Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Testing: Four, Five--Testing

Now having the process straight for creating the lists of students that will be tested to enter kindergarten at Buist, I propose further questions that need to be answered concerning that testing process.



  1. What is the rationale for testing the first 20 students on each of the four lists for the 10 slots available? Who picked that number? Is it based upon any statistical method?

  2. What happens to the children who are in the bottom 10 on the ranked list after their testing? Are they cast off the waiting lists forever?

  3. Who does the testing? What test(s) are used? Where is the testing done? When is it done? How is the testing validated?

  4. Who ranks the children from 1 to 20 on each list? Are any criteria besides test results used for ranking?

  5. Has the district or school correlated the results of these pre-kindergarten tests with later testing to check for accuracy?

  6. Are the results of the tests made available to the child's parent?

  7. If a lucky child is selected as one of the 20 numbers generated on more than one list (say, countywide and sibling), is the 21st child on one of those lists tested, or are only 19 tested? Who decides which list shortens or includes a 21st child for testing?

  8. Here's a good one: What if a child's score places him or her in the top 10 on the sibling list and as 10th on the countywide list? Is the 11th-ranked child on the sibling list admitted or the 11th child on the countywide list? In other words, have any protocols been established and made available to the public?

  9. Once the four lists of 10 have been notified and prior to August a parent decides against Buist, moves to Alaska, etc., is the 11th-ranked child on the list offered admittance, or does the opportunity go to the (presumably) 21st child from one of the four lottery "waiting" lists, who is then tested?
  10. Are children who did not participate in the original lottery for kindergarten ever admitted to more advanced grades at Buist?



60 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm sure you won't hear from Jerry Adams or Janet Rose again. Maybe someone will tell you what percentage of children from each list manage to pass the test. Kids are kicked out of Buist if their GPA goes below 85%. Ask Sallie Ballard about the failing schools list and the test prep done for all those Murray LaSaine children. Why no test prep (YCAT) in the 4K programs in downtown schools?

Also if the failing schools list was designed to "diversify" the school how successful has that been? How about a Title 1 list?

Anonymous said...

It was very obvious last year to anyone who looked into it even slightly that testing is an easier way to conceal preferential choice of students by the Administration.
The way it is achieved is by non-uniform testing proctors. The rooms that the children are sent into are not all the same because the individuals giving the subjective test are of different experience, backgrounds and even agendas. Why even the principal did testing last year. One room passed 30% of the students tested, another passed 60% of the students tested, and the principals room passed 100% of the students tested.
This test is very fallible as it is with 4 and 5 year olds. You do not have to be a child psychologist to know that testing children of this age is inappropriate, inconclusive, and unscientific. Even colleges use more than a single criterion to determine acceptance.
The most important criteria for Buist admission are the profession of the parents, and the ability for the parents to raise funds for the foundation. We do think that everyone wants intelligent children to be in the school, but parents are more enamored and titillated with the prospect of being clever and deceptive and being with well heel connected and elite crowd.
Anyone who is an advocate of testing children this young without other criteria, or the possibility of a retest to normalize differences in proctor difficulty, is an advocate for secretive, deceptive process.

Anonymous said...

Janet Rose is on record (in a hearing) telling parents that a five year old that is tested by a never before seen man must have a "problem" if he or she finds this intimidating. Last year the male psychologist had a much higher fail rate than the female proctors.

Anonymous said...

How many small children have had male pre-school teachers or even been around many men aside from their own fathers? In this culture children are not encouraged to interact with strangers (especially men!)

Something tells me that the children of the VIP's (you know who they are) were tested by friendly female teachers. The YCAT is very subjective.

Anonymous said...

Yes, and you can be sure that the proctors knew which children were the offspring of the well known and well connected.

Anonymous said...

