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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
Not going to happen.  BASIS' approach has always been to weed around half the middle school kids out before HS, to grind them into submission by making them miserable. This has been their MO in Arizona since the early 90s.  Trust me, the kids who can't move at a "brisker pace" will mostly be gone by 9th grade.  You simply need to be patient for the Hobbesian results to kick in.[/quote]

BASIS parent in AZ here.  That's not at all how it works, and many of the kids are very happy at BASIS.  Mine absolutely love it!  It is true that the 5th grade class is around 180 kids, but only about 90 seniors graduate per year.  Most of it is not due to weeding out the kids, but rather kids leave to attend the local magnet high school (think TJ-lite), move out of area, want a new social scene, or want competitive high school sports teams.  None of these reasons for leaving are that the kids were weeded out.  I would imagine that DC BASIS is similar, where many families use it for middle school and then switch out for high school.

The main reason BASIS graduates only half of their starting kids is that the system is set up to make it nearly impossible for new kids to join after maybe 6th grade.  If a kid leaves after 8th grade, they can't simply offer the slot to another kid.  Few kids would meet the pre-requisites if they hadn't been in BASIS all along.  At least at my kids' school, to join in 9th grade, a kid would need to be ready for pre-calculus, be ready for an AP level history class, and have a full year of high school level foreign language.  There isn't a lot of wiggle room to accommodate kids who aren't at that level.

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How are the upper grades in AAP in Fairfax? I would think the same thing would be applicable there? After a certain point, you can't join a gifted program because you'll be too far behind.[/quote]

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