Well, I have to disagree with #359. I think that any time a student is excluded from a math class the student could handle, the student is being disadvantaged. This is not an emotional point (though I concede that there is an emotional element in saying that advanced math is “like more food for you.”). I take this as patently evident. The whole point of classes is to learn things. Getting shunted to a lower track is a loss–unless the student would be truly overwhelmed, but there I think that people who hold the opposing point of view would need to provide evidence.
I think there is little question that Dayo missed Math II classes for her track competition. Do you think there is no evidence of that? How much evidence is needed to say that something is “at least doubtful,” when pretty clear doubts have been raised about the point?
Dayo would not need to be “gifted” in math to be disadvantaged by being excluded from a class she could handle.
This is not really personal to me. I think it is more a matter of educational philosophy. Should students be held back or moved to a lower track for fear of over-challenging them?
It was common practice in D’s HS, and the schools near us, to have academic thresholds for honors and AP courses, especially in math which requires such a strong foundation. Assessing what a student “could handle” was based on academic performance in the course before or in the case of freshmen, the math portion of the school’s entrance exam. The two students we know of who fought the school to be moved up in junior year struggled greatly and moved back down after only a few weeks. IMO, most schools know how to assess students’ abilities and are much more objective than parents.
That would be the school. Again, the documents being analyzed are from the perspective of the student/parents.
Having said that, she is not the first person in the history of the universe to miss classes for athletic events. It’s unlikely (although I can’t “prove” it, that she is the first person in the history of Sidwell, or in Math II at Sidwell, to be in the same situation. Presumably some students have juggles both successfully, and others have not. To override experience to take a leap of faith on one student who may or may not rise to the occasion may impact one or more of the other 125 students in that grade.Are they less important?
Just curious, at the private school my first son attended as well as at my other son’s public HS, a parent could actually sign their student into whatever advanced class they wanted to, as long as they signed forms saying they had been advised against taking them. Is this truly not the case at elite schools like Sidwell?
Excluded from “a math class the student could handle.”
How do you know this? How do you know where she stood in ability?
It’s also odd to assume a) she missed some- or a lot of classes due to sports. Where’s that come from? Again, you’re assuming, worrying about a context not cited. And b) that this dumbfounded the hs, they had no policy re sports absences. No one else ever did this (and that the school is rumb, cant come up with workarounds.
These disconnected fears take us into left field. Random reactions to details not in this case. Idle responses.
The teacher in her Math II class was in the best position to judge if she could juggle athletics and accelerated pace of academics successfully. Parents usually aren’t, unless they are educators or academics themselves. If she was mathematically talented, her parents seemed to be equipped, at least financially, to find her tutors or other avenues for a more accelerated math education.
@runswimyoga - I can’t speak for Sidwell but my D’s HS absolutely did not allow parents to just sign kids into courses. The two that we know that got into the higher level math had to double up on math sophomore year to try to close the information gap and then they moved into the higher level course junior year (the course that they subsequently dropped). At least at D’s school, it wasn’t just an issue with missing material being covered, but also depth of content and pace. The school was very upfront about that policy before enrollment so anyone not comfortable didn’t send their kids there.
As an aside, athletes at D’s school did not get a break from school work. The most that could be hoped for was an extension or an alternate test date. Most teachers assigned work on Monday that was due the following Monday. The assumption was that a student could manage their time well enough to get everything done. My D played volleyball and during season on away game days, was often not home until close to midnight. That meant working on school work at lunch, on the bus, in the car, being super diligent on the weekends, and planning well ahead.
I appreciate your point, @QuantMech . Otoh, I have a kid who was encouraged to “give it a go” in a higher level class and who struggled. Besides earning a low grade in the class - the least of the consequences- he ended up with gaps in his knowledge which followed him through high school and college. A lack of confidence was collateral damage. As it happens, I had a similar experience in high school because of a gap caused by a move. In spite of a top ten finish in a state math competition, I chose to avoid match-up classes as much as possible.
While your personal experience is a “go for it” one, mine points me in the opposite direction. I can imagine a teacher knowing that a student wanted to pursue a quantitative discipline and believing he’d be best served by having a stronger foundation. So hard to know what would serve each student best.
