I'm a GDS HS parent who is happy with the school. The academics are great and DC has wonderful friends and ECs. We don't pay much attention to the other stuff, and it's not forced down our throats, so (shrug).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was a teacher of 10+ years experience applying to teach at GDS and the first question they asked me in the interview was “what experience do you have in social justice?”

Good god. I’m a GDS parent and that’s perhaps the worst thing I’ve read on this thread so far.

And there have been some pretty damning and true things posted.

This is exactly how that HS physics teacher was hired two years ago. Dude literally knew zero physics. Parents and students kept complaining.

It took a year to get him out. The poor kids who had him.

They could have picked a rando off the streets who would have known more physics.

Play stupid games. Win stupid prizes.

Didn’t he have previous experience teaching physics in various schools? Or did this happen twice?

I’m just so glad it’s GDS and not SFS again. We had this lunatic parent who started anti-SFS threads every week for a few years. Claimed to be multiple people. Once she was run off or left it stopped.

Anonymous wrote:I was a teacher of 10+ years experience applying to teach at GDS and the first question they asked me in the interview was “what experience do you have in social justice?”

Good god. I’m a GDS parent and that’s perhaps the worst thing I’ve read on this thread so far.

And there have been some pretty damning and true things posted.

This is exactly how that HS physics teacher was hired two years ago. Dude literally knew zero physics. Parents and students kept complaining.

It took a year to get him out. The poor kids who had him.

They could have picked a rando off the streets who would have known more physics.

Play stupid games. Win stupid prizes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was a teacher of 10+ years experience applying to teach at GDS and the first question they asked me in the interview was “what experience do you have in social justice?”

As a GDS parent I like that they asked the question. Maybe not the very first question of the interview, but clumsiness aside, it is a way to get some understanding of the applicant’s experience/awareness/concern in that area. I could see something similar on other topics eg replace the term “social justice” with “bullying” or “incorporating cultural differences into classroom discussions”. Same general approach.

Except that they won’t ask about other topics, because they don’t care about other topics. But hey, you’ve bought into it and are subjecting your kids to having it crammed down their throats five days a week.

Don’t be surprised if this doesn’t have a happy ending.

Anonymous wrote:I was a teacher of 10+ years experience applying to teach at GDS and the first question they asked me in the interview was “what experience do you have in social justice?”

As a GDS parent I like that they asked the question. Maybe not the very first question of the interview, but clumsiness aside, it is a way to get some understanding of the applicant’s experience/awareness/concern in that area. I could see something similar on other topics eg replace the term “social justice” with “bullying” or “incorporating cultural differences into classroom discussions”. Same general approach.

So much whining

I was a teacher of 10+ years experience applying to teach at GDS and the first question they asked me in the interview was “what experience do you have in social justice?”

Anonymous wrote:Maybe the MS should look into posting shadow letter grades so students have a sense of how letter grades work.

+1. This would be helpful.

lol, “$60,000”

What can you do? Wring your hands on DCUM, I guess?

Wow. It’s truly amazing you pay $60,000 year after year for such frustration and disappointment.

Maybe the MS should look into posting shadow letter grades so students have a sense of how letter grades work.

Are we looking at the same MS report cards? Our kids had very specific course standards listed for each of the core classes. And the teachers described in the comments specifically where they did well and/or could improve for certain course standards.

Anonymous wrote:I'm the parent of a senior and reading this thread has been incredibly validating and depressing. There are themes here that repeat over and over.
1. Teachers are generally great
2. Administration sucks- specifically, it's unorganized and controlled by the DEI agenda that squashes sophisticated and nuanced discussion.
3. Kids generally are happy but if you make any mistake- especially something DEI related you will be cancelled
4. Russell is overpaid
5. The senior class this year is doing well vis a vis college admissions but that has to do with the specifics of the kids not the college office. And the jury is still out. Not all acceptances are back.

Also a GDS HS and LS parent and you've got it right. Also agree that it's validating and depressing. What can we do? Given the turnover of administration throughout the school I fear nothing will be done for at least a year or two and by that time teacher retention is going to be an issue soon.

For the posters discussing grades on middle school reports - the issue is not the lack of grades on report cards. The issue is that the middle school does not adequately prepare students for the rigor and expectations of high school. We experienced this first-hand with our high schooler.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Only some MS parents dislike the report cards. Many, including me, are totally fine with them and actually find the content useful to guide our kids towards how to excel in HS. Simplistic letter grades would not do that in my opinion.

I know that at Saint Ann’s in NYC, which is famous for not giving formal grades, teachers write long evaluations that one can decipher what the approximate grade would be. Would you say that’s true for GDS MS?

No. The report cards used to include long evaluations, but the same motivation that led to the removal of grades in MS led to the removal of personalized comments. It’s all very boilerplate to avoid favoritism. We are a long time GDS family that over twelve years sent several kids to the MS. I got to the point with my most recent Middle Schooler where I barely looked at the report cards. They just were not informative. There also seemed to be a movement to do more in class work in the MS because the school was worried about AI and cheating. That meant less homework, but also seems to have left kids less prepared for HS. All of these changes are made with the best of intentions. Some work and some do not.