This review is of my personal experience with the school: despite it I have made life lasting friendships and it does not in any way reflect the beautiful families that make up the school. The school has given me so many great opportunities academically but also in friendship.
My senior year of high school I was extremely sick and spent a lot of time in the hospital (POTs and histamine intolerance). My heart rate would shoot over 200 beats per minute despite medication. The administrators at the time and many of the staff were not at all sympathetic. (I am not even going to list 1/3 of the problems that occurred with them.) I had to wear a heart monitor and when it would beep three times I had to call in through landline to make sure I wasn’t in cardiac arrest and could continue school instead of going to the hospital. I also had accommodation papers signed by each staff member so that they could be aware of what was happening and how they needed to act. The male british administrator however would interrupt me calling the hospital and transferring the data from the monitor to the hospital and yell at me for “skipping class.” Also, when I was resting in the nurse’s office (because my heart rate was 170) he came in and yelled at the nurses asking, why are you letting her rest? They replied stating how high my heart rate was and he said, DO NOT LET HER REST AGAIN, came into the room and forced me to walk to class, which could’ve put me under cardiac arrest. He yelled at me several times throughout the year disregarding the accommodation letters he signed stating that I should be allowed to rest and eat as I needed. My ap History instructor and National Honor Society leader was angry at me when I couldn’t -- on a sudden whim due to his lack of organization -- go help sell pizzas during lunch, because he hadn’t given me enough notice so that I could take my lunch (and when your heart goes that high you desperately need calories, skipping lunch was not an option.) He told me I was not fulfilling my responsibilities and (despite the fact that I had over 100 hours of community service each year and the only one in my class to have so much, in spite of MY ILLNESS) said that I wasn’t up to par with my classmates (which was obviously false) and said some very rude things to me. He then complained about missing school ONE day because he had strep throat and talked about how hard it was for him. I was in the hospital for A WEEK because I had strep throat and he couldn’t at all be empathetic. Finally, the female headmaster was another issue entirely and tried to convince me to drop out of high school among many other things. Which would’ve been a real shame if I had listened since I was an exceptional student, had attended the school since I was 3, and was only a few months away from graduation. Also, despite my illness, I was still among the best grade point averages.
Regardless of this experience with the staff, at the end of the year I won most of the awards (history because I was the only one to have completed 5 ½ years worth of history classes in 4 years, volunteering from key club despite my illness I still volunteered more hours than anyone, Spanish and French award because I was the only one taking both of the languages, after three years of arguing and switching between the two they finally let me take both. And some others) I’ve always been an excellent and award winning student and it’s a shame that they treated me the way they did, even trying to convince me to drop out of high school and telling me that I wasn’t going to succeed and that I was the worst of my class, while the other staff members clearly disagreed.
I have had soooo many AMAZING teachers And I have experienced SO MUCH LOVE from the amazing families that make up this school, especially ones that have experienced illness as well, and without them I wouldn’t have been able to pull through the way I did. It takes a village to raise a child, and day school is definitely a village. I’m so thankful.
However, I am giving it a one so that attention is brought to this issue... Because it needs to be addressed that Day School staff needs to be trained or taught how to be empathetic and how to deal with students who are ill—especially good students. I know that there have been many students who have had similar issues with the staff, or even worse. However, their love for the school and their position in this society has forced them to keep quiet lest anyone think any less of them and their faithfulness to the school. My love for the school has caused me to speak out and urge that not one more student suffers the way I did.
Review from Guidestar