For all of the people that say the disastrous admin and environment have no impact on kids, think about:

Culture: Friends and beloved teachers constantly leaving, limited activities outside of academic clubs, tense interactions at almost every school function due to a constant stream of unfulfilled promises and lack of transparency from admin, having an inexperienced interim HoS make decisions that result in poor teacher morale

Staffing: Not understanding that it is important to have an HoS with independent/private school experience vs. managing like a public charter school, staff turnover — replacing experienced teachers with new unproven teachers and “teaching fellows”, taking too long to address underperforming teachers and gaps in curriculum

Financial: Selling the school to Chinese investors who are focused on ROI first, trying to rent out half of the SCHOOL building to a business — instead of building it out as promised to allow more separation across pre-K-12, doing remote learning while 1/2 of the building sat empty, renting out the parking lot to a construction company, letting go of staff and leaving vacancies for the majority of the school year — including HoS, charging parents for “after care” during the last week of school year to stay beyond 1:00 pm

Physical Environment: No library, limited technology, an elementary school sized gym, a playground that is a converted parking lot, not opening a cafeteria as promised, kids scrambling amongst construction workers at pick up

And the above are only some of the impacts.

Current BIM family with a middle schooler there. DD was in a highly rated FCPS elementary school, AAP. Frankly, we were quite nervous switching the kid, especially given the high turnovers of the HOS and harsh comments at DCUM. So far, we have been quite impressed by what the school has delivered: academic rigor，good work ethics, time management skills, sense of responsibility, and friendship. The admin related issues are annoying, but do not seem to affect students/ families directly. We hope the school, with the incoming HOS, will grow bigger and foster a stronger sense of community. Overall, we think of BIM as a niche school with a strong emphasis on academics, which can be a big plus for some but certainly not for everyone.

Good luck with your searching, OP!

Flint Hill. No question.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We’ve been pretty happy at BIM, and have a lot of respect for FH as well. The administration at BIM is horrible, but the teachers are amazing. I think BIM is different than the rest of the network, even the rest of Independent. That’s good and bad. But kids seem happy (unless they have a tiger mom), they’re learning tons, have lots of recess and gym, and are generally good kids. Majority-minority, with tons of emphasis on arts and organization.

Because of the whole Dalton thing, we started looking at other schools and we’re surprised at what we saw at FH. It’s on our active list because I have a sneaking suspicion that BIM administration may introduce a DEI that antagonizes the parents greatly. (And of course, The Receptionist announced just that at the State of the School) Based on my discussions with parents, about 25-40% will start looking if anything even resembling CRT is announced. These parents care about academic rigor, first and foremost.

But, that’s potentially every school. Between them, they are different, but both strong schools.

Did The Receptionist give any actual enrollment numbers for this year or next? Not just "Look how many new families enrolled!" but an acknowledgment of how many will leave again this coming year.

I would be shocked if she did. I did see that several of their job listings are for Teaching Fellows, who only teach a couple of classes and get paid less. That would fit a smaller enrollment and budget.

She said 450 for next year. I was surprised as it is usually a state secret. No idea what it is this year.

Well, that is literally a first to announce a number. They will get back to where they were in 2019-2020 roughly (more like mid-300s this year), still far from their original plan and break-even point to stop the red ink, but it looks like management is willing to run up more deficits in hopes of one day getting there.

If they could get through one year without major chaos, it would be a big step up. Remains to be seen.

