Reply to Sidwell vs. Georgetown Day School -- pros and cons

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Would love to hear more about the Upper School experience. What are parent teacher conferences like? [/quote]

At gds, there are parent teacher conferences in the fall. You can sign up for meetings with all teachers/whichever teachers you want. I think they were 10 minutes per teacher.[/quote]

The above is true for gds in all four years, 9th-12th grade.

Sidwell had parent teacher conferences only for 9th grade. They are for 10 (maybe 15?) minutes and only with 3 teachers. You get to rank your preferences but you are not guaranteed top 3.

We 100% preferred gds on this dimension. (Maybe new leadership can change this) The vast majority of teachers also knew our gds student better (give or take a couple) than the 3 teachers knew our Sidwell student. We couldn’t pick the majority of our DCs Sidwell teachers out of a lineup to be honest. HS is always (appropriately) arms length for parents, but Sidwell is even more so. [/quote]

Teachers at Sidwell are happy to have a call with parents any time, particularly if a student is struggling with something.[/quote]

How about the ones that aren't struggling?  Please know that there is a disconnect between (more than a few) teachers and the top students in the hardest classes. Clearly not every teacher but this happens far too much.[/quote]

Literally any time we wanted to talk to a teacher, we could. Never an issue.[/quote]

But if you don’t need to talk to a teacher - you will literally never see them outside of back to school night and will never hear from them either. That may seem normal to you but it isn’t normal. We have a similarly successful student at GDS - and dint need to reach out to them either - yet we know who they are, they communicate with parents at teacher conferences, through updates, and attend school community events and mingle with parents - it’s a very different culture and it’s far more conducive to student teacher bonds . Sidwell is what it is and likely won’t change but that’s really not the norm. [/quote]

What exactly do you want from Sidwell’s US teachers? As others have stated above, you can reach out to them to schedule a call or in-person meeting at anytime. They also communicate information (negative and positive) via interims throughout the year. And they interact with your children on a daily basis, including mandatory (for the teacher) office/classroom time once or twice per week, where your child can drop in for help or just to chat. On top of that, several US teachers serve as coaches for the school’s various sports teams.

Is it you or your child that needs more hand holding from Sidwell’s teachers? It sounds like the former. You need to land the helicopter or college is going to push you over the edge. You will have close to zero contact with your children’s college professors. [/quote]

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