Great questions! It has also come out that when some students' overall academic averages in the upper grades have fallen below the 85% minimum (that's a solid "B" average for the rest of us) the rules require that those students be dismissed from Buist and be returned to the schools in their attendance zones. Under state law and by long standing practice, students and their parents have the right to appeal any dismissal (which is believed to be automatic) of a student from Buist for academic deficiencies. They have the right to appeal first to the constituent board and then to the county board if the parent finds the constituent board's ruling unfavorable. In the spring of 2005 at least two students appeared before the constituent board to ask that the rule be set aside for two students who had been at Buist since kindergarten and were nearing their final years at the school. It is important to note that the Buist principal also appeared to endorse their request. The constituent board voted without exception to grant the requests of both students, primarily because the principal had supported them. There have not been any more student dismissal cases from Buist (relating to either academics or conduct) sent up to the constituent board since early 2005. Since that time it has been reported "on the street" that there have been more than a few cases of students being dismissed from Buist, but none of these have been appealed to the constituent board. Maybe these should be described only as students and their parents being "firmly asked to leave" by the principal. "Voluntary" withdrawals are not subject to appeal rights. There is no evidence that the parents in these cases were advised of any appeal rights. It is clear that the administration wants nothing relating to Buist to be brought before the constituent board. Regardless of administrative preferences about what laws or policies they wish to follow, students and their parents have rights that are supposed to be protected by Buist and CCSD officials. Who makes the decision that a parent can or should appeal in these situations? Are the parents informed of their appeal rights? Or are some parents not informed intentionally? What part has race (or a parent's social status or any other subjective consideration) played in how student dismissals for academic reasons have been handled by Buist and CCSD officials? Just like the questions about exactly who benefits from admission on the so-called low performing school list, who is monitoring how vacancies in the upper grades are being created and manipulated? Some of these may be grounds for formal civil rights complaints but all appear to involve administrative approval of actions that are cheating students, parents and the public. These are documented issues but CCSD has chosen not to release the information (even if devoid of student names). Why haven't local newspaper reporters looked into this? Maybe Jim Merrill is right; it's time to take the sales tax exemption status off newsprint.

Anonymous said...

In the preface to the YCAT, the publisher states that the test is not designed to be used as the sole criteria for assessing a student and the test results should not be used as a single determining factor for directing where a child is placed in school. It further states that the test is to be used only in combination with other measures of a child's abilities, otherwise its results if taken alone may be highly unreliable, especially at the youngest age levels of kindergarten and pre-kindergarten. If that is the recommendation of those who designed the YCAT test, then why is Buist using this test exactly in the manner that the publisher has said it is not to be used? The Buist principal and Janet Rose have both admitted that they are aware of this but they offer no explanation as to why this test is being used as the single academic pass key to a child being admitted or not to Buist's kindergarten.

Anonymous said...

Buist is the only magnet elementary school that doesn't give preference to people in their district.

Anonymous said...

Downtown is seen as nothing but a dumping ground for troubled children in other areas.

Anonymous said...

You can't blame Janet Rose, Nancy Cook, Maria Goodloe or even Sallie Ballard for any problems at CCSD. Anyone paying attention knows that Gregg Meyers is the only one in charge.

Anonymous said...

Yes, and Gregg is doing a great job representing Mt. Pleasant. Too bad he doesn't have Toya Green's opinion that he is representing the entire county.

Anonymous said...

Did someone say Dist. 20 is a dumping ground for CCSD? Of the 3100 students still found in downtown schools, more than 800 (25-30%) are from outside the district. James Simons has over 30% from off the peninsula. Chas. Progressive (a magnet school?) was ordered to take more than 50 transfers from troubled Brentwood Middle under NCLS. (Buist has taken in no students under NCLB.) Over 30% of Memminger's students live outside of Dist. 20 while nearly 2/3 of it's students don't even live in its attendance zone of mostly south of Calhoun. Another 1200 documented Dist. 20 residents have been cherry picked to go to schools outside of Dist. 20, such as the School of the Arts, Academic Magnet, and even for a few lucky ones under NCLB, to Harborview and St. Andrews Math & Science. These 1200 students might even be called Dist. 20's best and brightest. Certainly it includes some parents who are willing to fight on behalf of their kid's education. As for true Dist. 20 kids in the N.Chas. Discipline School (Murray Hill, middle and HS age), the number is less than 20 of the nearly 400 or more students assigned to that dismal place. An estimated 1500-2000 school age residents of Dist. 20 have been pushed out of the public school system altogether and attend private schools or are home schooled. Of the 2200 or so Dist. 20 kids (including the ones at Buist with fake Dist. 20 addresses) that attend all the other Dist. 20 schools, they have definately been dumped on AND left behind.

Anonymous said...

Babbie,
Do you still want to know who Mr. Big is? It's more important to know who is neighbor is.

Anonymous said...

To poster 6: I wouldn't call an 85% average a "solid B" - I'd all it barely a B. (When I was in school, 84 was the lowest grade counted as a B). Or has Buist adopted the slacker 80-89% for a B?

Anonymous said...

If keeping Buist Academy for Advanced Studies going means stocking it with a group of wealthy and connected people then so be it. Public schools with a mission like Buist need all of the help they can get to stay alive.

