Reply to How was the meeting with the admin meeting last week at BASIS?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I really cannot believe how people are making a mountain out of a mole hill to say the least over this incident in a chemistry class. Talk about over-reacting. I have never ever met a school that was perfect.

I question the agenda of several posters here who are going on and on and on about the supposed evils of BASIS. It seems to me that they must want to take down the school instead of supporting the school and helping it improve.

These posters have also tried to flame anyone who disagrees with them or who tries to correct misinformation of which a ton has been posted here and elsewhere. I realize BASIS is not perfect but neither is anyone school. I will push back when people put out wrong information and that does not make me a rabid booster as these posters would say. I push back in the name of fairness because people who post incorrect info in their rants against BASIS are not fighting fair in my book and are not bothering to get the facts as well.

Lastly, I ask anyone making rants against BASIS what their solution is since surely it is not to help the school. [/quote]

As another person said, it is quite possible that many of the people posting are not Basis parents.

I have to hope so.  But what scares me is many of the people looking are not, and never will become, Basis parents if we keep this up.

I think you are lumping many posters together who do not know each other, the same way the Boosters do.

I think there are people here who believe they know particular parents they are addressing, and are incorrect.

And I think your post is just as belligerent and off putting as many others have been.

I don't think that is a good way to begin if you are truly trying to generate something constructive out of this, which I am not sure is possible, but I admire your optimism.

For instance, I do think the former Basis teacher wants to help parents carefully evaluate whether or not the school is a good fit for their children.

And she was spot on about the marketing, despite the numerous posters who tried to shoot her down.

And I do not understand why people have to "push back" or "correct false information" in such a nasty, aggressive, and holier than thou way.  This just seems to be the way Basis parents do it, and it is really off putting.

How DARE a parent be so ignorant that they did not know about the tardy policy, for example.
I would have liked to get in there and say that there is a great deal of difference between how it is written and the way it is being enforced, but I did not want to get into a pissing match.  This is exhausting.  And I do not think Basis parents who stridently correct people who post about pushing kids into AP Calculus are winning any converts, either.  And the parent who had the 6th grader and made the mistake about how many years 5th graders have been at the school.  You can correct misinformation without alienating the person who is misinformed, and alienating everyone else at the same time.  But none of these parents seem to care about that.

We have a very bad reputation as a group on this board, and I think it is well earned because of the belligerent nature in which parents (or even worse) outsiders, are corrected, reprimanded, and shamed.

I personally do not think this incident was a small thing, however, having been at the school for 3 years, understanding how important grades are to the kids, considering the way the Dean behaved, and evaluating the way the whole situation was handled in the days that followed.  And I think you should respect my opinion.

And I think that the people who are trying to make it into a small thing by attacking the kids, attacking the parents, pointing fingers everywhere but at the Dean and the HOS, are not doing us any favors either.  The parents who are justifying the behavior of the Dean are [b]really[/b] not helping, because they move from saying how terrible the child who stole the candy is, to the fact that the Dean had a right to try to get to the bottom of it.  The fact remains his behavior would not be acceptable at any good school, public or private.

I have an 8th grader whose friend was in the class.  While she did not know about the email, my child could not convince their friend last week that the Dean would not fail her.  And that was very frustrating.  Whatever the Dean did, he made a deep impression.  And the evidence speaks for itself - Cameron Louis did very little appropriate damage control.

As others have said, fixing the situation would have been so simple at that juncture - go in to the Element with the Dean that next Monday, make the Dean apologize for threatening the students academically, and explain that his type of threat is contrary to everything that Basis stands for.  I think he still needs to do this with this class.  They deserve an apology from both of these authority figures who failed them on October 16th and in the days after.

His failure to do this simple thing was why we ended up where we were last week - children who were still scared, parents who were confused, and rumors that were spreading.

One potential dynamic that no one has mentioned is that since so many Basis parents seem to think that the kids overreacted (I heard a description of what happened and I am not sure that I would have been able to hold myself steady), is that Jack got home and wanted to talk things over with his parents, but since they had read and understood the email, they told him he was overreacting.  But I think that is unlikely.  You would not spew the venom you all are spewing if it was your child who was scared and confused and yes, a bit traumatized.

This happened during the school day, and the email did not arrive until 7pm, and not everyone spends a lot of time on line..........

