What do you think of Janney?

[Anonymous]

Do the K and first grade classes at least have co-teachers at Hearst? Then I would be okay with those class sizes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do the K and first grade classes at least have co-teachers at Hearst? Then I would be okay with those class sizes.

I don't know about Hearst, but Janney does have two teachers per class, and people still keep saying its classes are too large (even if, as some PPs have pointed out, they currently really aren't).

[Anonymous]

I though the 2nd and 4th grades at Janney were still high 20's, no? Weren't they 30 at least last year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I though the 2nd and 4th grades at Janney were still high 20's, no? Weren't they 30 at least last year?

No, the 2nd and 4th grades this year are each at about 23/24. Last year's 3rd grade class was an experiment where they had 30 kids in a class with two full time licensed teachers (not one teacher and an aid). Janney is large but, with the exception of that one experiment, classes are just about always under 25 kids/class, usually closer to 23, and no more than 20 for pre-K.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^Welcome to Eaton's problem.

+1. Eaton is quite overcapacity this year, which is plain nuts for a school that is something like 60% out of boundary enrollment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I think there are two main reasons why people overpay for a house in
AU Park. It is not necessarily that they think that Janney is better than Stoddert, Murch, Mann, etc.
Rather it is that Janney feeds into Deal and also that there is a very convenient metro stop in the neighborhood.
For many parents working downtown, it is convenient to drop the kid off at school and then walk right to the metro.
Same on the way back. AU Park also has a suburban feel, almost like an extension of Bethesda, which is appealing to many folks.
By the way, I have a 3rd grader at Janney and his classes have always ranged from 19-22 since Kindergarten. I would caution people not to assume that large is equivalent to overcrowded classes.

And the K classes at Hearst this year have 24 per class. Hearst parents -- stop promoting Hearst on DCUM or the class sizes will soon approach 30 like in some Janney classes! Keep your satisfaction to yourself and keep Hearst small!

OMG- can these Hearst posters stop with the "let's keep our precious school a secret from everyone?" I swear this is on every one of these threads.

Hearst likely will get larger, fast. As neighborhood enrollment climbs, the logical thing for DCPS to do will be to ratchet back OOB student seats. But DCPS is unlikely to do that, or at least it is unlikely to do it much, because there are settled expectations and excess demand for places in schools west of Rock Creek Park. Hearst is one of the few schools that has reliably had a lot of OOB places and it will be politically unpopular for the mayor and chancellor to change that too much.

The IB parents are tracking this closely and in regular contact with principal. Trust me

Good luck fighting the 'low number license plate' parents who expect continued access to WOTP schools. They have Bowser's ear.

[Anonymous]

Janney has the highest number of kids - by a landslide - that go on to Harvard. Waaaaaaay more than any other DC public elementary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I though the 2nd and 4th grades at Janney were still high 20's, no? Weren't they 30 at least last year?

No, the 2nd and 4th grades this year are each at about 23/24. Last year's 3rd grade class was an experiment where they had 30 kids in a class with two full time licensed teachers (not one teacher and an aid). Janney is large but, with the exception of that one experiment, classes are just about always under 25 kids/class, usually closer to 23, and no more than 20 for pre-K.

Janney did the experiment once before, when the cohort that is now in 7th grade moved up to third. They had one 40 student classroom and had rolled up two classrooms together (so two full time teachers, each of whom had had half the class in second grade). I have a child a year behind this. My understanding is that the result was challenging and they learned a lot about small group learning from which the whole school ultimately benefited and that cohort was also (according to the principal at the time) the most successful cohort in Janney's recent history from a test performance standpoint over the course of their years at Janney. I think this was the year of the 6 classroom addition and they were able to break the classes up so they were actually quite small when the moved from three to four classes.

My only point being that everyone is so reflexively aghast at classrooms with over 25 students, but there is really a lot more thinking that needs to go into what are the right decisions in particular circumstances.

Last years 5th grade class was around a hundred students in 4 classrooms, over the years for that cohort the number of students in classes ranged from a high of 27 (Kindergarten, only 3 classrooms during the major renovation) to usually somewhere between 24/26. There are no absolutes, when schools get popular for whatever reason, the population expands and the school needs to adjust.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As always, every thread about Janney turns into a full-contact sport. A bunch of overfed, overbleached, hyper-competitive moms trying desperately to prove that the choice which makes them so miserable is the BEST THING EVER (else why be so insistent?). There's such a thing as trying too hard. No other school seems so pathologically needy to prove itself (because they all really want to be at a private but they spent so much for Janney that now they can't).

Well, gosh, now you're hurting my feelings. As an overfed and over-bleached mom, i must tell you I feel in the minority there! Really the majority are the skinny running moms!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Janney has the highest number of kids - by a landslide - that go on to Harvard. Waaaaaaay more than any other DC public elementary.

Janney even has kids that go directly to Harvard, without first going to Deal or Wilson.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Janney has the highest number of kids - by a landslide - that go on to Harvard. Waaaaaaay more than any other DC public elementary.

Janney even has kids that go directly to Harvard, without first going to Deal or Wilson.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Janney has the highest number of kids - by a landslide - that go on to Harvard. Waaaaaaay more than any other DC public elementary.

Yeah, it also has more kids than some ESs combined.
The great DCPS our DC attends has kids returning to their home countries often. No Harvard there. Meanwhile, they beat Janney in math and came pretty close to beating in English too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Janney has the highest number of kids - by a landslide - that go on to Harvard. Waaaaaaay more than any other DC public elementary.

Yeah, it also has more kids than some ESs combined.
The great DCPS our DC attends has kids returning to their home countries often. No Harvard there. Meanwhile, they beat Janney in math and came pretty close to beating in English too.

Don't feed the troll.

[Anonymous]

I believe the "troll" was making a joke.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do the K and first grade classes at least have co-teachers at Hearst? Then I would be okay with those class sizes.

I don't know about Hearst, but Janney does have two teachers per class, and people still keep saying its classes are too large (even if, as some PPs have pointed out, they currently really aren't).

Janney does not have "two teachers per class." Janney has the DCPS-standard one teacher per class. there are also paraprofessional aides in most classes who help the teachers.