We are at the Basis. High school “kid”. Top academics in an environment in which classmates are strongly focused on their education. In that dimension it is a gem, not a disaster as some have put, particularly due to smaller class sizes and direct attention received. Turnover in leadership is clearly high. Though we have not felt any negative impact, this obviously matters for making the best of what the school can achieve. My personal sense is that the new head comes with renewed commitment and vast experience. This is to be seen. In any case, I will say that one clearly positive aspect is that I have seen no powerful families running the show as it is the case in so many privates. Yes it can become excessive pressure for some kids (no judgement here, people are different). If parents pile up with unrealistic grade expectations or do not help in managing stress by communicating with their kids it can become a bad experience. However, the grit development and getting academic top notch exposure (including through testing which is a reality in life) is great.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We’ve been pretty happy at BIM, and have a lot of respect for FH as well. The administration at BIM is horrible, but the teachers are amazing. I think BIM is different than the rest of the network, even the rest of Independent. That’s good and bad. But kids seem happy (unless they have a tiger mom), they’re learning tons, have lots of recess and gym, and are generally good kids. Majority-minority, with tons of emphasis on arts and organization.

Because of the whole Dalton thing, we started looking at other schools and we’re surprised at what we saw at FH. It’s on our active list because I have a sneaking suspicion that BIM administration may introduce a DEI that antagonizes the parents greatly. (And of course, The Receptionist announced just that at the State of the School) Based on my discussions with parents, about 25-40% will start looking if anything even resembling CRT is announced. These parents care about academic rigor, first and foremost.

But, that’s potentially every school. Between them, they are different, but both strong schools.

Did The Receptionist give any actual enrollment numbers for this year or next? Not just "Look how many new families enrolled!" but an acknowledgment of how many will leave again this coming year.

I would be shocked if she did. I did see that several of their job listings are for Teaching Fellows, who only teach a couple of classes and get paid less. That would fit a smaller enrollment and budget.

She said 450 for next year. I was surprised as it is usually a state secret. No idea what it is this year.

Anonymous wrote:We were considering Basis for our kids. They have an excellent reputation in NY. What turned me off is their graduating class was less than 30. I didn’t think less than 2 full classes as a graduating class was enough. It wasn’t like the school was being exclusive. I got the impression that the school couldn’t fill their classes even in the middle of a pandemic.

Most people in mclean seem to prefer Potomac or Langley as private school choices. Or they go to Landon, Sidwell, st Albans, etc if you don’t want to stay in mclean.

Next year will be smaller. They lose so many kids after eighth grade and gain few if any for 9th. Their only hope is more TJ rejects,

We were considering Basis for our kids. They have an excellent reputation in NY. What turned me off is their graduating class was less than 30. I didn’t think less than 2 full classes as a graduating class was enough. It wasn’t like the school was being exclusive. I got the impression that the school couldn’t fill their classes even in the middle of a pandemic.

Most people in mclean seem to prefer Potomac or Langley as private school choices. Or they go to Landon, Sidwell, st Albans, etc if you don’t want to stay in mclean.

Anonymous wrote:We’ve been pretty happy at BIM, and have a lot of respect for FH as well. The administration at BIM is horrible, but the teachers are amazing. I think BIM is different than the rest of the network, even the rest of Independent. That’s good and bad. But kids seem happy (unless they have a tiger mom), they’re learning tons, have lots of recess and gym, and are generally good kids. Majority-minority, with tons of emphasis on arts and organization.

Because of the whole Dalton thing, we started looking at other schools and we’re surprised at what we saw at FH. It’s on our active list because I have a sneaking suspicion that BIM administration may introduce a DEI that antagonizes the parents greatly. (And of course, The Receptionist announced just that at the State of the School) Based on my discussions with parents, about 25-40% will start looking if anything even resembling CRT is announced. These parents care about academic rigor, first and foremost.

But, that’s potentially every school. Between them, they are different, but both strong schools.

Did The Receptionist give any actual enrollment numbers for this year or next? Not just "Look how many new families enrolled!" but an acknowledgment of how many will leave again this coming year.

I would be shocked if she did. I did see that several of their job listings are for Teaching Fellows, who only teach a couple of classes and get paid less. That would fit a smaller enrollment and budget.

Anonymous wrote:We got into both. We chose Basis. I spoke to 5 families. All physicians or highly educated professionals. The academics are strong and teachers are great. Admin issues have not affected kids. They did a great job with the pandemic. They are adding some new sports and clubs too. I would go for the superior education. The people who gripe are the ones whose kids did not do well academically.

