Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To the poster who suggested the (maybe) 25 slots will keep adding up in coming years, have you actually read the charter, and factored that into your assumptions? I doubt you have - because their approved charter is for a total of up to 400 students 5th through 8th - it DOES NOT specify a maximum number of slots for any particular grade. They can simply add more 5th and 6th grade slots in coming cycles, to aim for populating that approved 400 total for grades 5-8. So OF COURSE they can make up their numbers in coming years, within scope of the approved charter language.

I suspect the only reason they didn't add more 5th grade slots this year is because they already had their resources, staffing and structure set up for the current number of 5th grade students - and that it wasn't that big of a crisis for them to have a few slots go unfilled. It's ultimately just a one-year 6% variance for that grade 5-8 approved allotment.

So no, it's not ongoing, and it's most definitely not the end of the world.

Please just allow me to repeat the only intelligent and intelligible contribution to this conversation:

NP here, and not a Basis parent so I'm not invested in your outcome here. You people ignore the frustrated parent above at your own peril. The UPSFF (per-pupil funding formula) indicates that your school lost out on about a quarter of a million dollars by not filling those 25 seats. And that's just THIS YEAR. You can't back-fill them, so now your loss is compounded to $250K per year for that class all the way through HS. Wow - somebody should be fired for that kind of fiscal malpractice. DCI just opened, doesn't have their permanent facility, and is already eating your lunch. You need to get on the ball and address your problems, quickly. Shutting down and/or berating the one person who is actually trying to force the school and its sycophants to face the music will be your downfall.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To the poster who suggested the (maybe) 25 slots will keep adding up in coming years, have you actually read the charter, and factored that into your assumptions? I doubt you have - because their approved charter is for a total of up to 400 students 5th through 8th - it DOES NOT specify a maximum number of slots for any particular grade. They can simply add more 5th and 6th grade slots in coming cycles, to aim for populating that approved 400 total for grades 5-8. So OF COURSE they can make up their numbers in coming years, within scope of the approved charter language.

I suspect the only reason they didn't add more 5th grade slots this year is because they already had their resources, staffing and structure set up for the current number of 5th grade students - and that it wasn't that big of a crisis for them to have a few slots go unfilled. It's ultimately just a one-year 6% variance for that grade 5-8 approved allotment.

So no, it's not ongoing, and it's most definitely not the end of the world.

Please just allow me to repeat the only intelligent and intelligible contribution to this conversation:

NP here, and not a Basis parent so I'm not invested in your outcome here. You people ignore the frustrated parent above at your own peril. The UPSFF (per-pupil funding formula) indicates that your school lost out on about a quarter of a million dollars by not filling those 25 seats. And that's just THIS YEAR. You can't back-fill them, so now your loss is compounded to $250K per year for that class all the way through HS. Wow - somebody should be fired for that kind of fiscal malpractice. DCI just opened, doesn't have their permanent facility, and is already eating your lunch. You need to get on the ball and address your problems, quickly. Shutting down and/or berating the one person who is actually trying to force the school and its sycophants to face the music will be your downfall.

Anonymous wrote:To the poster who suggested the (maybe) 25 slots will keep adding up in coming years, have you actually read the charter, and factored that into your assumptions? I doubt you have - because their approved charter is for a total of up to 400 students 5th through 8th - it DOES NOT specify a maximum number of slots for any particular grade. They can simply add more 5th and 6th grade slots in coming cycles, to aim for populating that approved 400 total for grades 5-8. So OF COURSE they can make up their numbers in coming years, within scope of the approved charter language.

I suspect the only reason they didn't add more 5th grade slots this year is because they already had their resources, staffing and structure set up for the current number of 5th grade students - and that it wasn't that big of a crisis for them to have a few slots go unfilled. It's ultimately just a one-year 6% variance for that grade 5-8 approved allotment.

So no, it's not ongoing, and it's most definitely not the end of the world.

