Maury Capitol Hill

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Miner does have parents that are trying their hardest to improve the school. All parents automatically join PTA and even donate their entire month’s salary to the PTA.
The PTA at Miner were able to obtain additional faculty because they paid their salary. These folks want the best for their child and their classmates no matter where they attend. So please, can we stop with the Miner parents don’t try hard enough stuff?

This is inaccurate. The Miner PTO has never raised enough money to fund staff.

I was told that the 2nd gym teacher was hired because of PTA funding.

That’s not accurate. He was hired several years ago when the District told the schools that k-5 students had to start having two PE classes a week. The LSAT made hiring that position a budget priority so even PreK students could have PE twice a week. The PTO works very hard but they do not raise $100k per year which is the approximate value assigned to a teacher salary.

Thank you, my apologies for spreading misinformation.
I will point out that it is a fact the PTA encourages its members to donate an equivalent to their monthly salary and parents do care and try hard to improve school.

It’s actually the equivalent of the cost of one month of daycare. It’s suggested but of course not required of the PreK families who would be paying for daycare (which we all know is $$$$ in DC). Only a small portion actually do it sadly, as many argue they don’t want to give money to the whole school since they aren’t staying beyond PreK.

Not a Miner family but we go to a Title 1 school and are not at risk but are MC (not wealthy). I will tell you I would find that recommendation off-putting because family finances are complicated. We would not have paid for daycare if free Pk were not available in DC -- we would either have moved out of the district or I would have stayed home an extra year (I worked PT from home before PK). Also, even though the PK is free in the sense you don't pay tuition, if you pay taxes in DC, you still pay for it.

The thing is, we probably did donate about equivalent to a month of preschool tuition to our school anyway. I just would have found that framing really obnoxious, like I personally owe it to the school. That's not how I think about PTA donations at all. To me it's about providing funding for kids who don't have the same resources, and about providing general resources to the school and teachers to improve the school for all students, including mine. Plus being able to fund community events that help us connect and come together. Making it sound like payment for something is really obnoxious to me.

[Anonymous]

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At the end of the day some of us are trying to engage with human behavior as it actually is and make our predictions data-based and realistic. Are you?

Absolutely and data shows that kids who go to a more diverse school (whether racially, socioeconomically, or academically) can benefit ALL the students.

No it does not. Busing (which is basically what this is) is pretty much universally accepted to be a failure by all sides. In contrast, creating diversity through actual community participation - ie creating schools where IB families chose to go - can result in positive impacts. But at the end of the day there are not enough rich white kids to be the medicine to fix DCPS - and that it what fundamentally makes this a PR exercise and not a legitimate attempt for DCPS to solve its problems.

This is not "basically" busing. If they cluster the schools, no one will be bussed. They will go to their IB, neighborhood school unless they choose to lottery out or go private.

Bussing is when you take kids in one neighborhood and put them on an actual bus to send them to a school in another neighborhood. It has nothing to do with this situation at all.

It’s busing without the buses. Sending kids from one school to another for the sole purpose of demographics.

Oh it's not busing, just a far walk! Totally different!

3-4 blocks is “far”? Really?

It's far for a 3 year old. And the total commute of home-Maury-Miner-work adds up to a lot.

Is there any talk of a shuttle like Watkins used to have?

I would assume that would have to be parent (PTA) funded. I don’t disagree that it’s a bit of a walk for a 3 year old but I do think that when some Miner IB families are actually closer to Maury and some Maury IB are closer to Miner, it makes the distance argument one of the weaker ones.

Again, it's not necessarily the distance from A to Maury to work OR A to Miner to work (though it does seem like people have identified some significant changes to their commutes to work that would results from this). It's the distance of A to Maury to Miner to work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just want to note that I have done commutes of between .5 and 1 mile on foot with a 3 year old for both daycare and preschool and it's actually faster than walking with a 6 year old because you use a stroller. Do Maury families not have strollers? I am confused.

We used a stroller for PK4 drop off too, for most of the year, for the same reason. I think I broke it out for a few cold mornings in K when my kid was really dragging. Very handy devices, they come at all price points, I know you can get them used on MOTH for cheap.

Hope this helps.

That’s nice. But I can’t afford to walk the commute to two different schools because I have to be at my job by 9 AM. Not all of us are SAHMs.