Anonymous said...

That's all well and good, but as a public school the public has a right to know who's doing the "stocking" and what the rules are that they are supposed to be following. Even private schools don't operate this cavalierly.

Anonymous said...

A Buist Foundation Board member said recently that he thought the admissions process at Buist was fine just the way it is. As a Citadel grad maybe someone should remind him how the Citadel Honor Code reads. 'A cadet does not lie, cheat or steal; nor tolerate those who do.'

Anonymous said...

Where is all the Title 1 $$$ going? Does it go to the school that has the children that bring it in? Is CCSD so afraid of Mt. Pleasant breaking away from them that they will continue to shortchange children in poverty?

Anonymous said...

Again you people! Gregg Meyers and Toya Hampton Green are nearly volunteering to serve CCSD. So what if they get a little preferential treatment in the lottery or admissions process in Magnet Schools. You want people like them in the public school system so they will care. Also we owe it to them for all of their hard work. A very few children are ever displaced because of this.

Anonymous said...

Yes, you need Magnet Schools to keep the best and brightest in public schools.

Anonymous said...

The proctors are human! Of course they might be a little star struck by the child of a mover and shaker.

Anonymous said...

The Buist foundation donations should be public knowlege. What do they have to hide?

Anonymous said...

Try telling the parents of a child that is displaced by a cheater that their child's education is being hurt for a good cause.

Anonymous said...

Maybe if all of our schools were magnet schools, or at least supported like CCSD supports Buist and Academic Magnet, then a lot more of Charleston's best and brightest would still be in public schools all across the county.

Anonymous said...

Remember this from the Post and Courier last summer :

"Most of the money behind the campaign came from a handful of real estate interests that have relationships with [Riley], city government, or both. In several cases, donors have contracts or pending contracts with Charleston.

The No New Town Taskforce's anti-incorporation campaign was slick but unsuccessful. The group's money paid for phone banks, postcards, signs, voter lists, consultants, poll watchers, bumper stickers, fliers and ads (including several in The Post and Courier).


Do you know about the overlap that story had with the Buist fake address story? You're right, it never made the paper but news outlets knew the connection.

Anonymous said...

Why is it a given that county board members should be getting some perks that we aren't being told about in advance? You would think that a majority of Charleston County voters must have studied this kind of flawed concept of civics in one of our many failing schools. It's illegal for elected officials to receive something of value without it being specified in the law in advance or without reporting it immediately after the fact. Maybe the SC Ethics Commission needs to be told about this.

Anonymous said...

Since county board members are "almost volunteers" perhaps someone should educate them on what sacrifices are expected of pubic servants. Keep in mind that they have "volunteered" to do this with nothing more promised than $25 dollars per meeting and a free parking pass or two every now and then. If the cost to them is too much without receiving additional perks under the table, they shouldn't have volunteered. Being treated differently from the people that they were elected to represent is not one of those sacrifices that voters had in mind. This would include allowing adminstration officals to reserve seats for them and their political allies in what has become an exclusive "publicly subsidized private school". The law is very clear on this. It's not allowed, especially if it displaces someone who is otherwise entitled to have access to the school.

Anonymous said...

What's forcing people out of public schools in Charleston today, it's the wide acceptance of this type of bad behavior as "normal". The Buist "problem" is a small example of what's wrong with the entire public school administration in Charleston County. Bad behavior, among the adults in this case, is not just being tolerated, it seems to be encouraged by the people in charge. Kudos to those parents and taxpayers who say this is not acceptable. Pity the children of those who cheat to get ahead of others. Their lack of integrity is obvious when they attempt to justify this dishonesty while ignoring the problems in nearby other schools. It is ironic that the total failure of so many county public schools, particularly those located in downtown Charleston, is the reason which made their dishonesty seem so necessary to them in the first place. When this is considered, their justifications are downright insulting.

Anonymous said...

To those in CCSD who so casually write off downtown kids who go to private schools, these kids represent both lost revenues for the entire district. They also represent lost leadership from the classrooms to the PTAs on behalf of pubic education throughout the system. The fact that one school wins while so many others are loosing is not exactly a good talking point. For the record, very few children from well healed downtown families are able to get into Buist either. They've been written off in much the same way that disadvantaged downtown kids have been for years.

Anonymous said...

Dr. Janet Rose Baele, Gregg Meyers, Toya Hampton Greene, Robert New and Nancy Cook are all very accomplished and intelligent people. Naturally their children would be be magnet school material. Downtown children are usually either unqualified or their parents are too stuck up to put them in a public school like Buist.

