Toggle navigation
Toggle navigation
Home
DCUM Forums
Nanny Forums
Events
About DCUM
Advertising
Search
Recent Topics
Hottest Topics
FAQs and Guidelines
Privacy Policy
Your current identity is: Anonymous
Login
Preview
Subject:
Forum Index
»
VA Public Schools other than FCPS
Reply to "If you left APS for private…"
Subject:
Emoticons
More smilies
Text Color:
Default
Dark Red
Red
Orange
Brown
Yellow
Green
Olive
Cyan
Blue
Dark Blue
Violet
White
Black
Font:
Very Small
Small
Normal
Big
Giant
Close Marks
[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We sent our kids to APS all the way through 8th and then private Big3 HS. Our kids did very well and had no issue coming from APS, they were well prepared. But, our private HS experience was vastly different than our public school friend at W&L and Yorktown. To each their own, but we were very happy for the children to experience the rigor of private for the HS years. I would not send my kids to private ES and expect some big difference…unless I was at a not great ES or alternatively my kid had a lot of needs. Just my two cents. [/quote] Was it mostly a difference in academic rigor between your experience and your friends W&L/Yorktown experiences?[/quote] Academic and social differences. I wouldn’t pay for private school for a different social experience, however. Plenty of great/bright kids in APS that I would’ve been more than happy for my kids to socialize with. Some weirdos in both systems so whatever; sort of a wash and kid dependent. Academically, there were many differences but two biggest for us were: (1) amount of homework and (2) writing. My kids were doing 1.5-3 hours of homework starting in 9. Nothing like this for kids’ APS peers. Freshman/sophomore years in APS, kids peers in APS were still not really doing homework. This meant there lives were very different. My kids didn’t have free time in the same way that APS kids do. Many families don’t want this, I get it. Next, the writing. My kids were writing many page papers starting in 9, many times per year, with significant feedback/editing from their teachers with multiple rounds of submission. This wasn’t possible in APS and wasn’t the experience of my children’s peers. [/quote] Weird. My kid in private had less homework than friends in public for 9th/10th. WL kids started doing APs in 9th and/or were doing IB. By 11th, it seemed about the same. [/quote] My post was specific to my children’s experience at a Big3 private. I am certain you could find a range of different experiences at the various private schools across DC. [/quote] Your kids were doing APs in 9th? [/quote] That’s fairly common in APS, at least with families I know. It makes sense considering you can start high school credit classes in 7th grade. [/quote] Public is more advanced in math, though the quality of instruction is a concern. But the curriculum is well defined. But it is “toss into deep end” from[b] no-homework MS[/b] to AP HS. [/quote] Which MS did your kids attend? Our kids have/had homework at DHMS. [/quote] Homework at DHMS is just classwork that is not finished. My kid always completed it in the allotted classtime.[/quote] I’m not sure why this myth about no homework at APS middle schools persists. My kid was at a different MS, but he had homework. As in, the math teacher teaches for the whole period, then assigns homework to do later. In Spanish (immersion), there was lots of reading, plus long projects, to be done at home. Now, my kid might sometimes do math homework during homeroom, but it wasn’t enough time to do it all, and it wasn’t unfinished class work. [/quote] I think the reason the “myth” (for you) persists is that two families can have very different experiences in the same school/classes. Our kids never had homework; that is, they never had work that they had to finish at home. That is not to say they weren’t assigned “homework” nor is it to say that other kids weren’t doing this same work at home. Accordingly, two families/two kids and yet different experiences. 99% of the time our kids finished the purported “home” work during the remainder of the block period. Infrequently, they would have to finish during homeroom or the miscellaneous SEL time. We have very driven, academically oriented kids. Most MS kids spend significant time in school goofing off. It’s totally normal and healthy and absolutely zero indication of how smart the kids are or how successful they will be in HS or beyond. I absolutely am not criticizing the kids nor was it a problem for our family that my kids weren’t doing homework. They did other things. Happily. As I posted earlier, my kids went on to Big3 private HS and have been very successful. I feel like APS prepared them just fine and they weren’t missing something that private MS couldn’t afforded them. [/quote] Okay, you win. Your kids are the best. They somehow completed major, complicated projects with materials they didn’t even have at school, at school, and they created and recorded podcasts and other audio recordings, and did long term science projects, all at school so that they never, ever had to do any work at home. Congratulations. Those of us with mere mortal children have kids who had to do these things, plus things like study for tests, at home sometimes. [/quote] My 8th grader has never once studied for a test. They receive all As and are on the “hardest” trek. I do not believe my child is a genius. [/quote] They skipped the study guides, never memorized vocab words for their foreign language, etc? Fascinating. Maybe the kid cheats. [/quote] An equivalent response would be “maybe your kid isn’t that smart and needs to spend hours studying for easy tests.” See how immature, defensive and rude both of these remarks are? My kid never studied for anything when they were at APS. Your kid has a different experience - it doesn’t mean they both can’t be true. [/quote] Right. So your kid never does the study guides, practices foreign language vocab words, etc. It just sounds like BS. [/quote]
Options
Disable HTML in this message
Disable BB Code in this message
Disable smilies in this message
Review message
Search
Recent Topics
Hottest Topics
