Overcrowding and lack of space in Ward 3 Schools
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
Why is crowding in quotes? Do you have alternative facts? |
Anonymous
Class sizes below hte high school level are below 25 in every school. Many early grades with multiple teachers. Compare to Arlington or Montgomery where class sizes approach 30 in K or 1st, with 1 teacher. |
Anonymous
Apples and oranges. The PARCC scores show that most DC students score well below those in neighboring jurisdictions. And yet you seem to be comfortable with larger class sizes. Really? |
Anonymous
Brent turns away kids with siblings for pre-k. If we have a halfway decent by-right MS to head for, we'd be in a mess (with no room for classroom trailers on our tiny campus). As things stand, we're merely close to bursting at the seams. |
Anonymous
Most DC Students are living below the poverty line. Now you're comparing apples and oranges. When you compare apples to apples, wealthy kids in DC outperform MoCo. |
Anonymous
Hah yeah right |
Anonymous
What part? Don't be jealous boo. You're so funny that you would compare DC (with over 3/4 kids in poverty) and then throw out that comparison. Alternative facts. |
Anonymous
Hei, what is wrong with you? The scores have been posted here before and DC apples outscore any all apples in the whole country, not just MC and FF, but MA and CT. It makes absolutely sens, because DC white population is small but highly educated. We are talking about ward 3 students, right? Why do you bring in most DC students to compare to your MOCO? I can't help most DC kids with their score. We few of the poor white families trying to survive in NWDC. My kid score 5s on that test and he is an average kid at best. School is doing something right because he sure isn't doing his homework or reading. |
Anonymous
|
Why do we still go on at this day and age that DC scores suck. Yes, ofcourse they suck if put all together. They don't suck however when we look at the top 10-15 schools and most of those are in ward 3. There is nothing wrong with those schools and they have very involved parents who support the school in every way.
My "friend" used to say: best DC school is worse that worst FF school". My "friend" is an idiot and I'm glad she moved to FL. I have no idea what made her think that I would let my kid go to a shitty school. We both went through the same school system in Europe and somehow she thinks I don't recognize a bad school and let my kid go there?! I don't understand how the bad score on the other side of the city affect my kid. I'm sorry they don't do as well, but how can I help! |
Anonymous
Well that's a whole different discussion, and a can or worms that most people aren't really interested in working on. |
Anonymous
One thing we do know is that the primary cause doesn't lie with the schools. Ward 3 schools are good because they are filled with well-supported, smart kids. There is otherwise nothing fundamentally different about these schools, and letting in some OOB kids is not going to improve matters for the populations of the city as a whole. Neither would mixing things up with a city wide lottery, because even if upper SES families didn't run for hills in that scenario, the ratio of higher SES to poor kids in DC is still too low to lift everyone up. I wish I had a solution. |
Anonymous
Class size isn't the only metric of crowding. Adding more classrooms doesn't make the library bigger, or the gymnasium, or the lunchroom, or the playground. Crowding erodes the quality of every aspect of school life. It's cold comfort that there's only 25 kids in the class when you have to eat lunch in 10-minute shifts. |
Anonymous
And kids all over the city don't have gyms or libraries or playgrounds. Fix that first. |
Anonymous
True that DCPS does a better job of managing the crowding and mitigating the impact on students in the classroom generally. In the end, space is finite -- the next step is crowding the classroom, which is already happening at Wilson and Janney, and we simply do not have to do that. There are options, which have been discussed. In the mean time, there are too many students for the facilities. This has an effect on number of PE minutes and availability of other specials (art, music, etc.), lunch logistics, maintenance of the physical plant, ability to assemble as a whole school in the multipurpose space, ability of children to be on a school sports team (only 12 out of 700 get to play b-ball; Deal coaches have said they have enough kids and talent to field multiple teams per sport, but DC only lets them have one, so hundreds of kids are left out of school sports), or participate in a play or musical, and as trailers are added to allow for those manageable class sizes, outdoor space is eliminated and as city schools, the amount of physical space is limited already, as is parking, and lets talk about the stress on traffic and pedestrian safety when 10% of DCPS students (almost 5000 kids) converge on 4 of DC's largest schools each only one block/park away from the next. Schools in the area have almost doubled in size in the last 8 years. That is rapid growth, it is straining the infrastructure, and so far DC has been reacting, not planning. |
Anonymous
And you can't fix that by stuffing them all into one school that does have those facilities. And DC can't do just one thing at at a time. There are multiple pressing problems. |