Stone Ridge

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD had SR and Holton on her list for next year. These threads are very concerning.

She will receive a great education at Stone Ridge. That is not in question.

It is, however, up to you if you decide to drink the Kool-aid or not. A lot of it strikes me as rather silly, but at least the pandemic has lessened the expectations on the parents.

They have, unfortunately, jumped firmly on the DEI bandwagon (along with most of the other private schools in the area), so I fully expect to see that becoming more and more of a feature.

The recent DEI survey was interesting. It was sent to parents, students, and faculty. The questions were all written in the following way: "how well would you say Stone Ridge has been doing in its DEI mission", etc., etc. There were no questions like "do you think that SR should be using the Critical Race Theory framework in designing its DEI initiatives" or "do you think generally that focusing on racial differences is a good or a bad thing." In other words, the survey was essentially written as a fait accompli--that we all agree that Kendi and DiAngelo and CRT are all the goal--now how well are we doing vs. that goal? As several other posters have noted, any questioning of the DEI focus, or the Kendi / anti-racism POV as a framework, is just called racist. Well, to be fair, not called racist; but certainly not up for debate. There was one open-ended question at the end. I hope people were honest there.

It's fascinating, because on the one hand, there is this country club / big donors get away with stuff vibe, and yet on the other, there's this crazy far-left focus on CRT / DEI. The two together make for a very lonely place for average parents who just want their daughters to get a great education and develop meaningful friendships in a relatively sane social environment. That being said, we're sticking it out; I don't really see a good alternative. It seems like all the privates are basically in the same place. And, the teachers (in the high school) are tremendous. At the end of the day, that's all that matters.

[Anonymous]

The above is spot on. A house cleaning of top level admin and/or Board members to put more representative membership in place is the starting point. They need to reduce the focus on the glossy marketing plans and focus on inclusivity. And not just racial inclusivity, but literally social class stuff. It has to start at the top. The school's academics, athletics, and arts programs will all be better for it. There are so many great things about this school, but they are being overshadowed. Maybe the Society of the Sacred Heart needs to step in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The recent DEI survey was interesting. It was sent to parents, students, and faculty. The questions were all written in the following way: "how well would you say Stone Ridge has been doing in its DEI mission", etc., etc. There were no questions like "do you think that SR should be using the Critical Race Theory framework in designing its DEI initiatives" or "do you think generally that focusing on racial differences is a good or a bad thing." In other words, the survey was essentially written as a fait accompli--that we all agree that Kendi and DiAngelo and CRT are all the goal--now how well are we doing vs. that goal? As several other posters have noted, any questioning of the DEI focus, or the Kendi / anti-racism POV as a framework, is just called racist. Well, to be fair, not called racist; but certainly not up for debate. There was one open-ended question at the end. I hope people were honest there.

It's fascinating, because on the one hand, there is this country club / big donors get away with stuff vibe, and yet on the other, there's this crazy far-left focus on CRT / DEI. The two together make for a very lonely place for average parents who just want their daughters to get a great education and develop meaningful friendships in a relatively sane social environment. That being said, we're sticking it out; I don't really see a good alternative. It seems like all the privates are basically in the same place. And, the teachers (in the high school) are tremendous. At the end of the day, that's all that matters.

They're all-in on critical race theory and the anti-racism tropes. The survey was hilarious. We went through it and felt exactly the way you did. Everything was framed from the perspective of normalizing DEI overreach.

What is most unfortunate about SR's DEI work (and, I suspect, that of other institutions), is that it seems to be focused on the experience of only one race, and how that race was treated historically in the United States. The fact that here were Japanese internment camps in this country a lot more recently than there was black slavery is never mentioned, let alone the more history of anti-Korean and anti-Vietnamese sentiment in the United States.

I'd take it a whole lot more seriously if it was actually truly "diverse" instead of being so one-sided.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The above is spot on. A house cleaning of top level admin and/or Board members to put more representative membership in place is the starting point. They need to reduce the focus on the glossy marketing plans and focus on inclusivity. And not just racial inclusivity, but literally social class stuff. It has to start at the top. The school's academics, athletics, and arts programs will all be better for it. There are so many great things about this school, but they are being overshadowed. Maybe the Society of the Sacred Heart needs to step in.

