New opposition petition to the Maury-Miner boundary proposal from DME

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Is there anybody on DCUM who lives in bounds for Miner and has spoken up?

We're in bounds for Miner and so we support.

Do your kids go to Miner? We are currently enrolled in prek at Miner, inbounds for Maury.

My observations are that those who are supporting this are inbounds to Miner and are either not enrolled there yet, have enrolled their kids elsewhere or are just in the beginning of their Miner journey (ECE). I have found it notable that none of the "booster" Miner parents I know who have kids in the older grades are supporting this proposal.

They're probably hoping to lottery into the existing Maury.

The Miner "booster" parents I know aren't on either list. They may also feel like their views are represented by the joint Miner-Maury PTO letter & that taking a "side" would undermine that (which it would). I don't see most of the Maury leadership on the con-list either.

There are quite a few parents who are IB for Miner and have lotteried their kids in elsewhere on the pro-list. But lots of them are parents who stuck with Miner longer than most (parents with kids now in 2nd-5th grade, who left in/after COVID year). Those parents' kids are too old to benefit from a combined school anyway, so I think they are actually just voting out of experience with how broken Miner is in the hopes of helping future families.

Not at either school (or IB for either) but we have several friends who fall into the group described by the bolded (I corrected the typo of Maury to Miner because I know that's what you meant).

There is general frustration among Miner IB parents because I know many who enrolled in PK thinking that with involvement and dedication, they could do for Miner what other families have done for Maury or L-T. They met road blocks that didn't exist at those other schools, and wound up leaving by 2nd/3rd grade. We know multiple families who were at Miner for 4-5 years but ultimately left because they saw zero improvement at the school in that time. That's a significant effort. They are supporting the merger because they do not think there are better options available to Miner, and I'm inclined to defer to them because I think they would know.

I totally get why Maury families are opposed, I probably would be too. But I've had enough conversations with former Miner families that I can really see the argument in favor. Unless there is some other way to turn things around at Miner, it really seems like the school needs something drastic.

This is wishful thinking. There is no reason to believe that outcomes of a paired school will be better, or that people will stick around in the upper grades. Look at Billingsville-Cotswold (the Charlotte school pairing that is the DME's current model) or Peabody-Watkins.

The issue is two-fold. First, the data shows that the combined school *is better* than the worse of the two paired schools, so it still makes sense for Miner families to support. Second, Miner isn't going to get some magical extra money investment from DCPS that no other bad/failed school gets. Miner isn't uniquely bad, it's just uniquely bad next to a very good school; it's the side-by-side pairing with a neighborhood that isn't distinct for those on the borders of the two schools that's unique. So unless Miner families leverage what *is* unique (their proximity to Maury), they aren't going to get anything better from DCPS. I think this plan is horrendously unfair to Maury families and bad precedent. It would also 100% support it if I were IB for Miner.

Why is it on Maury to improve Miner? Miner also shares a boundary border with Ludlow Taylor. Have they looked at Ludlow's boundaries? Shouldn't there be more done to improve Miner than simply combine it with the higher performing nearby school?

It's not "on Maury." They are part of the same school system. Maury is much closer to Miner than L-T is. That's it. Why would you combine Miner with L-T when Maury is so much closer? It makes no sense.

The point is that they should consider something beyond just simply combing two nearby schools and assuming it'll work out.

What specifically should they consider? You are the one who raised the shared boundary between Ludlow and Miner. How would shifting that boundary improve the situation at Miner?

Well for one, I think they should consider more than one solution, which the community has repeatedly asked DME to analyze and they have yet to come back with. I think they could increase the at-risk set asides at Maury and either eliminate Prek or shrink the Maury boundary. I think they should simultaneously also find a way to create more buy-in from the IB Miner families. That could be through specialized programming like dual-language, or Montessori. And DCPS should find a way to send one of its strongest administrators to Miner who can actually provide the leadership that school and community deserves.

And Ludlow Taylor isn't that much further from Miner than Maury.

Ludlow Taylor is further away and Miner’s IB families are considerably further away from the school still. LT and Miner share a several block border and, if you shifted it, you’d just shift the wealthiest part of the Miner zone into LT. Maury and Miner share an extremely long boundary and many families live basically equidistant to both. No Miner families live closer to LT or even close to equidistant from both schools. Also, the demographic differences between LT and Miner didn’t even reach the threshold for DME’s consideration. So, all of that.

You sound like the DME. The threshold is fake, and the LT boundary could be extended far enough east to absorb one of the low income buildings. The Pentacle is barely any further from LT than Maury. You cannot both claim that equity is so important as to justify the huge logistical leap of a cluster, and then act like extending the LT border is somehow completely infeasible.

You would need to extend the LT boundary *through* Miner to reach the low income buildings. Do you really not see why that wouldn't happen?

That's untrue. The pentacle is at 15th and Benning. You could just extend LT's boundary to include G street through gales and 16th street. In turn you could shrink part of the LT boundary on the east side, have it start at 10th or 11th and have those families rerouted to Miner.

So you'd run a single block long zone an additional 6 blocks past the rest of the boundary to capture one particular apartment building and you actually think this would be something DCPS would do & would have any actual effect on Miner? Come on. Also, a family at 10th & G would retain proximity preference to LT... which they would use.

The fact that Maury folks are arguing that you should create the most gerrymandered IB in the entire district to capture one apartment building and that that is somehow preferable to/more likely to set Miner up for success than the cluster is what makes it hard to take them seriously. Just own that you don't want your own school to be experimented on in a way that's likely to make it substantially worse. Don't claim that you have a better solution and then offer... this.

this is ALL gerrymandering bro!! clearly you feel good about making a point about Maury.

I thought the whole point of the cluster was that they initially looked at redrawing boundaries but it didn't rebalance populations without severe gerrymandering... so part of the reasoning behind the cluster is to avoid a severely gerrymandered boundary. And that's just between Maury and Miner. I have no idea why LT is being dragged into this at all other than the fact that it shares a short boundary with Miner? I mean, doesn't Payne share a boundary with Miner too?

+1 to the PP who said some of this is just what-about-ism. There are persuasive arguments against the cluster but these are not it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Y'all, can we just drop the LT discussion? Maury is much closer to Miner than LT is. There is no proposed cluster between LT and Miner. If they wanted to cluster LT with another school, wouldn't JOW be the obvious option?

I just don't understand why this is even a discussion. You can oppose the cluster without suggesting nonsensical alternatives that make not logistical sense.

The cluster makes no logistical sense either. The point of discussing the boundaries is that the DME can achieve some of its racial balancing goals by better boundary changes, which it insisted was not possible. But anyone looking on a map can see that there are ways to draw the boundaries more inclusively.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Is there anybody on DCUM who lives in bounds for Miner and has spoken up?

We're in bounds for Miner and so we support.

Do your kids go to Miner? We are currently enrolled in prek at Miner, inbounds for Maury.

My observations are that those who are supporting this are inbounds to Miner and are either not enrolled there yet, have enrolled their kids elsewhere or are just in the beginning of their Miner journey (ECE). I have found it notable that none of the "booster" Miner parents I know who have kids in the older grades are supporting this proposal.

They're probably hoping to lottery into the existing Maury.

The Miner "booster" parents I know aren't on either list. They may also feel like their views are represented by the joint Miner-Maury PTO letter & that taking a "side" would undermine that (which it would). I don't see most of the Maury leadership on the con-list either.

There are quite a few parents who are IB for Miner and have lotteried their kids in elsewhere on the pro-list. But lots of them are parents who stuck with Miner longer than most (parents with kids now in 2nd-5th grade, who left in/after COVID year). Those parents' kids are too old to benefit from a combined school anyway, so I think they are actually just voting out of experience with how broken Miner is in the hopes of helping future families.

