Basis -- How many kids per 5th grade class?

[Anonymous]

BASIS has 150 5th grade seats open this year -- up from 135 for the past 2 years. Are they opening another 5th grade class, or are the classes just becoming much larger? How many kids are usually in a 5th grade class?

[Anonymous]

They may just be intentionally over enrolling given their traditional waitlist movement and their guess that there will be even more this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They may just be intentionally over enrolling given their traditional waitlist movement and their guess that there will be even more this year.

This would make sense to me.

[Anonymous]

Different poster. What is the class size for 5th grade typically?

[Anonymous]

They have 5 "elements" in 5th grade. So, that has been 27 kids per element.

With 150 kids, you could have 5 elements with 30 kids or 6 elements with 25 kids.

Basis DC generally doesn't let in kids after 5th grade (new admits would have a hard time catching up), so kids don't get replaced if they leave. So, the overall student/teacher ratio is 14:1.

Not sure what the plan will be in the fall. Rumors are that Basis DC will open full time, every day.

[Anonymous]

Nonsense that new admits would necessarily have “trouble catching up.” We left Basis for a suburban GT program with far more humanities rigor and equal rigor for math and science in 6th grade. BASIS parents tend to buy into the program’s exceptionalism hook line and sinker. Silly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nonsense that new admits would necessarily have “trouble catching up.” We left Basis for a suburban GT program with far more humanities rigor and equal rigor for math and science in 6th grade. BASIS parents tend to buy into the program’s exceptionalism hook line and sinker. Silly.

This isn't relevant to the original question. We get it, you don't like BASIS. Please stop your BASIS bashing and hang out on the VA or MD schools forum instead please.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nonsense that new admits would necessarily have “trouble catching up.” We left Basis for a suburban GT program with far more humanities rigor and equal rigor for math and science in 6th grade. BASIS parents tend to buy into the program’s exceptionalism hook line and sinker. Silly.

I realize this is going on a tangent, but I have thought a lot about whether I should accept our BASIS spot or not for our rising 5th grader. We have decided to enroll our child for many reasons. One of the reasons for doing so is that we are worried that our IB option, which is fine in normal years, will have a lot of kids with catching up to do in 5th and later years after the disaster that was this year (1.5 years of dumbed down school). I think this will be a real problem in a lot of neighborhood schools. I worry about this less so with BASIS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nonsense that new admits would necessarily have “trouble catching up.” We left Basis for a suburban GT program with far more humanities rigor and equal rigor for math and science in 6th grade. BASIS parents tend to buy into the program’s exceptionalism hook line and sinker. Silly.

This isn't relevant to the original question. We get it, you don't like BASIS. Please stop your BASIS bashing and hang out on the VA or MD schools forum instead please.

I get that it's not the point of this post but I would agree. My daughter had two friends transfer from Basis to Deal in 6th and both said that the academics were not a dive off a cliff. And the kids were light years happier from a social perspective.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They may just be intentionally over enrolling given their traditional waitlist movement and their guess that there will be even more this year.

The other piece is that since they don't backfill and may have seen more attrition in upper grades this year as families moved, etc, they may be planning for a bigger 5th grade class next year to help fill the budget gap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nonsense that new admits would necessarily have “trouble catching up.” We left Basis for a suburban GT program with far more humanities rigor and equal rigor for math and science in 6th grade. BASIS parents tend to buy into the program’s exceptionalism hook line and sinker. Silly.

This isn't relevant to the original question. We get it, you don't like BASIS. Please stop your BASIS bashing and hang out on the VA or MD schools forum instead please.

Post what you want, PP and let others do the same. Ludicrous to claim that bright, well-prepared students would have a "hard time" catching up in 6th grade at BASIS.

Fair comment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nonsense that new admits would necessarily have “trouble catching up.” We left Basis for a suburban GT program with far more humanities rigor and equal rigor for math and science in 6th grade. BASIS parents tend to buy into the program’s exceptionalism hook line and sinker. Silly.

This isn't relevant to the original question. We get it, you don't like BASIS. Please stop your BASIS bashing and hang out on the VA or MD schools forum instead please.

I get that it's not the point of this post but I would agree. My daughter had two friends transfer from Basis to Deal in 6th and both said that the academics were not a dive off a cliff. And the kids were light years happier from a social perspective.

That's probably because the focus in 5th grade isn't academics, but organization. 5th grade is the year Basis focuses on getting all the new students on the same level so that they will be prepared to do the Basis curriculum in the years going forward.

[Anonymous]

I went to an info session earlier this year where they said class sizes would be around 30 per class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They may just be intentionally over enrolling given their traditional waitlist movement and their guess that there will be even more this year.

The other piece is that since they don't backfill and may have seen more attrition in upper grades this year as families moved, etc, they may be planning for a bigger 5th grade class next year to help fill the budget gap.

+1.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Post what you want, PP and let others do the same. Ludicrous to claim that bright, well-prepared students would have a "hard time" catching up in 6th grade at BASIS.

Fair comment.

DP. Other BASIS schools allow kids to enter in 6th, 7th, and 8th. They just have to pass a placement test before being given a spot for that grade. My DD entered in 7th and is a straight A student.