There is an international school I had never heard of before in Kichijoji: AXIS Kichijoji International. Anyone has experience with it? http://www.axisk.com/index.html

As a follow-up to my posting above, I invite people to read the Rules & Policies of AXIS. Some of it is scary, to say the least... For example:
'The washing of the mouth with soap has been used effectively to discourage lying among students.'

Well, it seems the people at AXIS do the "mouth washing" to keep in accordance with this policy on their site:
"We are called to be a godly people who think, feel, and act in harmony with the principles of heaven. For the Spirit to recreate in us the character of our Lord we involve ourselves only in those things which will produce Christ like purity, health, and joy in our lives."

Stay far away.

I am a teacher at Axis, and I must say that Caroline and Vicki need to come visit the school before they make deragotory posts about it. The references that they make are not at all indicative of the type of education we provide here. All we are saying is that this type of punishment will only ever be implemented as a last resort and with parental approval. We have never used corporal punishment here at Axis. We are a Christian school and we educate our children in a caring manner. Our program is accredited through the state of Maryland and we follow their guidelines in educating the children who study here. We also offer Maryland state diplomas upon graduation. This is not an ad for the school, but I felt compelled to respond to accusations that are unfounded. I invite you to come visit us and see for yourselves.

Johnny Evtimovski
Axis International Elementary School Teacher

I am also a Teacher at Axis, I felt very disappointed after reading Caroline and Vicki's comments about Axis. As Johnny has stated above Axis has never used corporal punishment to dicipline their students, this is stated only as a last resort and of course ONLY at the parents approval. I have worked at other schools during my time in Japan and never have I worked for a school that cares for their students and provides such a safe and loving environment as does Axis. Please feel free to come a visit the school and form an opinion of the school for yourself before misreading and stating negative comments.

Jessica Smith
Axis International Teacher

March 2006, note from Admin: Jessica has left Japan since writing this post, which is why her profile and email address no longer show up.

Just to be clear, this school follows the Seventh-Day-Adventist theology, so I assume it is more of a Religious school than typical International school. It would be wise to ask a lot of questions before considering enrollment.

Going out on a limb here, but New International School employs two day suspensions (even for children as young as 5.5 years old) as a disciplinary tool with great regularity, and frankly, not only does it lose family income because a parent has to stay home with the child, but it basically just gives the child a couple of unexpected vacation days.
I suspect that some parents wouldn't mind seeing more immediate, and quickly over and done with disciplinary measures instead. Many schools are happy to just let a problematic child become someone else's problem (expell the kid). Maybe this school is willing to deal with problems instead of passing them on. And at least they state their policies in detail publicly. They deserve credit for honesty at least.

It is unfortunate that someone should criticize Axis Kichijoij and to then proceed to advise others to stay away and to be very careful.

We have no intention of upsetting the boat, but do realize that there are people that will have different opinions than us. We teach our children that it is alright to disagree. That does not mean that one should say that the other person is wrong§˘ they may be right.

The references made to our school with regards to religion could not be farther from the truth as some of our staff have written. I am very pleased to see that someone did understand what we wrote in the correct way. We state what we believe so that parents will know. Not all schools do that. I am sorry that some of our content upset some viewers and we are in the process of updating the content to express more what we mean. Many people tend to imply what they mean because they are afraid of what may happen if they say what they mean. We have decided to take that risk to try and say what we mean.

This was a calculated risk. In the past few months, visitors have commented positively on the fact that Bible is a required part of the curriculum. Most of our current students are not Christian. Some of them have had experiences with Christianity, but not that we are aware would call themselves Christian. Their parents understand what a Christian Education has to offer, and choose to place their child in our care.

Other parents are happy that we are not only Christian, but that we do in fact discipline. We are prepared to do more than just assign extra homework. We have never sent a children home as we believe that when the child comes to school they are our child. We treat them as if they were our own child. Many times, when they go home, it does not solve the problem, as someone above already pointed out.

Our school has other unique points that are recognized by parents. School is not a factory where processes are performed on raw materials to produce a uniform product. Factories produce multiple copies of the same item. Education is about a unique child. Not everyone feels the same every day. What is easy for one child is difficult for another. At Axis, we want to harness this difference and allow the child to capitalize on it. We turn out children who will all go on to influence our world in their own unique way.

In my study of Mathematics, I discovered that one can never draw a line through one point. One needs at least two. Websites, TV commercials, and friends are just a few sources where we get our information.ˇˇChecking that which we believe is just part of good communication and I would hope that any critic of our school would base their words on not just one source.

Daniel Mahr
Headmaster

Daniel - I appreciate your stated goal of "saying what you mean". I am sure that given an accurate picture of your school's policies, parents can make an educated decision. It sounds like your school has many strong points that would appeal to some parents.

Your school's "rules & policies" page seems to contain no reference to washing students' mouths with soap. Was the previous poster mistaken that this reference was originally on that web page, or have you recently modified the page to remove the reference? If so, have you changed the school's policy?

Also, can you confirm that the recent postings supporting your school are legitimately from two of your teachers? After a 6 month quiet period on this message topic, they were suddenly posted within 20 minutes of each other, from yahoo.com addresses rather than an official school email address such as yours.

Thanks in advance for any confirmation and clarification you can provide.

Mr. Topaz I can confirm that both Ms. Smith and Mr. Evtimovski are staff working with us. We just discoverd this forum about our school and hence the 6 months of silence on our part. Please come and visit our school and you can then meet the two of them.

I asked our staff what their reading of our site was and in particular, our "Rules and Policies" page. We have not changed our policy. We did decide to delete the words that were mentioned as an example since we did not want people to draw the wrong conclusions. The example does not make the rule.

We thought that our policy is very clear in regard to discipline:

1. The teacher will speak with the child first.
2. If the problem persists, the teacher will discipline in a mild way(such as assigning extra homework or not allowing a break).
3. If the problem persists, the child is addressed by the Headmaster.
4. If the problem still persists, the Headmaster administers some form of discipline.(such as extra homework or staying after school)
5. If the problem still persists, then we talk with the parent for ideas on disciplining their child.

Discipline is a sensitive topic. We believe in discipline, but not done in an indiscriminate way. Since we have small classes teachers talk often with parents so it is hard for children to hide information from the teacher. If a teacher had to discipline a child then the parent will find out that afternoon when they come to pick their child up.

I am very proud that our school has very few problems with our students. The last time that we had to really discipline was back in July. Since we have started this September, we have not had a case yet.

Our school has a small population of students, but if you maintain the kind of ratio that we have, then one is not going to have the problems found in larger schools. Many problems are caused due to a lack of oversight of large groups of children that are discovering life and the world around them.

Please feel free to ask me questions either in this forum or directly at headmaster@axisk.com