SWS moving to Prospect LC building?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How many future slots are we taking about at SWS anyway, 2 pres3 classes of 16 each, 2 prek4 class of 16 each and one k of around 25 and one elementary class per grade?

Sounds like almost all the 2013-2014 slots are already spoken for by Watkins younger siblings and SWS younger siblings. Hence the school's expansion sounds even more irrelevant to the LT IB than the ongoing expansion of the logan montessori.

For 2013, only SWS siblings get preference. Cluster sibs had preference in 2012 but won't anymore. I doubt that SWS sibs will fill all those preschool and pre-k slots.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't remember a financial disclosure statement requirement upon enrolling for my child's public education and I'm sure many of my fellow SWS parents will be thrilled to learn of their affluence. SWS is primarily a labor of love for many families who've bought in and fought for the school's survival. Granted it's not the most racially diverse school even with a physical IB extending across much of Hill East, but there's not a lot of ostentatious wealth either. You sound like someone with little if any firsthand knowledge of the school.

Anyone can cherry pick numbers from the DCPS website (which shows SWS at 60% white for SY11-12 fwiw) and it doesn't substantiate your faulty premise. I'm pretty certain if you took a cross section of any number of Hill schools and compared their PK4, K and 1st grades only you would find pretty similar family demographics.

I'm an outsider to all this, but this PP inadvertently points up some interesting issues relating to race and class. S/he is surely right that the cross section in the lower grades is comparable to that of some of the other Hill elementary schools, notably Watkins, 2 Rivers, Maury and Tyler SI. What parents are going to beat down the door for at an expanded SWS is the POTENTIAL to keep the school largely high-SES (if not wealthy! this is a government town) up to 4th or 5th grade, like the Logan Montessori, Brent and maybe Maury in a few years. Such a small program with such an effective PTA has a shot. For the most part, parents who want this aren't racist (or they wouldn't live on the Hill), they're pragmatists trying to meet their kids needs in a city school system that doesn't do much at all for advanced learners/gifted students, which high-SES kids so often are...

PP here -- and yes, I agree with some of what you're saying, but you presume that the SWS community is motivated more by rejecting the alternatives than embracing what SWS offers and not wanting it to end at K. The SWS program is somewhat unique, and it's a distinctly different educational model than the alternatives -- not better or worse, just different (that includes pretty much every alternative, including CDS, St Peters, Brent, Maury, 2 Rivers, Tyler SI, Watkins et al). There's less dread about the prospects of Watkins than an embrace of the possibilities of continuing within SWS for 6, 7 or 8 years. I can't speak for every SWS family, but I'll take the trade-off of 6-8 years valued formative educational years and deal with potential MS uncertainty when necessary.

From the discussions I've had with fellow parents, there's more concern about preserving key educational and philosophical principles of Reggio in the face of DC's overemphasis on mandated testing and quantitative evaluation.

I would urge anyone interested in learning more about the program to attend an open house or contact the school directly. The anonymity of DCUM can be helpful for candor, but also reflects many agendas and biases (mine included).

[Anonymous]

The hidden joke on this thread:

all of the self-righteous parents asserting how they "fought for their school" as though the demographics of gentrification had nothing to do with it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The problem will become, like Brent, what MS does SWS feed into? If the MS option isn't acceptable, then parents will begin the lottery out process in 3rd, 4th, 5th, grade to have certain, and avoid the most likely MS feeder -- Eliot Hine

(ding ding)....


.....we have a winner.


No, there is nothing close to a respectable MS on the Hill. This is why Latin, Basis (and now probably DCI) can count on upper-middle-class students to feed their populations.

Thank you, DCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The hidden joke on this thread:

all of the self-righteous parents asserting how they "fought for their school" as though the demographics of gentrification had nothing to do with it.

troll

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The hidden joke on this thread:

all of the self-righteous parents asserting how they "fought for their school" as though the demographics of gentrification had nothing to do with it.

troll

Wrong. Just someone who can do math - a shrinking, and already forgotten minority.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

PP here -- and yes, I agree with some of what you're saying, but you presume that the SWS community is motivated more by rejecting the alternatives than embracing what SWS offers and not wanting it to end at K.

