Reply to Thoughts on DCI, Latin or BASIS

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]How much homework do kids at DCI, Latin and Basis get each day?  Thanks.[/quote]

Basis - my kids have had 1-2 hrs in middle school. Slightly more in high school. [/quote]

Basis - my (academically advanced math) kids had 2-3 hours a night in middle school to stay on Distinguished Honor Roll (top 5% of the class), although one dropped to Honor Roll one year (top 15%).

If you are advanced and ambitious you are taking 3 AP classes in 9th grade at least - the required US Gov't, either AP Calc AB or BC, and an elective. Some kids are taking 4 AP courses.  This year the offerings were Computer Science, Psychology, and Environmental Science.  Oh and AP Chemistry if you were in LEAP Chem in 8th grade and wanted to get there early in the morning.  But Chem and CS conflicted, and because the school is so small, you never know if they will offer the same AP electives next year.

8th grade LEAP Chem only had a final not a comp, and it was so tough it discouraged a lot of the students in it (but it was only 30% or so of the grade, not 50% like the comps), and if you failed it you could probably still have passed the class if you did all your homework, quizzes, tests, quiz and test corrections, etc. But there is no LEAP Chem class this year.

So not many kids in AP Chemistry this year.  Don't know what they will do next year in terms of science APs, not having had a LEAP class and with so much attrition of the 8th graders who were in LEAP (the ones they allegedly are trying to keep).

In 9th grade taking 3 or 4 AP classes means a lot of homework - but some took 2 AP courses in 8th and and took the AP exam at least in World History - which was an option for every 8th grade student - one student (who left) took 3 AP courses and exams in 8th grade and did very well.

If you can hit the lowest rung on the AP exam - get a 3, your final grade for the class improves dramatically.  They have a chart.  Of course hitting a 3 gets you nowhere if you are aiming for the highest rung in terms of colleges.  And some teachers are not teaching to the test or not teaching well at all.

Growing pains probably, but tough if you are growing with Basis.  But the aim is 30-40% attrition between 8th and 9th which is tough socially and academically in DC.  They have a pyramid model, and as the school grows by grade the incoming classes will have to be smaller so the high school will get smaller as well unless they change something.

Washington Latin I think offers more regularly scheduled AP subjects (Basis is young), and of course with DCI I think it is too soon to tell?

Basis in the lower grades is STEM heavy and there are 8 classes 6th-8th including 3 years of Biology (where everything is new each year), and 3 years of Chemistry and Physics which are so repetitive they bore the heck out of the kids who got it the first time around, but you still have to do the homework and study for the quizzes and tests and precomps and comps.  Then you have History, English, Math, foreign language (after 6th you can stick with Latin or take Spanish or French), music/art/drama (no comps) and PE (no comps).  Maybe PE drops out at some point, don't remember.

If your kid does not have a good memory, or is disorganized, or anxious about tests or grades, Basis is not ideal.  Especially after 5th when the knowledge measured becomes cumulative (although that is always kind of true in math and both my kids took math comps their first year in).  But if you are not in Algebra I in 5th grade, you do not have to take a single comp.  The rubber meets the road in 6th.

And then in High School with the required AP courses and how your scores on the AP exams, which you are required to take, affect your grades.  NOT for the faint of heart, or kids who are actively pursuing some time consuming beyond school extra-curricular activity.  I could easily see doing that at Latin.  (Yes, we have had kids at both).  They are incredibly different schools to say the least. No experience with DCI but actively dislike the tech heavy focus especially at lunch etc.

I think there are discipline problems at all schools but I sure wish Basis would adopt a Restorative Justice model (never gonna happen)

Also, at Latin you as a parent can monitor homework etc via the web whereas Basis makes the kids more independent.

Probably TMI but all the knowledge I have.  Oh and kids at Latin are now staying for high school more and more.

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