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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We all know Beauvoir is one of the competitive DC Independent Schools!! Would current parents please share your thoughts positive and negative about the school - administration, curriculum, staff professional development, school culture and community, teaching, diversity, and how new K students are transitioned in. Thank - you in advance.[/quote]

I have a child who left Beauvoir (finished Beauvoir) so I have insight into the whole experience from start to finish.  The finish is actually important, because the children leave after 3rd grade and you need to know what Beauvoir does to help you transition to another school.

Overall, I think Beauvoir is a good school, but I think it depends enormously on the teachers you get.  Some things about Beauvoir are common to any classroom: the use of "life rules", the yearly preparation for "museum night" which entails months of integrated study of a country by each grade (integrated study, in the classroom, through music, through art, etc), chapel services, etc.  These things have really defined Beauvoir, and I think they are honestly great.  But the quality of the teachers can vary a bit, and I know this was an issue at the end of every year (hunting down other parents to find out which teachers of the next grade were good).  I don't think there were any true duds (most had really strong educations, and of course there was a set curriculum), but I feel like there were a lot of teacher requests, which either speaks to super hyper parents or to some red flags about a few teachers.  Moreover, Beauvoir suffers from a high degree of teacher turnover.  Having said that, my child landed into 4 out of 5 great classrooms (and one mediocre).

On the education (outside the teacher) I will say that despite its incredible reputation, the school my daughter now goes to specifically mentioned that Beauvoir kids come in weak on math.  So that's something they obviously need to address.

The parent body is on the surface very nice.  On the surface.  It's like any school, I'm sure.  You have nice parents, and then you have parents whose every conversation with you is an attempt to figure out where your child is placed to their child (academically), what your social status is, etc.  I found it easy to find a nice group of parents, and found it easy to be friendly to everyone regardless.

In terms of diversity, there is ethnic, religious, and socio economic diversity, but limited.  I heard, and I'm not sure this is true but I found it to be true in my daughter's classes, that they "herd" the black children.  Before people have an attack over that one, I mean to say that if they put a black girl in one class, they put another one in there with her too, to make sure the black children have other children of the same sex that look like them.  I think it's a little silly, but I can tell you with my daughter, it was either no black children or 4 black children every year.

On outplacement, they have an outplacement director who will provide guidance and at least give you feedback of where you stand.  Some call her the weatherman...she can only deliver the weather, she can't change it...but nonetheless there is someone there to see you through the process.  And of course, Beauvoir feeds into the other cathedral schools which is nothing to sneeze at.

On the whole we were happy, but we would change things if we could.[/quote]

having just graduated Beauvoir, I can say this is by far the most useful Beauvoir post on DCUM.
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