Not at either school (or IB for either) but we have several friends who fall into the group described by the bolded (I corrected the typo of Maury to Miner because I know that's what you meant).

There is general frustration among Miner IB parents because I know many who enrolled in PK thinking that with involvement and dedication, they could do for Miner what other families have done for Maury or L-T. They met road blocks that didn't exist at those other schools, and wound up leaving by 2nd/3rd grade. We know multiple families who were at Miner for 4-5 years but ultimately left because they saw zero improvement at the school in that time. That's a significant effort. They are supporting the merger because they do not think there are better options available to Miner, and I'm inclined to defer to them because I think they would know.

I totally get why Maury families are opposed, I probably would be too. But I've had enough conversations with former Miner families that I can really see the argument in favor. Unless there is some other way to turn things around at Miner, it really seems like the school needs something drastic.

This is wishful thinking. There is no reason to believe that outcomes of a paired school will be better, or that people will stick around in the upper grades. Look at Billingsville-Cotswold (the Charlotte school pairing that is the DME's current model) or Peabody-Watkins.

The issue is two-fold. First, the data shows that the combined school *is better* than the worse of the two paired schools, so it still makes sense for Miner families to support. Second, Miner isn't going to get some magical extra money investment from DCPS that no other bad/failed school gets. Miner isn't uniquely bad, it's just uniquely bad next to a very good school; it's the side-by-side pairing with a neighborhood that isn't distinct for those on the borders of the two schools that's unique. So unless Miner families leverage what *is* unique (their proximity to Maury), they aren't going to get anything better from DCPS. I think this plan is horrendously unfair to Maury families and bad precedent. It would also 100% support it if I were IB for Miner.

Why is it on Maury to improve Miner? Miner also shares a boundary border with Ludlow Taylor. Have they looked at Ludlow's boundaries? Shouldn't there be more done to improve Miner than simply combine it with the higher performing nearby school?

It's not "on Maury." They are part of the same school system. Maury is much closer to Miner than L-T is. That's it. Why would you combine Miner with L-T when Maury is so much closer? It makes no sense.

The point is that they should consider something beyond just simply combing two nearby schools and assuming it'll work out.

What specifically should they consider? You are the one who raised the shared boundary between Ludlow and Miner. How would shifting that boundary improve the situation at Miner?

Well for one, I think they should consider more than one solution, which the community has repeatedly asked DME to analyze and they have yet to come back with. I think they could increase the at-risk set asides at Maury and either eliminate Prek or shrink the Maury boundary. I think they should simultaneously also find a way to create more buy-in from the IB Miner families. That could be through specialized programming like dual-language, or Montessori. And DCPS should find a way to send one of its strongest administrators to Miner who can actually provide the leadership that school and community deserves.

And Ludlow Taylor isn't that much further from Miner than Maury.

Ludlow Taylor is further away and Miner’s IB families are considerably further away from the school still. LT and Miner share a several block border and, if you shifted it, you’d just shift the wealthiest part of the Miner zone into LT. Maury and Miner share an extremely long boundary and many families live basically equidistant to both. No Miner families live closer to LT or even close to equidistant from both schools. Also, the demographic differences between LT and Miner didn’t even reach the threshold for DME’s consideration. So, all of that.

You sound like the DME. The threshold is fake, and the LT boundary could be extended far enough east to absorb one of the low income buildings. The Pentacle is barely any further from LT than Maury. You cannot both claim that equity is so important as to justify the huge logistical leap of a cluster, and then act like extending the LT border is somehow completely infeasible.

You would need to extend the LT boundary *through* Miner to reach the low income buildings. Do you really not see why that wouldn't happen?

Not necessarily, one of the low income housing units on either side of Miner could be carved out into the L-T or the Maury boundary.

Not unless you literally snaked around the school. There is zero chance that will happen. People are really missing the point that Miner is not uniquely bad in DCPS. They aren't going to create a ridiculously gerrymandered boundary just to get one housing project out of the zone. Not least of all because that wouldn't fix Miner at all. The OOB kids don't look different than the IB kids, so while you'd get one building's worth of kids into one particular other school, you wouldn't actually do anything for Miner. Also, there is zero reason to believe that those particularl families particularly want to go to their new school and they'd retain proximity preference for the school that is literally across the road from them, so maybe you'd end up moving 50% of one building's worth of kids?

You’re a joke. So a boundary that “snakes around a school” is a bridge to far for equity; but a cluster totally disrupting two schools is not?

No, what you're not addressing is the part where it also doesn't do anything for Miner. This is *not* about teaching Maury a lesson, because gerrymandering the Maury zone to capture just the Pentacle *equally* wouldn't solve the problem. It's not about what new school boundary gets the Pentacle, it's that the problem at Miner is much deeper than rezoning one building. But also, yes, complete gerrymandering for the benefit of one single apartment building is actually a much more problematic precedent for DCPS politically-speaking than clustering schools that meet certain criteria.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Is there anybody on DCUM who lives in bounds for Miner and has spoken up?

We're in bounds for Miner and so we support.

Do your kids go to Miner? We are currently enrolled in prek at Miner, inbounds for Maury.

My observations are that those who are supporting this are inbounds to Miner and are either not enrolled there yet, have enrolled their kids elsewhere or are just in the beginning of their Miner journey (ECE). I have found it notable that none of the "booster" Miner parents I know who have kids in the older grades are supporting this proposal.

They're probably hoping to lottery into the existing Maury.

The Miner "booster" parents I know aren't on either list. They may also feel like their views are represented by the joint Miner-Maury PTO letter & that taking a "side" would undermine that (which it would). I don't see most of the Maury leadership on the con-list either.

There are quite a few parents who are IB for Miner and have lotteried their kids in elsewhere on the pro-list. But lots of them are parents who stuck with Miner longer than most (parents with kids now in 2nd-5th grade, who left in/after COVID year). Those parents' kids are too old to benefit from a combined school anyway, so I think they are actually just voting out of experience with how broken Miner is in the hopes of helping future families.

Not at either school (or IB for either) but we have several friends who fall into the group described by the bolded (I corrected the typo of Maury to Miner because I know that's what you meant).

There is general frustration among Miner IB parents because I know many who enrolled in PK thinking that with involvement and dedication, they could do for Miner what other families have done for Maury or L-T. They met road blocks that didn't exist at those other schools, and wound up leaving by 2nd/3rd grade. We know multiple families who were at Miner for 4-5 years but ultimately left because they saw zero improvement at the school in that time. That's a significant effort. They are supporting the merger because they do not think there are better options available to Miner, and I'm inclined to defer to them because I think they would know.

I totally get why Maury families are opposed, I probably would be too. But I've had enough conversations with former Miner families that I can really see the argument in favor. Unless there is some other way to turn things around at Miner, it really seems like the school needs something drastic.

This is wishful thinking. There is no reason to believe that outcomes of a paired school will be better, or that people will stick around in the upper grades. Look at Billingsville-Cotswold (the Charlotte school pairing that is the DME's current model) or Peabody-Watkins.

The issue is two-fold. First, the data shows that the combined school *is better* than the worse of the two paired schools, so it still makes sense for Miner families to support. Second, Miner isn't going to get some magical extra money investment from DCPS that no other bad/failed school gets. Miner isn't uniquely bad, it's just uniquely bad next to a very good school; it's the side-by-side pairing with a neighborhood that isn't distinct for those on the borders of the two schools that's unique. So unless Miner families leverage what *is* unique (their proximity to Maury), they aren't going to get anything better from DCPS. I think this plan is horrendously unfair to Maury families and bad precedent. It would also 100% support it if I were IB for Miner.

