Parents Gone Wild: High Drama Inside D.C.’s Most Elite Private School
At Sidwell Friends, the high school of Chelsea Clinton and the Obama children, college counselors find themselves besieged by Ivy-obsessed families.
My drama llama is dying to know more dirt about what prompted this letter.
“parents, who represent the pinnacle of elite Washington”
I.e. politicians? Given the public or publicly revealed behavior of many politicians (sometimes through underlings or proxies), is it any surprise that “verbal assault of employees”, “circulation of rumors about students”, and “anonymous and/or unsubstantiated claims made about student behavior” would be possible from them?
@ucbalumnus hmmmmm….isn’t that the definition of a politician.
“But anonymous rumblings on message boards have been anything but generous, often suggesting that the college-counseling office was responsible for students not getting into selective schools.”
Bunch of parents who fail to understand that sending your kid to an expensive, exclusive high school doesn’t guarantee acceptance to an Ivy.
Sidwell Friends really gets caught in a bind. It has to play the Washington power game in order to maintain its primacy, which means that it can’t do what other elite Quaker schools do: make certain to exclude kids whose parents show any signs of not going along with the program. And, when it comes to college admissions, the program is very much “Your child will go to a great college,” not “Your child will go to the great college you prefer.”
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The fact that the Obama children went to Sidwell does not mean that the thread is open season to discuss their father’s administration. Several posts deleted.
I suppose these types of struggles go on at any level (ask any little league baseball coach) but they get correspondingly huger and nastier as the parents get wealthier and more influential. I was blessed to never have to deal with this behavior. While it certainly would be interesting to be a bit richer I have never had a desire for fame or perhaps in this case infamy.
Apparently, aggressive behavior by parents led to the resignations of two of the three college counselors. In response, Sidwell will not permit phone conversations with the college counseling office to be recorded, will not accept calls from blocked numbers, or credit rumors disparaging students. What happened?
One might think having the phone conversation recorded might be in the interest of the counselor who is being verbally berated rather than in the interest of the parent who is berating them. Unless the conversation was something like, “well, Jimmy got into Harvard last year and your Mikey has a stronger sense of honor and higher ACT verbal so I think his odds are good”.
If the relationship has deteriorated to the point that anyone is recording conversations, it is unsalvageable. The school does have a highly entitled set of parents so I am certain managing expectations is difficult.
Don’t you know that all of those colleges who didn’t select the entitled children of these entitled parents are breathing a sigh of relief knowing they dodged at least one bullet.
Two of my relatives teach in public high schools located in towns where there are a lot of Masters of the Universe type parents. They can’t wait to retire, citing the aggressive bad behavior of the parents if their kid should get a bad grade. Another relative teaches in a low SES school in the Bronx and it’s even worse: her physical safety has been threatened several times by parents. The administrations are dealing with this by telling the teachers to just give the parents what they want and inflate the grades. It’s really sad,not in the kids’ best interest and is a real disincentive to the great profession of teaching.
My husband and my nephew went to Sidwell - lots of ordinary parents there too! My SIL did feel that the guidance counselors tended to push for kids to apply to legacies and not to look outside the box. I think there was a lot of steering to not have too many kids in direct competition with each other. She found about Rice (where my nephew ended up attending) from her dentist. It was just not on their radar at all. I could never tell for sure if her grousing was justified or not, but it did amuse me that ultimately I think my kids had as good an educational experiences and my kids ended up with perhaps slightly more choices when it came to colleges.
In most jurisdictions, recording a conversation without the consent of all parties to the conversation is illegal.
Consent by all parties required for phone conversations which cross state lines (inter-state calls).
My kids went to a catholic grade school with a SES of mid to upper class. There were a few entitled parents whose kids came to school late or who left early every Thursday for a piano lesson (this was very disruptive) and then complained that their kids missed things and why couldn’t the activities (or ‘fun stuff’) take their schedules into account. The biggest fight was with kids leaving early or missing classes for sports training and wanting the missed assignments issued in advance when the policy was to make up missed work after it was missed.
What we had that Sidwell Friends didn’t (doesn’t) was a nun. The principal was a 4’10" nun who took no crap from anyone. She didn’t care if you were the mayor or owned a professional sports team or just an obnoxious mother. Kids weren’t trying to get into college but were applying to high schools, both public magnet schools and competitive private schools. You could threaten to pull your kids and her response was ‘sorry to see you go.’
I think Sidwell needs a nun.
I’m feeling far too snooty to want to have anything to do with these power schools. Just don’t value politicians et al. Guess that’s yet another reason I would never want to live in the DC, NYC or many other areas. Perfect SAT’s et al can be had from regular cities far away.
My parents were in the foreign service I spent middle school and high school in DC. It’s a wonderful place to grow up. Free museums, lots of performing arts, many parks, a beautiful river. You don’t need to hobnob with the politicians unless you want to, though I have to say the required internship on Capital Hill which was part of the required curriculum at my high school was eye-opening.
Why would you want perfect SATs? I don’t think any of the DC prep school promise perfect SATs.
My kids went to what was considered a prestigious private school in our state. The administration’s attitude was take it or leave it. They did not entertain any requests from parents on which class/teacher they want for their kids, and everyone had to adhere to their policies. They have said to many parents who were too high maintenance, “Maybe this is not the right school for your family.” They almost expelled a student for the parent’s bad behavior at a sports event.
There is an opening for a college counselor position at a prep school in my area. I wouldn’t touch that job with a ten foot pole. H**l hath no fury like a parent scorned (or a parent who thinks their kid has been scorned).