Of course, we don’t know what happened here, but it’s clear that we all bring our personal biases with us.
I can’t speak for Sidwell, but there was no parental override at my HS. The parents/student could certainly speak to a counselor and maybe make a valid case.
In some public schools here, a parent can override any teacher recommendation but once in the ap or honors class, the student cannot go back to the college prep version.
The lawsuit docs makes it sounds like Sidwell has rules specifying an objective grade for specific tracks, rather than entirely being based on subjective teacher recommendation. Some example quotes are below. They make it sounds like at least a B to stay in the advanced track, and an A to take certain advanced courses.
The current Sidwell curriculum docs make similar comments, although the grade requirements sound more flexible:
But the point is that the student whose problem is receiving a C+ rather than the B she thinks she deserves within a recalculation system that involves dropping her lowest score from consideration is still a student who “has had difficulty maintaining B level work” whether or not a recalculation of particular grades nudges that C+ grade into B- territory.
And when there are cutoffs based on grades, those sometimes shift at schools because of class size considerations That is, if a B is required to take Math III, but class size is restricted to, hypothetically, 25 students - and there are 28 kids with qualifying grades — then one might expect to see the 3 kids with the lowest B’s get excluded.
And that’s life. Sometimes the goal posts shift. So being borderline at the bottom is not an entitlement.
I don’t think the case got that much publcity until the petition for certiorari was filed with the Supreme Court. Filing that petition was not only wholly unrequired but also extremely unlikely to succeed. i think most attorneys would have advised against doing so.
Being treated unfairly doesn’t give you grounds to sue. Heck, I suspect that there are some teachers and GCs who will kill an application with a lukewarm letter of recommendation written for a student who is unaware that the letter isn’t glowing. There are teachers who will be influenced by the fact that a young woman is very pretty–and the influence can be pro or con.
Dayo’s claim here is that Sidwell discriminated against her on racial grounds. And without knowing the merits of Dayo’s OTHER complaints, I have a hard time believing that whatever slights Dayo suffered were due to racial discrimination.
Now, I am most definitely NOT saying that racial prejudice doesn’t exist. Nor am I saying that I am 100% sure that no Sidwell teacher is bigoted. But an orchestrated campaign against a Sidwell student because of her race!!! This at the school which Marian Wright Edelman’s son attended? That the Obama kids attended? Where a Senagelese immigrant is the current principal of the Upper School and before that was the academic dean? I think not. I think most people with any sort of familiarity with Sidwell Friends will have difficulty believing it.
Remember, there’s no finding by anyone that Sidwell discriminated against Dayo on racial grounds. The DC Human Rights case was SETTLED. One of Dayo’s claims is that Sidwell breached the settlement agreement. Breach of contract cases don’t make it to the Supreme Court, except in extremely rare circumstances which don’t apply here.
There were some specific allegations beyond just dropping lowest score nudge a C+ to a B-, inclduing the following. This is obviously a one sided summary, and I’m sure the math II teacher had a very different version of events; but the point is it’s not obvious from the lawsuit that Dayo had “difficulty maintaining B level work”:, particularly with a history of getting A’s in math and being “recognized nationally as a Math Scholar.”
–Claims math II 79% grade used in calculation did not occur
–Claims math II teacher acknowledged a significant grading error on her exam, after she protested in front of entire class, but did not acknowledge grading errors in private
–Claims received the same score repeatedly on components of grade, without justification
–Claims math II teacher shredded his grade book and related grading history, instead of saving it as being instructed by headmaster, with the settlement requiring recalculation of Dayo’s math II grade, in addition to Sidwell paying the Adetus $50k
–Claims math ii teacher did not make same allowances for athletic events, as he did for other students in class
A plaintiff in a civil lawsuit bears the burden of proof of their allegations. The bottom line in this case is that at the trial level, the plaintiff did not sustain their burden of proof at the level required to withstand a summary judgment motion, much less a trial. The decision of the trial court was upheld on appeal. And now, of course, the US Supreme Court has refused to hear the case.