Why is it on Maury to improve Miner? Miner also shares a boundary border with Ludlow Taylor. Have they looked at Ludlow's boundaries? Shouldn't there be more done to improve Miner than simply combine it with the higher performing nearby school?

It's not "on Maury." They are part of the same school system. Maury is much closer to Miner than L-T is. That's it. Why would you combine Miner with L-T when Maury is so much closer? It makes no sense.

The point is that they should consider something beyond just simply combing two nearby schools and assuming it'll work out.

What specifically should they consider? You are the one who raised the shared boundary between Ludlow and Miner. How would shifting that boundary improve the situation at Miner?

Well for one, I think they should consider more than one solution, which the community has repeatedly asked DME to analyze and they have yet to come back with. I think they could increase the at-risk set asides at Maury and either eliminate Prek or shrink the Maury boundary. I think they should simultaneously also find a way to create more buy-in from the IB Miner families. That could be through specialized programming like dual-language, or Montessori. And DCPS should find a way to send one of its strongest administrators to Miner who can actually provide the leadership that school and community deserves.

And Ludlow Taylor isn't that much further from Miner than Maury.

Ludlow Taylor is further away and Miner’s IB families are considerably further away from the school still. LT and Miner share a several block border and, if you shifted it, you’d just shift the wealthiest part of the Miner zone into LT. Maury and Miner share an extremely long boundary and many families live basically equidistant to both. No Miner families live closer to LT or even close to equidistant from both schools. Also, the demographic differences between LT and Miner didn’t even reach the threshold for DME’s consideration. So, all of that.

You sound like the DME. The threshold is fake, and the LT boundary could be extended far enough east to absorb one of the low income buildings. The Pentacle is barely any further from LT than Maury. You cannot both claim that equity is so important as to justify the huge logistical leap of a cluster, and then act like extending the LT border is somehow completely infeasible.

You would need to extend the LT boundary *through* Miner to reach the low income buildings. Do you really not see why that wouldn't happen?

That's untrue. The pentacle is at 15th and Benning. You could just extend LT's boundary to include G street through gales and 16th street. In turn you could shrink part of the LT boundary on the east side, have it start at 10th or 11th and have those families rerouted to Miner.

So you'd run a single block long zone an additional 6 blocks past the rest of the boundary to capture one particular apartment building and you actually think this would be something DCPS would do & would have any actual effect on Miner? Come on. Also, a family at 10th & G would retain proximity preference to LT... which they would use.

The fact that Maury folks are arguing that you should create the most gerrymandered IB in the entire district to capture one apartment building and that that is somehow preferable to/more likely to set Miner up for success than the cluster is what makes it hard to take them seriously. Just own that you don't want your own school to be experimented on in a way that's likely to make it substantially worse. Don't claim that you have a better solution and then offer... this.

this is ALL gerrymandering bro!! clearly you feel good about making a point about Maury.

I thought the whole point of the cluster was that they initially looked at redrawing boundaries but it didn't rebalance populations without severe gerrymandering... so part of the reasoning behind the cluster is to avoid a severely gerrymandered boundary. And that's just between Maury and Miner. I have no idea why LT is being dragged into this at all other than the fact that it shares a short boundary with Miner? I mean, doesn't Payne share a boundary with Miner too?

+1 to the PP who said some of this is just what-about-ism. There are persuasive arguments against the cluster but these are not it.

lol, I love that we now have an entirely new constraint that “extreme gerrymandering” is a barrier and somehow the goals of equity must crumble before funnily drawn maps.

This isn’t an argument against a cluster, but to point out that there are solutions that are inexplicably not being considered. Just like the thresholds were artificially set to capture *only* Maury and Miner; and other arbitrary rules like “we cannot cross H St” as reasons why other clusters are not being considered like LT and JOW. It really does make you think Maury is being targeted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Y'all, can we just drop the LT discussion? Maury is much closer to Miner than LT is. There is no proposed cluster between LT and Miner. If they wanted to cluster LT with another school, wouldn't JOW be the obvious option?

I just don't understand why this is even a discussion. You can oppose the cluster without suggesting nonsensical alternatives that make not logistical sense.

No we cannot drop the LT discussion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Y'all, can we just drop the LT discussion? Maury is much closer to Miner than LT is. There is no proposed cluster between LT and Miner. If they wanted to cluster LT with another school, wouldn't JOW be the obvious option?

I just don't understand why this is even a discussion. You can oppose the cluster without suggesting nonsensical alternatives that make not logistical sense.

The cluster makes no logistical sense either. The point of discussing the boundaries is that the DME can achieve some of its racial balancing goals by better boundary changes, which it insisted was not possible. But anyone looking on a map can see that there are ways to draw the boundaries more inclusively.

But this redrawing of the boundary -- whether you did it to Maury or LT -- would have virtually no effect on Miner. Rezoning one apartment building doesn't solve the problem. For one thing, it wouldn't have a demonstrable impact on Miner's demographics. But also, yes, if DME hadn't set its arbitrary limit of what difference in demographics was too much, the discussion would include L-T & JOW not L-T & Miner, which makes literally no sense. There is not a single reason that LT/Miner would achieve more of their stated goals or be a better logistical fit than Maury/Miner. The average distance between houses in the Maury and Miner zones is about half that in the Miner and LT zones because of how the IBs are laid out. The average delta between commute to LT v commute to Miner is about double the delta between Maury and Miner. This thread aside, there's a WAY better case for combing LT and JOW, which admittedly share many of the same features of Maury and Miner, than there is Miner and L-T.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Is there anybody on DCUM who lives in bounds for Miner and has spoken up?

We're in bounds for Miner and so we support.

Do your kids go to Miner? We are currently enrolled in prek at Miner, inbounds for Maury.

My observations are that those who are supporting this are inbounds to Miner and are either not enrolled there yet, have enrolled their kids elsewhere or are just in the beginning of their Miner journey (ECE). I have found it notable that none of the "booster" Miner parents I know who have kids in the older grades are supporting this proposal.

They're probably hoping to lottery into the existing Maury.

The Miner "booster" parents I know aren't on either list. They may also feel like their views are represented by the joint Miner-Maury PTO letter & that taking a "side" would undermine that (which it would). I don't see most of the Maury leadership on the con-list either.

There are quite a few parents who are IB for Miner and have lotteried their kids in elsewhere on the pro-list. But lots of them are parents who stuck with Miner longer than most (parents with kids now in 2nd-5th grade, who left in/after COVID year). Those parents' kids are too old to benefit from a combined school anyway, so I think they are actually just voting out of experience with how broken Miner is in the hopes of helping future families.

Not at either school (or IB for either) but we have several friends who fall into the group described by the bolded (I corrected the typo of Maury to Miner because I know that's what you meant).

There is general frustration among Miner IB parents because I know many who enrolled in PK thinking that with involvement and dedication, they could do for Miner what other families have done for Maury or L-T. They met road blocks that didn't exist at those other schools, and wound up leaving by 2nd/3rd grade. We know multiple families who were at Miner for 4-5 years but ultimately left because they saw zero improvement at the school in that time. That's a significant effort. They are supporting the merger because they do not think there are better options available to Miner, and I'm inclined to defer to them because I think they would know.

I totally get why Maury families are opposed, I probably would be too. But I've had enough conversations with former Miner families that I can really see the argument in favor. Unless there is some other way to turn things around at Miner, it really seems like the school needs something drastic.

This is wishful thinking. There is no reason to believe that outcomes of a paired school will be better, or that people will stick around in the upper grades. Look at Billingsville-Cotswold (the Charlotte school pairing that is the DME's current model) or Peabody-Watkins.