Beforecare exists. Again, I’m not saying your concerns are invalid. I’m just saying when it comes to issues of equity and diversity, two stops are going to rank lower than issues that involve title 1 funding and at risk populations and more. They may be the most important to you, and that’s not irrelevant, but they aren’t going to be the most important to the district and the DME.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just want to note that I have done commutes of between .5 and 1 mile on foot with a 3 year old for both daycare and preschool and it's actually faster than walking with a 6 year old because you use a stroller. Do Maury families not have strollers? I am confused.

We used a stroller for PK4 drop off too, for most of the year, for the same reason. I think I broke it out for a few cold mornings in K when my kid was really dragging. Very handy devices, they come at all price points, I know you can get them used on MOTH for cheap.

Hope this helps.

That’s nice. But I can’t afford to walk the commute to two different schools because I have to be at my job by 9 AM. Not all of us are SAHMs.

One of the metrics DME considers is average commute in boundary. I would be interested to see how they calculated this for the proposed cluster. How many dual drop-off families did they estimate?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of these comments from non-Miner parents about how Miner parents should just invest in the school and fix it are ignorant.

First, as was explained quite early in this thread to explain why Maury and Miner have such different demographics to begin with, Miner has a significant amount of low income housing that Maury does not have. Even if every high-SES family IB for Miner sent their kids to Miner, it would still have a much higher percentage of low income and at-risk kids. Maury has little to no low-income housing in its boundary, which means that as it grew its IB percentage, it greatly shrank the at risk population. The same thing would not happen at Miner.

Second, Miner's location close to Benning road means that it is an attractive lottery option for kids coming from across the river. Thus, without buy-in from IB families, the school has a lot of kids from Wards 7 and 8 who statistically are more likely to be at risk. Maury used to get more Ward 7/8 students back when it was Title 1 with a lower IB percentage, but not nearly as much as Miner because it's location is a much less convenient commute, especially if you are taking public transportation.

Having a large low-income IB contingent and having a history of being a Ward 7/8 destination school can make the kind of upward trajectory that Maury has been on hard if not impossible. There is often fear that improving the school in a way that is appealing to higher SES families will destroy what these families value about the school. The most obvious concerns revolve around Title 1 status and access to free before/after care and free school lunch. That's not a small thing for a low-income family -- these benefits can be essential. Even if they were assured that the school would keep these services free for low income families, there is not a lot of trust there and also no one wants to have to jump through hoops for something they currently get without even having to sign up.

Often MC and UMC families will stick it out until K or 1st, but then they start running into other issues, especially regarding teaching approach and classroom management. School with large at risk populations tend to attract teachers who are okay teaching large at risk populations. These teachers are not always thrilled about having an increasing number of higher SES kids in their class, and in particular are often very wary of the increased involvement and sometimes demands of these parents. Yes, there is a racial component here. But it's also just a culture clash. What seems like "being a good parent" to an UMC white person can seem like "overbearing, demanding ahole" to a teacher in this position.

At this point parents start making choices both for their own comfort (it can be emotionally tiring to constantly be trying to bridge these racial, economic, and cultural divides with sensitivity and self-awareness -- it is work) and for the sake of their kids, who they may worry will not always get the support or welcome in the classroom or the school that every parent wants for their kids. So they go.

For Maury parents to waive this off and say "just do what we did at Maury" like Maury did not have demographic advantages that made their success easier, is going to piss off Miner parents who have been working on this for years, whether they are still at Miner or not. Because it is SO EASY for Maury parents, especially those who are not PTA members or people who really worked to turn the school around, to just tell Miner parents to "do it yourself."

The truth is that "turning around" a struggling school with more than 60% at risk kids is not something that your average parent or even group of parents can do, especially not if you have a job and literally any other issues in your life. It is a steep uphill battle with low changes of success, and for most parents, any success will likely come after their kids are done with elementary. It is a different, and harder, challenge than what was accomplished at Maury.

No, it's that *DCPS* should invest in Miner, or at least stop screwing it over with horrible leadership choices.

Maury parents are trying to say the same thing you are-- that too high a concentration of at-risk kids makes it an uphill battle. And if Maury and Miner are clustered, it will be an uphill battle at both schools. That is why this proposal is unrealistic and will not have the desired effect.