So bottom line, whatever the plaintiff claimed or alleged, they weren’t able to prove their case.
Here’s what the trial court found in reference to the points you outline:
My point is that it is once a court has made findings, it is those findings that govern – not what the plaintiff alleged or claimed. Neither you nor I can know what really happened at Sidwell – but in discussing the facts at this point, it makes a lot more sense to rely on the court’s ruling after reviewing the submissions from both plaintiff & defendant, than going back to resurrect the plaintiff’s assertions that were either rejected by the court or found to be legally insignificant.
From what I’ve read here, this student was still taking a more aggressive math courseload than some other applicants to colleges. It’s not like the school made her stop after algebra 2.
I still wonder what the “conditional” part of her acceptances were. Perhaps these conditions were remedied during the gap year to her advantage.
The post-graduation lawsuits you referenced relate to whether there was a breach of the earlier settlement that required Sidwell to recalculate Dayo’s math II grade and not retaliate against Dayo, in response to the settlement and recalculation. It does not address all of the claims about the math II grades mentioned above, nor should it, as they are not specific to the breach of settlement. We don’t know exactly what happened in Dayo’s math II class, particularly with the grading history destroyed, and as such should not assume she had “difficulty maintaining B level work.” In my option, it is not clear at all whether she had “difficulty maintaining B level work.”, regardless of the courts finding in whether there was sufficient evidence in showing that the previous settlement with the Adetus was breached.
Well, the parts that don’t support the lawsuit are a big “so what?”
Would you like a laundry list of all the screwups and mistakes that my kids’ teachers made along the way? I’ve got plenty of stories, but I’m sure that others on CC can outdo me.
There’s a huge difference between a “barely qualifying” mindset and a “exceed all expectations” mindset – and in a competitive environment such as Ivy admissions, “barely qualifying” is not enough.
Again, I have to disagree with post #364. I am not totally making up the idea that the student missed classes due to her sports competitions. The parents allege that white athletes were accommodated for their absences (so the school does know how to do that), while this student was not accommodated.
I think it is possible that the difference is not racial discrimination, but students on school teams (accommodated) vs. students on travel teams (not accommodated). That was not addressed in the complaint, as I read it.
I don’t know whether the student in question could have handled Math III or not. It is pretty clear that she was prevented from trying it, though.
If a student has perfect attendance and is working hard and still struggling, there would be reason to suggest that the student not take the next course in the same sequence. If a student has missed classes and was not accommodated, sub-B grades that are assigned may not reflect actual struggles. I am speaking in generalities here.
Interesting that parents can “say” all sorts of things and they are taken as facts in the case by the internet defenders. The school is likely under a different burden and advised to remain quiet. The courts who have seen and heard all of the evidence have ruled. That the school settled earlier does not mean that there was intent or even that the teachers/schools were guilty of anything more than a few mistakes. Schools, like companies, are encouraged to settle and make things right even when there is not much merit for a lawsuit.
For so many people here to continue to speculate and conclude so many things from what the parents “say” is troubling. I get that lots of people have baggage with schools and teachers. It is true that mistakes happen as well. In my years in education I have heard parents twist, interpret, and say all sorts of things that range from stunning truths to outright ridiculous lies and every shade of gray in between in an attempt to help their children. The willingness of posters to believe and defend parents who have a history of lawsuits, a history of privilege, and a daughter who has gone on to matriculate and graduate from Penn over the court ruling is interesting. To think that there is some huge, organized attempt by a well regarded successful school to target, suppress, deny a student who has been part of their community since Kindergarten is a little far fetched for me to believe. I also don’t feel that a counselor is obligated to give glowing recommendations to every student, earned or not. We don’t know anything about this girl as a student, a classmate, a teammate, or a community member except what the parents have said and those things that were part of the legal record. Those things that are part of the record do show an accomplished young person but do not seem to point to the best of the best who would be a likely for the top schools in the country. That she was able to graduate from Penn just shows me that so many more “average excellent” students, if given the chance would also excel at top schools. It does not indicate to me that she was wronged or a victim, it indicates to me that she was lucky and leveraged her superior SF education to reach her goals.