Lee Montessori - Brookland
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Anonymous
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How are the elementary classes and teachers at Lee Montessori - Brookland? Are current families happy and are students thriving at Lee?
Why are there so many open staff positions? |
Anonymous
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In 8 years total of elementary at Lee my kids have had great teachers, and most parents seem to be positive about their kids’ teachers (though the ones who aren’t probably moved their kids out of the school...) Teachers leave for different reasons. Two elementary teachers have been poached by Aiden Montessori in the last few years; at least one is leaving the area; one is taking a break after being there for a bunch of years. And some are probably unhappy with the school for various reasons - it’s going to happen anywhere.
If you have any more specific questions or worries I’ll try to answer them. |
Anonymous
| Take a look-see at the test scores (especially the racial breakdown) and compare them to the demographics of the school. |
Anonymous
| The test scores are appallingly bad. Like why isn't this school treated like other failing charters bad. The families seem mostly happy. |
Anonymous
The PCSB seems to think if high-income families are happy then it's fine. As if there's some special right to operate a failing school with public funds just because well off people like it. School closures are something we only do to poor kids. |
Anonymous
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They are up for 10-year review in SY 23-24. Honestly I expect they will clear the (very low) bar for review, since it doesn't control for performance relative to demographics.
They'll be all "We don't teach to the test, we're soooo Montessori", and honestly that could get me to accept some underwhelming scores like mostly 3s rather than 4s. But there are waaaaaay too many kids scoring 1s at Lee. It's alarming. https://dcpcsb.org/sites/default/files/media/file/2019-09-09%20Charter%20Review%20and%20Renewal%20Schedule%20Thru%202025-26.pdf |
Anonymous
When is the last time ANY school tested kids? I'd advise you to ask on the Brookland or other neighborhood kids groups |
Anonymous
Yes, ask people if their kid is doing terrible on the PARCC. They'll definitely tell you. |
Anonymous
The rising 6th grades took PARCC for the first time this year- they will get their scores in the fall just like everyone else. The rising 4th graders also took PARCC for the first time. They, like everyone else in DC were in what? Kindergarten? 1st grade? last time a PARCC was administered. |
Anonymous
The thing about asking in the neighborhood is people usually won't respond unless they have mostly positive things to say. So you won't get the full picture. And at Lee, there are so few older kids (because people leave!!) that there aren't a lot of people who respond to your outreach. That's why people ask on DCUM-- because people will speak plainly about negative things as well as the positive. There are other things than PARCC, OP, you can ask about iReady testing if you like. |
Anonymous
The problem with DCUM is that people with no direct experience in the school will comments as well and it is usually negative. I wouldn’t make any decision based on DCUM’s opinions. |
Anonymous
I agree, but I think posters in this thread have been mostly fair and I do think it's hard to ask people in real life and expect them to say bad things about a school they are/were at. Lee has had terrible for demographics test scores and families do seem mostly happy. Of course its possible that things have massively improved in this most recent round of testing, but that seems very unlikely given the pandemic... Maybe they won't be as comparatively bad because lower SES scores are going to fall off of a cliff and Lee has comparatively few lower SES kids? That's about the best they can hope for. |
Anonymous
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We were at Lee Brookland for PK3 a handful of years ago. So things may have changed. We left after pk3. I will say that my child learned more about sorting, folding, washing and cutting vegetables that anything academic. They loved that part.
The teacher would tell us that my child usually sat alone and worked on the same thing. The teacher was expecting them to move on their own to the next task. He did not, so he did the same thing all day. I have heard that this happens with Montessori if the child is not self-directed. We moved to a more traditional school and child thrived with more structure. |
Anonymous
DCUM is good for flagging issues for the OP to follow up on. OP, you can research the test scores and decide how much you care about it. But remember, OP-- unlike various Ward 5 DCPS schools, Lee is not gentrifying. It's not the situation where you have a lot of higher-income kids in the lower grades and lower-income kids in the upper grades and you're expecting that the gentrification will gradually creep upwards and test scores will improve. Lee already *has* the high-income kids, yet still test scores are bad. And while it's possible Lee could improve or has improved since the last PARCC test in 2019, it's also possible for schools to stagnate or get worse-- especially in a situation where the ECE is pretty good but the upper elementary is lacking and parents are opening their eyes to it. See Mundo Verde for an example. |
Anonymous
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We are friends with a few families with kids in the first class at Lee who are now in 6th grade. They love it and their kids are thriving. I see these kids a lot and they are wonderful and intelligent and curious. We also have friends who had kids there and left because it wasn't a good fit.
In other words, you'd get a very different impression of the school depending on who you happen to talk to. |