is so widespread why isn’t it discussed more openly among parents?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No dog in the fight here — my kids go to Big 3 schools.

However, it is totally disingenuous to say that a grade is “lovely,” then say just because there’s a few bad eggs doesn’t mean it ain’t.

Middle school dynamics are challenging everywhere. However, if even a few kids are being bullied, that reflects badly on the entire school.

If an administration can’t respond effectively to social aggression among a few kids, those kids will set the tone for the school. So sad that people are delegitimizing the experience of girls who were bullied, saying it’s just a few parents with “sour grapes.”

If my daughters had been bullied and the school did not respond effectively, I certainly would sour on the school.

The fact that supposedly mature adults would say this about the way little girls were treated and minimize their pain says some ugly things about the SSSAS parent community,

Completely agree with this. Twisting it to call it hurt feelings is blaming the victims that they are too sensitive or something. If this is the parent mindset no wonder there is a bullying problem.

[Anonymous]

I haven’t heard about it either.
I think there is one pissed mom on this thread.
And boy is she spending a lot of time on this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I haven’t heard about it either.
I think there is one pissed mom on this thread.
And boy is she spending a lot of time on this.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The current 8th grade class, rising 9th, is lovely. We’d be happy to have your children join us and I bet you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the wonderful community.

Not the girls. And I know because I had a kid in that class.

- Signed, an SSSAS parent

PS - to the posters who have received admissions for the US. The school should have had a current parent call you to welcome you to the school and answer any parent to parent questions. If someone has not called you by now, reach out to the admissions office and asked to be paired to a liaison.

Well, this scares me; my rising 9th grade daughter is on the verge of accepting. What are the issues you observed?

Well I don’t know if this is any different from 8th grades at other schools. That being said, there is a core group of very mean “popular” girls that love to invoke “8th grade priority” to 7th and 6th graders, especially in the halls, bathrooms and one particular staircase. There has been quite a bit of intragrade girl drama, I do know of one family specifically moved (not just changed schools) because their daughter was getting bullied so bad at school and online. One girl in particular is almost being pushed to leave but I think her parents are still keeping her there. There have been many friend dramas.

My kid has not been affected by it and she likes her friends there and academically has had a great year so for now we are staying. But the current 8th (and even somewhat the 7th) grades have intense girl drama. Is that just a function of being 13, maybe. But for another poster so say this grade is so amazing and nice is just lying.

Speaking from experience (as a former SSSAS family), this is the case in many grades there. It is not typical or let to root to such an extent at other schools. We were warned about this from other former families but got sucked in and then regretted it. Yes the whole admissions dept is lovely but that’s not who runs the school or teaches or anything else. They are solely salespeople.

[Anonymous]

Snapshot of current culture. I received this recommended book list from the Parent-Teacher Association (APT) for my Spring Break reading so I can become indoctrinated into Leftist orthodoxy. It's not enough that they brainwash my kids on a daily basis, parents must bend the knee as well.

And, the irony that this reading list telling me to get woke was compiled and emailed by a group of white SAHMs who live in $1M+ houses is not lost on me.

Racial Justice:
How to Be an Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi (book discussion)
Caste The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
The Person You Are Meant To Be: How Good People Fight Bias by Dolly Chugh
So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
Waking Up White by Debbie Irving
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
1619 podcast from NYT
Nice White Parents podcast from NYT

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I haven’t heard about it either.
I think there is one pissed mom on this thread.
And boy is she spending a lot of time on this.

+1

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Snapshot of current culture. I received this recommended book list from the Parent-Teacher Association (APT) for my Spring Break reading so I can become indoctrinated into Leftist orthodoxy. It's not enough that they brainwash my kids on a daily basis, parents must bend the knee as well.

And, the irony that this reading list telling me to get woke was compiled and emailed by a group of white SAHMs who live in $1M+ houses is not lost on me.

Racial Justice:
How to Be an Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi (book discussion)
Caste The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
The Person You Are Meant To Be: How Good People Fight Bias by Dolly Chugh
So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
Waking Up White by Debbie Irving
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
1619 podcast from NYT
Nice White Parents podcast from NYT

This poster conveniently leaves out the other categories that were listed so as to make it look like the school is solely focused on racial justice. In actuality, the communication shared a much longer list of book recommendations in a variety of categories. Direct from the website: "We took suggestions in several categories: parenting and child social/emotional development, racial justice, and technology and kids. There were a few more recommendations we received that didn’t fit into those categories, but we’ve included them below as well."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Snapshot of current culture. I received this recommended book list from the Parent-Teacher Association (APT) for my Spring Break reading so I can become indoctrinated into Leftist orthodoxy. It's not enough that they brainwash my kids on a daily basis, parents must bend the knee as well.

And, the irony that this reading list telling me to get woke was compiled and emailed by a group of white SAHMs who live in $1M+ houses is not lost on me.

Racial Justice:
How to Be an Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi (book discussion)
Caste The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
The Person You Are Meant To Be: How Good People Fight Bias by Dolly Chugh
So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
Waking Up White by Debbie Irving
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
1619 podcast from NYT
Nice White Parents podcast from NYT

This poster conveniently leaves out the other categories that were listed so as to make it look like the school is solely focused on racial justice. In actuality, the communication shared a much longer list of book recommendations in a variety of categories. Direct from the website: "We took suggestions in several categories: parenting and child social/emotional development, racial justice, and technology and kids. There were a few more recommendations we received that didn’t fit into those categories, but we’ve included them below as well."

[Anonymous]

OP I posted earlier as a former family. Be sure not to just go with info from admissions or the family you end up paired with to ask questions. It's easy to gloss everything for PR purposes, and there are definitely some booster families, but look carefully and definitely be warned.

[Anonymous]

Appreciate the info and context.
As a mother who is considering SSSAS MS for her son, is the bullying limited to girls, or more widespread? Certainly do not mean to make light of any bullying or minimize the hurt feelings. Just wondering how extensive the issue was.

[Anonymous]

We ended up at SSSAS for a few years for our son. Great experience, very welcoming crowd. NW DC family so commute was awful, to be blunt. But, otherwise, terrific. What I think is missing is that SSSAS is far enough away from the competitive silliness at the top DC privates, that it is able to strike a different balance. I attended one of the top DC privates, and am extremely familiar with all of them. I would have no interest in sending my children to some of them. Too competitive, with self absorbed parents. SSSAS is a hidden gem.