Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Guys this thread is so distasteful. Don’t you have a parent listserv? I can’t believe parents would start a public thread to vent about their school and name teachers.

NP-no, nothing like that exists. There are lot of threads about Potomac lately because parents are frustrated and are dealing with admin who either ignore issues or give lip service and nothing changes. Potomac has a real problem with a lack of consistent standards and accountability.

In the division leading to the US, it is so much worse- no grade transparency at all and grades not released until the end of term. The midpoint update is just qualitative observations. Some teachers never returned HW at all and we had teachers who didn't return tests at all or until end of term. I don't know why it is such a mess but honestly teacher morale doesn't seem to be great either. There seem to be a lot of admin with vague responsibilities. Perhaps teachers are tasked with a lot of useless meetings or are overloaded with covid and backfill tasks?

Anyone with a business background who pays attention quickly observes signs of mismanagement. Communications from the school to parents focus on fundraising and feel-good features highlighting talents of exceptional kids who largely became excellent outside of school.

Parents who have been around a long time stop donating, stop volunteering, and simply try to help kids deal with the challenges. Many of us have had too many experiences where we advocate and either nothing changes or worse, worry about downstream implications for the kid. It's not a healthy dynamic and I do regret not trusting my concerns sooner and moving DC out.

Wow, this is pretty terrible. We applied to both Langley and Potomac for K. Thinking now maybe we should stick to L even if we get in P? Having the same school all throughout is attractive, but the tuition money isn’t meaningless for us so we wouldn’t feel happy if we were getting this.

Side note: they sent us the fall alumni magazine. Recent alums and current students don’t seem that impressive…

Please, please, please chose a school other than Potomac. Please. You are not the kind of family we want.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Guys this thread is so distasteful. Don’t you have a parent listserv? I can’t believe parents would start a public thread to vent about their school and name teachers.

NP-no, nothing like that exists. There are lot of threads about Potomac lately because parents are frustrated and are dealing with admin who either ignore issues or give lip service and nothing changes. Potomac has a real problem with a lack of consistent standards and accountability.

In the division leading to the US, it is so much worse- no grade transparency at all and grades not released until the end of term. The midpoint update is just qualitative observations. Some teachers never returned HW at all and we had teachers who didn't return tests at all or until end of term. I don't know why it is such a mess but honestly teacher morale doesn't seem to be great either. There seem to be a lot of admin with vague responsibilities. Perhaps teachers are tasked with a lot of useless meetings or are overloaded with covid and backfill tasks?

Anyone with a business background who pays attention quickly observes signs of mismanagement. Communications from the school to parents focus on fundraising and feel-good features highlighting talents of exceptional kids who largely became excellent outside of school.

Parents who have been around a long time stop donating, stop volunteering, and simply try to help kids deal with the challenges. Many of us have had too many experiences where we advocate and either nothing changes or worse, worry about downstream implications for the kid. It's not a healthy dynamic and I do regret not trusting my concerns sooner and moving DC out.

Wow, this is pretty terrible. We applied to both Langley and Potomac for K. Thinking now maybe we should stick to L even if we get in P? Having the same school all throughout is attractive, but the tuition money isn’t meaningless for us so we wouldn’t feel happy if we were getting this.

Side note: they sent us the fall alumni magazine. Recent alums and current students don’t seem that impressive…

Anonymous wrote:This issue isn’t unique to Potomac-see this thread from SSSAS:

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1031829.page

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Guys this thread is so distasteful. Don’t you have a parent listserv? I can’t believe parents would start a public thread to vent about their school and name teachers.

NP-no, nothing like that exists. There are lot of threads about Potomac lately because parents are frustrated and are dealing with admin who either ignore issues or give lip service and nothing changes. Potomac has a real problem with a lack of consistent standards and accountability.

In the division leading to the US, it is so much worse- no grade transparency at all and grades not released until the end of term. The midpoint update is just qualitative observations. Some teachers never returned HW at all and we had teachers who didn't return tests at all or until end of term. I don't know why it is such a mess but honestly teacher morale doesn't seem to be great either. There seem to be a lot of admin with vague responsibilities. Perhaps teachers are tasked with a lot of useless meetings or are overloaded with covid and backfill tasks?

