Parents Gone Wild: High Drama Inside D.C.’s Most Elite Private School [Sidwell Friends]

www.theatlantic.com ^ | Jun 5, 2019 | Adam Harris

[Red Badger]

At Sidwell Friends, the high school of Chelsea Clinton and the Obama children, college counselors find themselves besieged by Ivy-obsessed families.

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Updated at 2:47 p.m. ET on June 6, 2018.

The motto of Sidwell Friends School, the hyperselective “Harvard of Washington’s private schools,” is simple and lofty. “Eluceat omnibus lux”—Latin for “Let the light shine out from all.” But bright lights sometimes illuminate the worst in people. Last month, shocking behavior by parents may have led two of the school’s three college counselors to leave their jobs.

School officials have repeatedly warned parents, who represent the pinnacle of elite Washington, about their offensive conduct. In January, the head of the school, Bryan Garman, sent a remarkable letter to parents of seniors in which he demanded that they stop “the verbal assault of employees.” He also reiterated a policy banning them from recording conversations with counselors and making calls to counselors from blocked phone numbers. Garman also suggested that some parents were responsible for the “circulation of rumors about students.”

Anger, vitriol, and deceptiveness have come to define highly selective college admissions. In the now notorious Varsity Blues scandal, the desire from wealthy parents to get their children into such elite institutions as Yale and the University of Southern California led them to lie on applications and obtain fake SAT scores. At Sidwell Friends, one of America’s most famous Quaker schools, the desire manifested itself in bad behaviors—including parents spreading rumors about other students, ostensibly so that their children could get a leg up, the letter said.

[jimtorr]

I worked for the same major corporation for 24 years as corporate security. I could never advance past admin aide because I refused to get some BS night school, on-line college degree.

I was laid off after 24.5 years at age 58.5. One of the final remarks my stupidvisor made to me was that he was making my final work day the first of the month, because I needed to have insurance for another month.

Given the history of the company, I was laid off at that time because I was costing too much in medical bills, and I was approaching my 25th anniversary. After 25 years with that old line company my retirement would nearly double.

Years later I was told by an attorney that I likely had had an excellent case for an age discrimination lawsuit. At the time, they gave me an excellent separation package, over a quarter million when counting continuing insurance.

[fruser1]

All tyrants come from the “I am better than you” crowd.

[libstripper]

Ah, what a wonderful, friendly, loving, inclusive, diverse, accepting venomous snake pit Sidwell “Friends” is.

[Albion Wilde]

Since this is from the Atlantic with maybe 12 paid subscribers, is this Fake News, Semi Fake News?

The article contains factual news and a document actually sent by the headmaster to the parents.