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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It wasn’t our plan but our child is about to to finish MS at ITDS and she has truly loved it. It’s not perfect but for a middle schooler to really love school is huge. And they do offer more acceleration in MS than ES. It’s been a good experience. [/quote]

BASIS is a school that parents love. ITDS is a school that kids love. [/quote]

More like BASIS is a school that, overall, both parents and kids merely tolerate.  - BASIS parent of several years, and not long ago.  [/quote]

Speak for yourself.  Lots of parents love it.[/quote]

BS. Parents claim they love BASIS for pride's sake because they can't do any better without leaving DC. If you can't afford a private and don't want to move to the burbs for a kick ass HS you wind up tooting BASIS' horn to mask its glaring shortcomings. My main beef with the BASIS MS is that it employs too many poorly trained and inexperienced young teachers who clearly use the place as a teacher training program before they hit the road for better pay and working conditions in Fairfax, Arlington or MoCo. I also didn't like how narrow the curriculum was and how pushy admins were about seeing no need to widen it (come on, only beginning language study from 8th grade for dozens of kids per cohort who came up through DCPS and charter elementary school immersion). BASIS is a blunt instrument. You can stay mired in relativism or you can admit that you make the best of BASIS until you can do better, maybe just for college. [/quote]

They also decided to widen the curriculum. They removed linguistics and added a writing course in 6th and 7th for example, and it's excellent -- narrative, persuasive, vocabulary building etc. they had pen pals in Arizona They learned so many forms of writing and it's a chance to be a little more creative. And they just changed middle school science to allow for more lab time (2 instead of 3 classes)  and they changed "physical geography" to "earth and life science." They have expanded art offerings with a "national art honor society"

Im truly sorry that people had bad experiences before and I don't doubt the stories. But I was just discussing this at an end of year event with some other parents whose kids have been happy (mine is genuinely happy). The rumors don't seem true anymore (except that you need to be good at math to enjoy the curriculum). 
[/quote]

Wow, a pen pal in Arizona! Who could pass that up?[/quote]

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