The issue is two-fold. First, the data shows that the combined school *is better* than the worse of the two paired schools, so it still makes sense for Miner families to support. Second, Miner isn't going to get some magical extra money investment from DCPS that no other bad/failed school gets. Miner isn't uniquely bad, it's just uniquely bad next to a very good school; it's the side-by-side pairing with a neighborhood that isn't distinct for those on the borders of the two schools that's unique. So unless Miner families leverage what *is* unique (their proximity to Maury), they aren't going to get anything better from DCPS. I think this plan is horrendously unfair to Maury families and bad precedent. It would also 100% support it if I were IB for Miner.

Why is it on Maury to improve Miner? Miner also shares a boundary border with Ludlow Taylor. Have they looked at Ludlow's boundaries? Shouldn't there be more done to improve Miner than simply combine it with the higher performing nearby school?

It's not "on Maury." They are part of the same school system. Maury is much closer to Miner than L-T is. That's it. Why would you combine Miner with L-T when Maury is so much closer? It makes no sense.

The point is that they should consider something beyond just simply combing two nearby schools and assuming it'll work out.

What specifically should they consider? You are the one who raised the shared boundary between Ludlow and Miner. How would shifting that boundary improve the situation at Miner?

Well for one, I think they should consider more than one solution, which the community has repeatedly asked DME to analyze and they have yet to come back with. I think they could increase the at-risk set asides at Maury and either eliminate Prek or shrink the Maury boundary. I think they should simultaneously also find a way to create more buy-in from the IB Miner families. That could be through specialized programming like dual-language, or Montessori. And DCPS should find a way to send one of its strongest administrators to Miner who can actually provide the leadership that school and community deserves.

And Ludlow Taylor isn't that much further from Miner than Maury.

Ludlow Taylor is further away and Miner’s IB families are considerably further away from the school still. LT and Miner share a several block border and, if you shifted it, you’d just shift the wealthiest part of the Miner zone into LT. Maury and Miner share an extremely long boundary and many families live basically equidistant to both. No Miner families live closer to LT or even close to equidistant from both schools. Also, the demographic differences between LT and Miner didn’t even reach the threshold for DME’s consideration. So, all of that.

You sound like the DME. The threshold is fake, and the LT boundary could be extended far enough east to absorb one of the low income buildings. The Pentacle is barely any further from LT than Maury. You cannot both claim that equity is so important as to justify the huge logistical leap of a cluster, and then act like extending the LT border is somehow completely infeasible.

You would need to extend the LT boundary *through* Miner to reach the low income buildings. Do you really not see why that wouldn't happen?

Not necessarily, one of the low income housing units on either side of Miner could be carved out into the L-T or the Maury boundary.

Not unless you literally snaked around the school. There is zero chance that will happen. People are really missing the point that Miner is not uniquely bad in DCPS. They aren't going to create a ridiculously gerrymandered boundary just to get one housing project out of the zone. Not least of all because that wouldn't fix Miner at all. The OOB kids don't look different than the IB kids, so while you'd get one building's worth of kids into one particular other school, you wouldn't actually do anything for Miner. Also, there is zero reason to believe that those particularl families particularly want to go to their new school and they'd retain proximity preference for the school that is literally across the road from them, so maybe you'd end up moving 50% of one building's worth of kids?

You’re a joke. So a boundary that “snakes around a school” is a bridge to far for equity; but a cluster totally disrupting two schools is not?

No, what you're not addressing is the part where it also doesn't do anything for Miner. This is *not* about teaching Maury a lesson, because gerrymandering the Maury zone to capture just the Pentacle *equally* wouldn't solve the problem. It's not about what new school boundary gets the Pentacle, it's that the problem at Miner is much deeper than rezoning one building. But also, yes, complete gerrymandering for the benefit of one single apartment building is actually a much more problematic precedent for DCPS politically-speaking than clustering schools that meet certain criteria.

What are you talking about? If the goal is to spread out high risk kids, you can do that by sending some to LT, some to Maury, and some to Payne. The fact that you think this is politically untenable just proves the point that this is about punishing Maury and failing to hold Miner accountable.

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Anonymous wrote:Is there anybody on DCUM who lives in bounds for Miner and has spoken up?

We're in bounds for Miner and so we support.

Do your kids go to Miner? We are currently enrolled in prek at Miner, inbounds for Maury.

My observations are that those who are supporting this are inbounds to Miner and are either not enrolled there yet, have enrolled their kids elsewhere or are just in the beginning of their Miner journey (ECE). I have found it notable that none of the "booster" Miner parents I know who have kids in the older grades are supporting this proposal.

They're probably hoping to lottery into the existing Maury.

The Miner "booster" parents I know aren't on either list. They may also feel like their views are represented by the joint Miner-Maury PTO letter & that taking a "side" would undermine that (which it would). I don't see most of the Maury leadership on the con-list either.

There are quite a few parents who are IB for Miner and have lotteried their kids in elsewhere on the pro-list. But lots of them are parents who stuck with Miner longer than most (parents with kids now in 2nd-5th grade, who left in/after COVID year). Those parents' kids are too old to benefit from a combined school anyway, so I think they are actually just voting out of experience with how broken Miner is in the hopes of helping future families.

Not at either school (or IB for either) but we have several friends who fall into the group described by the bolded (I corrected the typo of Maury to Miner because I know that's what you meant).

There is general frustration among Miner IB parents because I know many who enrolled in PK thinking that with involvement and dedication, they could do for Miner what other families have done for Maury or L-T. They met road blocks that didn't exist at those other schools, and wound up leaving by 2nd/3rd grade. We know multiple families who were at Miner for 4-5 years but ultimately left because they saw zero improvement at the school in that time. That's a significant effort. They are supporting the merger because they do not think there are better options available to Miner, and I'm inclined to defer to them because I think they would know.

I totally get why Maury families are opposed, I probably would be too. But I've had enough conversations with former Miner families that I can really see the argument in favor. Unless there is some other way to turn things around at Miner, it really seems like the school needs something drastic.

This is wishful thinking. There is no reason to believe that outcomes of a paired school will be better, or that people will stick around in the upper grades. Look at Billingsville-Cotswold (the Charlotte school pairing that is the DME's current model) or Peabody-Watkins.

The issue is two-fold. First, the data shows that the combined school *is better* than the worse of the two paired schools, so it still makes sense for Miner families to support. Second, Miner isn't going to get some magical extra money investment from DCPS that no other bad/failed school gets. Miner isn't uniquely bad, it's just uniquely bad next to a very good school; it's the side-by-side pairing with a neighborhood that isn't distinct for those on the borders of the two schools that's unique. So unless Miner families leverage what *is* unique (their proximity to Maury), they aren't going to get anything better from DCPS. I think this plan is horrendously unfair to Maury families and bad precedent. It would also 100% support it if I were IB for Miner.

Why is it on Maury to improve Miner? Miner also shares a boundary border with Ludlow Taylor. Have they looked at Ludlow's boundaries? Shouldn't there be more done to improve Miner than simply combine it with the higher performing nearby school?

It's not "on Maury." They are part of the same school system. Maury is much closer to Miner than L-T is. That's it. Why would you combine Miner with L-T when Maury is so much closer? It makes no sense.

The point is that they should consider something beyond just simply combing two nearby schools and assuming it'll work out.

What specifically should they consider? You are the one who raised the shared boundary between Ludlow and Miner. How would shifting that boundary improve the situation at Miner?

Well for one, I think they should consider more than one solution, which the community has repeatedly asked DME to analyze and they have yet to come back with. I think they could increase the at-risk set asides at Maury and either eliminate Prek or shrink the Maury boundary. I think they should simultaneously also find a way to create more buy-in from the IB Miner families. That could be through specialized programming like dual-language, or Montessori. And DCPS should find a way to send one of its strongest administrators to Miner who can actually provide the leadership that school and community deserves.

