DCPS School Planning Team here -- ask us anything about Brookland Middle School!
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DCPSschoolplanning
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Hi DC Urban Moms and Dads!
We’re writing to you from DC Public Schools Central Office on the School Planning and Implementation Team. A recent thread here on Brookland Middle School got a fair amount of questions and comments, and helped set a record for traffic to our blog! We’ll be here this morning and checking in the rest of today and tomorrow to answer any questions you have about the Brookland Middle School building, boundaries and feeders, and plans for academic programming when the school opens next fall. The school is still in the planning phase, so we may not have a concrete answer to every question, but we'll do our best! Reference links: Lottery information: http://www.myschooldc.org/ Virtual Tour: https://brooklandms.wordpress.com/2014/11/21/a-look-inside-brookland-middle-school Academic Vision: https://brooklandms.wordpress.com/2014/10/29/academics-at-brookland-middle-school Background on School Planning and Ward 5 Great Schools Initiative: https://brooklandms.wordpress.com/2014/11/04/brookland-middle-school-planning-how-did-we-get-here Brookland twitter: twitter.com/BrooklandMSDCPS If you’re interested in discussing Van Ness Elementary (opening next fall), or the Re-envisioning Roosevelt High School projects, please visit the threads below: Van Ness: http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/0/431507.page#6068521 Roosevelt: http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/0/431508.page#6068526 |
Anonymous
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What are you doing to convince Ward 5 parents who are not sending their elementary kids to Ward 5 DCPSs to send their kids there? Middle school is critical and many of us did not find the elementary schools sufficient, let alone the middle.
Are you heavily recruiting from Ward 4 since they are close and don't have a stand alone middle school? Are you open to ideas to what you should do to recruit in Ward 5? Would you consider a test-in program? |
Anonymous
| Which schools will convert back to PK-5th. |
DCPSschoolplanning
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There are three feeders that are currently education campuses that will all become elementary only once Brookland is open. They are Brookland at Bunker Hill, Burroughs, and Noyes Education Campuses. |
Anonymous
| Will the School Planning Team open a thread for other schools or just for Brookland Middle, Van Ness and Roosevelt? I'm interested in getting answers on some other schools. Thanks! |
Anonymous
| Will Langley students get any sort of preference? McKinley Middle will likely be a very STEM-oriented school, so it would be nice to have a language and arts option available. |
Anonymous
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What languages will you offer?
Will there be advanced level language classes for children who are beyond Level 1 and 2, for instance children leaving immersion elementary schools? Or, is this school really for beginning language learners? How large are the class sizes? What is the highest level of Math that will be offered? TIA |
Anonymous
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Thank you for posting here! This is great!
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DCPSschoolplanning
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We have been in dialogue with as many Ward 5 parents as possible to get their input on a neighborhood middle school from the start of the planning process. That input helped shape the academic vision for Brookland, which you can find here: https://brooklandms.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/102914-brookland_academic_vision.pdf While Ward 4 does not have a stand-alone middle school, there are several DCPS middle grade options at the educational campuses which run K – 8. We realize that the arts and language focus at the school will likely appeal to students across the city, and as such, we have opened additional lottery seats for the 6th grade at Brookland. We are not recruiting directly at Ward 4 schools, though Ward 4 families are welcome to apply through MySchoolDC. We are open to any input and/or feedback about our outreach and recruitment efforts. Feel free to post it here, or email andrew.katz-moses@dc.gov with your thoughts. Can you clarify what you mean by a “test-in” program? At this time, we do not have plans for an application program at Brookland, but we will certainly pass along the suggestion. |
DCPSschoolplanning
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There will be out of boundary seats available at Brookland MS, and we expect the arts and language focus to be a draw for those seats. Unfortunately, any families who live outside the boundary for Brookland will have to go through the MySchoolDC lottery, including students from Langley. |
DCPSschoolplanning
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What schools are you interested in hearing more about? Our office is generally limited to opening new schools and major high school renovations, but we can try to put you in touch with the right people. In the meantime, if you want to email us with your questions, you can reach out to Andrew.katz-moses@dc.gov. |
Anonymous
McKinley Middle. |
Anonymous
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I second the request for a test in or honors track.
What will Brookland middle school do to help students coming from elementary schools where the majority is failing to achieve proficiency on tests? How will it raise the bar? |
Anonymous
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I'm IB. DCI is going to loose some families from its imersion feeders because of their tech heavy focus (read the trhead - these are your potential students!). Brookland would be in a great position to recruit these students if it could go low tech and offer advanced language. Could Brookland offer IB for students who want it?
Mostly I want a caring school. Middle school was so cruel - so much teasing. Will you be able to institute an ethos of care into the school - kids caring for kids, adults caring for and respcting kids. I'd be there in a heartbeat if so, even if the academics were so-so. I want my kdis happy and safe emotionally at school. the rest will take care of itself. |
Anonymous
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DCPS, you quoted me at 12:56. Yes I know about the community process but many of us checked out of it because as it stands we would not consider Ward 5 DCPS elementary schools. The strategy was Build It and They Will Come as articulated at one of the meetings at Turkey Thicket.
Create an honors program or app based program within the school. Offer advanced Spanish and Chinese. And then you night stand a chance of winning parents back from local immersion charters, OOBs, and parochial schools. Because that's where we are now. What will you do to challenge students? What will you do to keep everyone safe and assess bullying. Yes I have looked at your blog. In fact I posted one of the links here on the previous thread and I'm glad that spurred you to start these three threqds. |