Reply to BASIS attrition after middle school- why?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]...if your child always received "5"s in DCPS, then you think it will be a good fit. However, it can often become very obvious how little the child actually was taught in DCPS. This is where insecure skills in reading, writing, comprehension, organization and math show up. [/quote]

Elementary parents: Don't be scared off. Yes, Basis is more challenging than most DCPS schools, but students don't have to be geniuses or even come in above grade level to do well. My child (now in HS at Basis) has found Basis to be generally pretty easy. And yes, they're reasonably smart, but they didn't get a single 5 on a PARCC in elementary school.[/quote]

Well, I have a kid who got 5s in his first go round on PARCC and we are a mathy family that loves rigor. 
 but we are not going to lottery for Basis because: the teachers are too inexperienced and there is too much turnover, the middle schoolers all looked depressed, the lack of windows coupled with never leaving the windowless building, the lack of freedom  for kids (like no recess when they can do what they want), the "drill and kill" vibe of middle school classwork, and a bad feeling from the HoS (seemed like a bullshitter who is acting smarter than he is)

The high school actually seemed better on all those fronts, but we would not put our kids in the middle school.[/quote]

I'm a generally satisfied Basis parent who agrees that it would be better to combine the rigor of the curriculum with more experienced teachers, more freedom, and a better campus. I'd also like butterflies to flutter around our kids during the school day.

The question is not whether Basis is imperfect, the question is how it compares to other options. Since you are not planning to lottery for Basis, what are your plans?[/quote]

A midling DCPS middle school and then hopefully SWW or Banneker. Kid knows he needs to keep his grades up and he is very capable of it. [/quote]

OK, that's a perfectly reasonable approach. One of the reasons we opted for Basis was to ensure strong MS academics, at the admitted cost of a worse building and fewer extracurricular, and to avoid the stress of the HS application process and the risk of not getting in to a HS school that we like. We're all just trying to make the best choice we can among imperfect but generally decent options.[/quote]

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