Maury Capitol Hill

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
things that never happened for $1000, Alex.

It was recorded.

So, which comment was yours?

It was recorded so your ridiculous lies about it can be disproven.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A lot of these comments from non-Miner parents about how Miner parents should just invest in the school and fix it are ignorant.

First, as was explained quite early in this thread to explain why Maury and Miner have such different demographics to begin with, Miner has a significant amount of low income housing that Maury does not have. Even if every high-SES family IB for Miner sent their kids to Miner, it would still have a much higher percentage of low income and at-risk kids. Maury has little to no low-income housing in its boundary, which means that as it grew its IB percentage, it greatly shrank the at risk population. The same thing would not happen at Miner.

Second, Miner's location close to Benning road means that it is an attractive lottery option for kids coming from across the river. Thus, without buy-in from IB families, the school has a lot of kids from Wards 7 and 8 who statistically are more likely to be at risk. Maury used to get more Ward 7/8 students back when it was Title 1 with a lower IB percentage, but not nearly as much as Miner because it's location is a much less convenient commute, especially if you are taking public transportation.

Having a large low-income IB contingent and having a history of being a Ward 7/8 destination school can make the kind of upward trajectory that Maury has been on hard if not impossible. There is often fear that improving the school in a way that is appealing to higher SES families will destroy what these families value about the school. The most obvious concerns revolve around Title 1 status and access to free before/after care and free school lunch. That's not a small thing for a low-income family -- these benefits can be essential. Even if they were assured that the school would keep these services free for low income families, there is not a lot of trust there and also no one wants to have to jump through hoops for something they currently get without even having to sign up.

Often MC and UMC families will stick it out until K or 1st, but then they start running into other issues, especially regarding teaching approach and classroom management. School with large at risk populations tend to attract teachers who are okay teaching large at risk populations. These teachers are not always thrilled about having an increasing number of higher SES kids in their class, and in particular are often very wary of the increased involvement and sometimes demands of these parents. Yes, there is a racial component here. But it's also just a culture clash. What seems like "being a good parent" to an UMC white person can seem like "overbearing, demanding ahole" to a teacher in this position.

At this point parents start making choices both for their own comfort (it can be emotionally tiring to constantly be trying to bridge these racial, economic, and cultural divides with sensitivity and self-awareness -- it is work) and for the sake of their kids, who they may worry will not always get the support or welcome in the classroom or the school that every parent wants for their kids. So they go.

For Maury parents to waive this off and say "just do what we did at Maury" like Maury did not have demographic advantages that made their success easier, is going to piss off Miner parents who have been working on this for years, whether they are still at Miner or not. Because it is SO EASY for Maury parents, especially those who are not PTA members or people who really worked to turn the school around, to just tell Miner parents to "do it yourself."

The truth is that "turning around" a struggling school with more than 60% at risk kids is not something that your average parent or even group of parents can do, especially not if you have a job and literally any other issues in your life. It is a steep uphill battle with low changes of success, and for most parents, any success will likely come after their kids are done with elementary. It is a different, and harder, challenge than what was accomplished at Maury.

No, it's that *DCPS* should invest in Miner, or at least stop screwing it over with horrible leadership choices.

Maury parents are trying to say the same thing you are-- that too high a concentration of at-risk kids makes it an uphill battle. And if Maury and Miner are clustered, it will be an uphill battle at both schools. That is why this proposal is unrealistic and will not have the desired effect.

[Anonymous]

We can all listen to the calls, so save your sarcasm and try to be productive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
People care about their finances. You do too. Pretending that you don’t is just some kind of pious nonsense for appearances. I personally always accepted that factors outside my control could impact my home price but I’m hardly going to pretend it makes someone evil to care about it. But anyway, the reason people even mention it is because of the underlying assumption that the cluster will make things worse, possibly for BOTH schools, not better. So yeah, losing home equity because DC decided to randomly dismantle two schools is kind of something that will attract comment.