And Ludlow Taylor isn't that much further from Miner than Maury.

Ludlow Taylor is further away and Miner’s IB families are considerably further away from the school still. LT and Miner share a several block border and, if you shifted it, you’d just shift the wealthiest part of the Miner zone into LT. Maury and Miner share an extremely long boundary and many families live basically equidistant to both. No Miner families live closer to LT or even close to equidistant from both schools. Also, the demographic differences between LT and Miner didn’t even reach the threshold for DME’s consideration. So, all of that.

You sound like the DME. The threshold is fake, and the LT boundary could be extended far enough east to absorb one of the low income buildings. The Pentacle is barely any further from LT than Maury. You cannot both claim that equity is so important as to justify the huge logistical leap of a cluster, and then act like extending the LT border is somehow completely infeasible.

You would need to extend the LT boundary *through* Miner to reach the low income buildings. Do you really not see why that wouldn't happen?

That's untrue. The pentacle is at 15th and Benning. You could just extend LT's boundary to include G street through gales and 16th street. In turn you could shrink part of the LT boundary on the east side, have it start at 10th or 11th and have those families rerouted to Miner.

So you'd run a single block long zone an additional 6 blocks past the rest of the boundary to capture one particular apartment building and you actually think this would be something DCPS would do & would have any actual effect on Miner? Come on. Also, a family at 10th & G would retain proximity preference to LT... which they would use.

The fact that Maury folks are arguing that you should create the most gerrymandered IB in the entire district to capture one apartment building and that that is somehow preferable to/more likely to set Miner up for success than the cluster is what makes it hard to take them seriously. Just own that you don't want your own school to be experimented on in a way that's likely to make it substantially worse. Don't claim that you have a better solution and then offer... this.

this is ALL gerrymandering bro!! clearly you feel good about making a point about Maury.

I thought the whole point of the cluster was that they initially looked at redrawing boundaries but it didn't rebalance populations without severe gerrymandering... so part of the reasoning behind the cluster is to avoid a severely gerrymandered boundary. And that's just between Maury and Miner. I have no idea why LT is being dragged into this at all other than the fact that it shares a short boundary with Miner? I mean, doesn't Payne share a boundary with Miner too?

+1 to the PP who said some of this is just what-about-ism. There are persuasive arguments against the cluster but these are not it.

lol, I love that we now have an entirely new constraint that “extreme gerrymandering” is a barrier and somehow the goals of equity must crumble before funnily drawn maps.

This isn’t an argument against a cluster, but to point out that there are solutions that are inexplicably not being considered. Just like the thresholds were artificially set to capture *only* Maury and Miner; and other arbitrary rules like “we cannot cross H St” as reasons why other clusters are not being considered like LT and JOW. It really does make you think Maury is being targeted.

Of course Maury is being targeted. They don’t even have a ward representative defending and lobbying for them behind the scenes. Charles “performative clown” Allen doesn’t actually help anyone.

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Anonymous wrote:Is there anybody on DCUM who lives in bounds for Miner and has spoken up?

We're in bounds for Miner and so we support.

Do your kids go to Miner? We are currently enrolled in prek at Miner, inbounds for Maury.

My observations are that those who are supporting this are inbounds to Miner and are either not enrolled there yet, have enrolled their kids elsewhere or are just in the beginning of their Miner journey (ECE). I have found it notable that none of the "booster" Miner parents I know who have kids in the older grades are supporting this proposal.

They're probably hoping to lottery into the existing Maury.

The Miner "booster" parents I know aren't on either list. They may also feel like their views are represented by the joint Miner-Maury PTO letter & that taking a "side" would undermine that (which it would). I don't see most of the Maury leadership on the con-list either.

There are quite a few parents who are IB for Miner and have lotteried their kids in elsewhere on the pro-list. But lots of them are parents who stuck with Miner longer than most (parents with kids now in 2nd-5th grade, who left in/after COVID year). Those parents' kids are too old to benefit from a combined school anyway, so I think they are actually just voting out of experience with how broken Miner is in the hopes of helping future families.

Not at either school (or IB for either) but we have several friends who fall into the group described by the bolded (I corrected the typo of Maury to Miner because I know that's what you meant).

There is general frustration among Miner IB parents because I know many who enrolled in PK thinking that with involvement and dedication, they could do for Miner what other families have done for Maury or L-T. They met road blocks that didn't exist at those other schools, and wound up leaving by 2nd/3rd grade. We know multiple families who were at Miner for 4-5 years but ultimately left because they saw zero improvement at the school in that time. That's a significant effort. They are supporting the merger because they do not think there are better options available to Miner, and I'm inclined to defer to them because I think they would know.

I totally get why Maury families are opposed, I probably would be too. But I've had enough conversations with former Miner families that I can really see the argument in favor. Unless there is some other way to turn things around at Miner, it really seems like the school needs something drastic.

This is wishful thinking. There is no reason to believe that outcomes of a paired school will be better, or that people will stick around in the upper grades. Look at Billingsville-Cotswold (the Charlotte school pairing that is the DME's current model) or Peabody-Watkins.

The issue is two-fold. First, the data shows that the combined school *is better* than the worse of the two paired schools, so it still makes sense for Miner families to support. Second, Miner isn't going to get some magical extra money investment from DCPS that no other bad/failed school gets. Miner isn't uniquely bad, it's just uniquely bad next to a very good school; it's the side-by-side pairing with a neighborhood that isn't distinct for those on the borders of the two schools that's unique. So unless Miner families leverage what *is* unique (their proximity to Maury), they aren't going to get anything better from DCPS. I think this plan is horrendously unfair to Maury families and bad precedent. It would also 100% support it if I were IB for Miner.

Why is it on Maury to improve Miner? Miner also shares a boundary border with Ludlow Taylor. Have they looked at Ludlow's boundaries? Shouldn't there be more done to improve Miner than simply combine it with the higher performing nearby school?

It's not "on Maury." They are part of the same school system. Maury is much closer to Miner than L-T is. That's it. Why would you combine Miner with L-T when Maury is so much closer? It makes no sense.

The point is that they should consider something beyond just simply combing two nearby schools and assuming it'll work out.

What specifically should they consider? You are the one who raised the shared boundary between Ludlow and Miner. How would shifting that boundary improve the situation at Miner?

Well for one, I think they should consider more than one solution, which the community has repeatedly asked DME to analyze and they have yet to come back with. I think they could increase the at-risk set asides at Maury and either eliminate Prek or shrink the Maury boundary. I think they should simultaneously also find a way to create more buy-in from the IB Miner families. That could be through specialized programming like dual-language, or Montessori. And DCPS should find a way to send one of its strongest administrators to Miner who can actually provide the leadership that school and community deserves.

And Ludlow Taylor isn't that much further from Miner than Maury.

Ludlow Taylor is further away and Miner’s IB families are considerably further away from the school still. LT and Miner share a several block border and, if you shifted it, you’d just shift the wealthiest part of the Miner zone into LT. Maury and Miner share an extremely long boundary and many families live basically equidistant to both. No Miner families live closer to LT or even close to equidistant from both schools. Also, the demographic differences between LT and Miner didn’t even reach the threshold for DME’s consideration. So, all of that.

You sound like the DME. The threshold is fake, and the LT boundary could be extended far enough east to absorb one of the low income buildings. The Pentacle is barely any further from LT than Maury. You cannot both claim that equity is so important as to justify the huge logistical leap of a cluster, and then act like extending the LT border is somehow completely infeasible.

