What is the reputation of Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is disgusting how the school ignores bullying but it is partly the schools fault for perpetuating the “ lifer” culture. The school will stand by the legacy families or those who can afford to pay from K. The rest of the families are treated like second class citizens. If you only start in upper school you have no idea how it operates behind the school doors.

+1,000 It is a huge problem and a terrible lesson of privilege for the rest of the girls.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have been at SR since before the Kavanaugh hearing and never received any kind of survey like that. I call BS on poster. Why do some folks feel the need to make things up???

Us too. It's BS.

+1. A lie. We’ve been there forever. No such survey.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are joining SR in this year. I am reading these comments with interest. I don't discount any of them.

But I do know that the SR applications are through the roof.

How do you know that these issues are just typical private school issues (not saying that is good).

Every school has its rap.

Holton -- joyless
Visitation -- very clichy and supports the stars, and the rest fend for themselves.

I am sure these reps are not deserved.

agreed, "joyless" is accurate description of Holton.

But DAMN are those girls well-prepared for whatever college can throw them. I prefer SR for my daughter (community, religion, social action, political diversity, etc), but I am very glad our area also has a Holton. (Just as glad for Holy Child, St John’s, NCS, GDS, et al, and for the public schools — of which I am a proud graduate). We are blessed by God with the educational diversity we can offer our children in this area.

[Anonymous]

Parent of a middle school girl here. We've been at SR for four years. We are a non-Catholic but Christian family. We are upper middle-class and don't fit in to the Mercedes / Country Club / lifer crew, which is definitely a real thing. Tuition is a huge stretch for us. Here are my impressions of SR. First of all, head of school is very impressive. She is smart, polished, and has a goal in mind, which is to build the best all girls school in the County, Catholic or not. This is a stretch goal with Holton, but SR is definitely increasingly running neck-and-neck with HA, at a cheaper price point. Secondly, the HS is awesome. Everything we've seen is that HS has amazing teachers, great girls, etc. The culture in HS seems quite tolerant, academically focused, and involved. The head of the HS follows in the head of school's footsteps; he's nice, smart, tolerant, competent, and the girls seem to love him. Now, on to MS. MS has been... a mixed bag. Still; happy we're at SR but could be better. MS is made up of three groups of students; (1) lifers who tend to be filthy rich and... let's just say it... mean; (2) people like us who came in looking for an upgrade from public school around 4th-6th grade; and (3) new girls who came in 7th-8th looking for a leg up on competitive admission into the HS. Of these groups, the lifers tend to dominate, and there is definitely bullying (not physical--emotional) and huge clique-y-ness. Is it worse than anywhere else? Hard to say. It's middle school, middle school sucks everywhere... but I'd have to say that the lifer / social club dynamic is really strong and not helpful. As far as parents complaining that the school doesn't do enough to address it, I don't think there's much they can do. These kids (parents) exist and they dominate. It is what it is. Middle School academics have improved massively in the past two years. The MS had a problem with lots of very old, very tenured teachers who just weren't dynamic. These have been aggressively moved out to make room for young, dynamic, great teachers. This year was my daughter's best year BY FAR at SR as far as academics, so kudos there. In 9th grade, A LOT of new girls come in, and admissions demand was very strong this year. My sense is that this seriously dilutes / destroys the mean girl dynamic--which happens naturally as well as girls mature--and makes the academics even more rigorous. We are very much looking forward to HS at SR. As far as those comparing SR to Visi, my sense is it's a tad more liberal but not in any meaningful way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have been at SR since before the Kavanaugh hearing and never received any kind of survey like that. I call BS on poster. Why do some folks feel the need to make things up???

Then it only targeted my daughter’s class, which was up in arms about Kavanaugh demanding action. We did not demand action btw. The Kavanaugh Survey was reprehensible, glad to hear it was limited, but the hearings were an invaluable SR life lesson for our daughter. Many girls were closely connected to Kavanaugh. Their Dads were Prep alums. He was Uncle Brett. Those girls felt they couldn’t defend him. It was agony for them, seeing their friends stream the hearings and the news. So many of their friends trashing him. Calling him a rapist. Thinking up ways to demonstrate. There was a seminal moment, the life lesson for my daughter, when her classmate, extremely close to BK burst into tears and begged them to stop. They were supposed to be her friends. He was like her uncle. It humanized everything for my daughter and for other girls. Invaluable. As I’ve said, SR has much to offer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have been at SR since before the Kavanaugh hearing and never received any kind of survey like that. I call BS on poster. Why do some folks feel the need to make things up???

Us too. It's BS.

+1. A lie. We’ve been there forever. No such survey.

I’m many things. A liar is not one of them. Glad to hear it was perhaps limited to the Class of 2019, unless you’re liars. Are we having fun, yet? I feel certain my husband and I did not merit a special survey.

