If you want your children to have lives, don't send them to St. Albans, or Sidwell!!!!

[Anonymous]

STA has mediocre teachers. Many of the children go on to good colleges because of leagacy

[Anonymous]

Grr...Agree with OP on this one.

[Anonymous]

I am reposting my "homework" rant from the homework string -- I think it applies to every teenager with access to a cellphone/computer/ipod. (In the Ranting Amendment Department, I will also add my puzzlement at parents who don't think twice at having their high school aged child do 4 hours of athletics on some days (school team plus club sports) but are incensed over homework that takes 2-3 hours.

This is sort of a rant (okay, it totally is), but here goes. A couple points on homework from a current parent who formerly taught at one of these academically selective DC area independents in the 9-12 age range.
1. My experience was that the kids who used their free periods during the day and before sports had no trouble whatsoever in completing their homework. I would estimate that for 9th graders only about 20-30% worked during free periods -- the rest played on their computers, listened to music, "hung out." Percentages somewhat better in higher grades but the majority of kids did not use the free time during the day.
2. We had a LOT of kids who stayed up very late but much of the time was in "non-productive" time on their computers/phones -- a lot of video gaming by the boys, lots of Facebooking/IMing/texting by the girls, although the boys also used the social networking sites. And dofn't forget lots of time on Youtube by both. Try making your child work without their computer for at least a couple hours at home. Very few assignments on a day-to-day basis require a computer. I'm not being judgmental here--I like to read the NYTimes online, watch stuff on Hulu, and otherwise "waste time" online when I should be more productive. But don't assume because your child is in his/her room with the computer on and books out for five hours that five hours of homework is being done. It's just not so.

[Anonymous]

Good points, PP.

[Anonymous]

Your are right 10:38. Our kids are doing very well in MS at a school that is regularly characterized here as being competitive and requiring a heavy work load, and they bring back very little "homework" home. They finish most of it in study hall during school hours. Of course, some kids might prefer to socialize during school hours, but it then seems reasonable for them to spend some time outside school on academic work.

[Anonymous]

This is 10:38 -- thanks for the positive feedback. I do want to stress that I am not criticizing kids for wanting to be social during free periods at school; they do have a long school day and it's really understandable. I just think that there are some misperceptions out there about the homework load, and I worry (about my youngsters too) about how much their lives involve looking at a "screen" (TV/ipod/cell phone/computer) for fun. I saw some really stunning articles about the amount of time the average American kid spends texting, for example. I hope when my kids are older I will have the willpower to enforce the "do your homework without the computer" rule -- I know it will probably be a battle!

[Anonymous]

seriously

[Anonymous]

Not really. Just put the computer in the family room, put a password on it. It's used only for homework, and you can see what they are doing. No cellphones equals no texting. No TV in the bedroom. Admittedly ipods are harder to control, but so far they haven't interfered with homework at our house.

[Anonymous]

All good suggestions. Kudos.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not really. Just put the computer in the family room, put a password on it. It's used only for homework, and you can see what they are doing. No cellphones equals no texting. No TV in the bedroom. Admittedly ipods are harder to control, but so far they haven't interfered with homework at our house.

Are these HS age kids? I feel like cellphones are helpful because if my DC has car trouble or something like that I want her to to be able to reach us. Last month she used 7 minutes of talk time and sent 30 texts. Half those texts were probably to me letting me know when she'd be home. So it seems to be pretty well controlled.

We have laptops for the kids because they are usually both working at the same time, and I want access to the family computer.

[Anonymous]

Agree with OP again.

[Anonymous]

Howdy, sock puppet!

[Anonymous]

NP here. We are thinking about applying to STA for our son for 6th or 7th grade. He is currently in 4th grade in MOCO public schools. We live in Potomac and it would be a trek into the city. Does anyone have insight on whether my son would be the only kid living far out in "the burbs"? In particular, it would be great to know if any of the boys that are currently in Form C live in Bethesda/Potomac.

We are concerned that he will be completely isolated from his classmates if they all live in DC. This would be true for any of the DC privates, I imagine. We are not as interested in Bullis, St. Andrews or even Landon - even though they are much more convenient.

[Anonymous]

There are definitely a lot of MD kids at STA by high school -- more so than VA, although there are some Virginians as well. I bet if you asked the admissions office for an average percentage of MD kids in the 4th grade, they'd be willing to give you that info, and it probably wouldn't vary much from year to year.

[Anonymous]

I do think that the majority of kids at STA come from DC, and close-in MD suburbs like Chevy Chase. There may be a couple from Potomac, but it my experience I personally haven't known any. I think Landon caters more to the North Bethesda/Potomac crowd.