Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We were at DCI in its early years and it was a bit of chaos. They were not ready for the size of school they suddenly had. Lots of teacher turnover, difficulty controlling the kids or keeping classroom order, etc.

We left when the school told us in so many words that DCI's "IB for everyone" philosophy meant using resources to bring up the kids who weren't making it and not for challenging kids who weren't causing trouble for themselves or others. With our next kid we went to Deal and have been generally happy.

I think things at DCI have evolved from the early years. At least based on families I've talked to who are in their first year at DCI and graduated last year from my feeder school. The ones I've talked to are all happy. I've heard good and bad about Deal also. There is no clear answer to a broad question like DCI v Deal. If you're looking at IB, commute, language then you can choose one over the other.

DP. I think there is a lot of bias from current DCI families who may not have any other option. DCI’s IB for all still exists, and while there is some tracking for certain subjects at a certain point, the school overall doesn’t seem to serve most of the students very well. The families in our feeder who are continuing to DCI seem to assume their kid is going to just fall into a high-performing cohort and won’t be affected by the lower performers or related issues. The families I know with older kids at DCI tout the facilities and the ECs, but seem pretty lukewarm on the academics. A few I know are trying to lottery their younger kids elsewhere rather than join the older sibling at DCI.

Unfortunately not until the very end of the month tho.

Both schools have upcoming in person tours.

Anonymous wrote:We were at DCI in its early years and it was a bit of chaos. They were not ready for the size of school they suddenly had. Lots of teacher turnover, difficulty controlling the kids or keeping classroom order, etc.

We left when the school told us in so many words that DCI's "IB for everyone" philosophy meant using resources to bring up the kids who weren't making it and not for challenging kids who weren't causing trouble for themselves or others. With our next kid we went to Deal and have been generally happy.

I think things at DCI have evolved from the early years. At least based on families I've talked to who are in their first year at DCI and graduated last year from my feeder school. The ones I've talked to are all happy. I've heard good and bad about Deal also. There is no clear answer to a broad question like DCI v Deal. If you're looking at IB, commute, language then you can choose one over the other.

How’s Deal for a child with a 504? Also, are there a lot of behavior issues at Deal?

DCI. The overcrowding in ward 3 affects everything from behavior to academics. Long term, JR honors for all has meant a decline in high performing families going there.

We were at DCI in its early years and it was a bit of chaos. They were not ready for the size of school they suddenly had. Lots of teacher turnover, difficulty controlling the kids or keeping classroom order, etc.

We left when the school told us in so many words that DCI's "IB for everyone" philosophy meant using resources to bring up the kids who weren't making it and not for challenging kids who weren't causing trouble for themselves or others. With our next kid we went to Deal and have been generally happy.

Both are good but not great schools, imo. And each has a degree of chaos. We chose, DCI, but are considering J-R for high school because it has more of a track record, a broader range of high-level courses and a higher number of high-performing kids.

DCI by a mile! It baffles me how Deal only does part of the MYP and then there’s no later MYP or DP IB program at JR. Incredibly shortsighted

It seems like these are both good options that you are lucky to have. If you have specific needs/expectations, like IEP or language, then that might favor one over the other. We chose Deal because we are of the impression that it is a bit more structured, which we favored.

Deal. We like the curriculum at JR better and would rather make the change now than have our kid make the change in HS.

DCI. They are more responsive and better at implementing IEPs.

Which language?

We choose DCI because my kid had already invested 6 years in the target language.

If you had the choice of DCI or Deal, what did you choose and why? Thx