Reading the other thread about why students in the upper school who were not "academically struggling" decided to leave Basis, it was all about the way that they were treated by administrators and teachers...

I think the people who are blowing off the attrition of "top students" are wrong.  I think Basis should be making a sincere effort to try to convince the kids who always planned to leave to stay, and try to keep the ones who always wanted to but now are questioning whether or not they should.

The major complaint is mistreatment.  Why not have a forum about respect, about how it is a two way street, about how students have the right to be treated with respect the same way that teachers do.  About what respect means, and how it looks.  How you earn it, how you show it, and how you can lose it, and how valuable it is.

I think the Dean does not belong at Basis (last year, the real heavy was Mr. Aiken, but he approached discipline issues in a much more appropriate and sophisticated way that respected individual autonomy and emphasized individual responsibility.)  And I think the email is an embarrassment to the school.

The other major complaint is disruption, and failures in classroom management that interfere with instruction.  But until we have another Dean of Students, I think after this incident, many teachers will think twice before they send even the most badly behaving students to him now.  He really appears to have anger issues, and he clearly does not respect the students.  He needs to go.

I think when you start with 5th graders who are coming from so many different backgrounds, education levels, and standards of behavior, it would be easy to use Aero and other times to make expectations and consequences clear.  The student handbook is hundreds of pages.  I have not even tried to read it.

For the kids who need more discipline, they should be getting it.  I am not sure that they are, because some inexperienced teachers are losing control of their classes and are afraid to admit it.  What are they going to do?  Call the Dean and have him terrorize everyone?  Talk to Cameron Louis who NEVER taught here, who would probably respond with gobbledy gook about more appropriate messaging?

I think people here should try to be more gentle with each other, and the same is true of the internal list serve.  While we are not a Christian community, I think we could take a page from their book.  Try to believe everyone has good intentions, and do not shoot people down immediately when they raise issues.  Respect that the issues they raise are real to them from the get go, and move on from there.

Now they are raising them here, and I think it is actually the only safe place to do so. But that is sad for Basis.

And that is a direct result of a bunch of snooty parents not liking what happened in the first few weeks when some former disgruntled families came out, and not being able to manage their inboxes.  The one thing that I like is how people are cooperating on homework, and there are even parents complaining that this is not an appropriate use for the list serve.  Then I really do not know what function it is supposed to serve.

I think petty attacks on wording and personalities and all of this should just stop.  Declare a cease fire, if you will.
Show some respect for each other.

The saddest thing is that the answer to the initial question is that virtually nothing was accomplished at the initial meeting, and virtually nothing was resolved, except when Mr. Aiken took the lead.

For all the extended time the meeting went on, the explanation of Mastery Defense was clearer in the subsequent email, and should have been clarified at the beginning of the year, the parents who spoke about violence were kind of shouted down, the parents who spoke about theft were met with a lecture about how this was the result of bad parenting, the tardy lady just dug herself into a deeper and deeper hole, and the only concrete assurances, promises, and responses really came from Mr. Aiken, not Mr. Louis, and he unfortunately left before the whole tardy issue was discussed.

I just do not think Mr. Louis is doing a good job of running the school, and I think he is actively doing damage as opposed to the first Head who mostly did nothing, but hence almost nothing bad.  And I do not think the Dean is an appropriate Basis employee.

I think what happened in 8La was a big deal for many of the kids and at least some of the parents.  And I am entitled to my opinions on these matters.  And I wish people would just all be more gentle with each other.

It is very easy for educated people to pulverize posts on this forum from other parents, but what is the motive?  I will never understand the dynamic we have going on here, I just hope it stops.  It came in with the new administration, and should go out with them, quickly.

Unfortunately no one who reads this thread is going to want to join our community, and many are at fault for that.

Just as an example, I got really angry when all those parents said essentially that what happened in the classroom on that day could never be established to any degree of certainty and so it could not be addressed.  I think that position is ridiculous and shows a real lack of respect for our kids.  Who are 8th, not 5th graders, and have been at Basis for 3 years.

So I hope maybe you, or someone else, could salvage this by responding to the original question with your own impression of what was discussed and resolved at the meeting (without fear of being ridiculed, pulverized, or belligerently contradicted).

If we could harness all this wasted energy into trying to make Basis a better place, think of how constructive and productive we could be.[/quote]

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