I don’t think anyone said the cost of housing isn’t relevant. PP said it was sad that it’s more important than equity. Maybe that’s not how you feel, maybe that’s not how a lot of people feel, but as a member of this community who has been reading these posts, it’s pretty clear that PP isn’t wrong—people seem to be a lot more worried about their houses than their neighbors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
People care about their finances. You do too. Pretending that you don’t is just some kind of pious nonsense for appearances. I personally always accepted that factors outside my control could impact my home price but I’m hardly going to pretend it makes someone evil to care about it. But anyway, the reason people even mention it is because of the underlying assumption that the cluster will make things worse, possibly for BOTH schools, not better. So yeah, losing home equity because DC decided to randomly dismantle two schools is kind of something that will attract comment.

I don’t think anyone said the cost of housing isn’t relevant. PP said it was sad that it’s more important than equity. Maybe that’s not how you feel, maybe that’s not how a lot of people feel, but as a member of this community who has been reading these posts, it’s pretty clear that PP isn’t wrong—people seem to be a lot more worried about their houses than their neighbors.

omg spare me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At the end of the day the fact that people are more concerned about the value of their homes than the equity of schools is disgusting. It makes me glad my kid goes to Miner and not Maury. I know that’s not indicative of the community as a whole, but the unwelcoming and frankly discriminatory nature of the Maury commentary is just horrible (and my friends at Maury are as repulsed as I am). Why any of you choose to send your kids to PUBLIC school in Washington, DC is beyond me. Just go private and move to McLean where you clearly would rather be as there are more rich white people there.

For the record the benefits to the Maury Community (in addition to teaching kids about equity and inclusion which they clearly won’t learn at home) include additional funding for title 1 and guaranteed access to PreK. That is of course if you can handle us Miner folks “diluting” your population.

Also how many IB Maury families go to Miner for PreK and then head to Maury for K? A lot. So Miner certainly has some merit, just not enough to actually combine the populations permanently (until middle school of course).

Someone looked it up earlier in the thread and it was 7 families in-bounds for Maury and had kids at Miner ECE. It's not "a lot".

[Anonymous]

When people talk about wanting equity, they mean your home equity Exhibit 1000.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At the end of the day the fact that people are more concerned about the value of their homes than the equity of schools is disgusting. It makes me glad my kid goes to Miner and not Maury. I know that’s not indicative of the community as a whole, but the unwelcoming and frankly discriminatory nature of the Maury commentary is just horrible (and my friends at Maury are as repulsed as I am). Why any of you choose to send your kids to PUBLIC school in Washington, DC is beyond me. Just go private and move to McLean where you clearly would rather be as there are more rich white people there.

For the record the benefits to the Maury Community (in addition to teaching kids about equity and inclusion which they clearly won’t learn at home) include additional funding for title 1 and guaranteed access to PreK. That is of course if you can handle us Miner folks “diluting” your population.

Also how many IB Maury families go to Miner for PreK and then head to Maury for K? A lot. So Miner certainly has some merit, just not enough to actually combine the populations permanently (until middle school of course).

At the end of the day some of us are trying to engage with human behavior as it actually is and make our predictions data-based and realistic. Are you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the end of the day the fact that people are more concerned about the value of their homes than the equity of schools is disgusting. It makes me glad my kid goes to Miner and not Maury. I know that’s not indicative of the community as a whole, but the unwelcoming and frankly discriminatory nature of the Maury commentary is just horrible (and my friends at Maury are as repulsed as I am). Why any of you choose to send your kids to PUBLIC school in Washington, DC is beyond me. Just go private and move to McLean where you clearly would rather be as there are more rich white people there.

For the record the benefits to the Maury Community (in addition to teaching kids about equity and inclusion which they clearly won’t learn at home) include additional funding for title 1 and guaranteed access to PreK. That is of course if you can handle us Miner folks “diluting” your population.

Also how many IB Maury families go to Miner for PreK and then head to Maury for K? A lot. So Miner certainly has some merit, just not enough to actually combine the populations permanently (until middle school of course).

Someone looked it up earlier in the thread and it was 7 families in-bounds for Maury and had kids at Miner ECE. It's not "a lot".

Well, it was 13 total, so about 7 in each pk3 and pk4. To be precise. But considerably more at AppleTree (21 total).

