Anonymous wrote:I'm a former employee of DC Prep. Don't let the sleek website and PR team fool you, this school is not a good place to send students. It promotes a drill and kill education, so sure, the students have great test scores, but they have no critical thinking skills at all. What really goes on when parents and families aren't around is a hostile environment that deals punishment similar to a military school. Expectations are outrageous and developmentally inappropriate for elementary age students. Kids should not be forced to sit quietly, walk in silent lines with their hands behind their backs, and be subject to an absurd discipline system that allows children as young as three to be suspended. They are not in the business of helping families. Instead of working with children who display challenging behaviors, they suspend them and force families to pick up their students each time there is a discipline issue (sometimes minor, sometimes major). This often inconveniences the parents so much that they are forced to withdraw their students from the school. This works well for DC Prep because they don't have to expel the students, which would reflect poorly on their network.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Generally speaking, homework in kindergarten is absurd. I am not aware of any study that has found this to be productive in the long term.

Well don't apply to YY. My kid received homework in PK. It was not a lot, but it was HW.

And more to the point of your statement, what studies have you found that have said it was counter-productive?

Really, which year was that? I had a child in YY PK last year, the only "homework" I recall was bringing home a silkworm and feeding it mulberry leaves.

He is thriving in K this year too, though a little disappointed that older sibling has homework and he's only had a couple of packets. BTW, those homework packets were drawing chinese characters and counting steps in the house. I'm generally anti-homework for children this age, but I'll make exceptions for enforcing concepts (e.g. drawing Mandarin characters) that aren't part of our world at home.

That said, if you're the kind of parent that isn't planning to invest personal time in your child's education, then a school which expects that kind of commitment, is not going to be a good fit for your child or your family.