Reply to Which all-girls school has the mean girls

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Imagine a bunch of adults getting together and speculating and talking shit about a bunch of teenagers.

Grow up, you are pathetic.[/quote]

If you read the thread, you will see that families with experiences at this school are not talking about individual kids and their behavior, but school culture and the kinds of behaviors families encourage or discourage. It's unfortunate the OP phrased it as they did because it's really not about individual "mean girls" and much more about whether the culture of a school enables classic "mean girl" behavior or not.

The truth is that schools that have problems with this don't just happen to have a bunch of kids who are mean. Rather, they tend to attract families who don't view relational aggression as a bad thing (these are the people who will defend gossip or intentional exclusion as "normal" and "inevitable") and then the school itself caters to these families. Sometimes school personnel will even participate in the behavior, making it much worse -- that was the case in my own HS many years ago, where the athletic director was more interested in his own social standing with some of the most wealthy and influential families at the school with predictable results. He left a few years after I graduated and my younger sibling had a great experience at the school and I know many other families who saw a noticeable shift in the culture after that.

So it's not about criticizing kids or singling any out. Some schools absolutely have more issue with this problem than others, and it's really helpful for families to know which schools might pose issues before applying or accepting a spot. Especially with how expensive schools are these days -- no one wants to pay these sky high tuition rates at a school where your kid might wind up miserable because your family doesn't belong to the right club or something. It's important info for families looking especially at MS and HS admissions in the next few years.[/quote]

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