[Anonymous]

Wow this whole 70 page and growing post is just so disheartening. I live in bounds to Miner. My kids go to Miner. My 4th grade kid is doing academically very well at Miner. My 2nd grade kid is struggling a little bit doing pretty well (what 2nd and 3rd grader didn’t face a bit of a setback when we had to teach them at home during the years when they were just starting to read). I have chosen to stay at Miner because it’s my kids home, the teachers are great (yes, even for smart kids who score in the top 99% of the PARCC testing nationwide). So many people leave because they hear that it’s not good. But who do they hear that from? Other people who left? Yes there are problems, a lot of problems, the biggest being that DCPS doesn’t prioritize us when it comes to simple things like finding the right leader. But this bickering between neighbors is out of control. There are actually many Maury families who are pro merger. There are probably many Miner families who are too (I don’t know because we have yet to have our presentation from the DME so we have lots of questions to ask about funding and free lunch and things of that nature). But in my opinion if you choose to send your child to a DCPS school, you have to choose to live by the values of DCPS. And one of those is equity. It’s clear there’s a divide between Maury and Miner. And 10-15 years ago the divide was less. There are countless reasons for that, ranging from proximity to public transportation to having charter schools in the Miner boundary and more. I think there are a great deal of Maury parents who oppose the merger but still want equity. They don’t oppose it for some of the horrible reasons stated in this chain or on the Townhall (anyone who says there weren’t some awful comments at the Townhall clearly wasn’t on the call). But there are parents who do support it. There’s nothing wrong with factoring personal things like housing value, that’s realistic. But when those things overshadow and take precedence over the mission and vision of the school district, then there is a problem. We are neighbors. We are part of the same feeder pattern. We should work together.

[Anonymous]

I think it's a mistake for DME not to consider choice sets this time around. They were unpopular during the last boundary study, but a lot has changed since then. It could achieve the desired effect of reducing socio-economic disparity without the disruption and logistical challenges of the cluster model. Either Miner-Maury, or Miner-Maury Payne could work, although that might be too far for commuting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow this whole 70 page and growing post is just so disheartening. I live in bounds to Miner. My kids go to Miner. My 4th grade kid is doing academically very well at Miner. My 2nd grade kid is struggling a little bit doing pretty well (what 2nd and 3rd grader didn’t face a bit of a setback when we had to teach them at home during the years when they were just starting to read). I have chosen to stay at Miner because it’s my kids home, the teachers are great (yes, even for smart kids who score in the top 99% of the PARCC testing nationwide). So many people leave because they hear that it’s not good. But who do they hear that from? Other people who left? Yes there are problems, a lot of problems, the biggest being that DCPS doesn’t prioritize us when it comes to simple things like finding the right leader. But this bickering between neighbors is out of control. There are actually many Maury families who are pro merger. There are probably many Miner families who are too (I don’t know because we have yet to have our presentation from the DME so we have lots of questions to ask about funding and free lunch and things of that nature). But in my opinion if you choose to send your child to a DCPS school, you have to choose to live by the values of DCPS. And one of those is equity. It’s clear there’s a divide between Maury and Miner. And 10-15 years ago the divide was less. There are countless reasons for that, ranging from proximity to public transportation to having charter schools in the Miner boundary and more. I think there are a great deal of Maury parents who oppose the merger but still want equity. They don’t oppose it for some of the horrible reasons stated in this chain or on the Townhall (anyone who says there weren’t some awful comments at the Townhall clearly wasn’t on the call). But there are parents who do support it. There’s nothing wrong with factoring personal things like housing value, that’s realistic. But when those things overshadow and take precedence over the mission and vision of the school district, then there is a problem. We are neighbors. We are part of the same feeder pattern. We should work together.