But Maury is overwhelmingly higher income. So combining the schools immediately results in a more balanced population where, instead of one school that is mostly black and at risk, and one school that is predominantly white with very few at risk, you get a more diverse school with about 30-35% at risk.

A school with that percent of at-risk kids is harder to guide and help succeed than a school with 12% (as Maury now has), yes. But it's WAY easier than a school with 65% at risk, as Miner now has. So the resulting school would be a more difficult experience for Maury families, but a significantly better experience for Miner.

The question is whether you think it's wrong or not to inconvenience Maury families in order to help Miner families. This depends on how you view public education.

Well, this is how DCPS views public education:

Friday, September 22, 2017
In shaping DC Public Schools’ five-year strategic plan for 2017-2022, A Capital Commitment, we heard from more than 4,500 students, parents, educators and community members. Their ideas and feedback will guide our work as we strive to become a district of both excellence and equity—a place where every family feels welcome and every child is given the opportunities and support they need to thrive.

Parents have repeatedly asked how this cluster will give every child the opportunities and support they need to thrive, and yet DME has provided zero answers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You have to look at it from the DME standpoint: There is lots of literature about the problems/disadvantages associated with schools that have a high concentration of poverty. It even includes things like greater difficulties associated with attracting high quality leadership and staff and less PTO money/engagement. There is literature that economically disadvantaged students do better academically in schools when the majority of their peers are not similarly disadvantaged. The district focused on best serving all students would probably prefer to have most of its schools be 25-50% economically disadvantaged. Demographics do not often shake out like that in the real world.

This is precisely what Howard County schools do. The redistrict frequently with the goal of rebalancing boundaries in order to spread around lower income families. It's unpopular in certain pockets of the county, but people are largely very happy with the quality of schools from elementary to high school, and while there are sometimes controversy about specific boundary shifts, most of the time it's accepted and people move on.

If we accept we are talking about race, it’s not possible to rebalance the white kids in DC. They only make up 10% of the kids. In HoCo white and asian kids are 50%. DME is fiddling on the deck of the Titantic when it acts like “we just need to spread the white kids around, that will fix it!”

Wow!! This is as offensive as it gets, and I've seen some real doozies on this thread. White does not equal high SES anymore than black equals low SES. The PTA at Maury has disproportionately advantaged the students and staff at that school, and I don't blame the DME for trying to leverage that engagement and "spread the wealth around." As a parent of students in another Hill elementary who toured Maury I was absolutely flabbergasted that DCPS permits the PTA to essentially buy extra staffing and resources for its students. There's a vast difference between funding uniforms for sports teams and putting additional personnel in classrooms. I see so many complaints about what goes on in upper NW schools vs. Hill schools, but we've got a prime example of that excessive privilege right here in the middle of our community.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just want to note that I have done commutes of between .5 and 1 mile on foot with a 3 year old for both daycare and preschool and it's actually faster than walking with a 6 year old because you use a stroller. Do Maury families not have strollers? I am confused.

We used a stroller for PK4 drop off too, for most of the year, for the same reason. I think I broke it out for a few cold mornings in K when my kid was really dragging. Very handy devices, they come at all price points, I know you can get them used on MOTH for cheap.

Hope this helps.

That’s nice. But I can’t afford to walk the commute to two different schools because I have to be at my job by 9 AM. Not all of us are SAHMs.

Yes you can. You leave the house earlier. And I know that because I'm not a SAHM.

When you say stuff like "I couldn't possibly walk four blocks with a 3 year old and makes it to work on time! Do you know how slow 3 year olds walk?!" you sound like an idiot. Of course I know how slowly a 3 year old walks. Many of us have dealt with a whole variety of longish walking commutes for daycare and school and come up with practical solutions for them because that's the reality of being a parent. If you are throwing up your hands in exasperation because you might have to spend a year or two doing an extra 8 blocks round trip in your commute, then I hate to see how you respond to ACTUAL parenting problems like kids with special needs, bullying at school, mental health issues, etc. That is simply not a significant problem, I'm sorry. Figure it out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Miner does have parents that are trying their hardest to improve the school. All parents automatically join PTA and even donate their entire month’s salary to the PTA.
The PTA at Miner were able to obtain additional faculty because they paid their salary. These folks want the best for their child and their classmates no matter where they attend. So please, can we stop with the Miner parents don’t try hard enough stuff?

This is inaccurate. The Miner PTO has never raised enough money to fund staff.

