Dear fellow Sidwell students, I regret to inform you that you are:
“Jewish kids taught by WASPs;"
The good news? Your “moms are hot.”
The source of this information is DC Urban Moms, a local parenting website that allows users to post comments anonymously on topics ranging from real estate to private schools.
The website has gained a reputation as a place parents in the affluent neighborhoods of upper Northwest Washington and the close-in suburbs go when they want to trade gossip, get advice on day care, or trash talk the private schools attended by their friends’ children.
Few schools face more scrutiny on the site than Sidwell, which is frequently criticized for things ranging from its football team to the cafeteria food.
According to Jeff Steele, the founder of DCUM, the idea for the site came from his wife, Maria Sokurashvili, who started a listserv in 2002 for fellow parents in the couple’s neighborhood looking for babysitter recommendations.
Sokurashvili came up with the idea with her friends, and originally intended for the mailing list to be a way for new parents to meet in real life for discussions about parenting.
The list grew rapidly, expanding from just a handful of parents to over 8,000 subscribers. In 2005, to keep up with the exponential growth, Steele, an information technology professional by training, decided to move DCUM to a web site where users could post in “forums” that categorized discussion topics.
The site continued to grow, and in 2014, Steele quit his information technology job at the National Institutes of Health to manage DCUM full time with the help of his wife.
“Jewish kids taught by WASPs;"
“Self congratulatory and entitled;” and
“[Attending] a girls school that happens to have boys.”
The good news? Your “moms are hot.”
The source of this information is DC Urban Moms, a local parenting website that allows users to post comments anonymously on topics ranging from real estate to private schools.
The website has gained a reputation as a place parents in the affluent neighborhoods of upper Northwest Washington and the close-in suburbs go when they want to trade gossip, get advice on day care, or trash talk the private schools attended by their friends’ children.
Few schools face more scrutiny on the site than Sidwell, which is frequently criticized for things ranging from its football team to the cafeteria food.
According to Jeff Steele, the founder of DCUM, the idea for the site came from his wife, Maria Sokurashvili, who started a listserv in 2002 for fellow parents in the couple’s neighborhood looking for babysitter recommendations.
Sokurashvili came up with the idea with her friends, and originally intended for the mailing list to be a way for new parents to meet in real life for discussions about parenting.
The list grew rapidly, expanding from just a handful of parents to over 8,000 subscribers. In 2005, to keep up with the exponential growth, Steele, an information technology professional by training, decided to move DCUM to a web site where users could post in “forums” that categorized discussion topics.
The site continued to grow, and in 2014, Steele quit his information technology job at the National Institutes of Health to manage DCUM full time with the help of his wife.
The forums expanded to cover topics outside of parenting, such as politics, relationship issues, and real estate. The site now has more than 1 million monthly users and gets hundreds of thousands unique page views each day.
The site has gained widespread attention for the conversations on its forums, where many posters are quick to produce sarcastic, judgmental, condescending, or just plain mean-spirited comments and trade personal barbs with one another over topics as mundane as where to find a good babysitter.
The site has gained widespread attention for the conversations on its forums, where many posters are quick to produce sarcastic, judgmental, condescending, or just plain mean-spirited comments and trade personal barbs with one another over topics as mundane as where to find a good babysitter.
Users are not required to register to use the site, so most posters remain anonymous.
In 2011, Washington City Paper profiled DCUM in an article titled, “The Mommy-Fight Site.” The headline on a Washington Post story on the site was, “DC Urban Moms and Dads need full-time care.”
Few forums spark more contentious debates than those under “Private/Independent Schools.” Steele, who attended public schools and sends his children to D.C. Public Schools, received requests to establish the forum shortly after starting the website.
“When you go back years and years, the independent [schools] forum has always been way more combative than the other forums, and I don’t really know why,” he said. “My guess is that people have a lot of money tied up in it. They have a lot more skin in the game. Especially the expensive schools. They want to defend their [school] choice.”
Discussions in the forum often devolve into disputes over the relative difficulty of getting admitted to various private schools, the college admissions prospects of their graduates, or the social and economic status of the parents whose kids attend them.
One post from February 2017 titled, “Sidwell parents -- is your child happy?” began with a discussion of the school’s homework load and Quaker values, but quickly spiraled into a melee of insults, misinformation, and trolling.
“My friend interviews for Harvard and she says the Sidwell kids have not been very impressive particularly around a self congratulatory and entitled attitude,” one user wrote.
Another post, “Sidwell Obsession,” generated similarly snide remarks.
“The endowments of D.C. area private schools explains why their focus on pupils entering in the early years are on big donors, money, legacy and non financial aid candidates. For entry places in Sidwell, Maret, [St. Albans], [Georgetown Day], Beauvoir and the like legacy, sibling, big donor, and money will always trump brains in need of financial assistance until the bills are paid,” wrote one user.
The former post also generated debate over the broader Sidwell community.
In 2011, Washington City Paper profiled DCUM in an article titled, “The Mommy-Fight Site.” The headline on a Washington Post story on the site was, “DC Urban Moms and Dads need full-time care.”
Few forums spark more contentious debates than those under “Private/Independent Schools.” Steele, who attended public schools and sends his children to D.C. Public Schools, received requests to establish the forum shortly after starting the website.
“When you go back years and years, the independent [schools] forum has always been way more combative than the other forums, and I don’t really know why,” he said. “My guess is that people have a lot of money tied up in it. They have a lot more skin in the game. Especially the expensive schools. They want to defend their [school] choice.”