You would need to extend the LT boundary *through* Miner to reach the low income buildings. Do you really not see why that wouldn't happen?

That's untrue. The pentacle is at 15th and Benning. You could just extend LT's boundary to include G street through gales and 16th street. In turn you could shrink part of the LT boundary on the east side, have it start at 10th or 11th and have those families rerouted to Miner.

So you'd run a single block long zone an additional 6 blocks past the rest of the boundary to capture one particular apartment building and you actually think this would be something DCPS would do & would have any actual effect on Miner? Come on. Also, a family at 10th & G would retain proximity preference to LT... which they would use.

The fact that Maury folks are arguing that you should create the most gerrymandered IB in the entire district to capture one apartment building and that that is somehow preferable to/more likely to set Miner up for success than the cluster is what makes it hard to take them seriously. Just own that you don't want your own school to be experimented on in a way that's likely to make it substantially worse. Don't claim that you have a better solution and then offer... this.

this is ALL gerrymandering bro!! clearly you feel good about making a point about Maury.

I thought the whole point of the cluster was that they initially looked at redrawing boundaries but it didn't rebalance populations without severe gerrymandering... so part of the reasoning behind the cluster is to avoid a severely gerrymandered boundary. And that's just between Maury and Miner. I have no idea why LT is being dragged into this at all other than the fact that it shares a short boundary with Miner? I mean, doesn't Payne share a boundary with Miner too?

+1 to the PP who said some of this is just what-about-ism. There are persuasive arguments against the cluster but these are not it.

lol, I love that we now have an entirely new constraint that “extreme gerrymandering” is a barrier and somehow the goals of equity must crumble before funnily drawn maps.

This isn’t an argument against a cluster, but to point out that there are solutions that are inexplicably not being considered. Just like the thresholds were artificially set to capture *only* Maury and Miner; and other arbitrary rules like “we cannot cross H St” as reasons why other clusters are not being considered like LT and JOW. It really does make you think Maury is being targeted.

This is incorrect. LT and JOW weren't on the list because they aren't 50% apart demographically. It didn't have anything to do with H Street. They didn't even look at the pairing.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Is there anybody on DCUM who lives in bounds for Miner and has spoken up?

We're in bounds for Miner and so we support.

Do your kids go to Miner? We are currently enrolled in prek at Miner, inbounds for Maury.

My observations are that those who are supporting this are inbounds to Miner and are either not enrolled there yet, have enrolled their kids elsewhere or are just in the beginning of their Miner journey (ECE). I have found it notable that none of the "booster" Miner parents I know who have kids in the older grades are supporting this proposal.

They're probably hoping to lottery into the existing Maury.

The Miner "booster" parents I know aren't on either list. They may also feel like their views are represented by the joint Miner-Maury PTO letter & that taking a "side" would undermine that (which it would). I don't see most of the Maury leadership on the con-list either.

There are quite a few parents who are IB for Miner and have lotteried their kids in elsewhere on the pro-list. But lots of them are parents who stuck with Miner longer than most (parents with kids now in 2nd-5th grade, who left in/after COVID year). Those parents' kids are too old to benefit from a combined school anyway, so I think they are actually just voting out of experience with how broken Miner is in the hopes of helping future families.

Not at either school (or IB for either) but we have several friends who fall into the group described by the bolded (I corrected the typo of Maury to Miner because I know that's what you meant).

There is general frustration among Miner IB parents because I know many who enrolled in PK thinking that with involvement and dedication, they could do for Miner what other families have done for Maury or L-T. They met road blocks that didn't exist at those other schools, and wound up leaving by 2nd/3rd grade. We know multiple families who were at Miner for 4-5 years but ultimately left because they saw zero improvement at the school in that time. That's a significant effort. They are supporting the merger because they do not think there are better options available to Miner, and I'm inclined to defer to them because I think they would know.

I totally get why Maury families are opposed, I probably would be too. But I've had enough conversations with former Miner families that I can really see the argument in favor. Unless there is some other way to turn things around at Miner, it really seems like the school needs something drastic.

This is wishful thinking. There is no reason to believe that outcomes of a paired school will be better, or that people will stick around in the upper grades. Look at Billingsville-Cotswold (the Charlotte school pairing that is the DME's current model) or Peabody-Watkins.

The issue is two-fold. First, the data shows that the combined school *is better* than the worse of the two paired schools, so it still makes sense for Miner families to support. Second, Miner isn't going to get some magical extra money investment from DCPS that no other bad/failed school gets. Miner isn't uniquely bad, it's just uniquely bad next to a very good school; it's the side-by-side pairing with a neighborhood that isn't distinct for those on the borders of the two schools that's unique. So unless Miner families leverage what *is* unique (their proximity to Maury), they aren't going to get anything better from DCPS. I think this plan is horrendously unfair to Maury families and bad precedent. It would also 100% support it if I were IB for Miner.

Why is it on Maury to improve Miner? Miner also shares a boundary border with Ludlow Taylor. Have they looked at Ludlow's boundaries? Shouldn't there be more done to improve Miner than simply combine it with the higher performing nearby school?

It's not "on Maury." They are part of the same school system. Maury is much closer to Miner than L-T is. That's it. Why would you combine Miner with L-T when Maury is so much closer? It makes no sense.

The point is that they should consider something beyond just simply combing two nearby schools and assuming it'll work out.

What specifically should they consider? You are the one who raised the shared boundary between Ludlow and Miner. How would shifting that boundary improve the situation at Miner?

Well for one, I think they should consider more than one solution, which the community has repeatedly asked DME to analyze and they have yet to come back with. I think they could increase the at-risk set asides at Maury and either eliminate Prek or shrink the Maury boundary. I think they should simultaneously also find a way to create more buy-in from the IB Miner families. That could be through specialized programming like dual-language, or Montessori. And DCPS should find a way to send one of its strongest administrators to Miner who can actually provide the leadership that school and community deserves.

And Ludlow Taylor isn't that much further from Miner than Maury.

Ludlow Taylor is further away and Miner’s IB families are considerably further away from the school still. LT and Miner share a several block border and, if you shifted it, you’d just shift the wealthiest part of the Miner zone into LT. Maury and Miner share an extremely long boundary and many families live basically equidistant to both. No Miner families live closer to LT or even close to equidistant from both schools. Also, the demographic differences between LT and Miner didn’t even reach the threshold for DME’s consideration. So, all of that.

You sound like the DME. The threshold is fake, and the LT boundary could be extended far enough east to absorb one of the low income buildings. The Pentacle is barely any further from LT than Maury. You cannot both claim that equity is so important as to justify the huge logistical leap of a cluster, and then act like extending the LT border is somehow completely infeasible.

You would need to extend the LT boundary *through* Miner to reach the low income buildings. Do you really not see why that wouldn't happen?

Not necessarily, one of the low income housing units on either side of Miner could be carved out into the L-T or the Maury boundary.

Not unless you literally snaked around the school. There is zero chance that will happen. People are really missing the point that Miner is not uniquely bad in DCPS. They aren't going to create a ridiculously gerrymandered boundary just to get one housing project out of the zone. Not least of all because that wouldn't fix Miner at all. The OOB kids don't look different than the IB kids, so while you'd get one building's worth of kids into one particular other school, you wouldn't actually do anything for Miner. Also, there is zero reason to believe that those particularl families particularly want to go to their new school and they'd retain proximity preference for the school that is literally across the road from them, so maybe you'd end up moving 50% of one building's worth of kids?

You’re a joke. So a boundary that “snakes around a school” is a bridge to far for equity; but a cluster totally disrupting two schools is not?

