Do Students Run the Show at Sidwell Upper School?

[Anonymous]

Should the child be denied an education? Is your answer going to be to throw him into the public school system? Another way to look at it is that Sidwell had a different environment that the child might respond to. But anyway, where is that child now? Is he a drug dealer or a functioning part of society? Just curious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Should the child be denied an education? Is your answer going to be to throw him into the public school system? Another way to look at it is that Sidwell had a different environment that the child might respond to. But anyway, where is that child now? Is he a drug dealer or a functioning part of society? Just curious.

So to be clear, you are arguing that:
(1) If your child or mine screwed up to the same extent at St. As, they too will be welcome at Sidwell?
(2) There should be no consequences for bad behavior, at least if you're the son of a sitting VP?
(3) There are no choices in between elite privates and "throwing" kids to the public schools (which, it seems, is akin to "throwing" kids to the wolves).

Are there lots more parents like you at Sidwell?

[Anonymous]

This Thread has jumped the shark . . . Really? A debate over a 15-year-old change of schools by one kid, even one with a famous dad? Really?

[Anonymous]

I am continually impressed by the way posters know the identity and affiliations of other posters, even when their tags all say "anonymous", and whether they state an affiliation or not. Am I missing something? Do Sidwell parents use one font, STA parents another font, and high school kids pretending to be parents a third one? Is there a secret decoder ring?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This Thread has jumped the shark . . . Really? A debate over a 15-year-old change of schools by one kid, even one with a famous dad? Really?

Yes, childish. But when one poster says it's OK for a school to accept a kid with a record just because he's the son of a VP, well, it's hard not to respond! And it seems likely that only a Sidwell parent would bother defending this - given how weak the available defenses are, why would anybody else even try?

[Anonymous]

The Sidwell threads are getting so tired. I've read most of them in recent months and they all seem to devolve into these same themes:

**Price of tuition, which incidentally is at or comparable to all the other elite privates like sta, ncs, g. prep, gds, landon, holton

**Perception of unbridled privilege given the relatively high concentration of household name parents, even though the other aforementioned schools'' parent bodies could probably each buy and sell sidwell's collective parent body three times over. Yes, there is plenty of wealth at all these schools, but my understanding is that Sidwell admits a much higher proportion of non wealthy students

**Of course, you can't forget to mention the lousy sports program, even though none of the other aforementioned big privates except for landon or prep in lacrosse have been ranked first in any washington post poll in the past ten years like Sidwell was for soccer last year.

I really don't have a dog in this fight, but it all stinks of bitterness and sour grapes from parents of kids who weren't admitted as well parents and perhaps students at other schools who want to take down the area's best known private a few notches every chance they can.

Yawn.

[Anonymous]

FWIW, I've posted on two separate threads in the past few hours that I'm sick of the Sidwell football debate, I think it's repetitive and boring, et cetera. However, Sidwell does have a reputation for being star-f@ckers, and the Al Gore Jr. episode is just an example of this.

[Anonymous]

19:49 your argument is rather narcissistic and self absorbed. It amounts to : posters to the forum are just being critical because their DC didn't get into Sidwell Nah, na, nah, n
How blind could you be? Several members of the Sidwell senior class published a mysoginistic diatribe against their female classmates , the details of which are so specific many young women can be ID'd. DCUM's is a on line forum consisting of mostly women. There have been many disturbing incidents at Landon and Sidwell including a former star athlete killing his girl friend , sexting, a dream sex game in which girls were assigned a point value and now this. A dialogue is in order as is some swift reform; starting with the current incident at Sidwell. Stop congratulating yourself for your DC having"gotten in" as presumably that was years ago, right. Time face the challenge that is in front of you.

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous]Should the child be denied an education? Is your answer going to be to throw him into the public school system? Another way to look at it is that Sidwell had a different environment that the child might respond to. But anyway, where is that child now? Is he a drug dealer or a functioning part of society? Just curious.[/quote]

My point was that some schools in Washington, while having a great number of high profile families, see the value of choosing the hard but right decision. In the case I mentioned the DS was not "kicked out" he was suspended and his parents withdrew him after that decision by the school. It is worth noting that they did not try to make heads roll for this, they simply left. Here was the VP of the United States an alum and a big donor accepting a decision of the Head with respect.That is how everyone should conduct themselves. It is hard to manage a school when parents are constantly lobbying for special treatment. Ultimately it affects the character of the school as we see with this latest incident.

