Anyone want to share great experiences they have with their charter or magnet middle school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Give us a break. Perfect schools have.....gyms, playing fields, libraries and librarians, stages & auditoriums, computer labs, music programs and more. If the logic I'm following makes me a BASIS-hating troll, I am one.

Signed
Former BASIS 5th grade parent

Sorry to hear your disgruntled opinion and even sorrier that you can't stand the fact that my child is happy and yours was not. There in lies your problem. I'm no booster. I can see the negatives of BASIS but if my child likes it, I'll take it.

It has no gym nor library, but MLK is around the corner and DD spends more time there than your child has every spent in a school library. It has a great location for us. When Shaw MS was taken away from us, DCPS told us to send our child to Cardozo MS, the worst performing MS in the city, and help make it a better neighborhood MS. That was our final straw. We are very happy with BASIS. My DD loves the learning of new subjects such as classics and Latin. She has met kids from all over the city. This year has been a great experience and she will look back at it very fondly.

We felt the same way in 5th grade. By 7th, we were starved for rigorous academics, good facilities, a strong school community, and enrichment in one package. If you can afford independent school, or are willing to move to the burbs to do better than BASIS, you bail. Go away boosters in denial.

I'm the PP. I assume your child is no longer at BASIS. Why? Care to share? Which perfect school did you go to? And how much are you paying? Care to share? Or did you move to the burbs? We don't want to move from downtown. We are all very content. We are not in denial. This is a thread about great experiences. I'm sharing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Give us a break. Perfect schools have.....gyms, playing fields, libraries and librarians, stages & auditoriums, computer labs, music programs and more. If the logic I'm following makes me a BASIS-hating troll, I am one.

Signed
Former BASIS 5th grade parent

Sorry to hear your disgruntled opinion and even sorrier that you can't stand the fact that my child is happy and yours was not. There in lies your problem. I'm no booster. I can see the negatives of BASIS but if my child likes it, I'll take it.

It has no gym nor library, but MLK is around the corner and DD spends more time there than your child has every spent in a school library. It has a great location for us. When Shaw MS was taken away from us, DCPS told us to send our child to Cardozo MS, the worst performing MS in the city, and help make it a better neighborhood MS. That was our final straw. We are very happy with BASIS. My DD loves the learning of new subjects such as classics and Latin. She has met kids from all over the city. This year has been a great experience and she will look back at it very fondly.

How would you know how much time other people's children spend in school libraries? When I toured BASIS, I saw no pleasant space in the building with good natural light where kids were free to quietly reflect, meet up for study sessions, work on their own or choose reading material off screens. That put me off.

My middle school kid likes ITDS fine. Even so, I'm not inclined to stay. The program seems too cruisey to provide good prep for high school, and the budget doesn't stretch to serious enrichment or facilities. I'm tired of scrambling and paying to supplement. I'm fed up with being the taskmaster with a kid who feels no pressure to up her game because she (easily) earns top grades. But ask my kid, and the experience has been great.

How do I know about library time? Well, we visit several times a week, all up anywhere between 3 and 5 hours a week. If that were true for a school, your child would have to have library every day. That is definitely NOT happening. So stick with a school with a beautiful library that is visited by your child once or twice a week. All I'm saying is that a beautiful library would be nice but it is not the be all and end all. I'm glad my DD has BASIS and then MLK around the corner. This is what is making it such a great experience for my child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Give us a break. Perfect schools have.....gyms, playing fields, libraries and librarians, stages & auditoriums, computer labs, music programs and more. If the logic I'm following makes me a BASIS-hating troll, I am one.

Signed
Former BASIS 5th grade parent

Sorry to hear your disgruntled opinion and even sorrier that you can't stand the fact that my child is happy and yours was not. There in lies your problem. I'm no booster. I can see the negatives of BASIS but if my child likes it, I'll take it.

It has no gym nor library, but MLK is around the corner and DD spends more time there than your child has every spent in a school library. It has a great location for us. When Shaw MS was taken away from us, DCPS told us to send our child to Cardozo MS, the worst performing MS in the city, and help make it a better neighborhood MS. That was our final straw. We are very happy with BASIS. My DD loves the learning of new subjects such as classics and Latin. She has met kids from all over the city. This year has been a great experience and she will look back at it very fondly.

We felt the same way in 5th grade. By 7th, we were starved for rigorous academics, good facilities, a strong school community, and enrichment in one package. If you can afford independent school, or are willing to move to the burbs to do better than BASIS, you bail. Go away boosters in denial.

I'm the PP. I assume your child is no longer at BASIS. Why? Care to share? Which perfect school did you go to? And how much are you paying? Care to share? Or did you move to the burbs? We don't want to move from downtown. We are all very content. We are not in denial. This is a thread about great experiences. I'm sharing.