Anonymous wrote:To the poster who suggested the (maybe) 25 slots will keep adding up in coming years, have you actually read the charter, and factored that into your assumptions? I doubt you have - because their approved charter is for a total of up to 400 students 5th through 8th - it DOES NOT specify a maximum number of slots for any particular grade. They can simply add more 5th and 6th grade slots in coming cycles, to aim for populating that approved 400 total for grades 5-8. So OF COURSE they can make up their numbers in coming years, within scope of the approved charter language.

I suspect the only reason they didn't add more 5th grade slots this year is because they already had their resources, staffing and structure set up for the current number of 5th grade students - and that it wasn't that big of a crisis for them to have a few slots go unfilled. It's ultimately just a one-year 6% variance for that grade 5-8 approved allotment.

So no, it's not ongoing, and it's most definitely not the end of the world.

Anonymous wrote:DCPCSB (or, better yet, OSSE) should develop a unified web based data management system and framework where schools can easily update and maintain that info if you want it at a click. Hardly seems like a worthwhile investment of school time and taxpayer money to have dozens and dozens of schools all doing it independently.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a parent who received a call about one of those 6th grade spots (at nearly 100 on waitlist) and turned it down, four words: totally dodged a bullet.

Indeed you did. And so did those who were able to get into Latin for their middle school for 6th, 7th and 8th grades during BASIS' inaugural year.

Anonymous wrote:To the poster who suggested the (maybe) 25 slots will keep adding up in coming years, have you actually read the charter, and factored that into your assumptions? I doubt you have - because their approved charter is for a total of up to 400 students 5th through 8th - it DOES NOT specify a maximum number of slots for any particular grade. They can simply add more 5th and 6th grade slots in coming cycles, to aim for populating that approved 400 total for grades 5-8. So OF COURSE they can make up their numbers in coming years, within scope of the approved charter language.

I suspect the only reason they didn't add more 5th grade slots this year is because they already had their resources, staffing and structure set up for the current number of 5th grade students - and that it wasn't that big of a crisis for them to have a few slots go unfilled. It's ultimately just a one-year 6% variance for that grade 5-8 approved allotment.

So no, it's not ongoing, and it's most definitely not the end of the world.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:BASIS is not a good fit for DC and tenor of parents vs parents on display is the beginning of it's unraveling. Too pretentious for words, the whole concept--any thing that sounds too good to be true usually is. And the OP has my sympathy.

OP here, thank you from the bottom of my heart for your post and the post of one other who pointed out we lost $250k just this year due to our mismanagement of our 6th grade wait list, and that ultimately that loss might add up to a cool million, so for our survival it is not something to be ignored, the question has never been both asked and answered, and it matters.

Because at a certain point, no matter how politically incorrect it might appear, the Blocks are going to give up on Basis DC. Will they have a PC explanation? NO. Do they care? No! Maybe for the next couple of years while they are continuing to expand their empire, but after that, if a DCPS charter school folds while they have numerous other public and private schools succeeding, they will basically blame it on us. And they will not be wrong in one sense - every post everyone makes here, as with the "Why did you leave" threads, and "why did the Dean of Students threaten the grades of an entire element over the misconduct of one student", is tearing us apart.

Thank you both for trying to penetrate the brain membranes of these BOOSTERS and blockheads, because I have 4 kids (2 already there) and graduating from Basis well would be their golden ticket to college. So to me it matters. Enormously.


But of course according to the BOOSTERS we should not dwell on (read learn from) our mistakes. Have any single one of you learned the SELA lesson, or do you think it does not apply?

IMO you have a lot to apologize for citing AZ stats implying that they would automatically be relevant to DC, and your initial arrogance, and your subsequent refusal to admit that there are problems in paradise, justifies all the stones that are being thrown your way. I would never say it in any other arena, but you asked for it.

That being said, Basis DC was third our first year on the DC CAS (Deal and Latin ahead), and last year they beat everyone but Deal, hardly having studied for it. They beat Latin in their Certamen (Latin contests) with consistency, and have achieved national recognition for a number of things (remember the student from Eritrea who won some writing contest and got a hug from Obama?)