cool you like Miner. Get together with other IB parents to spread the word and get more IB buy-in. Do you think Maury & Brent got IB buy-in just by doing nothing? Or EH for that matter? Parents were pro-active, sometimes working on it over many many years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow this whole 70 page and growing post is just so disheartening. I live in bounds to Miner. My kids go to Miner. My 4th grade kid is doing academically very well at Miner. My 2nd grade kid is struggling a little bit doing pretty well (what 2nd and 3rd grader didn’t face a bit of a setback when we had to teach them at home during the years when they were just starting to read). I have chosen to stay at Miner because it’s my kids home, the teachers are great (yes, even for smart kids who score in the top 99% of the PARCC testing nationwide). So many people leave because they hear that it’s not good. But who do they hear that from? Other people who left? Yes there are problems, a lot of problems, the biggest being that DCPS doesn’t prioritize us when it comes to simple things like finding the right leader. But this bickering between neighbors is out of control. There are actually many Maury families who are pro merger. There are probably many Miner families who are too (I don’t know because we have yet to have our presentation from the DME so we have lots of questions to ask about funding and free lunch and things of that nature). But in my opinion if you choose to send your child to a DCPS school, you have to choose to live by the values of DCPS. And one of those is equity. It’s clear there’s a divide between Maury and Miner. And 10-15 years ago the divide was less. There are countless reasons for that, ranging from proximity to public transportation to having charter schools in the Miner boundary and more. I think there are a great deal of Maury parents who oppose the merger but still want equity. They don’t oppose it for some of the horrible reasons stated in this chain or on the Townhall (anyone who says there weren’t some awful comments at the Townhall clearly wasn’t on the call). But there are parents who do support it. There’s nothing wrong with factoring personal things like housing value, that’s realistic. But when those things overshadow and take precedence over the mission and vision of the school district, then there is a problem. We are neighbors. We are part of the same feeder pattern. We should work together.

Hoping to manage expectations - you will be unlikely to receive any information about implementation or outcomes at the DME Miner meeting. DME has said repeatedly that they don't know the outcome in terms of funding impacts, can't speak to logistics, and implementation details will be hammered out AFTER the recommendations are made. This came directly from Paul Kihn. The poor engagement with the Miner community is terrible, but the Maury community doesn't really know anything either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow this whole 70 page and growing post is just so disheartening. I live in bounds to Miner. My kids go to Miner. My 4th grade kid is doing academically very well at Miner. My 2nd grade kid is struggling a little bit doing pretty well (what 2nd and 3rd grader didn’t face a bit of a setback when we had to teach them at home during the years when they were just starting to read). I have chosen to stay at Miner because it’s my kids home, the teachers are great (yes, even for smart kids who score in the top 99% of the PARCC testing nationwide). So many people leave because they hear that it’s not good. But who do they hear that from? Other people who left? Yes there are problems, a lot of problems, the biggest being that DCPS doesn’t prioritize us when it comes to simple things like finding the right leader. But this bickering between neighbors is out of control. There are actually many Maury families who are pro merger. There are probably many Miner families who are too (I don’t know because we have yet to have our presentation from the DME so we have lots of questions to ask about funding and free lunch and things of that nature). But in my opinion if you choose to send your child to a DCPS school, you have to choose to live by the values of DCPS. And one of those is equity. It’s clear there’s a divide between Maury and Miner. And 10-15 years ago the divide was less. There are countless reasons for that, ranging from proximity to public transportation to having charter schools in the Miner boundary and more. I think there are a great deal of Maury parents who oppose the merger but still want equity. They don’t oppose it for some of the horrible reasons stated in this chain or on the Townhall (anyone who says there weren’t some awful comments at the Townhall clearly wasn’t on the call). But there are parents who do support it. There’s nothing wrong with factoring personal things like housing value, that’s realistic. But when those things overshadow and take precedence over the mission and vision of the school district, then there is a problem. We are neighbors. We are part of the same feeder pattern. We should work together.

Is equity a value of DCPS though? Or do they like to talk about equity but not do anything that actually addresses it? If they were serious about equity, Miner would be a very different school than it is right now.

If the DME were serious about this proposal they would have real answers for equity-related questions like lunch, title I status, and academic support. But they don't. They're just trying to force this on everyone and ignore the very real concerns. It's maddening to work so hard on Maury AND Miner and then have this proposal slapped on with so little regard for actual data. Disrespectful to both communities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of these comments from non-Miner parents about how Miner parents should just invest in the school and fix it are ignorant.

First, as was explained quite early in this thread to explain why Maury and Miner have such different demographics to begin with, Miner has a significant amount of low income housing that Maury does not have. Even if every high-SES family IB for Miner sent their kids to Miner, it would still have a much higher percentage of low income and at-risk kids. Maury has little to no low-income housing in its boundary, which means that as it grew its IB percentage, it greatly shrank the at risk population. The same thing would not happen at Miner.

