Cardozo Feeder Pattern Middle School

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Save Shaw folks are preoccupied with having been wronged. Prevents them from talking about any other solution than clawing the Shaw site back from Banneker. It’s a shame because a lot of effort has been wasted on a hopeless cause.

I think it is about time downtown and the mayor's office faced some blowback for their habit of treating families and schools like crap. Hopefully this results in some real improvements at Cardozo. But that is the compromise result and Save Shaw should keep the pressure on, not fold.

Save Shaw would be able to apply more pressure if they had a viable demand. As seen from this weeks oversight hearings their leverage is minimal.

Why is their demand not viable? Banneker should be allowed to take whatever they want, is that why?

[Anonymous]

Because that decision is made. So negotiate the best Plan B you can.

Or keep venting your collective spleens and wind up with nothing or another option you hate.

[Anonymous]

Shrill and unsubstantiated cries of corruption and conspiracy undermine the Save Shaw position. DCPS isn’t saying that there hasn’t been discussion of how to use old Banneker. Individuals in the room may have a preferred option. They are saying that there hasn’t been a decision on what to do with the site. Mid level bureaucrats proposing and discussing ideas is legitimate deliberative process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because that decision is made. So negotiate the best Plan B you can.

Or keep venting your collective spleens and wind up with nothing or another option you hate.

I think it is important to have public accountability for their poor treatment of Cardozo and its feeders, both in their taking away a promised building, and the years of neglect that got us to this place. Letting them walk all over us may be convenient for Banneker but it will not be healthy for the school district as a whole. We have to stand up for ourselves even if we may not end up with a freestanding MS. It is about the principle of how DCPS treats families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because that decision is made. So negotiate the best Plan B you can.

Or keep venting your collective spleens and wind up with nothing or another option you hate.

I think it is important to have public accountability for their poor treatment of Cardozo and its feeders, both in their taking away a promised building, and the years of neglect that got us to this place. Letting them walk all over us may be convenient for Banneker but it will not be healthy for the school district as a whole. We have to stand up for ourselves even if we may not end up with a freestanding MS. It is about the principle of how DCPS treats families.

how many current Cardozo MS and HS parents showed up last night?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because that decision is made. So negotiate the best Plan B you can.

Or keep venting your collective spleens and wind up with nothing or another option you hate.

I think it is important to have public accountability for their poor treatment of Cardozo and its feeders, both in their taking away a promised building, and the years of neglect that got us to this place. Letting them walk all over us may be convenient for Banneker but it will not be healthy for the school district as a whole. We have to stand up for ourselves even if we may not end up with a freestanding MS. It is about the principle of how DCPS treats families.

how many current Cardozo MS and HS parents showed up last night?

I don't know, but the poor outcomes at Cardozo year after year indicate it is not getting the attention from downtown that is needed. They have neglected it for years and will continue unless we force their hand.

[Anonymous]

That’s not the point. You need a broader base of support than the gentrifiers to get traction.

[Anonymous]

Downtown has absolutely been neglecting Cardozo, and they absolutely need to work harder at making it a better school. I am hopeful about some of the changes coming but I also doubt it will be enough.

But we as citizens have also been neglecting Cardozo. We owe it to the children of DC to invest more in the improvement of that school. Clearly the city isn't doing enough. We need to visit the school, we need to meet the teachers/principal, we need to see what the problems are with our own eyes, we need to know the reality more than the rumor. We, as a community, need to rally around this school. This DOES NOT mean we have to go to the school or commit our children. You can support a school, tour a school, invest in a school- and still ultimately decide it isn't the right choice for your child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Downtown has absolutely been neglecting Cardozo, and they absolutely need to work harder at making it a better school. I am hopeful about some of the changes coming but I also doubt it will be enough.

But we as citizens have also been neglecting Cardozo. We owe it to the children of DC to invest more in the improvement of that school. Clearly the city isn't doing enough. We need to visit the school, we need to meet the teachers/principal, we need to see what the problems are with our own eyes, we need to know the reality more than the rumor. We, as a community, need to rally around this school. This DOES NOT mean we have to go to the school or commit our children. You can support a school, tour a school, invest in a school- and still ultimately decide it isn't the right choice for your child.

