Feedback on Hearst ES

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hearst’s capacity is 325, and its enrollment for this year is 312. So hardly over capacity. The outrage towards OOB children seems a bit irrational.

So basically Hearst will be at capacity in the next year. The community needs to decide whether Hearst should be enlarged further to maintain significant OOB enrollment. Would Hearst be okay if DCPS basically imposes a minimum OOB enrollment as they appently are doing as John Eaton is modernized?

I think Eaton is being enlarged as it’s being renovated to prepare for a projected increase in IB kids. Hearst has just been renovated, so I don’t know that that’s in the cards.

DCPS is insisting that Eaton be expanded to an enrollment level that is significantly higher than projected IB demand. Even today, Eaton is still 40 percent OOB and yet it is overcapacity in its present building today. That’s crazy. Although DCPS cut the size of the renovated Eaton somewhat, DCPs still is pushing a building expansion that exceeds projected local needs. This will result in further reducing the playground space on the smallest school site in Northwest. Despite the onerous site constraints, DCPS wants to maintain a significant OOB presence at Eaton going forward because there are fewer and fewer opportunities to do so in other elementary schools WOTP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hearst’s capacity is 325, and its enrollment for this year is 312. So hardly over capacity. The outrage towards OOB children seems a bit irrational.

It’s not just that it’s overcrowded. It’s that it’s not equally distributed. The early grades are getting crushed. All these sanctimonious 4th and 5th grade parents are reminiscing about a school that no longer exists. It was nice to accommodate OOB kids when classes were 18-20 kids. Come on down off your pedistal and see what 26 kids looks like.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hearst’s capacity is 325, and its enrollment for this year is 312. So hardly over capacity. The outrage towards OOB children seems a bit irrational.

It’s not just that it’s overcrowded. It’s that it’s not equally distributed. The early grades are getting crushed. All these sanctimonious 4th and 5th grade parents are reminiscing about a school that no longer exists. It was nice to accommodate OOB kids when classes were 18-20 kids. Come on down off your pedistal and see what 26 kids looks like.

Sometimes achieving social justice requires sacrifice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hearst’s capacity is 325, and its enrollment for this year is 312. So hardly over capacity. The outrage towards OOB children seems a bit irrational.

So basically Hearst will be at capacity in the next year. The community needs to decide whether Hearst should be enlarged further to maintain significant OOB enrollment. Would Hearst be okay if DCPS basically imposes a minimum OOB enrollment as they appently are doing as John Eaton is modernized?

This is my perhaps naive understanding of how things work. Schools have a building capacity. If that is not filled in a given year, OOB lottery slots are offered. If it is, they’re not. My concern as a dcps parent is how many students there are for each classroom teacher in an elementary school like Hearst. As far as I know, that’s not affected by how many students there are total. If a school goes over capacity, that’s not because of OOB students, it’s because of an increase in IB students. So I’m not sure how OOB students are a problem.

Ensuring that a school doesn’t go over coacity is the principal’s job. As IB enrollment climbs, OOB needs to be managed down. The problem is that an OOB student has the right to remain at the school through the end of 5th grade (and then to go to overcrowded Deal and Wilson, but that’s a different issue). Add sibling enrollment rights to that, and it can be a long time before an OOB family cycles through the school. It’s a bit like turning a large ship. What the principal needs to do, once the school reaches near-capacity and with IB enrollment continuing to climb is to resist political pressure from the central office or the temptation to some marginal per pupil dollars, and to avoid filling spots that may open in certain grades even as the school is quite full. Otherwise, it becomes very difficult to throttle OOB enrollment back even with the school at capacity.

PP here. That makes a lot of sense. Is there any chance some of the PTA funds could be used to ease the transition by hiring extra teachers or co-teachers when the number of kids in a class unexpectedly exceeds a given number? I know we pay for co-teachers in the early grades. Just thinking out loud.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hearst’s capacity is 325, and its enrollment for this year is 312. So hardly over capacity. The outrage towards OOB children seems a bit irrational.

So basically Hearst will be at capacity in the next year. The community needs to decide whether Hearst should be enlarged further to maintain significant OOB enrollment. Would Hearst be okay if DCPS basically imposes a minimum OOB enrollment as they appently are doing as John Eaton is modernized?