Second, Miner's location close to Benning road means that it is an attractive lottery option for kids coming from across the river. Thus, without buy-in from IB families, the school has a lot of kids from Wards 7 and 8 who statistically are more likely to be at risk. Maury used to get more Ward 7/8 students back when it was Title 1 with a lower IB percentage, but not nearly as much as Miner because it's location is a much less convenient commute, especially if you are taking public transportation.

Having a large low-income IB contingent and having a history of being a Ward 7/8 destination school can make the kind of upward trajectory that Maury has been on hard if not impossible. There is often fear that improving the school in a way that is appealing to higher SES families will destroy what these families value about the school. The most obvious concerns revolve around Title 1 status and access to free before/after care and free school lunch. That's not a small thing for a low-income family -- these benefits can be essential. Even if they were assured that the school would keep these services free for low income families, there is not a lot of trust there and also no one wants to have to jump through hoops for something they currently get without even having to sign up.

Often MC and UMC families will stick it out until K or 1st, but then they start running into other issues, especially regarding teaching approach and classroom management. School with large at risk populations tend to attract teachers who are okay teaching large at risk populations. These teachers are not always thrilled about having an increasing number of higher SES kids in their class, and in particular are often very wary of the increased involvement and sometimes demands of these parents. Yes, there is a racial component here. But it's also just a culture clash. What seems like "being a good parent" to an UMC white person can seem like "overbearing, demanding ahole" to a teacher in this position.

At this point parents start making choices both for their own comfort (it can be emotionally tiring to constantly be trying to bridge these racial, economic, and cultural divides with sensitivity and self-awareness -- it is work) and for the sake of their kids, who they may worry will not always get the support or welcome in the classroom or the school that every parent wants for their kids. So they go.

For Maury parents to waive this off and say "just do what we did at Maury" like Maury did not have demographic advantages that made their success easier, is going to piss off Miner parents who have been working on this for years, whether they are still at Miner or not. Because it is SO EASY for Maury parents, especially those who are not PTA members or people who really worked to turn the school around, to just tell Miner parents to "do it yourself."

The truth is that "turning around" a struggling school with more than 60% at risk kids is not something that your average parent or even group of parents can do, especially not if you have a job and literally any other issues in your life. It is a steep uphill battle with low changes of success, and for most parents, any success will likely come after their kids are done with elementary. It is a different, and harder, challenge than what was accomplished at Maury.

Good post but none of what you wrote makes a cluster seem more feasible. I wonder again why DME claims that it is impossible to just redraw the boundaries? Also I think the Miner zone has enough SFH that the school would be much more balanced on SES if the IB rate went up. But as you correctly note, DC has no interest in taking steps to voluntarily attract high SES IB families.

I think the problem with redrawing boundaries is that the low-income housing in the Miner zone is clustered in a way that makes it very hard to divide between boundaries. Especially when you understand that most low-income housing is multi-family, so you run into the problem of whether to locate an apartment complex on this side or that side of the line, and it totally changes the composition of the zones. There is also the problem that the current Miner boundary actually encompasses a lot of property zoned commercial, whereas Maury's includes almost none. This can make it hard to balance populations if you try to draw the line vertically up to Benning instead of the current line that is horizontal and then flows diagonally southward. If you slice the commercial strip along Benning (which also includes some housing) in half and try to draw the line south, you wind up with population imbalances between the zones.

Oh and finally, one problem with redrawing the zones is the actually physical location of the schools currently. Specifically because they are so close together, you have to draw a boundary between them. This forces a horizontal line and also limits your options unless you are willing to create super jerry-rigged zones where the school in question is located in a weird peninsula of the zone, such that everyone IB for the school lives oddly far from it.

As angry as some people are about the cluster idea, I guarantee you that some of the weird boundary redraws they probably came up with to balance the populations would have made people MUCH more angry. You think people are annoyed about having to walk 4 blocks to drop off PK kids? Well guess what, now you are zoned out of the school you live literally next door to, so that people who live a mile and a half away can attend it. People would have lost their minds about that, too.