I agree, but we also have to meet the needs of the elementary schools and it is hard to juggle everything while raising small kids too. I had planned to get involved with the Shaw MS process when it started (because I believed that we were going to have one as promised, foolish me) so I didn't take much interest in Cardozo. If they had been honest with us that Shaw MS was never their intent, people might have engaged with Cardozo Middle. Their lies set us back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because that decision is made. So negotiate the best Plan B you can.

Or keep venting your collective spleens and wind up with nothing or another option you hate.

I think it is important to have public accountability for their poor treatment of Cardozo and its feeders, both in their taking away a promised building, and the years of neglect that got us to this place. Letting them walk all over us may be convenient for Banneker but it will not be healthy for the school district as a whole. We have to stand up for ourselves even if we may not end up with a freestanding MS. It is about the principle of how DCPS treats families.

how many current Cardozo MS and HS parents showed up last night?

Zero. It was mainly Garrison and Seaton folks.

[Anonymous]

Save Shaw, folks. You've got to let go of the "their lies" thing. The outcome of the boundary review was a policy document. It contained recommendations. Some of the recommendations were implemented. Some were not.

There was never a promise to open a Shaw middle school at the Shaw site, just like there was no promise to reserve at least 10% of seats in each zoned middle school for NEW out of boundary students at 6th grade. Both are recommendations that DCPS did not implement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Save Shaw, folks. You've got to let go of the "their lies" thing. The outcome of the boundary review was a policy document. It contained recommendations. Some of the recommendations were implemented. Some were not.

There was never a promise to open a Shaw middle school at the Shaw site, just like there was no promise to reserve at least 10% of seats in each zoned middle school for NEW out of boundary students at 6th grade. Both are recommendations that DCPS did not implement.

+1. And, no one is promised a school in any particular location. DCPS is allowed to make these changes. You are promised a school, not a school that you necessarily love or that meets all of your criteria.

[Anonymous]

DCPS has been a shambles for years, and in particular under the last two Mayors. Focus on that. The goal of DCPS has been on accomplishing "equity," which effectively means they can implement whatever decision they want with minimal pushback. If you want the balance to be tilted back even slightly to accommodate "academic excellence" as a policy goal, then you need to find and support an opponent who can defeat Bowser, in the next election cycle.

Trying to create a middle school in Shaw with academic excellence as a goal is a dead end. Sorry, but I've been watching these guys for years and that's the behavior I've observed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Save Shaw, folks. You've got to let go of the "their lies" thing. The outcome of the boundary review was a policy document. It contained recommendations. Some of the recommendations were implemented. Some were not.

There was never a promise to open a Shaw middle school at the Shaw site, just like there was no promise to reserve at least 10% of seats in each zoned middle school for NEW out of boundary students at 6th grade. Both are recommendations that DCPS did not implement.

It isn't that the freestanding middle school was a lie, it is that the process in general has been fraught with chronic lying, just like every other experience I have had with downtown in my many years of DCPS involvement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Save Shaw, folks. You've got to let go of the "their lies" thing. The outcome of the boundary review was a policy document. It contained recommendations. Some of the recommendations were implemented. Some were not.

There was never a promise to open a Shaw middle school at the Shaw site, just like there was no promise to reserve at least 10% of seats in each zoned middle school for NEW out of boundary students at 6th grade. Both are recommendations that DCPS did not implement.

It isn't that the freestanding middle school was a lie, it is that the process in general has been fraught with chronic lying, just like every other experience I have had with downtown in my many years of DCPS involvement.

Yeah, the lying (or, more charitably, obfuscation) occurs so frequently over such a long time that it's a feature not a bug of the DCPS bureaucracy. Going hand in hand with the obfuscation is the incompetence, e.g.: never having the correct enrollment projections when reliable data is easily available; cutting school budgets without regard for the prior year's FTEs; not accounting for life cycles for computer technology; relatedly, from the outset, not purchasing enough computers/laptops to be used by current numbers of staff and students; also relatedly, purchasing IT technology within any given school from different manufacturers which use different operating systems (!); and of course not enough money for paper, pencils, and such. Just to name a few examples.