Anonymous wrote:They only send out an email if they feel there is damage control to be done. As all current parents know, communication from SR is carefully controlled and managed. They parse words more carefully than lawyers sometimes.

The Laura Ingraham segment was very mild. If one of the conservative Catholic news outlets decided to do a piece on SR it would be WAY worse.

And Jesus copped a lot of blow back from the pharisees. Far right Conservative Catholics getting steamed about teaching social justice when the catholic church enabled child sex abusers on six continents for decades look morally untethered from reality.

The Jesuits (male equivalent of the Scared Heart order) have had heavy emphasis on DEI teachings And practice for decades. I woukd oay much more attention to their views than a professional hothead like LI.

They only send out an email if they feel there is damage control to be done. As all current parents know, communication from SR is carefully controlled and managed. They parse words more carefully than lawyers sometimes.

The Laura Ingraham segment was very mild. If one of the conservative Catholic news outlets decided to do a piece on SR it would be WAY worse.

+1 on my DD ignoring the breakout class. School has to find a better way to address these issues. The current approach is not resonating.

It might seem like there's no "mess" because the coronavirus means parents aren't talking to each other like they used to. But SR wouldn't have sent an email out to everyone if they weren't getting a lot of negative feedback about the MC festival.

People who agree with SR's DEI initiatives probably don't think there's a "mess" either. But there are a lot of people who don't agree with how SR is engaging in DEI. To these people, having their DD be forced into a "white accountability" class (which most of them thankfully ignored) definitely is a "mess".

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are happy overall but not thrilled about the amount of DEI stuff and at times more than a little troubled by it. But every school has to be considered as a total picture. I also wonder about what the future will hold. Will schools like SR dial it back due to parent concerns, and will others jump on the bandwagon? It is all hard to determine. I would say look at a school whose educational program is a good fit for your child. Because DD entered in high school, the considerations were clearer for us.

Thanks. We are going to pass. Hopefully they will get it together quickly. Just not quite quick enough for us. There are too many options without this controversy. It is stupid to jump in a dirty pool for $45000/year. Good luck to those stuck navigating this mess. I truly am sorry you are dealing with this.

Current parent: what mess? There has been nothing to navigate. The DEI stuff is much more intense at other more woke top private schools. The duty to seek justice is framed within Christian priorities.

No one I talked to was even aware of any controversy until email sent out. The Fox News opinion piece that misrepresented SR was ridiculous/ Comical.

+1

Current parent as well. Agree with you that there has been no mess to navigate. DD had no problems with the Multicultural Festival and was only mad that Fox News/Laura Ingrahm exposed a fellow student's name when they showed clips of SR emails on the segment.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are happy overall but not thrilled about the amount of DEI stuff and at times more than a little troubled by it. But every school has to be considered as a total picture. I also wonder about what the future will hold. Will schools like SR dial it back due to parent concerns, and will others jump on the bandwagon? It is all hard to determine. I would say look at a school whose educational program is a good fit for your child. Because DD entered in high school, the considerations were clearer for us.

Thanks. We are going to pass. Hopefully they will get it together quickly. Just not quite quick enough for us. There are too many options without this controversy. It is stupid to jump in a dirty pool for $45000/year. Good luck to those stuck navigating this mess. I truly am sorry you are dealing with this.

Current parent: what mess? There has been nothing to navigate. The DEI stuff is much more intense at other more woke top private schools. The duty to seek justice is framed within Christian priorities.

No one I talked to was even aware of any controversy until email sent out. The Fox News opinion piece that misrepresented SR was ridiculous/ Comical.

Anonymous wrote:Practicing Catholic family here with girls in the US. We are extremely happy with the academics and girls have not had anything negative to say about the DEI initiatives. Parents considering SR, please get to know the school by other means than this thread and others on DCUM.

+1 great school, great teachers, great education. I am not a troll but current parent.

Religion is taught in great depth along with other subjects. It is not watered down.

Anonymous wrote:"Fantastic"? The market economy is based on cyclical consumption w/o regard to what is being produced. If demand or production slows, so does the movement of $. The economy contracts lowering the standard of living for millions. Economically this means capitalism is structurally oblivious to humanity's existence on a finite planet. See what Pope Francis would say.

The last several popes have been critical of capitalism. This is not a new position for the church.

"Fantastic"? The market economy is based on cyclical consumption w/o regard to what is being produced. If demand or production slows, so does the movement of $. The economy contracts lowering the standard of living for millions. Economically this means capitalism is structurally oblivious to humanity's existence on a finite planet. See what Pope Francis would say.

Anonymous wrote:What’s wrong with Capitalism? Work hard, pay your taxes and create jobs in the process. America didn’t become the great country it is based on all these quasi-Marxist virtues that DEI is all about.