Call me a LT IB parent happy to embrace any alternative that doesn't involve any of the following:

dealing with our gentrification hostile IB principal and ghetto plus hippy dippy white PTA

scrambling to get my kid to a random language immersion school in Brookland to keep them away from these people

trying St. Peters/Jesus as a Jewish mom

spending an arm and a leg on Sidwell with a rotten commute for a 5 year old to boot

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP here -- and yes, I agree with some of what you're saying, but you presume that the SWS community is motivated more by rejecting the alternatives than embracing what SWS offers and not wanting it to end at K. The SWS program is somewhat unique, and it's a distinctly different educational model than the alternatives -- not better or worse, just different (that includes pretty much every alternative, including CDS, St Peters, Brent, Maury, 2 Rivers, Tyler SI, Watkins et al). There's less dread about the prospects of Watkins than an embrace of the possibilities of continuing within SWS for 6, 7 or 8 years. I can't speak for every SWS family, but I'll take the trade-off of 6-8 years valued formative educational years and deal with potential MS uncertainty when necessary.

From the discussions I've had with fellow parents, there's more concern about preserving key educational and philosophical principles of Reggio in the face of DC's overemphasis on mandated testing and quantitative evaluation.

I would urge anyone interested in learning more about the program to attend an open house or contact the school directly. The anonymity of DCUM can be helpful for candor, but also reflects many agendas and biases (mine included).

Brent is moving towards the Reggio Emilia Approach. As the PP stated at SWS, there is less concern at Brent today with a rigid academic approach to early elementary. So, early childhood staff will soon be trained in Reggio and begin a roll-out this fall – exact details (full roll-out, phase-in) are being worked out. To be sure, it is a work in progress, but that is the dircetion of the school Concurrently, there is an increasing movement towards rigor and academic achievement in the upper grades with strengthened advanced studies and enrichment offerings. Kudos to DCPS (from the Chancellor to the Principal and staff at Brent) for its entrepreneurial mindset.

PP nailed it with a description of SWS being a program that families are drawn to, and not simply the only one left after parents reject alternatives. Considering the city-wide system, parents must be enticed and not forced to enroll their children if we want viable schools for families of all income levels and children of all abilities and needs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The hidden joke on this thread:

all of the self-righteous parents asserting how they "fought for their school" as though the demographics of gentrification had nothing to do with it.

troll

Wrong. Just someone who can do math - a shrinking, and already forgotten minority.

You mean gentrification of 2 decades ago? Sorry, but your argument is a dog with fleas

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Pre expansion SWS offered a whopping 2 years of EC, after which it fed to ... Watkins. The SWS community wanted to extend SWS more than avoid Watkins. Plenty of SWS kids have older siblings at Watkins, so there are families vested in both schools.

And I'm sorry, but if you don't believe SWS was on the chopping block after having its budget slashed you seriously don't know what you're talking about.

Plenty of SWS kids also leave for K at St. Peters and CHDS. This is going to be interesting for all those private/parochial school- intending parents who have used SWS as a free way to get EC. I will enjoy the show, but think this is bad for SWS and for the Hill in general.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Brent is moving towards the Reggio Emilia Approach. As the PP stated at SWS, there is less concern at Brent today with a rigid academic approach to early elementary. So, early childhood staff will soon be trained in Reggio and begin a roll-out this fall – exact details (full roll-out, phase-in) are being worked out. To be sure, it is a work in progress, but that is the dircetion of the school Concurrently, there is an increasing movement towards rigor and academic achievement in the upper grades with strengthened advanced studies and enrichment offerings. Kudos to DCPS (from the Chancellor to the Principal and staff at Brent) for its entrepreneurial mindset.

Great! So this is yet another reason to give SWS neighborhood preference and add it to the other Eliot-Hine feeders (Maury, Miner, Payne, Tyler) that embrace these kinds of approaches, which - as I mentioned further up - mesh particularly well with IB middle years and diploma. Way to go! Genuinely!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pre expansion SWS offered a whopping 2 years of EC, after which it fed to ... Watkins. The SWS community wanted to extend SWS more than avoid Watkins. Plenty of SWS kids have older siblings at Watkins, so there are families vested in both schools.

And I'm sorry, but if you don't believe SWS was on the chopping block after having its budget slashed you seriously don't know what you're talking about.

Plenty of SWS kids also leave for K at St. Peters and CHDS. This is going to be interesting for all those private/parochial school- intending parents who have used SWS as a free way to get EC. I will enjoy the show, but think this is bad for SWS and for the Hill in general.

Even with a move to temporary space, there was not a whole lot of attrition (roughly 3/4 rose from SWS at Peabody to SWS at Logan). And as a previous commenter noted, much of that attrition was SWS to PEABODY.

... you enjoy!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pre expansion SWS offered a whopping 2 years of EC, after which it fed to ... Watkins. The SWS community wanted to extend SWS more than avoid Watkins. Plenty of SWS kids have older siblings at Watkins, so there are families vested in both schools.

And I'm sorry, but if you don't believe SWS was on the chopping block after having its budget slashed you seriously don't know what you're talking about.

