Can anyone update me on Shaw Middle and parent involvement?

[Anonymous]

calexander wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you explain why you even want Cardozo to move? They are underenrolled and recently renovated. The space isn't the issue.

Not OP, but the logic seems to be that high school and middle school students should have their own space.

Cardozo is huge. There is plenty of space for both.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

calexander wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you explain why you even want Cardozo to move? They are underenrolled and recently renovated. The space isn't the issue.

Not OP, but the logic seems to be that high school and middle school students should have their own space.

Cardozo is huge. There is plenty of space for both.

Agree. In 2014-15 there were a total of 781 students in the Cardozo building - 143 middle school age students and 781 high school students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

calexander wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How many middle schools does DCPS need? Are they all at current capacity? I think its so wasteful for DCPS to keep giving in to neighborhoods who think they have to have a school two blocks from their house. Dunbar, Coolidge both at what 50% capacity? Wilson is over crowded. The City never needed to rebuild Dunbar. McFarland reopening and now Brookland Middle reopening? I really doubt there is a need for a Shaw Middle School. What folks need is a middle school that actually serves the kids and what the parents want for their kids. DCPS can build it but that in no way makes parents want it (see Brookland Middle and all their big ideas that did not happen)

The push to rebuild the city's middle schools comes because DCPS created a bunch of K-8 "education campuses" about a dozen year ago that turned out to be less than satisfactory to most. Kids scattered like the wind. Now, they are trying to fix that mistake.

Say what you want about Dunbar, Roosevelt (and Coolidge). Their physical plants were disaster areas and definitely needed reinvestment.

And many of those kids went to charter schools. It's simply not reasonable to assume that they will all come back to DCPS once they finish this whole rebuilding effort. In the meantime the law requires them[u] to lease surplus schools to approved charters which generally are paying ridiculous commercial rates for physical plants that were never meant to be schools.

Absolutely true. However, what is "reasonable to assume" about what the future holds is up for debate. In the end, a judge is probably going to have to make that distinction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You all are chicken shit. Becky has the balls to put herself out there like that and not hide in the shadows of anonymity like you. Instead of crapping all over her effort, why don't you add something constructive. Oh, that's right, it's because you are empty of ideas and the only thing you know how to do is bring people down.

Chickenshit? I've been working in education long before you moved DC. I'm on 3 city wide education groups in the city and 10 years ago I worked on issues to make a middle school happen in Shaw. This is happening in my own backyard, yet I know nothing about it.

I imagine a few white, upper SES parents parents sitting around on weekends with their 5 year olds and infants in citi-minis talking about how the are going to "fix" the schools.

PP, you're not wrong. I know it, Becky knows it, and the other PP probably knows it as well. You want the baby parents to put themselves in your position, but you don't seem to be willing to reciprocate. Do you know how demoralizing it is to constantly be told, "It'll never work, we tried it 2, 5, 10 years ago, and it'll never work"? Do you know how insulting it is to be told, "Well, your kids are young, so your opinions are not important"?

Since you've been around, working on these things for a while, you know that parent engagement is hard. You know that it's comparatively easy to get people to come to one organizing meeting, particularly when their kids are young, but that it gets progressively harder as time goes by and people acquire other commitments and priorities. One of the things that I think the parents of younger children have going for them is the cheerful idealism that motivates them to consider this stuff in the first place. Their kids are just starting school, so talking about middle school is largely academic. They do not have to make realistic calculations about their family's future in DC or consider the options that are on the table right now. They can say, "Well, Brookland Middle just opened, we'll see what happens, maybe in 5-10 years, when my kid is ready, it will be a great place!"

Their needs are different than your needs, which is actually a strength in a coalition. Unfortunately, educational needs are a little bit of a one-way flow: you know what the parents of PK kids are experiencing, because your kids were once in PK too, but they don't know anything about what your kid in grade 5+ is experiencing or what they need, because they haven't gotten there yet. Rather than shooting down the ideas of people who want to help, perhaps try offering non-derisive perspective from your experiences on what worked and what didn't work. You want to talk about engaging the families of older kids? That's hard to do, without an introduction. Becky posted her personal email. Why don't you drop her a line and suggest that she have coffee with those families you're talking about?

You've given me a lot to think about. And, while I rarely say this on DCUM, you are right.
Probably at least I can offer her some of the contacts and lessons learned from our groups.

[Anonymous]

Whoa, WTF just happened here? Maturity!? Progress?!?? We need to bookmark this moment. Kudos.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Working with DCPS has burned a lot of people, but I don't think that the situation is as hopeless as some of you make it out to be.