If you want to donate to the poor, go ahead... God bless you. But you can often do more good for society by being a wealth seeking capitalist than a lecturing bleeding heart!

I completely agree capitalism is fantastic. It's not perfect but it's raised more people out of poverty than another other system in world history. One of the things that worries me about critical race theory being taught at SR is that it's often accompanied by very anti-capitalist and anti-family teachings. So I'm with you there.

But I send my DD to SR because I want her to know her responsibility to those who have less than we do. That doesn't mean she should go through life patting herself on the back for supporting confiscatory tax rates for people richer than her. It means she should be a caring individual who gives her personal time and resources to people less fortunate than she. That's not anti-capitalism. I think SR historically has done a good job of this. Currently I believe it's getting lost in the politics of the moment and the focus on race and gender above all else.

What’s wrong with Capitalism? Work hard, pay your taxes and create jobs in the process. America didn’t become the great country it is based on all these quasi-Marxist virtues that DEI is all about.

If you want to donate to the poor, go ahead... God bless you. But you can often do more good for society by being a wealth seeking capitalist than a lecturing bleeding heart!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our upper school daughter was told she had to “pick a group” to join. When she didn’t fit into a group for someone of color or who identified as LBTGQ the only remaining group left was “white accountability”. What kind of name is that? We as parents are horrified. We attend lots of unconscious bias training for our careers. We are not segregated at those trainings. SMH.

My US daughter was also in a white accountability group and didn't feel threatened in the slightest. I think parents are getting too hung up on the name of the group rather than what the focus of the group was. The group learned what white privilege is, that it gives them an advantage in certain areas of life because of their skin color, and ways that they could try to address racism in our country. My daughter didn't mind the name too much because as she said, "what would we have instead, a White Pride breakout session?"

Too hung up on the name? Well, yes we are when the name has such a negative connotation. Oh and also that they segregated groups this way. So much for a unified sisterhood.

it was one breakout session in a day long event. I think people are too hung up on "accountability" - its not like the girls were blamed for the last 400 years of racism in this country. They were trying to show that it isn't enough to identify something as racist and then walk away - it is better to take action and speak out or act out against it. In other words, taking accountability for correcting a wrong.

But white "accountability" clearly was the point of the exercise. Otherwise why add that word to the white affinity group and not to the rest of the affinity groups?

The entire SR community is entitled compared to 99.9% of the people in the world. All of us should be held "accountable" for the poor people in our society today. It's a lot easier to talk about racial grievances and having lots of crying sessions about who's a victim and who's an oppressor based on the past than it is to actually do tangible good in the present for the people in our society who need it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our upper school daughter was told she had to “pick a group” to join. When she didn’t fit into a group for someone of color or who identified as LBTGQ the only remaining group left was “white accountability”. What kind of name is that? We as parents are horrified. We attend lots of unconscious bias training for our careers. We are not segregated at those trainings. SMH.

The LGBTQ banner is lifted high at SR. It has become quite the thing to be lesbian, bi, or trans in the Middle School.

+1. sR, like a few of DC areas private schools bought an LGBTQ activist authored new social studies curriculum and went blindly into implementing it (and purchasing it frankly).

It needs to go.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How did this school get so bad so fast?

If you talk to some of the teachers who were there 10-20 years ago they will tell you it started with the watering down of the academics, replacing what they describe as an "academic powerhouse" with an institution more focused on ensuring the students have "fun".

This has been going on for a long time.

The more recent ramping up of DEI is largely a reaction to the events of last summer.

The inherent mission of the school has been obscured by a focus on the growth of the bottom line. Those in positions of leadership confuse such growth with the organic growth of a healthy institution, which SR most definitively is not.

What happened last Summer?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our upper school daughter was told she had to “pick a group” to join. When she didn’t fit into a group for someone of color or who identified as LBTGQ the only remaining group left was “white accountability”. What kind of name is that? We as parents are horrified. We attend lots of unconscious bias training for our careers. We are not segregated at those trainings. SMH.

My US daughter was also in a white accountability group and didn't feel threatened in the slightest. I think parents are getting too hung up on the name of the group rather than what the focus of the group was. The group learned what white privilege is, that it gives them an advantage in certain areas of life because of their skin color, and ways that they could try to address racism in our country. My daughter didn't mind the name too much because as she said, "what would we have instead, a White Pride breakout session?"

Too hung up on the name? Well, yes we are when the name has such a negative connotation. Oh and also that they segregated groups this way. So much for a unified sisterhood.

it was one breakout session in a day long event. I think people are too hung up on "accountability" - its not like the girls were blamed for the last 400 years of racism in this country. They were trying to show that it isn't enough to identify something as racist and then walk away - it is better to take action and speak out or act out against it. In other words, taking accountability for correcting a wrong.