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous] 19:49 your argument is rather narcissistic and self absorbed. It amounts to : posters to the forum are just being critical because their DC didn't get into Sidwell Nah, na, nah, n
How blind could you be? Several members of the Sidwell senior class published a mysoginistic diatribe against their female classmates , the details of which are so specific many young women can be ID'd. DCUM's is a on line forum consisting of mostly women. There have been many disturbing incidents at Landon and Sidwell including a former star athlete killing his girl friend , sexting, a dream sex game in which girls were assigned a point value and now this. A dialogue is in order as is some swift reform; starting with the current incident at Sidwell. [b]Stop congratulating yourself for your DC having"gotten in" as presumably that was years ago[/b], right. Time face the challenge that is in front of you. [/quote]

I don't get the impression that 19:49 has a child at Sidwell. I think she (like me FWIW) is tired of all the same, bitter debate over Sidwell. That school appears to be an obsession for this board. Or maybe it is just a few of the same people talking in circles.

[Anonymous]

Why would anyone read as poster said,"most of the threads about Sidwell over the past few months" and be bragging about the stats of their soccer team unless they were a Sidwell parent??

If you are bored, don't read and don't respond . It is , after all, the best way to see that the thread drops to the next page.

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous]Why would anyone read as poster said,"most of the threads about Sidwell over the past few months" and be bragging about the stats of their soccer team unless they were a Sidwell parent??

If you are bored, don't read and don't respond . It is , after all, the best way to see that the thread drops to the next page.[/quote]
I'm also not from Sidwell and I've been offended by the nastiness and myopia of the football thread, so I'm not surprised that other fair-minded people have felt likewise. I agree I am contributing in part to the problem by posting at all in response, but when there are no contrary posts people say things like "oh see, there is no defense for Sidwell sports.". It does appear to be a few people churning an immense number of posts, though, and the overall phenomenon seems similar to the explosion of Landon posts when there was that "perfect storm" last spring.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm also not from Sidwell and I've been offended by the nastiness and myopia of the football thread, so I'm not surprised that other fair-minded people have felt likewise. I agree I am contributing in part to the problem by posting at all in response, but when there are no contrary posts people say things like "oh see, there is no defense for Sidwell sports.". It does appear to be a few people churning an immense number of posts, though, and the overall phenomenon seems similar to the explosion of Landon posts when there was that "perfect storm" last spring.

ITA. The constant barrage of anti-Sidwell posts is obnoxious and offensive, in the same way that the Landon posts were. And I wasn't around DCUM during the Beauvoir-Toth situation, but that seemed just as ridiculous. It's creepy how obsessed some of these people are.

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Should the child be denied an education? Is your answer going to be to throw him into the public school system? Another way to look at it is that Sidwell had a different environment that the child might respond to. But anyway, where is that child now? Is he a drug dealer or a functioning part of society? Just curious.[/quote]

My point was that some schools in Washington, while having a great number of high profile families, see the value of choosing the hard but right decision. In the case I mentioned the DS was not "kicked out" he was suspended and his parents withdrew him after that decision by the school. It is worth noting that they did not try to make heads roll for this, they simply left. Here was the VP of the United States an alum and a big donor accepting a decision of the Head with respect.That is how everyone should conduct themselves. It is hard to manage a school when parents are constantly lobbying for special treatment. Ultimately it affects the character of the school as we see with this latest incident. [/quote]

I heard the parents were angry that anyone would talk to them about the kid and stopped donating. Point for any school is that if any given kid is allowed to get high on campus with no repercussions then what's next? Do you think a public school would have allowed that Sidwell poem? How many school resource offcers [aka police] would have been present fast when candy was thrown hard at admins? No one puts up with that.

Those kids would be in alternative school after a disciplinary hearing for 2011 IMHO. At a private like Sidwell I assume no action is taken since it would/should then be on college apps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm also not from Sidwell and I've been offended by the nastiness and myopia of the football thread, so I'm not surprised that other fair-minded people have felt likewise. I agree I am contributing in part to the problem by posting at all in response, but when there are no contrary posts people say things like "oh see, there is no defense for Sidwell sports.". It does appear to be a few people churning an immense number of posts, though, and the overall phenomenon seems similar to the explosion of Landon posts when there was that "perfect storm" last spring.

ITA. The constant barrage of anti-Sidwell posts is obnoxious and offensive, in the same way that the Landon posts were. And I wasn't around DCUM during the Beauvoir-Toth situation, but that seemed just as ridiculous. It's creepy how obsessed some of these people are.

Please. There is no "anti-Sidwell" lynch mob here. People are decrying the school's lack of action as well as the "circle the wagons" mentality the Sidwell parents seemingly have. If Landon is called out for bad behavior (which is more than fair) then why is Sidwell exempt?

Does anybody here know somebody at either the Washington Post or Washingtonian Magazine? Something needs to be done about this Sidwell coverup.