Anonymous wrote:Can't tell if you're being sarcastic but there's a kernel of truth there.

Not difficult to understand why a middle-aged BASIS HS teacher with a family to support might jump at the chance to get a 30K+ pay rise at Walls or JR (with the stipulation that they'd only teach AP classes).

The better buildings would be icing on the cake.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The language posters on BASIS threads are so exhausting. Seriously, get a life.

This thread is about the building. Why don't you comment on that instead obsessing about other posters. Seriously, get a life yourself.

The case for bad decisions by BASIS seems strong, along with the case for some good ones. It's far from clear to me as a parent waiting for lottery results that things are on the up and up.

We're a 9th grade family that isn't happy that a fantastic math teacher and an excellent humanities teacher left recently. They've been replaced by much weaker (and younger) educators. Not clear to us that things are on the up and up either.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The language posters on BASIS threads are so exhausting. Seriously, get a life.

This thread is about the building. Why don't you comment on that instead obsessing about other posters. Seriously, get a life yourself.

The case for bad decisions by BASIS seems strong, along with the case for some good ones. It's far from clear to me as a parent waiting for lottery results that things are on the up and up.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The language posters on BASIS threads are so exhausting. Seriously, get a life.

This thread is about the building. Why don't you comment on that instead obsessing about other posters. Seriously, get a life yourself.

The case for bad decisions by BASIS seems strong, along with the case for some good ones. It's far from clear to me as a parent waiting for lottery results that things are on the up and up.

Anonymous wrote:The language posters on BASIS threads are so exhausting. Seriously, get a life.

Anonymous wrote:Former BASIS parent who isn't impressed w/the logic followed in the several posts above.

BASIS' mission is to get as many of their grads as possible into the most highly competitive colleges in the country. But rather than furthering this goal by establishing a DC campus with good facilities, BASIS renovated a building w/out a serviceable all-purpose room and w/zero outdoor space. Bad idea. Now they've ditched language study before 8th grade and only permit beginning language study before the AP level. Another bad idea. Fact is, elite colleges value advanced language skills highly.

You can defend BASIS' penchant for control for the sake of control w/out altering the reality that their bad ideas aren't furthering their mission.

I'm guessing BASIS will climb down from their language policy eventually because DC is one of the country's toughest college application pools. The smart thing for BASIS to do in DC would be to build on the language skills of incoming students in a city w/an usually high concentration of language immersion programs. These programs mainly serve the kind of high-achieving families BASIS wants to attract and retain. This is a no-brainer. But go ahead, previous posters, beat the drum for BASIS' bad ideas.

Anonymous wrote:The language posters on BASIS threads are so exhausting. Seriously, get a life.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, if you're still there, I suggest that you seek out one or two former BASIS families of top students who didn't stay for the high school experience before enrolling if you get a spot.

Before we enrolled, we only spoke to families who loved BASIS without Deal as their IB option, the willingness to move to the burbs, or, apparently, the resources for privates.

Not going in with our eyes open came back to bite us.

Last year, only a handful of kids went to Walls or private for 9th grade. That will likely happen again this year.

We have a top student in 8th grade and are staying even though we have several other options.

The Basis curriculum is great and the school is well-run. However, the teaching can be a uneven. That, of course, happens at other schools as well.

We certainly agree that the school is not for everyone. To see if there is a good fit, do your own research and make sure your kid does the shadow day and talks to current students.

Good luck!

The reality is less cheery. More than a quarter of last year's 8th graders students left for whatever reasons, rather than the usual third to 40%. The curriculum just isn't great across the board. It's mediocre for English and foreign languages all the way up.

The cramped facility and tight budget don't stretch to much in the way of hands-on STEM work or arts education. There's little engineering tech at BASIS and no research lab (e.g. the marine biology research lab at TJ in Fairfax).

To see if the school is a good fit, you basically need two years on a test run, as a couple PPs noted above. A shadow day and talking to current students won't necessarily predict how your kid will handle the learning environment by late 6th or 7th grade.

This dude chimes into almost every BASIS thread to tell you BASIS isn't as good as TJ. I adore him. I just wish he had a functional understanding of geography and enrollment requirements. He's nothing if not consistent though!

Anonymous wrote:Bring transparent about bone-headed curricular choices that wouldn’t have been out of place 50 years ago doesn’t make BASIS a great school. Their science instruction is first rate from the get-go. That’s about it. We weren’t even blown away by the math teaching. The miserable building only tells half the story.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child is at BASIS. I would not make the decision about whether to go to BASIS on the building, but I find it depressing, dark, and somewhat cramped-feeling.

I just toured Basis last month. I made the decision not to consider it because of the building. IMO, the good academics just can’t compensate enough for the terrible facilities.

I realize we are privileged in that we have other options while some families don’t.

They can take your clothes, they can take your riches, they can even take your freedom, but one thing they cannot take is your education. I'll go for the academics. You can't take the pretty buildings and manicured lawns with you but your knowledge and skills will travel with you everywhere. This famous quote comes from my mother.

if the education at BASIS were worth missing out on much in way of natural light for 8 years, I’d agree with your mother 100%. We weren’t impressed impressed by at least half of my kid’s classes in 5th and 6th grades, along with the ban on modern language instruction until 8th and along with the requirement that students learn languages at the beginning level (some sort of 80s throwback). We hired an English tutor to ensure that our kid wrote weekly essays that were corrected. His parochial doesn’t require half as much memorization but offers a much better/livelier education overall. But if DCPS is your only viable alternative,sure, BASIS is terrific.

If you want your opinion to be taken seriously then take a more serious approach. It is laughable that you refer to this as a "ban". It is a curriculum choice. It is clearly one with which you disagree. My kid is at BASIS now and I also wish they offered a foreign language. I knew when we chose BASIS that foreign language was not going to happen until 8th grade. My eyes were wide open. Were you not paying attention to the 40 different ways they described the curriculum before you enrolled? Did your sense of entitlement cause you to believe that the rules didn't apply to you and yours? If I was designing the curriculum I would not have assigned chemistry, physics and biology in 6th grade, but that has turned out to be a great fit for my science inclined kid who never took a real science class until they got to BASIS.

There's a difference between deficiencies (the building is not great) and choices with which you disagree. The idea that anyone who doesn't make the same affirmative choices you would make is somehow "banning you" or "canceling you" is weak sauce reserved for Tucker and Fox & Friends.

I’m a different PP and agree that BASIS is transparent with their curriculum for the most part. However, they did “cancel” Latin this year for 5th and 6th graders and added Linguistics in its place. We were not given a heads up prior to enrollment about this so they do make changes without advance notice from time to time. (My kid misses Latin, Linguistics is not a good substitute fwiw.)