I was told that the 2nd gym teacher was hired because of PTA funding.

That’s not accurate. He was hired several years ago when the District told the schools that k-5 students had to start having two PE classes a week. The LSAT made hiring that position a budget priority so even PreK students could have PE twice a week. The PTO works very hard but they do not raise $100k per year which is the approximate value assigned to a teacher salary.

Thank you, my apologies for spreading misinformation.
I will point out that it is a fact the PTA encourages its members to donate an equivalent to their monthly salary and parents do care and try hard to improve school.

It’s actually the equivalent of the cost of one month of daycare. It’s suggested but of course not required of the PreK families who would be paying for daycare (which we all know is $$$$ in DC). Only a small portion actually do it sadly, as many argue they don’t want to give money to the whole school since they aren’t staying beyond PreK.

Not a Miner family but we go to a Title 1 school and are not at risk but are MC (not wealthy). I will tell you I would find that recommendation off-putting because family finances are complicated. We would not have paid for daycare if free Pk were not available in DC -- we would either have moved out of the district or I would have stayed home an extra year (I worked PT from home before PK). Also, even though the PK is free in the sense you don't pay tuition, if you pay taxes in DC, you still pay for it.

The thing is, we probably did donate about equivalent to a month of preschool tuition to our school anyway. I just would have found that framing really obnoxious, like I personally owe it to the school. That's not how I think about PTA donations at all. To me it's about providing funding for kids who don't have the same resources, and about providing general resources to the school and teachers to improve the school for all students, including mine. Plus being able to fund community events that help us connect and come together. Making it sound like payment for something is really obnoxious to me.

Once again, my point was there are committed families trying to improve Miner and going at great lengths to do so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of these comments from non-Miner parents about how Miner parents should just invest in the school and fix it are ignorant.

First, as was explained quite early in this thread to explain why Maury and Miner have such different demographics to begin with, Miner has a significant amount of low income housing that Maury does not have. Even if every high-SES family IB for Miner sent their kids to Miner, it would still have a much higher percentage of low income and at-risk kids. Maury has little to no low-income housing in its boundary, which means that as it grew its IB percentage, it greatly shrank the at risk population. The same thing would not happen at Miner.

Second, Miner's location close to Benning road means that it is an attractive lottery option for kids coming from across the river. Thus, without buy-in from IB families, the school has a lot of kids from Wards 7 and 8 who statistically are more likely to be at risk. Maury used to get more Ward 7/8 students back when it was Title 1 with a lower IB percentage, but not nearly as much as Miner because it's location is a much less convenient commute, especially if you are taking public transportation.

Having a large low-income IB contingent and having a history of being a Ward 7/8 destination school can make the kind of upward trajectory that Maury has been on hard if not impossible. There is often fear that improving the school in a way that is appealing to higher SES families will destroy what these families value about the school. The most obvious concerns revolve around Title 1 status and access to free before/after care and free school lunch. That's not a small thing for a low-income family -- these benefits can be essential. Even if they were assured that the school would keep these services free for low income families, there is not a lot of trust there and also no one wants to have to jump through hoops for something they currently get without even having to sign up.

Often MC and UMC families will stick it out until K or 1st, but then they start running into other issues, especially regarding teaching approach and classroom management. School with large at risk populations tend to attract teachers who are okay teaching large at risk populations. These teachers are not always thrilled about having an increasing number of higher SES kids in their class, and in particular are often very wary of the increased involvement and sometimes demands of these parents. Yes, there is a racial component here. But it's also just a culture clash. What seems like "being a good parent" to an UMC white person can seem like "overbearing, demanding ahole" to a teacher in this position.

At this point parents start making choices both for their own comfort (it can be emotionally tiring to constantly be trying to bridge these racial, economic, and cultural divides with sensitivity and self-awareness -- it is work) and for the sake of their kids, who they may worry will not always get the support or welcome in the classroom or the school that every parent wants for their kids. So they go.

For Maury parents to waive this off and say "just do what we did at Maury" like Maury did not have demographic advantages that made their success easier, is going to piss off Miner parents who have been working on this for years, whether they are still at Miner or not. Because it is SO EASY for Maury parents, especially those who are not PTA members or people who really worked to turn the school around, to just tell Miner parents to "do it yourself."