[Anonymous]

I don't know if this survey is true or not, but what it is undeniably true is that there is no voice or place for conservatives in that school. The entire institution is a committed to a progressive ideology. Our family quickly discovered that we needed to keep our views to ourselves. After Trump was elected you literally couldn't say anything positive about it for fear of being completely ostracized. I got the impression that the entire Society of the Sacred Heart is ultra-liberal and it seems to be run by aging nuns who got fired up by the progressivism of the 60s and 70s and never evolved beyond it. Interestingly, I always felt that the Head of School was inherently conservative in her outlook, but couldn't express it because it's not a view shared by anyone else there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Many families don’t buy into the social stuff because they don’t feel welcome. There are insider and outsider families at Stone Ridge. Many of the Catholics go to Church together. They share family ties. Read the Vanity Fair article about Georgetown Prep and the Kavanaugh fiasco. Stone Ridge comes up, that’s SR’s “brother school.” By the way, after Kavanaugh we (at least) received a survey from SR that we could fill out anonymously, but it’s always better to use our own voices (identify yourself). It was a detailed voting history. An in-depth political profile sent to me and my husband individually. First question: What Presidential candidate did you vote for in the 2016 election?


No you didn't, unless you're the one parent that got that! Are you kidding? I know for a fact we didn't get it and neither did any of my friends. Stop being ridiculous!



I can’t imagine meriting our own survey. Do you or your friends have a daughter in the Class of 2019? The Class was very much up in arms about Kavanaugh. Fighting for a Brown Bag to discuss the issue. That sort of thing. The new Instagram account blackatsr mentions that time. A white student writes about how the school would not address concerns. At the end of the year, a joint mass and reception was held at Prep to build “good relations” with the Class of 2019. I probably still have that email. Can we post images? Clearly, I should have taken screenshots of the survey to defend myself.

Thanks for weighing in the way you did. It accomplishes 3 things. 1) It inhibits many honest postings that help SR become the school it wants to be; 2) it shows prospective families how empowered mean mom culture is at SR; 3) it motivates people like me, students and faculty who seek only positive change and transparency at SR, to migrate from a sincere “issues and solutions” attitude, to a “burn it to the ground” attitude. We really don’t want any of that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't know if this survey is true or not, but what it is undeniably true is that there is no voice or place for conservatives in that school. The entire institution is a committed to a progressive ideology. Our family quickly discovered that we needed to keep our views to ourselves. After Trump was elected you literally couldn't say anything positive about it for fear of being completely ostracized. I got the impression that the entire Society of the Sacred Heart is ultra-liberal and it seems to be run by aging nuns who got fired up by the progressivism of the 60s and 70s and never evolved beyond it. Interestingly, I always felt that the Head of School was inherently conservative in her outlook, but couldn't express it because it's not a view shared by anyone else there.

Wasn't John Roberts the graduation speaker in 2018?

[Anonymous]

yes but because his daughter was in that class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:yes but because his daughter was in that class.

Yup. You won't be seeing Brett Kavanaugh doing it anytime soon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't know if this survey is true or not, but what it is undeniably true is that there is no voice or place for conservatives in that school. The entire institution is a committed to a progressive ideology. Our family quickly discovered that we needed to keep our views to ourselves. After Trump was elected you literally couldn't say anything positive about it for fear of being completely ostracized. I got the impression that the entire Society of the Sacred Heart is ultra-liberal and it seems to be run by aging nuns who got fired up by the progressivism of the 60s and 70s and never evolved beyond it. Interestingly, I always felt that the Head of School was inherently conservative in her outlook, but couldn't express it because it's not a view shared by anyone else there.

Oakcrest is the conservative Catholic girls school, I believe. Many Opus Dei families. I met and call friends numerous GOP families at SR. Can politics be comfortably discussed in any mixed group? I can’t even discuss politics with my own mother. As for the HOS, I had the same sense and I have no problem with that. Her politics are irrelevant, or should be. She just needs to be a Sacred Heart HOS: all faiths, all families, all races, all girls. Cor Unum. One heart.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have been at SR since before the Kavanaugh hearing and never received any kind of survey like that. I call BS on poster. Why do some folks feel the need to make things up???

Us too. It's BS.

+1. A lie. We’ve been there forever. No such survey.

I'm alumna and i received a letter and survey after the kavanaugh hearings about keeping students safe from assault or something like that. I remember sharing it with my 'didntgo to private all girls school ' friends and we laughed about it. The survey/letter definitely went out to alumni, if not to current students. I think it was also talking about people who had been there in the 80/90s so that makes sense. As in we apologize if anything happened in the past and what are suggestions for what we should do now. It was just weird.

[Anonymous]

You should mind your own business as should the tattletale poster.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:yes but because his daughter was in that class.

Yup. You won't be seeing Brett Kavanaugh doing it anytime soon.

I hear Justice Kavanaugh is in big demand to speak at girls high school commencement ceremonies, and Holton is chomping at the bit. Said no one.