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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My comment on these retention numbers is that there is a very high chance your kid will be wanting to leave if they go to Basis.

So be prepared to continue playing the lottery and no guarantee of getting in anywhere.

Guess your kid can stay at Basis and be miserable.  Last option is move.[/quote]

It just seems like such a crapshoot about whether any particular kid will like the school. When we started looking into lottery schools we started with the assumption that getting into Basis was a ticket to high school, that if our kid got in we'd be set, and we could stay in our EOTP house. But we have since talked to so many people who ended up having to scramble to find other middle schools or high schools, including some who moved. Most of the time, the kids who didn't like it fit mold of the kids we're all told will like Basis -- the bright, hardworking kids who take school seriously. It has made us very cautious about the school. We'll probably send our math-oriented kid there if he gets in but we'd be sending him with our eyes wide open and have some backup plans. If he gets into either Latin, we're sending him there instead. [/quote]

This is going to invite a lot of anger, but the kids I know who like it all have 98th or 99th percentile math scores.

This is something parents know about their kids in late elementary.

[/quote]

This poster is not saying that all students who are good at math will like BASIS. This poster is saying that in this poster's experience, students who are NOT good at math will NOT like BASIS.

So the poster is not suggesting that any student who gets, for example, a high 5 on the math CAPE will like BASIS. Of course that's not the case, everyone's different and there are so many factors that go into whether a student likes a school. I think the idea is more that students who already struggle with math in elementary school (e.g., who perhaps get a 3 or below on the math CAPE or struggle with iReady math despite putting in some effort) will very likely NOT like BASIS. From what I've observed as a BASIS parent, that seems accurate.

And the main reason for that is that kids who have to spend a lot of time and energy just keeping up with the schoolwork don't have as much time as they would like for extracurriulars, sports, and other things that provide a well-rounded school experience. The kids who like BASIS (mine included) seem to be the ones who can do well academically without spending all that much time on academics and still have a lot of time to participate in extracurriculars.[/quote]

Agree with all of this. The amount of time kids are spending on HW and studying at home varies from 0-15 minutes all the way to 3 hours daily, for the same classes. For kids who can easily handle the math and science (for math, physics and chem) and have good memories (for history, biology and english), there is plenty of time for clubs, sports and relaxation and they are simply much happier as a result.

Parents have enough info/test scores about their kids by the time the 4th grade lottery season hits to know if they can handle it. If they had stayed in DCPS, accelerated math options would be decided by those test scores. at BASIS, it needs to be assessed by the parents.

So that was a response to how it feels like a "crapshoot." BASIS doesn't seem to want to get explicit about it, but they repeatedly say things like "accelerated curriculum" in the hopes that parents do their due diligence about what they means. [/quote]

+1. We chose BASIS because we knew that our kids would actually enjoy the curriculum plus have plenty of time for outside ECs they were already engaged in. For high school, our eldest was accepted to both Walls and private schools, and turned them down to stay at BASIS. If we thought our kids wouldn't like BASIS, we would never have sent them there.[/quote]

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