<p>I am new on this forum and would love feedback from experienced BS parents.</p>
<p>My son is a freshman at BS this year. He lives in a dorm with 20 other freshmen boys. He has been on the receiving end of bullying that has gotten out of hand. </p>
<p>What is puzzling to me is what seems like a real lack of supervision by staff. There are dorm parents but they do not live within the dorm itself and don't seem to spend much time there other than sitting in the lounge during study hall. </p>
<p>Do other schools have similar set-ups? Am I being unreasonable to think that putting 20 freshmen together with minimal to no supervision is just a recipe for disaster?</p>
<p>DS’s dorm has several on-site faculty living in apartments withing the dorm building, plus proctors who are seniors. The typical ratio is: 8 underclassmen, 2 proctors, 1 faculty. There is a faculty member on duty every night supervising during study hall. The proctors take their job seriously.</p>
<p>GG’s dorm has two onsite houseparents on the floor, plus proctors, plus peer educators, who are upperclass(wo)men. There is also a rotating roster of non-houseparent faculty “dorm affiliates” each night (except possibly weekends). </p>
<p>A conversation with your DS’s houseparent or the head of residence life may be in order.</p>
<p>I am definitely going to have a conversation with the school but wanted to be armed with as much info as possible. It’s hard to know what “normal” is in BS since I have no frame of reference what other schools do.</p>
<p>There are proctors but they don’t seem to have a presence or real responsibility to ensure safety and act as peer mentors. I guess that is what I find so wrong. </p>
<p>From my experience, the house parent doesn’t seem to be too involved either.</p>
<p>Second to the above: in my experience, working at two different BS, etc., it is extremely odd << not >> to have the “dorm parents” in the dorm. Some teacher has to be in the building, at least, if not on the corridor, which is more usual. The senior students who help are not at issue, as you should talk to the responsible adults. Yes, as you say, get as much info as possible about what is going on (including whereabouts and duties of adults) and then advise about your concerns/talk action plan.</p>
<p>My d’s school has 4-class dorms. I was concerned about this when we were considering schools and one reason they do this is that they feel like the older students are a somewhat stabilizing presence in the dorm, compared to a whole dorm full of freshmen. </p>
<p>In my view, if they’re going to have all-freshman dorms they should have extra strong supervision and guidance there from proctors/prefects and from faculty. I think it’s totally appropriate for you to explore what’s going on here.</p>
<p>Dorm parents should live in apartments in the dorms. Prefects or proctors are usually assigned to dorms, and other faculty should help monitor study hall.</p>
<p>In any case, if there is bullying, you need to alert the school. There should be no tolerance for it.</p>
<p>Sorry- I wanted to write more, but had to jump off. My two BS kids live in dorms with faculty apartments. Both dorms have four proctors- two on each floor. I agree with @Periwinkle- contact the school about the bullying. I’d start with your child’s Advisor, but you can also call the Dean of Students. After you contact the school, the dorm parents and proctors will probably call a dorm meeting and speak to the students- usually a refresher course on conduct. Whoever is bullying your son will be dealt with separately.</p>
<p>DS lived in a freshman boy’s dorm last year with close to 40 boys, 6 junior/senior proctors, and 4 dorm parents, one on each floor and one husband/wife combo who oversaw the whole operation. Even so, DS said occasionally it was wild. With guys there will always be wiseacres. He is in a much smaller dorm this year–again with a live-in faculty member who is always around–and he’s much better suited to the more studious environment.</p>
<p>As for 4-year dorms…back in my day it was the seniors who were doing the hazing of the underclassmen. The sooner you get out of the big dorm, the sooner you get away from that nonsense.</p>
<p>PelicanDad- - exactly, I was worried about the 4-class dorms because of hazing and bullying, and SPS did have trouble with that in the past. But in their system, the students’ advisor is one of 5 teachers affiliated with the dorm, so advisors in an all-freshman dorm would have a group of all freshman advisees, and they do a lot of advisory-based activities. The school is very big on being one community and separating out freshman dorms would not be consistent with that, I guess. </p>
<p>Whatever the reason, the balance of a 4-class dorm seems to be a good thing. The freshman energy and cluelessness get toned down. One thing that does happen is that there are fewer new students in the popular dorms, so the new students have vastly different experiences and peer groups in their dorm. I’m not sure that’s such a good thing. </p>
<p>But - I don’t think that Lghost’s situation has anything to do with freshman vs. 4-class dorms; it sounds like there’s less supervision in the freshman dorm environment than there should be. Lghost, I hope with a few questions you can address your concerns and things start going better for your DS.</p>