The truth is that "turning around" a struggling school with more than 60% at risk kids is not something that your average parent or even group of parents can do, especially not if you have a job and literally any other issues in your life. It is a steep uphill battle with low changes of success, and for most parents, any success will likely come after their kids are done with elementary. It is a different, and harder, challenge than what was accomplished at Maury.

No, it's that *DCPS* should invest in Miner, or at least stop screwing it over with horrible leadership choices.

Maury parents are trying to say the same thing you are-- that too high a concentration of at-risk kids makes it an uphill battle. And if Maury and Miner are clustered, it will be an uphill battle at both schools. That is why this proposal is unrealistic and will not have the desired effect.

But Maury is overwhelmingly higher income. So combining the schools immediately results in a more balanced population where, instead of one school that is mostly black and at risk, and one school that is predominantly white with very few at risk, you get a more diverse school with about 30-35% at risk.

A school with that percent of at-risk kids is harder to guide and help succeed than a school with 12% (as Maury now has), yes. But it's WAY easier than a school with 65% at risk, as Miner now has. So the resulting school would be a more difficult experience for Maury families, but a significantly better experience for Miner.

The question is whether you think it's wrong or not to inconvenience Maury families in order to help Miner families. This depends on how you view public education.

A couple major problems with this stick out to me. One, no explanation of the real problems. Presumably, balancing the population is a goal because it is meant to help kids do better in school -- but DME has completely refused to explain how this move alone would help kids do better in school, let alone what additional support/resources they are willing to offer to actually help the kids (especially at-risk kids) attend school more consistently, reach grade level, etc.

Two, a misunderstanding of the demographics of Maury. Maury is not immune to attrition in the upper grades as some families leave the school, both to seek out a better elementary academic experience and to take a spot that will give them a better MS path. Not all high SES or education-focused families do this, but the ones who do this are naturally more likely to be higher SES (to have the resources to pay for private or travel to a farther school) or to really prioritize education, and as a result the demographics of the upper grades (most stark in 5th) are different from, for example, ECE. That's going to mean that the make-up of the 5th grade at a potential combined school is going to be especially challenging, which will lead more families to opt out before or at that point, which is not good for the school and which is disastrous for EH (which is not good for a lot of the Hill).

No one misunderstands the demographics at Maury or the fact that at many East side schools, there is attrition at 5th as parents send kids to Latin, BASIS, or go private. I know you think these are secrets only understood by Maury families, but these are well known issues in the district and Maury is not even close to the only school impacted.

In fact, this is exactly what happens at Miner, just earlier. PK is significantly more diverse than upper grades, and K and 1st are more diverse than 2-5. So Maury and Miner actually have the same problem, it's just worse at Miner because Miner's much higher at risk percentage (owing to boundary demographics that Miner can't do anything about) mean that the loss of higher SES families has a bigger impact than at Maury.

A combined boundary means not only combining the at risk populations, but also the high SES populations. Why couldn't a combined school be more successful at retaining more high-SES students through 5th? If the parents at Maury could combine with the parents at Miner who now ditch out after ECE or 1st, couldn't they create a strong cohort of students committed to staying IB through E-H? Lots of families do not want to commute all the way to Latin or BASIS from Hill East. It seems like there is an obvious solution to this -- stay IB. And with a combined school, you could have enough higher income families to make up for any attrition from families that still choose charters, privates, or moving.

I understand that the same thing happens at other schools, including Miner. I think that exacerbates the issues I pointed out.

If the grade level kids can be grouped together and the above–grade level kids can be grouped together, then maybe that makes sense. But if they're spread randomly throughout all of the classes, which at the PARCC grades would be about half below–grade level kids, I don't think that's going to be a strong enough cohort to attract parents that have other options. Realistically.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just want to note that I have done commutes of between .5 and 1 mile on foot with a 3 year old for both daycare and preschool and it's actually faster than walking with a 6 year old because you use a stroller. Do Maury families not have strollers? I am confused.

We used a stroller for PK4 drop off too, for most of the year, for the same reason. I think I broke it out for a few cold mornings in K when my kid was really dragging. Very handy devices, they come at all price points, I know you can get them used on MOTH for cheap.

Hope this helps.

That’s nice. But I can’t afford to walk the commute to two different schools because I have to be at my job by 9 AM. Not all of us are SAHMs.