Discussions in the forum often devolve into disputes over the relative difficulty of getting admitted to various private schools, the college admissions prospects of their graduates, or the social and economic status of the parents whose kids attend them.
One post from February 2017 titled, “Sidwell parents -- is your child happy?” began with a discussion of the school’s homework load and Quaker values, but quickly spiraled into a melee of insults, misinformation, and trolling.
“My friend interviews for Harvard and she says the Sidwell kids have not been very impressive particularly around a self congratulatory and entitled attitude,” one user wrote.
Another post, “Sidwell Obsession,” generated similarly snide remarks.
“The endowments of D.C. area private schools explains why their focus on pupils entering in the early years are on big donors, money, legacy and non financial aid candidates. For entry places in Sidwell, Maret, [St. Albans], [Georgetown Day], Beauvoir and the like legacy, sibling, big donor, and money will always trump brains in need of financial assistance until the bills are paid,” wrote one user.
The former post also generated debate over the broader Sidwell community.
“Are the moms hot?,” inquired one poster.
The answer? “Yes. On fire,” according to another respondent.
Steele said the Landon School is the subject of more negative commentary than any other school discussed on the forum.
The answer? “Yes. On fire,” according to another respondent.
Steele said the Landon School is the subject of more negative commentary than any other school discussed on the forum.
After noticing a large uptick in the number of posts attacking the school, Steele uncovered an organized campaign to use the forum to generate negative publicity in support of a lawsuit against Landon.
Decisions by the Sidwell administration have also been at the center of some of the site’s most-heated discussions.
After Head of School Bryan Garman announced in January that 2018-19 tuition would top $42,000, one user wrote, “A few thousand here or there means something to a lot of us. [Sidwell] prefers to hear your money talk than your light speak."
Another wrote, “Listen Moms. None of you run a school so pipe down or leave if you are an unsatisfied customer. All of you have choices. If SFS is not for you, get off this thread and start planning for a new school for your kid next year. There are plenty of families who will take your spot and gladly run with the good and the bad of the place. And btw there is good and bad everywhere. Welcome to adulthood.”
Steele said Sidwell is a common target because of several high profile scandals it has endured in recent years.
“Sidwell gets mentioned a lot just because it has a lot going on,” he said. “The President’s children went there, the new campus [expansion project], the sexual assault that happened on campus, the affair with the school psychologist. All of these were big discussion items on our website. Sidwell hasn’t been a real quiet school.”
Patrick Gallagher, Director of College Counseling, said he intentionally avoids reading the site. “I choose not to read it because I feel like there are a lot of inaccuracies on it,” he said.
Gallagher added that the anonymity of the site’s users decreases the validity of information that is posted.
Area parents say the site serves a unique need by providing information that can not be found elsewhere.
“I can use it to read about the latest issue with the local schools, and things I might not find in the Washington Post but are in a more local type of character - that would be on DC Urban Moms,” said Cindy Lesser, a parent of two children at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda.
Lesser said, “It’s all inside baseball. It’s all discussed, sometimes not accurately, but you take it for what it’s worth.”
“Everybody reads it. It’s such a great resource. It’s been around for a long time, there are some many people around here who read it," she said. "If a parent around here tells you they don’t read it, they’re lying.”
Steele said he is happy with how the site has evolved despite the sometimes less-than-entirely-constructive dialogue on its forums.
Decisions by the Sidwell administration have also been at the center of some of the site’s most-heated discussions.
After Head of School Bryan Garman announced in January that 2018-19 tuition would top $42,000, one user wrote, “A few thousand here or there means something to a lot of us. [Sidwell] prefers to hear your money talk than your light speak."
Another wrote, “Listen Moms. None of you run a school so pipe down or leave if you are an unsatisfied customer. All of you have choices. If SFS is not for you, get off this thread and start planning for a new school for your kid next year. There are plenty of families who will take your spot and gladly run with the good and the bad of the place. And btw there is good and bad everywhere. Welcome to adulthood.”
Steele said Sidwell is a common target because of several high profile scandals it has endured in recent years.
“Sidwell gets mentioned a lot just because it has a lot going on,” he said. “The President’s children went there, the new campus [expansion project], the sexual assault that happened on campus, the affair with the school psychologist. All of these were big discussion items on our website. Sidwell hasn’t been a real quiet school.”
Patrick Gallagher, Director of College Counseling, said he intentionally avoids reading the site. “I choose not to read it because I feel like there are a lot of inaccuracies on it,” he said.
Gallagher added that the anonymity of the site’s users decreases the validity of information that is posted.
Area parents say the site serves a unique need by providing information that can not be found elsewhere.
“I can use it to read about the latest issue with the local schools, and things I might not find in the Washington Post but are in a more local type of character - that would be on DC Urban Moms,” said Cindy Lesser, a parent of two children at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda.
Lesser said, “It’s all inside baseball. It’s all discussed, sometimes not accurately, but you take it for what it’s worth.”
“Everybody reads it. It’s such a great resource. It’s been around for a long time, there are some many people around here who read it," she said. "If a parent around here tells you they don’t read it, they’re lying.”
Steele said he is happy with how the site has evolved despite the sometimes less-than-entirely-constructive dialogue on its forums.
“Its role is to be a medium for discussion, not just a parenting thing, and I’m happy with that, he said. And “I think [DCUM posters] are way better than the average newspaper comment section.”
By Kelly Anderson, Horizon News Editor, March 2018
By Kelly Anderson, Horizon News Editor, March 2018
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