Anonymous said...

The big guy = Robt. Graves and his neighbor of less than 150 yards on Sullivan's Island = Gregg Meyers. It's all in the public record. CCSD released that information early last summer, even though MG-J announced publicly a month or so later that no faulty addresses were found and Dist. 20's concerns were "unsubstantiated". So who's not telling the truth?

Anonymous said...

No one's questioning the mental capacity of anyone, just the legal (and moral) right that some might assert that these particular people (or anyone like them) have to cut in line (by whatever means) ahead of some equally gifted kids whose parents still believe that the system should be fair and the rules should be followed equitably.

Anonymous said...

To be fair to "Mr. Big" he ended up sending his child to Sullivan's Island. I guess those two Buist bus stops at SI were wasted.

Anonymous said...

It's very telling that there are two Sullivan's Island bus stops for Buist and none downtown below Spring St.

Anonymous said...

I thought Gregg Meyers came to Charleston to help desegregate downtown. Has he done anything in all of these years on the board to try and achieve that?

Anonymous said...

Again, Gregg Meyers has put in many years of service to Charleston County Schools. So what if he had five children at Buist? Maybe they got in on the Countywide or sibling list. He's really smart. I bet his children were too. He should be applauded for not puttting them in private school like all those stuck up downtown people do.

Anonymous said...

What other school board members and public officials have ties to the fake address parents? If they've done something wrong you guys should name names.

Anonymous said...

How many children from Dist. 20 were allowed to transfer to Sullivan's Island ES under NCLB? I hear that Sullivan's Island is now purging their student body of "illegal" transfers from Dist. 20 even if the original schools for those kids are low performing. Now is that legal?

Anonymous said...

Don't blame Gregg Meyers for not working for desegregation. Maybe none of those people downtown want it. The problems with downtown schools are too complicated even for Gregg Meyers to try to fix. I agree that it's only right that Gregg and Robert New should have had five kids each go through Buist. Maybe they owned rental property downtown or had in-laws that lived downtown.

As long as you are related to somebody or have a friend that will let you pay his SCE & G bill you can get into Buist on the downtown list. I know plenty of folks who have done it over the years. Quit picking on Gregg and Janet Rose and Robert New. I'm sure their kids got into Buist on the Countywide list.

Until a few years ago they have 7 spots every year to non minority children from a countywide list. They had excellent chances of getting in because fewer people used to apply to Buist before we got all of this national publicity on Nightline.

In my day these downtown people would have minded their own business and appreciated public servents like Gregg Meyers.

You know my grandchildren can't even afford to live downtown. I've been paying taxes to Charleston County for a long time. I couldn't send my kids to the public schools downtown so my grandchildren desearve to go to a fine school like Buist.

Babbie said...

If the YCAT is the test being used (and all commenters seem to indicate that it is), why is Buist using an ACHIEVEMENT test? Shouldn't the testing indicate ability instead? This test sets up the "winners" to be children whose parents can buy enrichment programs and/or tutors over those with more native ability. Therefore, it favors the rich. How ridiculous. And disingenuous. And elitist. Who chose THIS test?

Anonymous said...

As a former Buist parent I know that people get a teacher to buy the YCAT on line and pass it around to each other. They then take turns testing the children of their friends. I've even known some Buist parents to hire teachers who have given the YCAT to prep their four and five year olds before the Buist test.

Anonymous said...

Whoever commented a few above me:
IT IS NOT OK TO USE A GRANDPARENT'S ADDRESS TO GET ON THE BUIST DOWNTOWN LIST!

It's a list for children who really live downtown. If your grandchildren don't really live downtown then they no doubt have much better public school options than any downtown child!

Anonymous said...

I have a friend that used a fake downtown address last year but they really intended to buy something small if their child got into Buist. When the child passed the test they did buy the property and they do sleep their sometimes.

This "primary residence" business isn't written anywhere on Buist forms. Some of you have a hard time accepting that some people can afford to own more than one piece of property.

If you have renters in an investment property downtown then you still have to pay taxes on it don't you? In fact you pay more tax on a business because it's not a primary residence.

This Title 1 list idea for Buist is nonsense. Most of those people don't pay taxes at all.

By the way Gregg Meyers is a fine man. He has no control over downtown schools. It's great that he put his five kids in public schools when he could clearly afford not to.