Beforecare exists. Again, I’m not saying your concerns are invalid. I’m just saying when it comes to issues of equity and diversity, two stops are going to rank lower than issues that involve title 1 funding and at risk populations and more. They may be the most important to you, and that’s not irrelevant, but they aren’t going to be the most important to the district and the DME.

Try to see how logistical questions impact people's choice to enroll, which impacts equity and diversity. You can't force people to do this commute just because you think they should. We're tying to live in the real world, even if the DME isn't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Miner does have parents that are trying their hardest to improve the school. All parents automatically join PTA and even donate their entire month’s salary to the PTA.
The PTA at Miner were able to obtain additional faculty because they paid their salary. These folks want the best for their child and their classmates no matter where they attend. So please, can we stop with the Miner parents don’t try hard enough stuff?

This is inaccurate. The Miner PTO has never raised enough money to fund staff.

I was told that the 2nd gym teacher was hired because of PTA funding.

That’s not accurate. He was hired several years ago when the District told the schools that k-5 students had to start having two PE classes a week. The LSAT made hiring that position a budget priority so even PreK students could have PE twice a week. The PTO works very hard but they do not raise $100k per year which is the approximate value assigned to a teacher salary.

Thank you, my apologies for spreading misinformation.
I will point out that it is a fact the PTA encourages its members to donate an equivalent to their monthly salary and parents do care and try hard to improve school.

It’s actually the equivalent of the cost of one month of daycare. It’s suggested but of course not required of the PreK families who would be paying for daycare (which we all know is $$$$ in DC). Only a small portion actually do it sadly, as many argue they don’t want to give money to the whole school since they aren’t staying beyond PreK.

Not a Miner family but we go to a Title 1 school and are not at risk but are MC (not wealthy). I will tell you I would find that recommendation off-putting because family finances are complicated. We would not have paid for daycare if free Pk were not available in DC -- we would either have moved out of the district or I would have stayed home an extra year (I worked PT from home before PK). Also, even though the PK is free in the sense you don't pay tuition, if you pay taxes in DC, you still pay for it.

The thing is, we probably did donate about equivalent to a month of preschool tuition to our school anyway. I just would have found that framing really obnoxious, like I personally owe it to the school. That's not how I think about PTA donations at all. To me it's about providing funding for kids who don't have the same resources, and about providing general resources to the school and teachers to improve the school for all students, including mine. Plus being able to fund community events that help us connect and come together. Making it sound like payment for something is really obnoxious to me.

Know what else is obnoxious? DCPS' under-funding of Miner. Sorry but the truth is, to produce a school that high-SES, high-achievement families are willing to stick with through 5th takes a large amount of supplemental funding. That makes people sad, but it's the truth and there's no benefit to denying it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just want to note that I have done commutes of between .5 and 1 mile on foot with a 3 year old for both daycare and preschool and it's actually faster than walking with a 6 year old because you use a stroller. Do Maury families not have strollers? I am confused.

We used a stroller for PK4 drop off too, for most of the year, for the same reason. I think I broke it out for a few cold mornings in K when my kid was really dragging. Very handy devices, they come at all price points, I know you can get them used on MOTH for cheap.

Hope this helps.

I never used a stroller to walk my pre-K kids to school. It's not developmentally appropriate at that age.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Miner does have parents that are trying their hardest to improve the school. All parents automatically join PTA and even donate their entire month’s salary to the PTA.
The PTA at Miner were able to obtain additional faculty because they paid their salary. These folks want the best for their child and their classmates no matter where they attend. So please, can we stop with the Miner parents don’t try hard enough stuff?

This is inaccurate. The Miner PTO has never raised enough money to fund staff.

I was told that the 2nd gym teacher was hired because of PTA funding.

That’s not accurate. He was hired several years ago when the District told the schools that k-5 students had to start having two PE classes a week. The LSAT made hiring that position a budget priority so even PreK students could have PE twice a week. The PTO works very hard but they do not raise $100k per year which is the approximate value assigned to a teacher salary.

Thank you, my apologies for spreading misinformation.
I will point out that it is a fact the PTA encourages its members to donate an equivalent to their monthly salary and parents do care and try hard to improve school.

It’s actually the equivalent of the cost of one month of daycare. It’s suggested but of course not required of the PreK families who would be paying for daycare (which we all know is $$$$ in DC). Only a small portion actually do it sadly, as many argue they don’t want to give money to the whole school since they aren’t staying beyond PreK.