This is my perhaps naive understanding of how things work. Schools have a building capacity. If that is not filled in a given year, OOB lottery slots are offered. If it is, they’re not. My concern as a dcps parent is how many students there are for each classroom teacher in an elementary school like Hearst. As far as I know, that’s not affected by how many students there are total. If a school goes over capacity, that’s not because of OOB students, it’s because of an increase in IB students. So I’m not sure how OOB students are a problem.

Ensuring that a school doesn’t go over coacity is the principal’s job. As IB enrollment climbs, OOB needs to be managed down. The problem is that an OOB student has the right to remain at the school through the end of 5th grade (and then to go to overcrowded Deal and Wilson, but that’s a different issue). Add sibling enrollment rights to that, and it can be a long time before an OOB family cycles through the school. It’s a bit like turning a large ship. What the principal needs to do, once the school reaches near-capacity and with IB enrollment continuing to climb is to resist political pressure from the central office or the temptation to some marginal per pupil dollars, and to avoid filling spots that may open in certain grades even as the school is quite full. Otherwise, it becomes very difficult to throttle OOB enrollment back even with the school at capacity.

PP here. That makes a lot of sense. Is there any chance some of the PTA funds could be used to ease the transition by hiring extra teachers or co-teachers when the number of kids in a class unexpectedly exceeds a given number? I know we pay for co-teachers in the early grades. Just thinking out loud.

Probably not. It costs $100k to support just one extra teacher. That’s a big number for any school, let a small school that is not named Mann.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hearst’s capacity is 325, and its enrollment for this year is 312. So hardly over capacity. The outrage towards OOB children seems a bit irrational.

312 was for 17-18. Way over that for 18-19.

[Anonymous]

It sounds like Hearst is getting such an influx that eliminating OOB is just going to be a temporary fix, if that. And there’s no point in getting upset at the new IB kids, since they have a legal right to be there. Something is going to have to change. I have no idea what.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hearst’s capacity is 325, and its enrollment for this year is 312. So hardly over capacity. The outrage towards OOB children seems a bit irrational.

It’s not just that it’s overcrowded. It’s that it’s not equally distributed. The early grades are getting crushed. All these sanctimonious 4th and 5th grade parents are reminiscing about a school that no longer exists. It was nice to accommodate OOB kids when classes were 18-20 kids. Come on down off your pedistal and see what 26 kids looks like.

Sometimes achieving social justice requires sacrifice.

Sometimes holier-than-thou types should pipe down and think logically.

[Anonymous]

Well they are eliminating OOB. They aren’t even accommodating all OOB with siblings, so those with nonoreferencr have no shot in the lottery.

[Anonymous]

I don’t think the 26:1 ratio is Hearst, as we have partner teachers through 2nd grade, and the upper grades aren’t that large.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think the 26:1 ratio is Hearst, as we have partner teachers through 2nd grade, and the upper grades aren’t that large.

Seems really unlikely. My child’s early elementary class there has 20 kids, one teacher, and a partner teacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think the 26:1 ratio is Hearst, as we have partner teachers through 2nd grade, and the upper grades aren’t that large.

Seems really unlikely. My child’s early elementary class there has 20 kids, one teacher, and a partner teacher.

Third grade parent at Hearst. Both classes are 25:1. My younger is 26:2. But 2nd grade is 25 or 26 in each class and one partner teacher who goes back and forth (she’s shared between the two classes).

[Anonymous]

Hearst has no room to add additional classrooms, no room to go from 2 classes per grade to 3 per grade. I’m not sure how Eaton got so crowded but unless they added a trailer to Hearst, I don’t see how DCPS could significantly expand the population.

[Anonymous]

Adding trailers is a small price to pay so that Hearst and Eaton can do their part to ensure an integrated public school system. One City!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Adding trailers is a small price to pay so that Hearst and Eaton can do their part to ensure an integrated public school system. One City!

Can’t speak for Hearst, but for Eaton adding trailers would be an astronomical price to pay: it’s one city block with a tiny playground and no room to expand. I’m glad you’re not in charge of our monderization.