Best Cap Hill elementary to middle?

[Anonymous]

Miner Elementary would be a good school school to turn into a world language school with dual language programs but not immersion in addition to possibly STEM program and its traditional education program. Miner seems to be a large school that needs its own niche or branding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are Brent, SWS, and Maury considered by some to be the best schools in the greater Capital Hill area and the biggest difference is what middle school they feed to? Demographics seem to be the same. Isn’t the DC government working to strengthen Elliot-Hine and Jefferson? Aren’t most of the elementary schools steadily improving and have something appealing about their school? One of the bad things about the Ward 6 schools is the need for parking when visiting a school for more than the two hours allowed with the residential parking restrictions. Haven’t most of the schools been renovated or scheduled soon?

What does parking have to do with anything? Any school outside of your immediate neighborhood would have the same thing - many schools do not have dedicated visitor parking in their lots.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are Brent, SWS, and Maury considered by some to be the best schools in the greater Capital Hill area and the biggest difference is what middle school they feed to? Demographics seem to be the same. Isn’t the DC government working to strengthen Elliot-Hine and Jefferson? Aren’t most of the elementary schools steadily improving and have something appealing about their school? One of the bad things about the Ward 6 schools is the need for parking when visiting a school for more than the two hours allowed with the residential parking restrictions. Haven’t most of the schools been renovated or scheduled soon?

DCPS is enamored of 10-15 year plans to improve middle schools, when your kid needs a strong program much sooner. Eliot-Hine and Jefferson Academy will work for a stalwart minority of Brent and Maury graduates in the coming years. Most parents won't bite. Brent, SWS and Maury all feed into middle schools that don't appeal to most parents with children in these schools (and that's putting it mildly). Without lottery luck for charters, most of these parents would leave the DC public school system altogether after 4th or 5th grades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Miner Elementary would be a good school school to turn into a world language school with dual language programs but not immersion in addition to possibly STEM program and its traditional education program. Miner seems to be a large school that needs its own niche or branding.

Dream on, hon. Miner has had half a dozen principals in the past 8 or 9 years. It's rare for a Miner principal to stay even two years. It's a deeply troubled school by any definition, and has been for decades. Really no UMC families past K. Nice building though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are Brent, SWS, and Maury considered by some to be the best schools in the greater Capital Hill area and the biggest difference is what middle school they feed to? Demographics seem to be the same. Isn’t the DC government working to strengthen Elliot-Hine and Jefferson? Aren’t most of the elementary schools steadily improving and have something appealing about their school? One of the bad things about the Ward 6 schools is the need for parking when visiting a school for more than the two hours allowed with the residential parking restrictions. Haven’t most of the schools been renovated or scheduled soon?

FTLOG it’s Capitol Hill, not Capital. And parking?! City schools, especially those filled with IB kids, don’t have to worry about parking, nor should they.
Brent is actually very metro-accessible. Maury not so much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are Brent, SWS, and Maury considered by some to be the best schools in the greater Capital Hill area and the biggest difference is what middle school they feed to? Demographics seem to be the same. Isn’t the DC government working to strengthen Elliot-Hine and Jefferson? Aren’t most of the elementary schools steadily improving and have something appealing about their school? One of the bad things about the Ward 6 schools is the need for parking when visiting a school for more than the two hours allowed with the residential parking restrictions. Haven’t most of the schools been renovated or scheduled soon?

Collectively only a smaller subset of families at these schools prioritizes neighborhood public schools beyond elementary (and of course SWS isn't a neighborhood school at all). DCPS has already modernized SH and EH and Jefferson are currently being modernized. Many families from Brent, SWS, and Maury bail by 5th grade even though a fair number live in bounds for SH. EH has had its struggles retaining from Hill feeders but SH and Jefferson are showing progress and may start to draw more neighborhood families as alternative public MS options are less available. Then again, Latin is planning to expand and CHDS is expanding as well, so who knows? Watching the Shaw/Banneker controversy play out is all too familiar to Hill families who've been pitted against each other by the mayor's office since Fenty took control over schools.

Parking is not a factor in any of this and is a pain throughout densely populated DC neighborhoods like CH.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is true. I sometimes wonder if Spanish immersion was a good choice for Tyler ES a decade back. Payne's prospects look brighter to me, with a snazzy renovation a few years ago, strong new leadership, greater community buy-in in the lower grades all the time, and hundreds of new residential units going up in the Payne District.

If I were the chancellor, I would cluster Brent and Tyler. Make the smaller school all bilingual and the larger monolingual and let everyone in-boundary rank their preferences. More bilingual seats and greater economic diversity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Miner Elementary would be a good school school to turn into a world language school with dual language programs but not immersion in addition to possibly STEM program and its traditional education program. Miner seems to be a large school that needs its own niche or branding.

One niche it's going to get is an infant-toddler care center on premises. That will probably bring in more families of younger kids, some of whom will stay.
https://wamu.org/story/19/03/21/in-effort-to-bring-down-child-care-costs-bowser-proposes-three-new-centers-for-kids/

I'm not thrilled with DCPS doing dual-language at boundaried schools in general and imagine it could make it harder for the school to hire if they need people who are bilingual in different languages.