Not a Miner family but we go to a Title 1 school and are not at risk but are MC (not wealthy). I will tell you I would find that recommendation off-putting because family finances are complicated. We would not have paid for daycare if free Pk were not available in DC -- we would either have moved out of the district or I would have stayed home an extra year (I worked PT from home before PK). Also, even though the PK is free in the sense you don't pay tuition, if you pay taxes in DC, you still pay for it.

The thing is, we probably did donate about equivalent to a month of preschool tuition to our school anyway. I just would have found that framing really obnoxious, like I personally owe it to the school. That's not how I think about PTA donations at all. To me it's about providing funding for kids who don't have the same resources, and about providing general resources to the school and teachers to improve the school for all students, including mine. Plus being able to fund community events that help us connect and come together. Making it sound like payment for something is really obnoxious to me.

I don’t think parents think of it that way, and it’s not the actual ask. Someone brought it up in this thread to share the work the PTO does in response to a comment that indicated the Miner families aren’t actually making any efforts. We do a fundraiser that lists suggested donation levels staring at $5. For the PreK families the highest donation level is “a month for miner” or the equivalent of one month of day care. This thread is misconstruing it very much.

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At the end of the day some of us are trying to engage with human behavior as it actually is and make our predictions data-based and realistic. Are you?

Absolutely and data shows that kids who go to a more diverse school (whether racially, socioeconomically, or academically) can benefit ALL the students.

No it does not. Busing (which is basically what this is) is pretty much universally accepted to be a failure by all sides. In contrast, creating diversity through actual community participation - ie creating schools where IB families chose to go - can result in positive impacts. But at the end of the day there are not enough rich white kids to be the medicine to fix DCPS - and that it what fundamentally makes this a PR exercise and not a legitimate attempt for DCPS to solve its problems.

This is not "basically" busing. If they cluster the schools, no one will be bussed. They will go to their IB, neighborhood school unless they choose to lottery out or go private.

Bussing is when you take kids in one neighborhood and put them on an actual bus to send them to a school in another neighborhood. It has nothing to do with this situation at all.

It’s busing without the buses. Sending kids from one school to another for the sole purpose of demographics.

Oh it's not busing, just a far walk! Totally different!

3-4 blocks is “far”? Really?

It's far for a 3 year old. And the total commute of home-Maury-Miner-work adds up to a lot.

Is there any talk of a shuttle like Watkins used to have?

I would assume that would have to be parent (PTA) funded. I don’t disagree that it’s a bit of a walk for a 3 year old but I do think that when some Miner IB families are actually closer to Maury and some Maury IB are closer to Miner, it makes the distance argument one of the weaker ones.

It's not just the distance, it's having to go to two schools each day instead of one.

Also, this hasn't really come up, but transitioning an IEP from one school to another. Getting used to new related service providers, and getting a kid who struggles with transitions to settle in to a new school. Most kids will take this in stride as the transition is expected and they're moving with peers. But for some kids it'll be a big deal.

All of which would still be issues if they redraw boundaries, which is the alternative solution. These are not arguments against the cluster, they are things that would need to be addressed by families and DCPS no matter how this problem is solved.

What? How would those be issues if they redraw boundaries? Kids that currently attend would be permitted to stay, if you're thinking they would be kicked out.

[Anonymous]

I have yet to see a single counterproposal to the cluster that addresses this specific issue:

Maury and Miner are neighborhood DCPS elementaries within very close proximity (.5) miles but have vastly different student outcomes. That disparity is almost certainly closely related to a large imbalance in two populations who historically have disparate and negative educational outcomes -- children of color and children in poverty. There is larger than 50% difference in the at risk populations at the two schools, with Maury having 12% at risk students and Miner having 65% at risk students, despite the school's close proximity and similar size. The overwhelming size of Miner's at risk population makes it very hard for the school to gain traction to address the problem of low performance as indicated by low test scores on district-wide testing.

How might this clear disparity in educational experience and outcomes for students at these closely located schools be addressed?

Until you can answer that question in a way that actually directly addresses the problem, I do not think complaining about how the cluster is going to mess up your morning commute is going to cut it in terms of objections. Much as I relate to commute challenges! It's just not that important when you look at the paragraph above and understand that addressing those disparities is THE purpose of the cluster proposal.