Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:BASIS DC admins maintain that a particularly motivated, self-selecting group stays for high school. In fact, poor facilities, lack of flexibility and weak extra-curriculars and outside enrichment drive most families out, particularly between 8th and 9th grades. Most of the strongest students are leaving. Weaker and less affluent students--those who aren't admitted to Walls and/or Banneker, and whose parents can't afford privates--stay, and a few others. I hope all this changes, but doubt it will, at least not radically.

That's how school choice is supposed to work, isn't it?

There actually are more acceptable options at the high school level than middle school - and some parents will more willingly pay for private for high school rather than middle.

For example, it took a long time - and securing a new building - for "wealthier/stronger" students to start staying at Latin from middle to high school.

It will be interesting to see if that happens at BASIS in a few years or not.

My DC is a strong student, we are a fairly affluent family, and our DC is staying at BASIS for 9th grade next year. We're staying because we like the BASIS curriculum, the teachers, the convenient location, the peer group, and the opportunity to do an independent study during 12th grade. We looked at Banneker and Walls and didn't see anything more that those schools could provide over BASIS in terms of academics. As far as extra curricular activities, the offerings at BASIS are good enough for my kid as DC stays very busy with lots of activities outside of school.

Anonymous wrote:If the number of students are down from 175 to less than 60, how can they offer classes they have promised? They say they have so many different math classes you can take in high school..

The first 6th grade class (now 9th) was actually 155, not 175 (so one section of students less).

The kids aren't all on the same path in math and the classes are mixed (e.g. an Alg 1 class can have 6th, 7th and 8th graders in it). The math department is pretty large relative to the size of the school and teachers teach more than one class (e.g. Alg 2 and Calculus AB). However some electives have been only offered every other year thus far - e.g. AP Economics and AP Environmental Science - due to student demand and small class size.

Also as small as the current 9th grade class is, it's the largest that BASIS has had yet. The leading edge classes (now 10th and 11th) are very small (about 20-25).

The other thing about BASIS is that virtually all graduation requirements can be done by the end of junior year (for example students all take 2 ELA classes in 9th, 1 in 10th and 1 in 11th), especially for students who started as 5th or 6th graders - less so for those who began in 7th or 8th in 2013. This allows for early graduation and senior year, independent study capstone projects (required for graduating with honors but not for graduation). Some students could only be on campus for 1 day a week senior year to check in with their project advisor and the college counselor. The rest of the time they would be at an internship or doing independent study.

That is a very different senior year experience than most schools and is also a contributing factor to the attrition from 8th to 9th.

Anonymous wrote:Why would they push out students who are getting good grades?

NP here. Good students have been pushed away because they have witnessed the total lack of integrity (have witnessed a classmate with test questions/ solutions before taking the test or exam). Of course BASIS lovers will say this is total nonsense or a conspiracy theory.

If the number of students are down from 175 to less than 60, how can they offer classes they have promised? They say they have so many different math classes you can take in high school..

Anonymous wrote:BASIS DC admins maintain that a particularly motivated, self-selecting group stays for high school. In fact, poor facilities, lack of flexibility and weak extra-curriculars and outside enrichment drive most families out, particularly between 8th and 9th grades. Most of the strongest students are leaving. Weaker and less affluent students--those who aren't admitted to Walls and/or Banneker, and whose parents can't afford privates--stay, and a few others. I hope all this changes, but doubt it will, at least not radically.

That's how school choice is supposed to work, isn't it?

There actually are more acceptable options at the high school level than middle school - and some parents will more willingly pay for private for high school rather than middle.

For example, it took a long time - and securing a new building - for "wealthier/stronger" students to start staying at Latin from middle to high school.

It will be interesting to see if that happens at BASIS in a few years or not.

BASIS DC admins maintain that a particularly motivated, self-selecting group stays for high school. In fact, poor facilities, lack of flexibility and weak extra-curriculars and outside enrichment drive most families out, particularly between 8th and 9th grades. Most of the strongest students are leaving. Weaker and less affluent students--those who aren't admitted to Walls and/or Banneker, and whose parents can't afford privates--stay, and a few others. I hope all this changes, but doubt it will, at least not radically.