Current family and we will be applying out next year because the timing will be right for entry point to other schools. Both DCs have strong grades but academic levels are inconsistent and the social environment is not engaging. Math and sciences are very advanced but the less-STEM focused subjects are not. They are trying to shore up the woefully underperforming writing education which has been discussed as a problem for years with the continued promise to improve but no active actions with results. Part of the problem seems to be both the large class size and total students per teacher which seem to work against doing any meaningful in-depth work because they don’t have the time to grade bigger assignments. While kids may be unaffected directly by the horrible administration the constant stream of broken promises does impact the physical and learning environment and overall morale. They often try to add new sports and clubs which ultimately do not launch due to lack of interest.

Anonymous wrote:
BIM kids learn from middle school onward that the "challenging curriculum" means tests, tests, tests, and tests. If you want your kid to learn how to handle a stupid number of tests in one week and have his fate and reputation rest on the test scores, then send him to BIM.

Otherwise not so much.

My kids had no problem at all with the testing load. In a lot of ways, frequent testing made the tests less stressful. If you only have 1 test per grading period, it becomes a very large portion of your grade. If you have many tests, no individual test counts for that much.

In many subjects, like math, chemistry, and physics, getting prompt feedback on what you do and don't understand is important. The frequent tests and quizzes are helpful for kids to see what they didn't quite understand and then address that gap in understanding promptly. Also, the frequent tests keep kids on track, so they don't procrastinate as much and fall far behind.

We got into both. We chose Basis. I spoke to 5 families. All physicians or highly educated professionals. The academics are strong and teachers are great. Admin issues have not affected kids. They did a great job with the pandemic. They are adding some new sports and clubs too. I would go for the superior education. The people who gripe are the ones whose kids did not do well academically.

We’ve been pretty happy at BIM, and have a lot of respect for FH as well. The administration at BIM is horrible, but the teachers are amazing. I think BIM is different than the rest of the network, even the rest of Independent. That’s good and bad. But kids seem happy (unless they have a tiger mom), they’re learning tons, have lots of recess and gym, and are generally good kids. Majority-minority, with tons of emphasis on arts and organization.

Because of the whole Dalton thing, we started looking at other schools and we’re surprised at what we saw at FH. It’s on our active list because I have a sneaking suspicion that BIM administration may introduce a DEI that antagonizes the parents greatly. (And of course, The Receptionist announced just that at the State of the School) Based on my discussions with parents, about 25-40% will start looking if anything even resembling CRT is announced. These parents care about academic rigor, first and foremost.

But, that’s potentially every school. Between them, they are different, but both strong schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Country club atmosphere at FHS??? Seriously?

’


My kids are in neither school, but we looked at both. Including a lot 1:1 informational interviews with current and past parents for fact-gathering. Reading this board does not constitute research.

No FHS is not a country club atmosphere. It’s a school with a fair amount of wealth, yes. But no more so than a lot of other independent schools around here. It has a word-class robotics team. It has a beautiful campus. They have as many AP classes as you can take (although I believe you have to get dept permission). Are there things that aren’t ideal? For us, yes. But it is a really good school and if it suits your family and educational goals, then your kids can have a great experience there.

BIM trades on the reputation of its counterpart branches from the Bay Area etc that are well-regarded. BIM is in a mostly empty class B office tower in Tysons. It is mostly kids who wanted (or whose parents wanted them) to go to TJ HS, but didn’t get in. So they searched for the next best STEM-focused proxy they could find. Our near universal feedback was that it is a dismal pressure cooker.

This is essentially how I was going to answer your question. BIM and FH are night and day so whereas it might be difficult to choose between many independent schools in this area, this choice should be relatively easy based on your vision for what schooling should look like for your child.

OP do your homework. Did you read the other threads on BIM? Run. I am am saying this as someone who previously had DC at BIM. We stayed too long. I wanted to believe it would get better but it never did.