Reply to Open House - do you learn anything new from these?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]You learn who is detailed and thoughtful and who doesn’t give a crap about the presentation and the open house.

You learn who is pretentious and tone deaf and who thoughtful and sincere.

You learn who understands what parents need and provide context rich information to help parents know if the school is a good fit, while others provide BS stuff and answer questions with more BS stuff.

You learn lots of useful information if you [b]bring your hard questions [/b]and asks during the Q&A and/or during the tour talking to parents and students.

You learn about how bad or how good the facilities are (gym, library, etc..) how joyful or depressing the classrooms are, how small or large the classrooms are.

Above are just a few things.  There is many more.  So yes, you definitely should go to the open house,  and if you are astate and bring your hard questions, talk with staff, parents, students, you will learn a lot. 
[/quote]

Gotta ask. What are these "hard questions" that you've come up with that are going to stump schools that have been listening to the same questions from PS parents for years and years?[/quote]

I would love to know too. The most common question that I heard in every single open house (for pk3) that I went was about differentiation. It was cute![/quote]

Differentiation is a very reasonable question for PK parents to ask if looking at a school long term. It is obviously particularly important if they suspect that their kid will need it (in either direction)... but it is especially reasonable for any school with a diverse student population. A willingness to support differentiation can easily make or break a kid's classroom experience.[/quote]

They always ask about specials too. As if the kids will be made bilingual with 2 days a week of Senior Whatshername saying "rojo, azul". [/quote]

Schools have different specials. Why isn't that something you'd want to know about? Payne has no music. Tyler has great drama. L-T has an extra special compared to DCPS' standard. Why do you assume everyone should have the same priorities as you in terms of what they want in an ES?[/quote]

Your question is intellectually disingenuous. No one is suggesting that a parent wouldn't want to know what specials are offered. The point being made is...

1. That's not some revolutionary question that a parent will launch at an open house. It is asked at EVERY open house and is listed on the web page.
2. Specials in ECE are lovely. And mightily unimportant. ECE parents have no clue. They ask questions about what kind of play time their 3 year olds will have ane pay no attention to the abysmal 3rd and 4tt grade test scores because they are just sooooooo enlightened. Until their kids get older and those parents realize that when 60+% of a class is one or more grade levels behind it will impact their snowflake.[/quote]

Actually, there are quite a few schools where the websites do not make clear which specials are offered or which specials are offered to which grade levels. That is a perfectly reasonable question for an open house. I am not claiming it’s revolutionary. It’s amazing to me how much your second statement just ignores that different people want different things in a school. Even if a school isn’t a solution for all of ES, it might be the best I can do in the lottery now. Different people have different priorities and that’s fine.[/quote]

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