No, what you're not addressing is the part where it also doesn't do anything for Miner. This is *not* about teaching Maury a lesson, because gerrymandering the Maury zone to capture just the Pentacle *equally* wouldn't solve the problem. It's not about what new school boundary gets the Pentacle, it's that the problem at Miner is much deeper than rezoning one building. But also, yes, complete gerrymandering for the benefit of one single apartment building is actually a much more problematic precedent for DCPS politically-speaking than clustering schools that meet certain criteria.

What are you talking about? If the goal is to spread out high risk kids, you can do that by sending some to LT, some to Maury, and some to Payne. The fact that you think this is politically untenable just proves the point that this is about punishing Maury and failing to hold Miner accountable.

I actually do think that shutting Miner and redistributing its kids to LT, JOW, Maury, Payne & Browne could make sense. That's very different than just cleaving off a few of its students for other boundaries, which actually doesn't solve the issue. But I don't think DME will be willing to close a school.

[Anonymous]

I guess I just don't understand why the combination of an at-risk preference at Maury, re-zoning part of Maury to Miner, plus new at-risk preferences elsewhere which might attract some Miner at-risk kids, plus trying to make Miner a better school on its own, wouldn't bring the stats in line with the DME's targets.

[Anonymous]

It seems like the theory is that Miner is so screwed up, it needs some high-SES parents to force change. But if the high-SES parents aren't powerful enough to block this cluster, then how are they powerful enough to force the changes that Miner needs? Doesn't make sense.

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Anonymous wrote:Is there anybody on DCUM who lives in bounds for Miner and has spoken up?

We're in bounds for Miner and so we support.

Do your kids go to Miner? We are currently enrolled in prek at Miner, inbounds for Maury.

My observations are that those who are supporting this are inbounds to Miner and are either not enrolled there yet, have enrolled their kids elsewhere or are just in the beginning of their Miner journey (ECE). I have found it notable that none of the "booster" Miner parents I know who have kids in the older grades are supporting this proposal.

They're probably hoping to lottery into the existing Maury.

The Miner "booster" parents I know aren't on either list. They may also feel like their views are represented by the joint Miner-Maury PTO letter & that taking a "side" would undermine that (which it would). I don't see most of the Maury leadership on the con-list either.

There are quite a few parents who are IB for Miner and have lotteried their kids in elsewhere on the pro-list. But lots of them are parents who stuck with Miner longer than most (parents with kids now in 2nd-5th grade, who left in/after COVID year). Those parents' kids are too old to benefit from a combined school anyway, so I think they are actually just voting out of experience with how broken Miner is in the hopes of helping future families.

Not at either school (or IB for either) but we have several friends who fall into the group described by the bolded (I corrected the typo of Maury to Miner because I know that's what you meant).

There is general frustration among Miner IB parents because I know many who enrolled in PK thinking that with involvement and dedication, they could do for Miner what other families have done for Maury or L-T. They met road blocks that didn't exist at those other schools, and wound up leaving by 2nd/3rd grade. We know multiple families who were at Miner for 4-5 years but ultimately left because they saw zero improvement at the school in that time. That's a significant effort. They are supporting the merger because they do not think there are better options available to Miner, and I'm inclined to defer to them because I think they would know.

I totally get why Maury families are opposed, I probably would be too. But I've had enough conversations with former Miner families that I can really see the argument in favor. Unless there is some other way to turn things around at Miner, it really seems like the school needs something drastic.

This is wishful thinking. There is no reason to believe that outcomes of a paired school will be better, or that people will stick around in the upper grades. Look at Billingsville-Cotswold (the Charlotte school pairing that is the DME's current model) or Peabody-Watkins.

The issue is two-fold. First, the data shows that the combined school *is better* than the worse of the two paired schools, so it still makes sense for Miner families to support. Second, Miner isn't going to get some magical extra money investment from DCPS that no other bad/failed school gets. Miner isn't uniquely bad, it's just uniquely bad next to a very good school; it's the side-by-side pairing with a neighborhood that isn't distinct for those on the borders of the two schools that's unique. So unless Miner families leverage what *is* unique (their proximity to Maury), they aren't going to get anything better from DCPS. I think this plan is horrendously unfair to Maury families and bad precedent. It would also 100% support it if I were IB for Miner.

Why is it on Maury to improve Miner? Miner also shares a boundary border with Ludlow Taylor. Have they looked at Ludlow's boundaries? Shouldn't there be more done to improve Miner than simply combine it with the higher performing nearby school?

It's not "on Maury." They are part of the same school system. Maury is much closer to Miner than L-T is. That's it. Why would you combine Miner with L-T when Maury is so much closer? It makes no sense.

The point is that they should consider something beyond just simply combing two nearby schools and assuming it'll work out.

What specifically should they consider? You are the one who raised the shared boundary between Ludlow and Miner. How would shifting that boundary improve the situation at Miner?

Well for one, I think they should consider more than one solution, which the community has repeatedly asked DME to analyze and they have yet to come back with. I think they could increase the at-risk set asides at Maury and either eliminate Prek or shrink the Maury boundary. I think they should simultaneously also find a way to create more buy-in from the IB Miner families. That could be through specialized programming like dual-language, or Montessori. And DCPS should find a way to send one of its strongest administrators to Miner who can actually provide the leadership that school and community deserves.

And Ludlow Taylor isn't that much further from Miner than Maury.

Ludlow Taylor is further away and Miner’s IB families are considerably further away from the school still. LT and Miner share a several block border and, if you shifted it, you’d just shift the wealthiest part of the Miner zone into LT. Maury and Miner share an extremely long boundary and many families live basically equidistant to both. No Miner families live closer to LT or even close to equidistant from both schools. Also, the demographic differences between LT and Miner didn’t even reach the threshold for DME’s consideration. So, all of that.

You sound like the DME. The threshold is fake, and the LT boundary could be extended far enough east to absorb one of the low income buildings. The Pentacle is barely any further from LT than Maury. You cannot both claim that equity is so important as to justify the huge logistical leap of a cluster, and then act like extending the LT border is somehow completely infeasible.

You would need to extend the LT boundary *through* Miner to reach the low income buildings. Do you really not see why that wouldn't happen?

That's untrue. The pentacle is at 15th and Benning. You could just extend LT's boundary to include G street through gales and 16th street. In turn you could shrink part of the LT boundary on the east side, have it start at 10th or 11th and have those families rerouted to Miner.

So you'd run a single block long zone an additional 6 blocks past the rest of the boundary to capture one particular apartment building and you actually think this would be something DCPS would do & would have any actual effect on Miner? Come on. Also, a family at 10th & G would retain proximity preference to LT... which they would use.

The fact that Maury folks are arguing that you should create the most gerrymandered IB in the entire district to capture one apartment building and that that is somehow preferable to/more likely to set Miner up for success than the cluster is what makes it hard to take them seriously. Just own that you don't want your own school to be experimented on in a way that's likely to make it substantially worse. Don't claim that you have a better solution and then offer... this.

this is ALL gerrymandering bro!! clearly you feel good about making a point about Maury.

I thought the whole point of the cluster was that they initially looked at redrawing boundaries but it didn't rebalance populations without severe gerrymandering... so part of the reasoning behind the cluster is to avoid a severely gerrymandered boundary. And that's just between Maury and Miner. I have no idea why LT is being dragged into this at all other than the fact that it shares a short boundary with Miner? I mean, doesn't Payne share a boundary with Miner too?

+1 to the PP who said some of this is just what-about-ism. There are persuasive arguments against the cluster but these are not it.

lol, I love that we now have an entirely new constraint that “extreme gerrymandering” is a barrier and somehow the goals of equity must crumble before funnily drawn maps.