It would be cool for a school to offer ASL as a special and Miner is fairly close to Gallaudet so that could work. They could also be the permanent host for DCPS self-contained classrooms for deaf and hard of hearing students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are Brent, SWS, and Maury considered by some to be the best schools in the greater Capital Hill area and the biggest difference is what middle school they feed to? Demographics seem to be the same. Isn’t the DC government working to strengthen Elliot-Hine and Jefferson? Aren’t most of the elementary schools steadily improving and have something appealing about their school? One of the bad things about the Ward 6 schools is the need for parking when visiting a school for more than the two hours allowed with the residential parking restrictions. Haven’t most of the schools been renovated or scheduled soon?

Collectively only a smaller subset of families at these schools prioritizes neighborhood public schools beyond elementary (and of course SWS isn't a neighborhood school at all). DCPS has already modernized SH and EH and Jefferson are currently being modernized. Many families from Brent, SWS, and Maury bail by 5th grade even though a fair number live in bounds for SH. EH has had its struggles retaining from Hill feeders but SH and Jefferson are showing progress and may start to draw more neighborhood families as alternative public MS options are less available. Then again, Latin is planning to expand and CHDS is expanding as well, so who knows? Watching the Shaw/Banneker controversy play out is all too familiar to Hill families who've been pitted against each other by the mayor's office since Fenty took control over schools.

Parking is not a factor in any of this and is a pain throughout densely populated DC neighborhoods like CH.

Maybe a few families are going the DCPS middle school route but the majority are not. Until DCPS offers tracking with advance level/honors classes in middle school, it won’t be happening. SH may be picking up with some more buy in with the new principal and better access to honors program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Miner Elementary would be a good school school to turn into a world language school with dual language programs but not immersion in addition to possibly STEM program and its traditional education program. Miner seems to be a large school that needs its own niche or branding.

One niche it's going to get is an infant-toddler care center on premises. That will probably bring in more families of younger kids, some of whom will stay.
https://wamu.org/story/19/03/21/in-effort-to-bring-down-child-care-costs-bowser-proposes-three-new-centers-for-kids/

I'm not thrilled with DCPS doing dual-language at boundaried schools in general and imagine it could make it harder for the school to hire if they need people who are bilingual in different languages.

It would be cool for a school to offer ASL as a special and Miner is fairly close to Gallaudet so that could work. They could also be the permanent host for DCPS self-contained classrooms for deaf and hard of hearing students.

ASL as a special for Miner is a very thoughtful idea, along with self-contained classrooms for significantly hearing impaired children.

To another PP who wants to cluster Brent and Tyler; I can imagine that some (fragile) Brent families would be horrified to be IB with children from Potomac Gardens. They seem to prize how exclusively high SES their school is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is true. I sometimes wonder if Spanish immersion was a good choice for Tyler ES a decade back. Payne's prospects look brighter to me, with a snazzy renovation a few years ago, strong new leadership, greater community buy-in in the lower grades all the time, and hundreds of new residential units going up in the Payne District.

If I were the chancellor, I would cluster Brent and Tyler. Make the smaller school all bilingual and the larger monolingual and let everyone in-boundary rank their preferences. More bilingual seats and greater economic diversity.

Clustering is the solution to improving Miner, Payne, and Tyler that freaks everyone the f out. But I am in favor of it. EH should be closed and combined with SH or Jefferson. QED.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ludlow Taylor to Stuart Hobson without question. (Most elementary schools are good, but most middles have a long way to go.)

Maybe. We have several friends bailing on LT in the upper grades due to lack of challenge. If your kid is just a toddler, the school's demographics may have changed enough by the upper grades for you to be happy with the experience.

Please... if they're "bailing" LT in the upper grades for lack of challenge, then they'd be bailing other on other elementary schools as well, including Brent, Maury, Watkins, etc. LT's 4th and 5th grade teachers have won district-wide awards for excellence and have made huge strides in closing the achievement gap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ludlow Taylor to Stuart Hobson without question. (Most elementary schools are good, but most middles have a long way to go.)

Maybe. We have several friends bailing on LT in the upper grades due to lack of challenge. If your kid is just a toddler, the school's demographics may have changed enough by the upper grades for you to be happy with the experience.

Please... if they're "bailing" LT in the upper grades for lack of challenge, then they'd be bailing other on other elementary schools as well, including Brent, Maury, Watkins, etc. LT's 4th and 5th grade teachers have won district-wide awards for excellence and have made huge strides in closing the achievement gap.

Yeah, I'd like to know where they are "bailing" to. More likely they're just doing what everyone on the Hill does -- figuring out MS options, with some peeling off around 4th grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SWS = Super White School

How can SWS be a “super white” school in a citywide school? Aren’t there a significant number of nonwhites that apply to the school in the lottery? Even if it is predominantly White, don’t they teach all students well with the Reggio method—especially those that start at preK?

It's called sibling preference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ludlow Taylor to Stuart Hobson without question. (Most elementary schools are good, but most middles have a long way to go.)

Maybe. We have several friends bailing on LT in the upper grades due to lack of challenge. If your kid is just a toddler, the school's demographics may have changed enough by the upper grades for you to be happy with the experience.

Please... if they're "bailing" LT in the upper grades for lack of challenge, then they'd be bailing other on other elementary schools as well, including Brent, Maury, Watkins, etc. LT's 4th and 5th grade teachers have won district-wide awards for excellence and have made huge strides in closing the achievement gap.

Yeah, I'd like to know where they are "bailing" to. More likely they're just doing what everyone on the Hill does -- figuring out MS options, with some peeling off around 4th grade.

+1