So by many metrics Basis DC is doing well, and I would not let anything in this thread or the others dissuade you from listing it as your first choice in the 5th grade lottery, if and only if, your kid likes and seems to have a knack for math and science.

If they get in, I would strongly urge you to do everything in your power to prepare them for Algebra I their first year. This year there is more than half an Element in Algebra I, and it makes the critical difference to their educational experience. sets the tone, keeps the focus. They have to put all the academically advanced (in maths) kids together in the same section. Our first year there were four. Last year maybe there was one? This year is a banner year and if parents of kids who are capable get the message it will alter their entire Basis experience for those particular children, whom by default will be attracted strongly to Basis in the first place. THEY would not be making a mistake.

As another poster said on a previous thread, whether we have the [public school] population to weather the financial storm is an issue, and not one that should be ignored. But these kids are treated so well that if we could get the kids from privates who have the same talents to come to Basis, we would be set. Thanks to the lot of you, I feel you have set us back at least a year.

Tl;dr (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=tl%3Bdr)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:BASIS is not a good fit for DC and tenor of parents vs parents on display is the beginning of it's unraveling. Too pretentious for words, the whole concept--any thing that sounds too good to be true usually is. And the OP has my sympathy.

OP here, thank you from the bottom of my heart for your post and the post of one other who pointed out we lost $250k just this year due to our mismanagement of our 6th grade wait list, and that ultimately that loss might add up to a cool million, so for our survival it is not something to be ignored, the question has never been both asked and answered, and it matters.

Because at a certain point, no matter how politically incorrect it might appear, the Blocks are going to give up on Basis DC. Will they have a PC explanation? NO. Do they care? No! Maybe for the next couple of years while they are continuing to expand their empire, but after that, if a DCPS charter school folds while they have numerous other public and private schools succeeding, they will basically blame it on us. And they will not be wrong in one sense - every post everyone makes here, as with the "Why did you leave" threads, and "why did the Dean of Students threaten the grades of an entire element over the misconduct of one student", is tearing us apart.

Thank you both for trying to penetrate the brain membranes of these BOOSTERS and blockheads, because I have 4 kids (2 already there) and graduating from Basis well would be their golden ticket to college. So to me it matters. Enormously.


But of course according to the BOOSTERS we should not dwell on (read learn from) our mistakes. Have any single one of you learned the SELA lesson, or do you think it does not apply?

IMO you have a lot to apologize for citing AZ stats implying that they would automatically be relevant to DC, and your initial arrogance, and your subsequent refusal to admit that there are problems in paradise, justifies all the stones that are being thrown your way. I would never say it in any other arena, but you asked for it.

That being said, Basis DC was third our first year on the DC CAS (Deal and Latin ahead), and last year they beat everyone but Deal, hardly having studied for it. They beat Latin in their Certamen (Latin contests) with consistency, and have achieved national recognition for a number of things (remember the student from Eritrea who won some writing contest and got a hug from Obama?)

So by many metrics Basis DC is doing well, and I would not let anything in this thread or the others dissuade you from listing it as your first choice in the 5th grade lottery, if and only if, your kid likes and seems to have a knack for math and science.

If they get in, I would strongly urge you to do everything in your power to prepare them for Algebra I their first year. This year there is more than half an Element in Algebra I, and it makes the critical difference to their educational experience. sets the tone, keeps the focus. They have to put all the academically advanced (in maths) kids together in the same section. Our first year there were four. Last year maybe there was one? This year is a banner year and if parents of kids who are capable get the message it will alter their entire Basis experience for those particular children, whom by default will be attracted strongly to Basis in the first place. THEY would not be making a mistake.

As another poster said on a previous thread, whether we have the [public school] population to weather the financial storm is an issue, and not one that should be ignored. But these kids are treated so well that if we could get the kids from privates who have the same talents to come to Basis, we would be set. Thanks to the lot of you, I feel you have set us back at least a year.