Week 9

Welcome Back!

First off, I do apologize for not posting last Friday like I said I would. These past few weeks have been very busy as I wrote my final paper that discusses my project, as well as preparing for my final presentation. Along with this, I have finally decided on which university I will be attending in the fall. With a variety of schools to choose from, it was by no means an easy decision. I'm very thank for all of the people who helped me along this journey and I'm proud to announce that I will be a future Sun Devil at Arizona State University. For some of you, this may come as a surprise since I was very adamant on leaving out of state.

In my last post, I mentioned that I wanted to talk about a few things I wish I would have done differently throughout the course of my project. As a BASIS student myself, it has been very difficult to separate my personal feelings about the BASIS experience. I believe that if I would have done a better job at separating my personal feelings, it may have been easier to better describe the BASIS experience of others without being too concerned about using my own feelings to describe theirs. While doing this may have been difficult, many of the remarks I've received in response to my own personal feelings have expressed much appreciation. Expressing the feelings of myself as well as the feelings of other about this unique experience has given others an opportunity to see where the BASIS community can begin to improve in areas that we may be blinded toward.

Another part that has proven to be more challenging  rather than something I wish I would have changed has been, discussing sensitive information. When you begin to make criticisms about anyone or anything, it becomes difficult to express those criticisms in a manner that can serve for the greater good. You have to be understanding that not everyone will see eye to eye with you and therefore must proceed with caution when explaining information that may personally affect them.

This post isn't as long as my last ones but, I hope that you all have enjoyed the information in which I've shared with you.  As always, thanks for the support and interest in my blog!

Best,

Eli

Week 8

Welcome back!

As always, I hope everyone had another great week. For myself, this was my last week conducting interviews and gathering my last bits of information to begin working on my final paper and presentation. You can look forward to two more blog posts that end on week 10 of my project. That being said, these final few posts won't be as long as my last ones but, they will serve their purpose as merely recaps of my project including a self reflection pertaining to what I could have done better or differently throughout the course of my project. I'm somewhat sad that this project is ending because it's something that I've shown great passion for but, I'm also very relieved to know that I will soon be moving on to the next chapter of my life, as college is on the near horizon. 

For this blog post I want to focus on something I noticed this week as I thought about BASIS as an organization and not as just BASIS Ahwatukee or BASIS Washington DC. What I came to realize is that BASIS seems to grow rapidly year after year. With more and more campuses breaking ground, it makes sense why BASIS may seem to be exerting more control and offering less flexibility to it's students and faculty/administrators, which is interesting because being that we're a charter school, we have to maintain a level of flexibility in order to meet the needs of all students. This need for control is a typical situation for most organizations and companies as they  grow into large entities, and therefore is no specific fault of BASIS alone. However with this growth comes much change in the way things are handled from campus to campus, and as I mentioned in my last blog post, this growing amount of change brings forth a cold environment where this isn't much warmth. As of right now, I feel that each BASIS campus that I've stepped on, and others of which I've heard the experiences of close friends that attend them, there is a warmth that allows a positive school culture to flourish on campus, offering an environment that one may find personable and relatable. There is the satisfaction of knowing that you are part of a community that has it's own uniqueness. I personally believe that every campus should have its own unique and admirable characteristics. However, my concern is that as BASIS continues to grow,  will there be fostered in a model that attempts to instill a universal school culture that is more fitting to meet statistical requirements, at the sacrifice of having campus warmth and uniqueness?  I do believe that in order for BASIS to continue to raise the bar for American academics, there must be growth and expansion but, at what cost? As we grow into a larger organization, we have to find ways to preserve the campus uniqueness that students, their families, admin and staff find relatable. From a campus comparison of BASIS Ahwatukee and BASIS Washington DC, they both have unique ways of embracing other things. As a school like BASIS DC in the heart of our nations capital, they have to embrace from the outside and whatever comes their direction. This is a school in which has students that come from every corner of the city because it's made easily accessible with the metro system. This is also a school in which deals with one of the most highly stressful political climates in the world. Therefore, as a school they have to embrace all of these issues with a positive attitude in order to maintain campus uniqueness as well as a positive school culture. As for Ahwatukee, while we do embrace from the outside as well, I feel that we do more embracing from within. Although we also reside in a large city, I feel that we don't experience high levels of outside influence. Because of this, I believe that it's easier for Ahwatukee to maintain our school autonomy and develop ways for our school to be influential rather than being too influenced. These are both examples of many unique qualities these campuses have to offer but, as I said before, as BASIS grows on the larger scale, our campuses have to preserve their own uniqueness. However, this cultural and unique preservation cannot be devolved to merely compensate for a growing organization. Once again, these are all of my personal beliefs and concerns, none which can be supported with substantial data evidence.

As always, have a wonderful weekend!

Best, 

Eli