Reply to African-American parents - where are your kids in school and how are they doing?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here - I also live in Silver Spring and expect we will send the kids to our neighborhood elementary school.  I am also interested in hearing about AA experiences in the Silver Spring middle and high schools, as well as experiences at BCC and WJ, which would probably be out target areas to move if we felt it necessary.[/quote]

OP, I am an African-American, DC-native (grew up in Ward 7). About 5 years ago, we moved to Chevy Chase, MD. My teenage daughter attends BCC, and we are on the first thing smokin up out of there. Please see my recent post under the "Whitman v BCC v Yorktown v W&L"  thread of the General School Discussion forum.[/quote]

Thanks.  Can you tell me a bit about her social experience at BCC?  What's the AA student population like?  Are there many middle and upper-middle class AA students there?  On another thread, I had gotten the impression that all the AA students were from the Rosemary Hills section of SS and among the AA students at least, there was little economic diversity.  To the extent this was true, was it ever an issue for your daughter?[/quote]

That is a very informed question concerning the AA population.  I would have to disagreee about the economic diversity among AA students.  We have been in this school cluster for about 5 years now and I now a good number of working/middle/upper-middle class families.  When my daughter attended Westland, there was an inexplicably sharp divide between the upper-middle class AA students and those from the low-income neighborhoods in SS.  In BCC, that divide seems to have disappeared.  If I were to offer any explanation, it would be purely speculative. However, my daughter has alluded to the teachers and administration making assumptions about her as a student based on the notion you mentioned.

[b]Regarding her social experience, she has become very disrespectful at home, many of her peers openly use foul language, talk about thier drinking experiences, and some are sexually active (I read their Twitter and FB pages, and my daughter's outgoing and incoming texts -- yes, I am a social media and and cell phone spy. She is aware.).  Make-up and short/tight clothing are an issue this year. (If you visit the school, it looks more like the young women are dressed for a night-club rather than for school. There is no substantive dress code.)  I am fighthing an uphill battle with the peer group influence and her impression that the aforementioned should be considered normal or acceptable behavior.  The administration doesn't seem to blink at any of it.  I can't comfortably permit her to attend events or just "hang-out" unsupervised because I am so nervous about how inundated she is with ideals that I don't agree with or promote. [/b]
[/quote]

So interesting.  Seems like the same thing that people worry about when sending their kids to less affluent schools.  Guess you can't escape certain things no matter where your kids are.[/quote]

I admit, these are "typical" teen issues. However, my job as a parent is to make sure that her "teen-years" environmenst does not become detrimental to her.  My husband and I work long hours and, regrettably, cannot constantly work to curb the effects of these issues. We are seeking out a school that is smaller and has more of a community feel. I'm not sure why this tends to dissipate at the high-school level in relatively good public school clusters. [/quote]

I hate to break this to you.  As the mother of a son who is in a small envirnoment, I literally quit my job last year to get him back on track.  A school cannot parent your kid.  You have to stay in her ass.[/quote]

You're damn right, PP!  My son is at one of these so-called Big 3 schools where the values are vastly different from what we as a family have instilled in him.  Academically, it's a great fit, but there are so many social landmines lurking constantly it's mandatory for us to spend the extra time and provide him with additional support, and also not assume/expect that the school will parent or nurture our son.   Parenting a teen is certainly another full-time job.   [/quote]

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