Our Lady of Victory in Upper NW and we're not Catholic. 11K. Not a perfect school but a humane one offering rigor and a well-rounded education. We didn't want to move from downtown either. I used to work at BASIS. Very content is a 5th grade BASIS parent speaking about...great experiences.

[Anonymous]

This poster takes the GREAT EXPERIENCES 5th grade BASIS parents have to share w/a grain of salt (or maybe a bag).

5th grade is BASIS light. Almost all of the families like or love it.

6th grade+ is the real deal.

In 6th and 7th grades, some kids are treated poorly by admins, teachers and peers when it looks like they're unlikely to make the cut on comp exams to advance a grade.

[Anonymous]

I love Washington Latin. I am so impressed with the communication from the school. The kids are learning things in sixth grade, that seem to interest them. The teachers are dedicated and concerned. Also, they have academic support, that is something I never had.

[Anonymous]

Thrilled with BASIS, our kid is happy and challenged.

[Anonymous]

real question: what does challenged mean? How does that manifest for your kids?

[Anonymous]

Interested and excited about school, rather than bored, as in elementary school. Happy to have multiple science classes and more advanced math. Very little homework/busywork but self-driven effort to study and be confident of the material covered in class. Happy to have opportunities to talk with teachers about more complicated ideas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This poster takes the GREAT EXPERIENCES 5th grade BASIS parents have to share w/a grain of salt (or maybe a bag).

5th grade is BASIS light. Almost all of the families like or love it.

6th grade+ is the real deal.

In 6th and 7th grades, some kids are treated poorly by admins, teachers and peers when it looks like they're unlikely to make the cut on comp exams to advance a grade.

+100

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interested and excited about school, rather than bored, as in elementary school. Happy to have multiple science classes and more advanced math. Very little homework/busywork but self-driven effort to study and be confident of the material covered in class. Happy to have opportunities to talk with teachers about more complicated ideas.

Any interest in Chinese? You can try lotterying into DCI Chinese track, starting in sixth grade. It's far from perfect, but I think some of those elements are there for my sixth grader. They are most engaged in math and language classes.

[Anonymous]

Every time I read a response accusing someone of being a "booster" I chuckle. As if someone having positive thoughts about a school is a bad thing or something for about which one should be ashamed. In DCUM is is used almost like the antonym of "hater", except a hater is someone who dismisses or diminishes without information or basis to do so. The people on DCUM who are accused of being "boosters" have personal experience. The only thing that makes less sense than using "booster" as a put down is the people who are silly enough to reply to deny they are "boosters".

Middle school girls are the meanest humans on earth. Often times the name of the game is to hate everything because that makes you cool. You need to hate your parents, brother, house, clothes, etc. Most of those kids get over it. The ones who reach adulthood without growing up tend to post a lot on DCUM and call people "boosters".

[Anonymous]

Nonsense. DCUM "boosters" aren't the parents who thoughtfully discuss what they consider to be the pros and cons of particular DC public schools they have direct experience with. Rather, they're armchair hills for weak admins and senior planners at DCPS and OSSE along with those on the charter boards of their children's schools and the Mayor's hopeless ed team. When such parents claim that Latin, BASIS, Deal, ITDS, Walls, Wilson etc. are every bit as wonderful at the best public suburban MS and HS programs in the DMV, they get called out here by fellow taxpayers. Good.

[Anonymous]

Shills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nonsense. DCUM "boosters" aren't the parents who thoughtfully discuss what they consider to be the pros and cons of particular DC public schools they have direct experience with. Rather, they're armchair hills for weak admins and senior planners at DCPS and OSSE along with those on the charter boards of their children's schools and the Mayor's hopeless ed team. When such parents claim that Latin, BASIS, Deal, ITDS, Walls, Wilson etc. are every bit as wonderful at the best public suburban MS and HS programs in the DMV, they get called out here by fellow taxpayers. Good.

Lol.

You sound like a pretentious twit. Why do you keep posting your garbage here? Go troll the Virginia school boards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nonsense. DCUM "boosters" aren't the parents who thoughtfully discuss what they consider to be the pros and cons of particular DC public schools they have direct experience with. Rather, they're armchair hills for weak admins and senior planners at DCPS and OSSE along with those on the charter boards of their children's schools and the Mayor's hopeless ed team. When such parents claim that Latin, BASIS, Deal, ITDS, Walls, Wilson etc. are every bit as wonderful at the best public suburban MS and HS programs in the DMV, they get called out here by fellow taxpayers. Good.

Who says this? Nice strawman.