Reply to My child is drowning at Basis. Thoughts on mid year move?

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Reply to "My child is drowning at Basis. Thoughts on mid year move?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I can't stand this attitude "BASIS is a lot of work, so does not fit everyone."  Some families come to dislike BASIS not because it's hard work, or the kids can't handle the material, but because the school has too much in common with a juvenile detention facility. BASIS has many fine teachers and offers admirable challenge for DC public, yes, but the model is still a grind, unnecessarily.

At our IB school off the National Mall, 10 year olds do treasure hunts in the Botanical Gardens during walk-down morning field trips. They head to the American Indian Museum IMAGINATIONS room to learn, or Natural History Museum Discovery room.  They see IMAX movies at Air and Space, then complete assignments to shoot their own space-themed movies on smart phones.

BASIS keeps the kids locked inside a joyless building almost all the time. They won't touch block scheduling, to give classes time to walk to museums and back during a single subject period.  The Portrait Gallery/American Art museum and Ford's Theater are around the corner, but the kids are almost never taken to round out their history studies, let alone farther afield, to gasp, the National Archives and US History Museum.  They can't even chill in a school library flipping through books, or shoot baskets on a roof court to unwind (we had one at my MS PS in Manhattan, despite no grassy area).  No wonder some kids can't adjust.  
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I am the pp who wrote that BASIS is not a good fit for everyone and that it is a lot of work. I agree that some families come to the conclusion that BASIS is not a goof fit despite being able to do the work. In fact, we have had times when we thought seriously of pulling our kid out in 6th, 7th, 8th, and even 9th grade due to the workload even though our kid has done well grade wise there. I pointed out that it is a lot of work because it is a lot of work, more than some might want in fact which includes my opinion. I wish the workload was about 20% less or the day a little bit shorter like one hour shorter. [/quote]

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