We are lucky to have people like Gregg volunteer their time. Toya Hampton Green could put her child in a private school too. What do you people expect her to do, send her kid to a regular downtown school or get a NCLB transfer far away?j

It benefits our school (and all schools)to have people like Toya, Gregg, Janet Rose and Robert New send their kids here. There has to be a place for the smartest kids in the county to go and get challenged. We should move our school to Mt. Pleasant anyway so we all won't have to commute over the bridge.

Really, if it's made up of children mostly from Mt. Pleasant then why is it downtown? Also, Buist doesn't take NCLB transfers because it is a MAGNET SCHOOL. It doesn't matter that there eleven are spots available. I heard that Sallie was so busy dealing with all the angry downtown types that she didn't have time to fill those spots over the summer. She had to go a while without an assistent principal!

Anonymous said...

I wonder about the intellect of some of these Buist supporters. Even if we ignore their lack of vocabulary skills and their obvious insecurity issues about who exactly lives downtown, their ignorance of the actual goals and laws relating to public education in general would be unbelievable and if I hadn't read their comments first. As for the phrase "It benefits our school [I'm assuming this is a Buist parent] (and all schools) to have people like Toya, Gregg, Janet Rose..." What would benefit our other downtown schools would have been for these people not to sit on there bums when there is clearly a need and a demand for an egalitarian approach to solving the problems of all of the other neighborhood schools located downtown. What these people [you named them] have done is advance an elitist agenda that benefits a small number of people, mostly their limited circle. Don't make asinine assumptions about downtown residents and their attitudes about public education or racial integration. Many of the new people who now live on the peninsula, and not all of them are particularly wealthy, went to excellent public schools elsewhere and don't understand why we have tolerated this situation in Charleston for so long. As for the few natives who remain on the peninsula, most of them attended public schools here. Some even remember when the downtown schools were good AND most public schools on the peninsula were racially integrated. How quickly we forget when we let the new “in crowd” rewrite our history for us. Read this week's “Charleston Chronicle” if you want to get a good take on how Charleston's Black community is following this and related stories about the state of downtown public schools. There is plenty of blame to go around and some Black citizens have been brave enough to look into a mirror. Are white parents from the suburbs who used false addresses to get their kids into Buist up to the task of doing the same? Certainly some of our CCSD county board members have not been.

Anonymous said...

Charleston Progessive is a MAGNET SCHOOL, too, so why is it required to take NCLB transfers?

Anonymous said...

Sallie Ballard is a good woman. Her whole life is that school and she's under a lot of pressure from parents and administrators. Sallie does what it takes to keep the school going. She had a meeting just this week to address the downtown whiners. Many of us think that there shouldn't even be a downtown list. Watch out! You're right, we are well connected.

As for race, it's not Sallie's fault that the lower grades are mostly white. Black people just aren't applying to Buist enough. Sallie wishes she could change that but we don't have a minority list anymore.

Buist is a great school with four foreign language teachers, the International Baccularate program, and SAIL for all children. We have a great new assistent principal. We have full time PE and art and music teachers. We also have a full time IB teacher and three SAIl teachers. Our kids work hard and we have the highest PACT scores in this system. All of this is no accident.

Of course people like Gregg, Toya, Robert New and Darius Rucker would want to send their children to such a fine school.

Anonymous said...

If that downtown mob gets their way it will destroy Buist Academy as we know it. I would put my daughter in Ashley Hall if it became more of a district school. Buist would no longer be getting the cream of the crop. Buist is the only public school I would put my daughter in.

So what if all the other magnet elementary schools give preference to people that live in their district? I'm sure people use fake addresses to get into those schools too. Nobody makes a big deal out of that. You never hear St. Andrews Math and Science or West Ashley Creative Arts parents making a big deal about things.

If the downtown people are so unhappy about the way Buist is then they should start another sort of magnet school. Leave Buist alone. It's for "advanced studies" so it's not for everyone. Also, there's only so much room in the school.

We have a fabulous IB coordinator Nicole Barrett than brought IB to Buist. She and Sallie Ballard are together shaping Buist into a dream school. Nicole was the Mom in the Post and Courier that was sobbing out of joy that her child got a great number in the county-wide lottery. This is because she knows first hand what a special place Buist is.

It is a testament to Buist that other teachers have or have had their children at the school. This makes it a much better place for a teacher to work.

Anonymous said...

This very short Letter to the Editor appears in today's P&C, 3-16-07:

The Answer
Clone Buist!
GLENN P. TUCKER
6-A Elliott St.

