Reply to Why are kids dropping out of BASIS DC starting in 7/8th grade?

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[quote=Anonymous]There are several of my friends whose kids were the first to attend the school when it first opened, and now I know none that will be attending 9th or 10th grade there. All of their kids were doing well in 7th and started falling behind in 8th. The end-of-year comps and the stress of taking on AP classes before they're ready and the lack of a traditional high school feel has sent them running for "safety" elsewhere. Most of these kids were bright, and interested in learning and at the top of their respective schools upon entering BASIS. There was a large group who knew each other -- we even ran into several kids that we'd seen in pre-K at the testing day three years ago.

I'm very glad I didn't send my son there. He would have been miserable! He would have ended up leaving for Walls, Wilson, Latin, etc. for high school where there's not so much pressure to make the school look good but more emphasis on the student actually absorbing what they're learning. I don't knock BASIS for the few kids who enjoy the fast pace of learning, but I don't think it's necessarily a good thing or necessary for anyone to be successful in life to be that stressed out in school. School is about so much more than retaining tons of new facts that are heaped upon you constantly and pulled out of you at comps time. Any parent who carefully considers their child's well-being would seriously second-guess a school like this. This is not the best way to learn - it's the best way for kids to become anxious, depressed, and worse from what I hear from so many parents.

The kids that have left are so much happier and well-adjusted, have tons of friends, and are doing well academically in their new schools. They find school to be a fun and balanced place to learn, as well as to grow physically and socially without the dreaded surprise of failing a class during the last week of school. BASIS probably wants to open an elementary school because they know the high school model will not survive much longer. The graduation rate if actually calculated from the cohort of ALL the kids that started in 5th grade would be depressingly low. And the founders should be ashamed of that.

- parent of future biomedical engineer and current 10th-grade honors and athlete-student at a non-BASIS charter school[/quote]

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