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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Just to give one example (the latest) of the kind of disorganization you can anticipate at SWW, I just got two emails from SWW telling me for the first time that tomorrow is an all-day field trip for 9th graders and that they are having an off-site event at UDC.  My child is instructed to report to UDC, Building 41, by 8:45 am.  There are no instructions; there is no map; there will apparently be no administrators at the metro telling kids which way to go.  I'm just supposed to send my kid, by herself, to a part of town she's not familiar with so that she can wander around the UDC campus until she finds Building 41.

On the one hand, my kid is pretty resourceful, and she'll probably make it.  On the other hand, this total disregard for planning, giving timely and meaningful help and direction, and last-minute notice (which probably a huge percentage of parents won't see) seems to be par for the course.  This kind of stuff makes you crazy, and it is absolutely the way they do things.[/quote]

See, I had a very different take on that email. For us, it was an opportunity to discuss how one takes responsibility for finding one's own way. I thought it was a good experience, that my DD was ready for it, and that this shifting of wayfinding responsibility to the students was very good preparation.

My kid does have a passing familiarity with that part of Connecticut Ave, but not with the UDC campus. I discussed the email with DD, instructed her to find and print out a campus map, and to present plans A and B (bus and Metro) for getting there in the morning. I also told her to scope out lunch options. She passed my tests and managed just fine today.

The metro station is *right there*, so no wandering through less-than-walkable parts of DC, and Walls kids really should have Metro figured out.

And while I agree that last year's admission ordeal was disorganized, partly because of the unwelcome intrusion of the MySchools lottery into a process where (at least for us) it was irrelevant, we haven't had any real complaints about disorganization at Walls.[/quote]

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