With a lot of ground work by a lot of people, MacFarland went from nothing to having a budget and a building. It has the posibility of becoming a good middle school option. It will reopen next year (inside Roosevelt) with a small cadre of dual-language students and grow around that until the renovated building opens in 18/19. That is something that the city promised during the boundary debates and it is actually taking steps to make it a reality.

Now, is it going to be a perfect dream school that satisfies every constituency? Not likely. But the potential is there.

So, OP, to quote the great philosopher Kanye West:

“Now I can let these dream killers kill my self esteem-or use my arrogance as steam to power my dreams!!!”

Reach out to other groups. Reach out to current parents. Reach out to feeder school parents. Don't put your faith in the Central Office, but learn about the levers that make it move. It can happen.

One thing I'm sure of, is that I don't want my children going to school with anyone who thinks Kanye West is some sort of philosopher. Ew!

YIKES!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You all are chicken shit. Becky has the balls to put herself out there like that and not hide in the shadows of anonymity like you. Instead of crapping all over her effort, why don't you add something constructive. Oh, that's right, it's because you are empty of ideas and the only thing you know how to do is bring people down.

It is constructive. Let the city turn the building over to a real school that you may actually want to send your child to someday! Don't be an obstructionist!

Yes because Kent Amos did such a great job. Just because it is charter doesn't mean it's good.

True.

Unfortunately, being a DCPS means it's automatically not good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's not like you can choose what kind of charter is going to end up there or what age, population it will serve. The neighborhood is in need of a middle school. A charter school for adult learners or incarcerated youth, while great things, is not what we need. And that could very well be the focus of this hypothetical charter school. No thanks. I would rather hedge my bet on a DCPS middle school that has already been contemplated in the boundary plan.

That is because you don't get it. You actually have more influence over this than anything in DCPS.

As an example, look at the current location of Mundo Verde. A charter school for kids with disciplinary problems was slated for that space, but the neighbors threw a fit and got Mundo Verde instead.

Exactly. I am one of those neighbors, and I'm thrilled we didn't get the problem high-schoolers. Keep your trash in your own neighborhood. Mundo Verde is very welcome.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You all are chicken shit. Becky has the balls to put herself out there like that and not hide in the shadows of anonymity like you. Instead of crapping all over her effort, why don't you add something constructive. Oh, that's right, it's because you are empty of ideas and the only thing you know how to do is bring people down.

Why should I care about Becky's balls? Isn't that her wife's job? Or husband's job? Or whomever wants to touch her down there's job?

It sure as hell ain't my job.

Shaw Middle is going to be as warmly received as Brookland Middle. And I don't need to touch anyone's balls to see the obvious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Working with DCPS has burned a lot of people, but I don't think that the situation is as hopeless as some of you make it out to be.

With a lot of ground work by a lot of people, MacFarland went from nothing to having a budget and a building. It has the posibility of becoming a good middle school option. It will reopen next year (inside Roosevelt) with a small cadre of dual-language students and grow around that until the renovated building opens in 18/19. That is something that the city promised during the boundary debates and it is actually taking steps to make it a reality.

Now, is it going to be a perfect dream school that satisfies every constituency? Not likely. But the potential is there.

So, OP, to quote the great philosopher Kanye West:

“Now I can let these dream killers kill my self esteem-or use my arrogance as steam to power my dreams!!!”

Reach out to other groups. Reach out to current parents. Reach out to feeder school parents. Don't put your faith in the Central Office, but learn about the levers that make it move. It can happen.

One thing I'm sure of, is that I don't want my children going to school with anyone who thinks Kanye West is some sort of philosopher. Ew!

YIKES!

Way to miss the entire point. Golf clap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

calexander wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can you explain why you even want Cardozo to move? They are underenrolled and recently renovated. The space isn't the issue.

Not OP, but the logic seems to be that high school and middle school students should have their own space.

Cardozo is huge. There is plenty of space for both.

who in the heck would want their 11 year old that close to the Carodozo high school and the behavioral/violent problems of those students?

[Anonymous]

Any problem behaviors start in middle school, not high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Any problem behaviors start in middle school, not high school.

Exactly. Those kids will come to your Shaw middle school too. So take the 50 million to renovate and get some intensive social, psychological and acadrmic sipports in place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any problem behaviors start in middle school, not high school.

Exactly. Those kids will come to your Shaw middle school too. So take the 50 million to renovate and get some intensive social, psychological and acadrmic sipports in place.

That is where the logic fails. They renovate, but they don't change the programming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any problem behaviors start in middle school, not high school.

Exactly. Those kids will come to your Shaw middle school too. So take the 50 million to renovate and get some intensive social, psychological and acadrmic sipports in place.

That is where the logic fails. They renovate, but they don't change the programming.

They're renovating Roosevelt and changing the programming, so I don't think that's true.