In other words, you'd like it to be more like a Public school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The above is spot on. A house cleaning of top level admin and/or Board members to put more representative membership in place is the starting point. They need to reduce the focus on the glossy marketing plans and focus on inclusivity. And not just racial inclusivity, but literally social class stuff. It has to start at the top. The school's academics, athletics, and arts programs will all be better for it. There are so many great things about this school, but they are being overshadowed. Maybe the Society of the Sacred Heart needs to step in.

Don't count on it. The iron law of oligarchy holds sway on Rockville Pike.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The above is spot on. A house cleaning of top level admin and/or Board members to put more representative membership in place is the starting point. They need to reduce the focus on the glossy marketing plans and focus on inclusivity. And not just racial inclusivity, but literally social class stuff. It has to start at the top. The school's academics, athletics, and arts programs will all be better for it. There are so many great things about this school, but they are being overshadowed. Maybe the Society of the Sacred Heart needs to step in.

In other words, you'd like it to be more like a Public school?

How you reach that conclusion, I'm not sure.

Just less like a country club.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The recent DEI survey was interesting. It was sent to parents, students, and faculty. The questions were all written in the following way: "how well would you say Stone Ridge has been doing in its DEI mission", etc., etc. There were no questions like "do you think that SR should be using the Critical Race Theory framework in designing its DEI initiatives" or "do you think generally that focusing on racial differences is a good or a bad thing." In other words, the survey was essentially written as a fait accompli--that we all agree that Kendi and DiAngelo and CRT are all the goal--now how well are we doing vs. that goal? As several other posters have noted, any questioning of the DEI focus, or the Kendi / anti-racism POV as a framework, is just called racist. Well, to be fair, not called racist; but certainly not up for debate. There was one open-ended question at the end. I hope people were honest there.

It's fascinating, because on the one hand, there is this country club / big donors get away with stuff vibe, and yet on the other, there's this crazy far-left focus on CRT / DEI. The two together make for a very lonely place for average parents who just want their daughters to get a great education and develop meaningful friendships in a relatively sane social environment. That being said, we're sticking it out; I don't really see a good alternative. It seems like all the privates are basically in the same place. And, the teachers (in the high school) are tremendous. At the end of the day, that's all that matters.

They're all-in on critical race theory and the anti-racism tropes. The survey was hilarious. We went through it and felt exactly the way you did. Everything was framed from the perspective of normalizing DEI overreach.

What is most unfortunate about SR's DEI work (and, I suspect, that of other institutions), is that it seems to be focused on the experience of only one race, and how that race was treated historically in the United States. The fact that here were Japanese internment camps in this country a lot more recently than there was black slavery is never mentioned, let alone the more history of anti-Korean and anti-Vietnamese sentiment in the United States.

I'd take it a whole lot more seriously if it was actually truly "diverse" instead of being so one-sided.

Same reaction. I hope you said as such in the comments. Parents have got to start pushing back. Who do they think is funding this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The above is spot on. A house cleaning of top level admin and/or Board members to put more representative membership in place is the starting point. They need to reduce the focus on the glossy marketing plans and focus on inclusivity. And not just racial inclusivity, but literally social class stuff. It has to start at the top. The school's academics, athletics, and arts programs will all be better for it. There are so many great things about this school, but they are being overshadowed. Maybe the Society of the Sacred Heart needs to step in.

In other words, you'd like it to be more like a Public school?

How you reach that conclusion, I'm not sure.

Just less like a country club.

