Did anyone find primary day too "academic" or structured?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At our Big 3 the parents teach the kids number literacy and reading at home or on the weekends so all that playtime during M-F doesn't matter to learning. Parents pick up the slack.

I guess at public we'd have to pick up the extracurricular slack .

Really? That is pretty much the last thing I want to do with my kids on the weekends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At our Big 3 the parents teach the kids number literacy and reading at home or on the weekends so all that playtime during M-F doesn't matter to learning. Parents pick up the slack.

I guess at public we'd have to pick up the extracurricular slack .

I have never done this and on kid number 3 at a so called big 3.

[Anonymous]

Nanny taught our kids to read when 5 yo.

[Anonymous]

Kids will all learn to read. Is there any evidence that earlier is better?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kids will all learn to read. Is there any evidence that earlier is better?

Not so sure about that.

[Anonymous]

Not pp to whom you question but come on yes they all learn to read!!’ Get over your self! Many a late reader do great things in life

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think he said "a child" not third child but I think he said it was their second or third child. I can't remember. Either way we are offended too. How about that huge tuition hike? He and the board don't get it. Almost 30,000 for school next year and no guarantee of a good teacher now? No thanks. Looking around. Probably have to stay at Primary Day because it would be a shame to take her out her last year but tuition is crazy. It's not a high school or even a school like Norwood that goes up through eighth. Why do they need to charge so much?

You pay 30k for a marginal preschool run by a clueless man?? Why?

If you have girls and this much cash consider Stone Ridge.
Otherwise what of Montessori school , Woods Academy or any kind of play based preschool anywhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At our Big 3 the parents teach the kids number literacy and reading at home or on the weekends so all that playtime during M-F doesn't matter to learning. Parents pick up the slack.

I guess at public we'd have to pick up the extracurricular slack .

Really? That is pretty much the last thing I want to do with my kids on the weekends.

All you have to do is point to a sign as you are walking or driving by and say ‘Stop!’ Or ‘Chipotle’ or ‘Library!’.
Maybe read a book before bed. It’s not hard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s the only school that kids learn 3 languages at the same time- Spanish, French, and Mandarin Chinese. It has an interesting diversity of students because of this and attracts a number of international families.

It’s strengths come from being a school that focuses exclusively on the early years. It’s a small community with 100 families. Many of the parents in my kids class also went to school there. They all say the same thing - it created a love of learning and it was very important for them to send their kid there.

Just one example of the excellent foundation for learning that the school provides - The Class of 2008 (now graduating from high school) just came back to a recent school assembly at PDS to announce where they were going to college. There was at least one kid going to Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Brown, and Penn along with many other selective colleges. It says a lot about the impression that PDS made on these kids lives that more than 25 kids from the Class of 2008 were willing to come back for the assembly.

It’s such BS that preschool was any part of a kid going to an Ivy League college, but it’s a common sentiment in this area and often a reason to exclude and/or boot out ‘normal kids’ or SN kids from preschool. Hard pass!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are friends with a family that had one kid at PDS and one at Sidwell. The older kid only went to Sidwell. The second kid went to PDS before also going to Sidwell. They were shocked by how much more the kid at PDS learned in the early grades compared to the sibling at Sidwell for the early years. He really thrived and the parents were thrilled with the schools curriculum. The PDS sibling was a much more advanced reader.

Who cares? Unless your kid is planning on graduating high school at age 12, there’s little value in that. Early years are best spent learning things like real life problem solving and social skills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You pay 30k

Google is your friend. Tuition is 21500 for PK, 23500 for K, 25500 for 1st, and 27500 for 2nd. It increased around 2 percent for this year.

[Anonymous]

This thread is interesting. This many pages of comments with so much hate on DCUM is usually reserved for only the best schools so this must be an amazing school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are friends with a family that had one kid at PDS and one at Sidwell. The older kid only went to Sidwell. The second kid went to PDS before also going to Sidwell. They were shocked by how much more the kid at PDS learned in the early grades compared to the sibling at Sidwell for the early years. He really thrived and the parents were thrilled with the schools curriculum. The PDS sibling was a much more advanced reader.

Who cares? Unless your kid is planning on graduating high school at age 12, there’s little value in that. Early years are best spent learning things like real life problem solving and social skills.