Couldn't have said it any better. That's all downtown has been asking. We'd fill a second Buist in a heartbeat. Ivy Ascue on the Dist. 20 board has even floated a proposal to do just that at Memminger. What about it? The CCSD board controls the money and ultimately decides if it will happen. Why not give Buist some healthy competition and fix this problem?

Anonymous said...

First of all Magnet schools are not Immune to No Child Left behind. Read all 642 pages of the act and you will see that. Thus irregardless of what the CCSD chooses to say Buist is not immune to it.
Second the YCAT does not measure intelligence it measures the chance that a child is at risk to have problems in school. According to multiple psychologists it should not be the measure of if the child will or will not fail. It identifies children that will need extra help.
Last the school is a public school and no one except a teacher who works there should automatically get their kid in. Giving of your self to perform a public service is an act of goodness and kindness. No one should expect to cheat the system.

Anonymous said...

Actually magnet schools are not suppossed to let a teacher's child in automatically or they risk losing a certain type of funding. I'm sure it's done covertly like everything else at Buistl

Anonymous said...

So what if a teacher's child gets a helping hand with the lottery or testing. A teacher can't pretend that she never gave the test herself to other children. There aren't that many children at Buist that are the kids of teachers or school board members. Plus what are you expecting? It would be a lot of trouble to bring in all outside proctors when you have teachers right there that are qualified to use the YCAT.

Anonymous said...

Babbie ... can you email me, I have a couple questions I do not want to post ... john@johnstrubel.com

Anonymous said...

Poor Ms. Ballard
If she just did the right thing last year when everyone questioned things a bit, she would have had a much better year.
Stonewalling and fabrications irritate people and make things worse.

Anonymous said...

I think they should get it out in the open and have a VIP list.
This would kill all the secrecy. Teachers, Rock Stars, Political Figures and relatives can all get their children in on that type of a list. I admire them for wanting to send their children to a public school, I loathe them for the means they chose and the child they displaced

Anonymous said...

Where are your letters to the editor? I've written mine. I'm waiting for yours.
When will you attach your names to these harsh comments?
What insanity one "public" school has created. Gregg Meyers is a good man??? Are you kidding me? We should all be ashamed of ourselves...including our "good man Gregg." Ask your good man where he lived at the time of the elections. Did he even live in the district he represents? ASK HIM.

Anonymous said...

To the person who posted the VIP list suggestion:
Thank You!! That's my kind of humor and I needed a good laugh today. Maybe we could bring it up under public comments at the next school board meeting.

Anonymous said...

Babbie-
In response to your number 9 question (regarding the child moving to Alaska, etc...)
At the Buist Task Force meeting, Gregg Meyers stated, "People have a constitutional right to travel." So I think that kid who moves to Alaska could still in fact GO to Buist, especially if he entered on the District 20 list.

Anonymous said...

My child used to go to Buist and I knew children that didn't even live in Charleston County that attended the school. Why are county tax payers footing the bill for parents outside of our huge school district? Of course there were nearly no downtown children there either. Minority children seemed to all come from North Charleston and the white children from Mt. Pleasant.

We left because of the sleaze involved in the seventh grade last year. We are now very happy at a non magnet school that we are zoned for. Sallie should have been fired for the way she handled that bullying situation. The only people punished were the victims and the teachers involved. That is because the ring leaders mother was a big wig at the school and Sallie Ballard's biggesgt defender. I won't say what the mother did because that would identify her child.

We were upset by the bathroom situation too but the approval of bullying was the final straw. There is no leadership at that school. I don't think Brandenburg understands who he has alligned himself with. The school as it is does not fit with the ideals of the Citadel.

Anonymous said...

Babbie-
I guess its not just a County- wide school... its a COUNTRY-wide school. Better yet, maybe we should call it the Country Club wide school.
You've asked some great questions, but I doubt you'll get any answers. There is NO policy on most of the questions you've raised.
Honestly, I think Sallie looks at the list and decides who'll bring in the most money and takes it from there. That's probably why those vacancies were never filled in the upper grades this year.

Anonymous said...

The real problem with the "downtown" list is that Buist cannot determine to which board the school is accountable - the constituent downtown board - or the county board. If the school is a constituent district magnet, the downtown kids should have priority. On the other hand, if the school is actually a county-wide magnet, the downtown list should be termintated and all students regardless of address should be given the same chance to attend. Right now, Buist's admission policy is a hybrid, trying to accomodate both the constituent as well as the county boards and students. The decision must be made to whom Buist is accountable and for whom Buist exists.