Anyone with a business background who pays attention quickly observes signs of mismanagement. Communications from the school to parents focus on fundraising and feel-good features highlighting talents of exceptional kids who largely became excellent outside of school.

Parents who have been around a long time stop donating, stop volunteering, and simply try to help kids deal with the challenges. Many of us have had too many experiences where we advocate and either nothing changes or worse, worry about downstream implications for the kid. It's not a healthy dynamic and I do regret not trusting my concerns sooner and moving DC out.

Wow, this is pretty terrible. We applied to both Langley and Potomac for K. Thinking now maybe we should stick to L even if we get in P? Having the same school all throughout is attractive, but the tuition money isn’t meaningless for us so we wouldn’t feel happy if we were getting this.

Side note: they sent us the fall alumni magazine. Recent alums and current students don’t seem that impressive…

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Guys this thread is so distasteful. Don’t you have a parent listserv? I can’t believe parents would start a public thread to vent about their school and name teachers.

NP-no, nothing like that exists. There are lot of threads about Potomac lately because parents are frustrated and are dealing with admin who either ignore issues or give lip service and nothing changes. Potomac has a real problem with a lack of consistent standards and accountability.

In the division leading to the US, it is so much worse- no grade transparency at all and grades not released until the end of term. The midpoint update is just qualitative observations. Some teachers never returned HW at all and we had teachers who didn't return tests at all or until end of term. I don't know why it is such a mess but honestly teacher morale doesn't seem to be great either. There seem to be a lot of admin with vague responsibilities. Perhaps teachers are tasked with a lot of useless meetings or are overloaded with covid and backfill tasks?

Anyone with a business background who pays attention quickly observes signs of mismanagement. Communications from the school to parents focus on fundraising and feel-good features highlighting talents of exceptional kids who largely became excellent outside of school.

Parents who have been around a long time stop donating, stop volunteering, and simply try to help kids deal with the challenges. Many of us have had too many experiences where we advocate and either nothing changes or worse, worry about downstream implications for the kid. It's not a healthy dynamic and I do regret not trusting my concerns sooner and moving DC out.

Anonymous wrote:Guys this thread is so distasteful. Don’t you have a parent listserv? I can’t believe parents would start a public thread to vent about their school and name teachers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Idiotic of you to post here. Talk to Virchow, dean of academics. She’s fantastic at advocating for students. Really your kid should talk to her, not you but you sound like you are the type who wants to do it yourself. BTW - tell your kid this is why he had an advisor. He is supposed to take this issue to his advisor not his mommy.

+1
This is also something for your child to figure out (if in fact it’s actually true). I have multiple kids there and just asked them and none have had this issue or know of their friends having it

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have put in an application for Potomac and awaiting decision in March. Thank you for starting this thread, OP. I certainly appreciate the chance to weigh this issue as we consider our options for the fall.

Seriously? You are going to "weigh" an "issue" brought up by a handful of people on an anonymous website that leans toward heavy snark??

Talk to the School, ask to speak with current parents, speak with a few alums. We are an extremely happy lifer Potomac family who appreciates the incredible education, social experiences, athletics, incredible arts programs, gorgeous campus, and lifelong ethical education that our kids are receiving. We have never had an issue with unduly late returns of graded assignments. We have had an incredible number of caring educators who have gone above and beyond to support and meet with my kids when needed, to cheer them on outside of the classroom, and to create a beautifully supportive sense of community.

I guess I feel bad about the direction this thread has taken. I would seriously hope that any student/parent with a concern would bring that to any number of the administrators who are responsible for the best practices to which good schools aspire. Doing so on an anonymous thread has limited constructive outcomes.

Sorry, but how do you know you are not one of the “favored” and that is why your child is getting grades back on time? (Assuming that conspiracy theory is true)

Anonymous wrote:We had many issues in the upper school - course selection, return of graded materials and dealing with the administration among them. We pulled our student and they were happy and suitably challenged elsewhere. You have a choice. My own opinion of one is that they try to show that they are same as top DC privates but in Nova. They used to be kinder while still offering a challenging academic curriculum. Now things have changed. A Potomac upper school administrator made to me: “we basically break them down and in an ideal world build them back up.” Huh? Maybe something related to ability or study habits but not exactly encouraging.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps different requirements from the division administrators?

Interesting thought, especially given the US head. I would guess there isn't a great deal of leadership there.