Yes it’s terrible especially for boys in general. No gym, no fields to play and run around. The classrooms are so small and hallways are so narrow and cramped. I just cannot imagine how bad it. must be between classes in the hallways. claustrophobic |
It’s fine. Where did you go grow up? Kansas? |
Yawn. |
Not our experience. You sound like you carry around a lot of psychological baggage and are emotionally fragile. Hope that you and your kids get the help you need. |
PP again. Yes, I read that. It's a super long post defending how BASIS is great for her kid, and the. One sentence acknowledging that it's not for everyone. What I'm saying is that if you are one of the many families for whom BASIS does not work, your focus is on trying to find another option, not on how BASIS works great for the kids it works great for. No one is trying to take BASIS away from the families who are happy with it. But when one of the rest of us says "BASIS doesn't meet our needs, can we have schools that meet our needs?" The response is "BASIS IS GREAT WHY ARE YOU BASHING BASIS." I'm not bashing it. I just want something else. |
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If you’ve never had to think about how low expectations attach to your child before they even speak, you’ll probably miss the point.
I’m not really trying to defend BASIS. Who wouldn’t want a better building, more green space, a gym? Of course we would. But for us, the real value of BASIS isn’t about facilities—it’s about insulation. For some families, the big question is whether a school “fits.” For ours, it’s how to keep our kid from getting buried under the low expectations that seem to follow him everywhere—public, charter, suburban, wherever. That shifts what kind of environment feels like relief. And sure, if your child has ADHD or another neurodivergence, BASIS can feel harsh. That’s real. But those are intrinsic challenges a child carries anywhere. They’re not the same as the extrinsic bias that lands before my kid even opens his mouth. We’ve seen the difference. At our old school, “central-casting” kids—affluent, white, sometimes clearly struggling—still got the enrichment slots and leadership nods, while our child, who outperformed them on every metric, got overlooked. That quiet favoritism doesn’t play the same way at BASIS, and that’s part of the relief. And look, we can overcome bias anywhere—we do it all the time. But if there’s a school that spares us some of that emotional labor, why wouldn’t we choose it? Why root for it to change in ways that put that burden right back on us? BASIS isn’t perfect. But it gives our child space to push back against the slow, steady build-up of low expectations. For us, that’s not nothing. And for others who’ve never had to think about it—that’s a luxury. |
Why do you keep writing the same post over and over. Everyone is glad BASIS is working for your kid. Good. Now, what about all the kids for whom BASIS does not work? What about the kids for whom the problem is not that they are underestimated, but that they are presumed to be fine without engagement or challenge because the focus is on kids who are struggling with grade level material? Which, by the way, is a much more common occurrence in DC public schools than the situation of a high achieving kid being overlooked in favor of rich white kids, who are not only rare in DC publics but also tend to be concentrated in a small handful of schools. So, your kid is getting what he needs. Great. What about everyone else? |
I think the problem I’m identifying is one that’s almost universal across schools and public systems. The problem you’re describing sounds more like the general issue of fit—and honestly, that’s diffuse. There’s probably no school that’s a perfect fit for any child. Most have strengths in some areas, gaps in others. You take the good with the bad and adapt where you need to. That’s just life. But let’s be clear—this thread has been focused on BASIS and its supposed deficits. You just brought up the problem of under-challenged kids being overlooked because they’re presumed fine. That’s not a BASIS issue. If anything, BASIS is a corrective for that problem. So I’m not sure why that’s being framed as part of the critique. And no, I’m not saying people who want a different kind of school should “just” move. I’m saying it’s much harder to find institutions that give kids on the wrong side of the achievement gap—kids who don’t look like the default high-achiever—clear, consistent, data-driven opportunities to demonstrate mastery. In most environments, those kids have to prove themselves over and over again because the feedback is so sporadic or subjective. Schools like BASIS, or the test-in models like TJ (?) or Stuyvesant, work differently. Once you meet the bar, the feedback loop is constant and objective—you can’t as easily be written off between report cards or dismissed as an exception. That steady, quantifiable record insulates our child from the low-expectations trap that persists almost everywhere else. Very few schools offer that. Problems having to do with generalized “fit” are relatively simple (if not immediately practical) to solve—you can usually find or move to an institution that comes closer to what you want. What I’m talking about is a much tougher nut to crack—and a far more pervasive one. |
This is on DCPS. They need to step it up, raise standards, and start meeting the needs of the kids who live in this city to prepare them to succeed in the world. |
True — but also on some HRCSs. |
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A different physical plant would fix 75% of all Basis problems.
Other Basis schools around the country have many more sports, arts, and extracurriculars and more parent engagement because they have the spaces for them. My 0.02. |
| BASIS parent who couldn’t agree more. We hate the building. |
I mean, Jefferson, Eliot-Hine, and Sousa middle schools all have much better physical plants than Basis, and easier entry than Basis….so there’s that. |
No, there isn't "that" for MS academics, unless maybe you're a longtime Maury family with children willing to do extra work outside school like crazy. Jefferson attracts no more than a handful of UMC Brent grads these days. They were getting 15+ a year for 6th grade pre-Covid. |
Lottery for DCI. Yes it’s hard to get in, but they use standardized testing as one of the criteria for tracking and has great facilities (gym, fields, library, actual science labs) and ton of EC, clubs, and sports. Closest you are going to get to your typical suburban school. Plus there is a shuttle for the CH folks not to mention really easy to get to if you are near Union Station in CH NE or red line anywhere EOTP. |