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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It's because if you look at the actual curriculum of places like Seattle Country Day and Evergreen, they aren't even very accelerated.  They bill themselves as "inquiry-based" but at the end of the day they aren't utilizing the full potential of these kids.  It's still just a generic curriculum with some deep questions here and there.  There's an also a large concentration of twice exceptional kids in these schools with issues like ADHD, screen addiction, etc.  So it's not surprising that come high school and college applications, these kids aren't doing that much more amazing than the public school HC cohorts. [/quote]

Accurate statement and I can't disagree.

The 2e situation is a big one in Seattle and it affects both public HC and independent school cohorts. This goes beyond Evergreen, SCDS and UCDS, all of which are known to be welcoming to 2e kids. All Prek-8/prek-5 independent schools here have disproportionate numbers of 2e students because they often advertise more individualized instruction and smaller class sizes. Ones with preschool 5s classes are especially known for accommodating 2e kids.

Bush is the only k-12 (and King's, but that's in Shoreline and a different beast entirely) so for the vast majority of independent schools, kids are graduating and moving on to a 6-12 or a HS before they'd get to a point where they were so socially or academically out of step that they needed to be counseled out as they would in other cities. Seattle is also a very neurodiverse city (not to bring more assortative mating stuff into the conversation) and that impacts schools, families, and culture/expectations.[/quote]
That's a good point that there isn't a lot of K-12 schools.  It's crazy the number of kids in Seattle who are 2e, it's practically almost every other kid.  Some mask it very well in the lower grades because they are naturally smart, but the social and attention deficits start to become more apparent by high school and college.  Maybe this explains why the college matriculation lists are lackluster outside tiny Lakeside.   One of the arguments for schools like SCDS and Evergreen is to develop the SEL for these kids rather than purely pushing more academics; have them work more on executive functioning and basic social skills.  But my impression is that you just can't teach these things in schools.  It takes years and years of modeling, and that becomes even harder when you are surrounded by similar neurodiverse kids in the school and in playdates.

Maybe the parochial schools (Seattle Prep, etc) are the way to go to avoid the rat race to nowhere in Seattle.  [/quote]

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