My kid spent K-3 learning about civics, social justice, slavery, homosexuals and transgenders.
We got ALL SORTS of questions those first couple years. But never about math or science or reading.
We really struggled with this, but understand that many private schools backend the academics and frontend the culture.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread is interesting. This many pages of comments with so much hate on DCUM is usually reserved for only the best schools so this must be an amazing school.

Or it is NOT. This post caught my eye because of experience with this school years ago. Seems nothing has changed. I wrote this many years ago after sending first child to PDS and then opting for subsequent child(ren) to go to public:


When my DC started K in MCPS, there were several noticeable differences that made me cringe that I had wasted so much money on PDS. First, as I noted above, the differentiation. For example, her MCPS K teacher noticed immediately that she could read and therefore gave her access to a special shelf of books for her to read while other kids were being taught the alphabet. All kids were ultimately grouped into Math and Reading groups based on ability while at PDS my older DC in PDS was struggling with boredom but wasn't given anything different to do because "it was outside the curriculum."

Second, I loved the quality difference in the facilities. The facilities at our MCPS school are just far and away better -- PDS has no gym, ours has a spectacular one; PDS has no cafeteria, ours had a great one where the kids could socialize at lunch (without a prayer first!); PDS has no Health Room, our has a staffed Health Room with beds, closet for individual needs (my DC requires equipment in case of a medical episode and it is kept onsite in the closet), bathroom, safe room, refrigerator and telephone for the kids to use; PDS has no counselor, ours has a counselor with her own spacious office with a couch and a table for lunch bunches to resolve issues among students as well as offering in-classroom character building lessons; PDS's director was inaccessible, our principal is available via phone, email, at drop-off and pick-up and for lunch bunches with the students themselves if they just want to hang with her; PDS has a dearth of musical instruments (though a wonderful music teacher while we were there) while our school has 2 music rooms and tons of instruments; PDS has no extracurricular activities run at the school, ours has all kinds of academic and sports programs run right at the school as well a huge theater production for upperclass students. I could go on and on, but you get my point.

As to the weekly number of specials themselves, I don't feel like my DC lost anything other than public speaking opportunities. At PDS, art and music were geared toward putting on weekly "Beako" assemblies on Friday morning. Each class does a presentation every other week (though over the years I noted that they are the same ones every year over and over again and I just wanted to put a needle in my eye after a while). These assemblies gave the kids a ton of experience public speaking that is not present in our MCPS school. All other specials are the same amount, generally, and again, in better facilities with better trained teachers and a lot more supplies.

With respect to academics, the fluidity available at our MCPS school has made sure that my DC is never bored with the work. Kids are accelerated when they have shown that they can do the work and I know that there are children who get support when they are not advancing at the same pace as the rest of the class including ESOL support, handwriting support, math support, and reading support. At PDS, families are told to get a tutor to resolve issues spotted by teachers.

With respect to atmosphere, PDS is extremely homogenous. Both racially and socio-economically (and politically, come to think of it) My sense was that those were factors that actually drew people to the school. OTOH, my neighborhood looks and acts like my neighborhood. I like that.

The redshirting at PDS is notorious (search the boards and you will see). My DC's class there had several 7 year-olds in K (boys and girls) while at the same time having 5 year olds. Think about that for a minute in terms of what grade a girl might be in when she gets her first period or when a boy is hitting puberty with an age spread of 20 months in a class. Or what grade they will be in when they can get a driver's license and starting high school. (I'm sure I will get flamed for pointing all this out, but I think PDS in particular errs on the side of holding kids back solely to boost academic achievement for outplacement purposes. Just IMHO).

PDS seems impresses at first, especially since there is nothing else to compare it to if your other children at home are younger and haven't started elem. yet. But I now think of it as a complete waste of time and money. Its smallness and old-fashioned charm drew me in (the nervous mom sending her child to school for the first time). But after just a few weeks with DC#2 in K at MCPS, I realized how I had given in to fears and wished I sent DC#1 to MCPS as well.

I hope this helps.

[Anonymous]

/\

my neighborhood looks and acts like my neighborhood should read.

my neighborhood school looks and acts like my neighborhood.