Plenty of SWS kids also leave for K at St. Peters and CHDS. This is going to be interesting for all those private/parochial school- intending parents who have used SWS as a free way to get EC. I will enjoy the show, but think this is bad for SWS and for the Hill in general.

Even with a move to temporary space, there was not a whole lot of attrition (roughly 3/4 rose from SWS at Peabody to SWS at Logan). And as a previous commenter noted, much of that attrition was SWS to PEABODY.

... you enjoy!

I'm sure not all parents were interested in the trailers without an end game in sight at that point. . .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:L-T families have only lost what they never had. The real losers are the Cluster families who thought they were going to have preference for SWS and now won't.

This. I bought into the Cluster 3 years ago hoping to eventually send my kid to SWS, and now I'm totally screwed. This is BS. Too bad Cluster parents just can't get it together. Imagine if DCPS tried to make Brent into a city-wide school. The moaning would never end.

Me too. But the current Cluster parents DID get together. They are the ones who screwed us. They didn't want to send their kids to Watkins, so they lobbied to expand SWS to higher grades. Note that they also got to keep sibling preference. They didn't care (much) about the boundaries because they're all in.

The people who did not successfully get together are the *future* SWS/Cluster parents. Like you and me.

First of all, the current Cluster and SWS are not the same thing, and even when they shared a building and feeder they were separate entities. In the initial SWS expansion there was a one time allowance for movement between Peabody and SWS -- families moved both ways on that front.

There's an outsider and an insider perspective to this. Some families may feel left out, but they are probably not aware taht SWS was close to being shuttered outright by DCPS within the past 2 1/2 years. IB or otherwise , it wouldn't even exist as a future option for your infants and toddlers if that threat was realized. It had to move/expand or cease to exist. DCPS made the call on boundaries, not the school.

I am aware that current SWS parents say they were fearful of being closed. Do I think DCPS would have actually closed this high-performing, highly-successful program? Not a chance in hell. I noticed you didn't acknowledge the reality that SWS parents were looking for a way out of Watkins. They got it. Well done. Those of us who bought in the Cluster bounds with the specific goal of attending SWS were the casualty here.

Why would you buy a house based on a potential two years of early childhood education? I get buying to get into the Cluster, but SWS was never a huge part of that. And FWIW, when SWS exited the cluster, more kids moved from SWS to Peabody than vice versa. SWS was never everyone's preference for EC, even within the Cluster.

Also, it's not like pre-k or k slots were lost in the move--Peabody added slots to fill the SWS space. I totally agree that the move last year was pretty ill-planned and ill-communicated, mostly because it was so sudden. But it was actually executed pretty well. And as an SWS parent, I can assure you that most parents at the meeting with DCPS were very vocal about wanting to keep it a neighborhood school. It just didn't make sense for DCPS to do so.

I didn't say it was the ONLY reason I bought the house, but it was a factor. I don't understand why you would say "SWS was never a huge part" of the Cluster. It was. Anyone in the Cluster had the option of SWS or traditional Peabody. Not that you were guaranteed for either, but it was an option.

I don't really care whether SWS was everyone's preference. It was mine. A lot of families preferred Peabody because it began at PS3.

And I still don't understand why SWS couldn't keep the Cluster boundaries. You really think there's insufficient demand on the Hill to support both schools?

My main problem with all of this is that the only people who had input are current SWS parents. The entire process was completely opaque. The only reason I was even able to get any information is because I have a friend who is a current SWS parent. There was no attempt to communicate with the community about all of these changes. And these changes don't even (really) affect the current SWS parents!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pre expansion SWS offered a whopping 2 years of EC, after which it fed to ... Watkins. The SWS community wanted to extend SWS more than avoid Watkins. Plenty of SWS kids have older siblings at Watkins, so there are families vested in both schools.

And I'm sorry, but if you don't believe SWS was on the chopping block after having its budget slashed you seriously don't know what you're talking about.

Plenty of SWS kids also leave for K at St. Peters and CHDS. This is going to be interesting for all those private/parochial school- intending parents who have used SWS as a free way to get EC. I will enjoy the show, but think this is bad for SWS and for the Hill in general.

Even with a move to temporary space, there was not a whole lot of attrition (roughly 3/4 rose from SWS at Peabody to SWS at Logan). And as a previous commenter noted, much of that attrition was SWS to PEABODY.

... you enjoy!

I'm sure not all parents were interested in the trailers without an end game in sight at that point. . .

people who knew the program well were confident they'd make the pods work. some of us were pleasantly surprised it was only one year and not two at Logan as initially proposed.

Let's not forget that Cap Hill Day School recently spent a full school year in a temporary space -- pods, trailers, whatever -- at the SE Waterfront. It's not like they discounted tuition or bled enrollment.