Depends on the grade. Lots of club families in the middle school particularly 8th and the families tend to stick together.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The recent DEI survey was interesting. It was sent to parents, students, and faculty. The questions were all written in the following way: "how well would you say Stone Ridge has been doing in its DEI mission", etc., etc. There were no questions like "do you think that SR should be using the Critical Race Theory framework in designing its DEI initiatives" or "do you think generally that focusing on racial differences is a good or a bad thing." In other words, the survey was essentially written as a fait accompli--that we all agree that Kendi and DiAngelo and CRT are all the goal--now how well are we doing vs. that goal? As several other posters have noted, any questioning of the DEI focus, or the Kendi / anti-racism POV as a framework, is just called racist. Well, to be fair, not called racist; but certainly not up for debate. There was one open-ended question at the end. I hope people were honest there.

It's fascinating, because on the one hand, there is this country club / big donors get away with stuff vibe, and yet on the other, there's this crazy far-left focus on CRT / DEI. The two together make for a very lonely place for average parents who just want their daughters to get a great education and develop meaningful friendships in a relatively sane social environment. That being said, we're sticking it out; I don't really see a good alternative. It seems like all the privates are basically in the same place. And, the teachers (in the high school) are tremendous. At the end of the day, that's all that matters.

They're all-in on critical race theory and the anti-racism tropes. The survey was hilarious. We went through it and felt exactly the way you did. Everything was framed from the perspective of normalizing DEI overreach.

What is most unfortunate about SR's DEI work (and, I suspect, that of other institutions), is that it seems to be focused on the experience of only one race, and how that race was treated historically in the United States. The fact that here were Japanese internment camps in this country a lot more recently than there was black slavery is never mentioned, let alone the more history of anti-Korean and anti-Vietnamese sentiment in the United States.

I'd take it a whole lot more seriously if it was actually truly "diverse" instead of being so one-sided.

Yeah! It needs to be solidly anti-America. We must change this terrible country from its terrible ways, and children will lead us there!
This is why we need to teach this in k-12, exactly this. So glad SR and Holton are on board.

Like the Biden poet said: we must tear it down and then build it up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Yeah! It needs to be solidly anti-America. We must change this terrible country from its terrible ways, and children will lead us there!
This is why we need to teach this in k-12, exactly this. So glad SR and Holton are on board.

Like the Biden poet said: we must tear it down and then build it up.

I hope you're being sarcastic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:13 cases?! What grades? Was it community spread?

Yes, it was community spread NOT from school. Only one student had even been on campus and did it not spread from her at all.

Not a ding against SR the school, as this is ALL on the parents, but the other way to look at this is that the school community DID spread it among themselves, just not on school campus or on a school event. If 13 kids at a single school tested positive from a single event, clearly there is no respect for social distancing measures and this is why it's hard to get schools to open and stay open.

It does seem rather pointless to insist on appropriate protocols at school, when they're being ignored by a small percentage of students outside the school.

Unfortunately there was no accountability following this, and no consequences. The vast majority of students who are diligent about their exposure outside school were rightly furious about having to pay the price with the rest of the Upper School for the actions of a few.

You don't know that there was no accountability. If I had to guess, CRK had very blunt conversations with the offending families / girls. What do you want, for her to expel 13 kids? Not gonna happen, anywhere. She did send a very clear note that these cases could have been avoided and that this kind of behavior by a few ruins it for everyone.

SR girls are at house parties every weekend.

There are kids from every school at gatherings every weekend. There are parents at SR who are quick to blame other parents and their own kids are out and about they just don’t realize it. Furthermore - some of the most vocal upper school girls at SR who have been very quick to throw shade on classmates also have posted pictures of themselves at gatherings - not socially distanced.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

There are kids from every school at gatherings every weekend. There are parents at SR who are quick to blame other parents and their own kids are out and about they just don’t realize it. Furthermore - some of the most vocal upper school girls at SR who have been very quick to throw shade on classmates also have posted pictures of themselves at gatherings - not socially distanced.

Most students are not partiers and do not fit this description.

[Anonymous]

I wish my son (junior at a local Catholic) could meet some nice girls from SR.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wish my son (junior at a local Catholic) could meet some nice girls from SR.

Why can't he?

[Anonymous]

I see Critical Race Theory bandied about here, but it is not clear to me that the usage is accurate. The usage seems more a reflection of what is being reported in certain media outlets about what Critical Race Theory is. It is good to know what one talks about, I would hope.