Ben did not mention how many kids were on the waiting list nor if any room was even available.Īfter telling Ben that a good friend and neighbor attended the school as well as several of Sarah's former classmates, I was confident that my child would be a good fit academically. BASIS starts out with a large class in 5th grade of around 130 students, eventually graduating a mere 35 students as the rigor and difficulty continue to weed kids out. I felt confident that I could enroll my child as I knew of several kids who had jumped ship from 5th to 6th grade and knew, based on history, that even more students would be leaving BASIS and there would, therefore, be spaces available. I spoke with a gentleman by the name of Ben Sullivan. Hence, I made a phone call to BASIS Scottsdale in March of 2013. Additionally, after six straight years of love fests between teacher, student and parent, we were underwhelmed by the anonymity of the giant open maw that is middle school with its 6 different teachers and class sizes that have now burgeoned to 36 kids due to the continuing budget cuts. While the middle schools in Scottsdale Unified School District (SUSD) allow kids to enroll in a "double advanced" math class in which they are on track to take AP Calculus their junior year of high school, they didn't offer much in terms of clustering, differentiation, tracking or any form of creating a challenge for those kids that might need it. When our oldest arrived at middle school, we had a less than ideal experience. We even opted out of the “pull out” gifted enrichment classes because we didn't want either kid to miss any class time with their excelling teachers who were exceeding our expectations of meeting our kids' needs. On the advice of our first grade teacher, we had our oldest tested for "giftedness" and our youngest followed when she reached the appropriate age. Our years at Cochise Elementary were filled with engaged teachers who worked hard to provide differentiated instruction for our daughters despite the burgeoning class sizes due to the annual budget cuts. We found a school with excellent test scores, an active parent community, and an old fashioned neighborhood. We moved to Scottsdale when our oldest child was entering 1st grade. Jennifer contacted me recently after having had an encounter with Basis Scottsdale, and I asked her to record her experiences so that I could pass them along here. Much has been written about how Basis schools attract a highly select group of students and even then winnow and sift them down to a couple dozen by graduation time. Recently, US News and World Report ranked Basis Scottsdale as the second best high school in America. Basis Scottsdale is a charter school, one of about a dozen operated by Basis Schools Inc. She is actively engaged in her children’s education and seeks the best opportunities for them to acquire a good education. Jennifer McDowell is a mother of three children in the Scottsdale (AZ) attendance area.
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