This isn’t an argument against a cluster, but to point out that there are solutions that are inexplicably not being considered. Just like the thresholds were artificially set to capture *only* Maury and Miner; and other arbitrary rules like “we cannot cross H St” as reasons why other clusters are not being considered like LT and JOW. It really does make you think Maury is being targeted.

This is incorrect. LT and JOW weren't on the list because they aren't 50% apart demographically. It didn't have anything to do with H Street. They didn't even look at the pairing.

they aren’t on the list because DME created criteria to keep them off the list.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It seems like the theory is that Miner is so screwed up, it needs some high-SES parents to force change. But if the high-SES parents aren't powerful enough to block this cluster, then how are they powerful enough to force the changes that Miner needs? Doesn't make sense.

It’s our magical skin color - just the presence of it.

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Anonymous wrote:Is there anybody on DCUM who lives in bounds for Miner and has spoken up?

We're in bounds for Miner and so we support.

Do your kids go to Miner? We are currently enrolled in prek at Miner, inbounds for Maury.

My observations are that those who are supporting this are inbounds to Miner and are either not enrolled there yet, have enrolled their kids elsewhere or are just in the beginning of their Miner journey (ECE). I have found it notable that none of the "booster" Miner parents I know who have kids in the older grades are supporting this proposal.

They're probably hoping to lottery into the existing Maury.

The Miner "booster" parents I know aren't on either list. They may also feel like their views are represented by the joint Miner-Maury PTO letter & that taking a "side" would undermine that (which it would). I don't see most of the Maury leadership on the con-list either.

There are quite a few parents who are IB for Miner and have lotteried their kids in elsewhere on the pro-list. But lots of them are parents who stuck with Miner longer than most (parents with kids now in 2nd-5th grade, who left in/after COVID year). Those parents' kids are too old to benefit from a combined school anyway, so I think they are actually just voting out of experience with how broken Miner is in the hopes of helping future families.

Not at either school (or IB for either) but we have several friends who fall into the group described by the bolded (I corrected the typo of Maury to Miner because I know that's what you meant).

There is general frustration among Miner IB parents because I know many who enrolled in PK thinking that with involvement and dedication, they could do for Miner what other families have done for Maury or L-T. They met road blocks that didn't exist at those other schools, and wound up leaving by 2nd/3rd grade. We know multiple families who were at Miner for 4-5 years but ultimately left because they saw zero improvement at the school in that time. That's a significant effort. They are supporting the merger because they do not think there are better options available to Miner, and I'm inclined to defer to them because I think they would know.

I totally get why Maury families are opposed, I probably would be too. But I've had enough conversations with former Miner families that I can really see the argument in favor. Unless there is some other way to turn things around at Miner, it really seems like the school needs something drastic.

This is wishful thinking. There is no reason to believe that outcomes of a paired school will be better, or that people will stick around in the upper grades. Look at Billingsville-Cotswold (the Charlotte school pairing that is the DME's current model) or Peabody-Watkins.

The issue is two-fold. First, the data shows that the combined school *is better* than the worse of the two paired schools, so it still makes sense for Miner families to support. Second, Miner isn't going to get some magical extra money investment from DCPS that no other bad/failed school gets. Miner isn't uniquely bad, it's just uniquely bad next to a very good school; it's the side-by-side pairing with a neighborhood that isn't distinct for those on the borders of the two schools that's unique. So unless Miner families leverage what *is* unique (their proximity to Maury), they aren't going to get anything better from DCPS. I think this plan is horrendously unfair to Maury families and bad precedent. It would also 100% support it if I were IB for Miner.

Why is it on Maury to improve Miner? Miner also shares a boundary border with Ludlow Taylor. Have they looked at Ludlow's boundaries? Shouldn't there be more done to improve Miner than simply combine it with the higher performing nearby school?

It's not "on Maury." They are part of the same school system. Maury is much closer to Miner than L-T is. That's it. Why would you combine Miner with L-T when Maury is so much closer? It makes no sense.

The point is that they should consider something beyond just simply combing two nearby schools and assuming it'll work out.

What specifically should they consider? You are the one who raised the shared boundary between Ludlow and Miner. How would shifting that boundary improve the situation at Miner?

Well for one, I think they should consider more than one solution, which the community has repeatedly asked DME to analyze and they have yet to come back with. I think they could increase the at-risk set asides at Maury and either eliminate Prek or shrink the Maury boundary. I think they should simultaneously also find a way to create more buy-in from the IB Miner families. That could be through specialized programming like dual-language, or Montessori. And DCPS should find a way to send one of its strongest administrators to Miner who can actually provide the leadership that school and community deserves.

And Ludlow Taylor isn't that much further from Miner than Maury.

Ludlow Taylor is further away and Miner’s IB families are considerably further away from the school still. LT and Miner share a several block border and, if you shifted it, you’d just shift the wealthiest part of the Miner zone into LT. Maury and Miner share an extremely long boundary and many families live basically equidistant to both. No Miner families live closer to LT or even close to equidistant from both schools. Also, the demographic differences between LT and Miner didn’t even reach the threshold for DME’s consideration. So, all of that.

You sound like the DME. The threshold is fake, and the LT boundary could be extended far enough east to absorb one of the low income buildings. The Pentacle is barely any further from LT than Maury. You cannot both claim that equity is so important as to justify the huge logistical leap of a cluster, and then act like extending the LT border is somehow completely infeasible.

You would need to extend the LT boundary *through* Miner to reach the low income buildings. Do you really not see why that wouldn't happen?

That's untrue. The pentacle is at 15th and Benning. You could just extend LT's boundary to include G street through gales and 16th street. In turn you could shrink part of the LT boundary on the east side, have it start at 10th or 11th and have those families rerouted to Miner.

So you'd run a single block long zone an additional 6 blocks past the rest of the boundary to capture one particular apartment building and you actually think this would be something DCPS would do & would have any actual effect on Miner? Come on. Also, a family at 10th & G would retain proximity preference to LT... which they would use.

The fact that Maury folks are arguing that you should create the most gerrymandered IB in the entire district to capture one apartment building and that that is somehow preferable to/more likely to set Miner up for success than the cluster is what makes it hard to take them seriously. Just own that you don't want your own school to be experimented on in a way that's likely to make it substantially worse. Don't claim that you have a better solution and then offer... this.

this is ALL gerrymandering bro!! clearly you feel good about making a point about Maury.

I thought the whole point of the cluster was that they initially looked at redrawing boundaries but it didn't rebalance populations without severe gerrymandering... so part of the reasoning behind the cluster is to avoid a severely gerrymandered boundary. And that's just between Maury and Miner. I have no idea why LT is being dragged into this at all other than the fact that it shares a short boundary with Miner? I mean, doesn't Payne share a boundary with Miner too?

+1 to the PP who said some of this is just what-about-ism. There are persuasive arguments against the cluster but these are not it.

lol, I love that we now have an entirely new constraint that “extreme gerrymandering” is a barrier and somehow the goals of equity must crumble before funnily drawn maps.

This isn’t an argument against a cluster, but to point out that there are solutions that are inexplicably not being considered. Just like the thresholds were artificially set to capture *only* Maury and Miner; and other arbitrary rules like “we cannot cross H St” as reasons why other clusters are not being considered like LT and JOW. It really does make you think Maury is being targeted.

This is incorrect. LT and JOW weren't on the list because they aren't 50% apart demographically. It didn't have anything to do with H Street. They didn't even look at the pairing.

they aren’t on the list because DME created criteria to keep them off the list.

That's not true. It's because shifting the criteria enough to include it (down to 40% from 50%) would have added a ton of additional school pairs to the list and they were trying to keep it manageable. I'm not saying that's a good reason, but it's the actual reason.