
I really hope it works out for you. We just didn't feel comfortable putting our kids through a school recovery experiment at a tuition of $40K. So we withdrew. If they pull themselves out of the hole we'll come back in a few years.
We enrolled my kid, and started paying *before* RG was terminated. We didn't know about any of this drama when we enrolled. Too late now, they won't refund us even if we asked. |
We enrolled my kid, and started paying *before* RG was terminated. We didn't know about any of this drama when we enrolled. Too late now, they won't refund us even if we asked. I'm sorry to hear that. This may be the case for many people. How the school recovers (quickly) may determine how many people re enroll next year. I would not be surprised if families start doing their research when area school visits start up in Oct. SSFS is not the only act in town. Kids deserve stability. |
No, it's not the only act in town but it's the only Quaker school in the immediate area. This is so worth further developing! I really hope SSFS will lean further into this and stop trying to be something else. |
Our experience is that it lost its Quaker center and was without focus. Curious, what do you think it was trying to be? |
Alum here, with two kids at SSFS now. The Quaker center was lost under RG, because he didn’t believe in it. You can’t base your educational philosophy on the SPICES if they aren’t coming from the top. |
Alum here as well, I 100% agree with you. My kid will start there this September, I have hope the interim HOS embodies SPICES. I was a boarding student at SSFS in the late 80's and am so proud my kid will be attending there as well. I want my child to experience the same Quaker values I remember and hold dear today. |
We came here to experience Quaker values, but my kids experienced something completely different. We decided to leave. |
Sidwell is Quaker too, maybe more faker Quaker, but parents there don’t seem to mind. |
I’ve heard good things about Baltimore friends, the original Quaker school in Maryland. |
Does Sidwell have the Quaker center? |
It has a meeting room |
This all makes me sad. My kid is entering their second year and loves it. Ive never heard complaints about the environment or other kids, but he is a teenager, so who knows. We believe the school is turning a good corner, but these comments make me doubt our experience and the commitment of other families. |
Just this past spring there was another thread here about SSFS, and it was full of support. We are sticking around. My kid likes her school and is excited for another year in the US! |
We have been there for over 10 years now - multiple divisions with 2 kids, and we will be there till our kids graduate because our kids have had a great academic and social and athletic experience there. Have we loved everything and every teacher? No, but the same is true with our friends in various privates (many of which also had higher attrition this year post a Covid bump).
Our experience at the school has been really positive. I don’t however discount the experience of those who have expressed a different view here, as I am sure that was a very frustrating experience. Overall, we love the school and the school community and are grateful for how our kids have grown there on so many fronts. |
Kids are not often paying attention but even we knew something was wrong in the classroom from dinner table conversations of how “hard it is to hear the teacher speak” or “vandalized toilet seats and doors”. We also could tell that the property wasn’t being maintained by the stories of freezing PAC, with holes in the wall and non working kilns in the art barn. But then, as a parent, it was impossible to not think something was up when tuition kept increasing erratically - and yet talking to RG about it only brought answers that changed every time and didn’t add up. There were staff departures that we also knew were problematic just by being involved even minimally with volunteering for school events. There was also the odd atmosphere at things like RGs birthday carnival that just didn’t sit right. So if in two years nothing seemed amiss to you, you’re very lucky. But maybe that’s because you weren’t here before RG to see that change occur and realize you’re not in the same school you started. |