Whats J-R like this year?

[Anonymous]

Any real life examples of how the school is for kids who may need to go for teachers for extra help? Do they make time? How crowded are classes? And most importantly, does your child like J-R? Asking especially around the 9th grade experiences for a possibly new student transferring in this year.

[Anonymous]

My daughter had a rough transition at first. From K-8, her teachers always said she was really sweet, "a joy to have in class" but also extremely quiet and needed to learn to ask for help.

Right out the gate, she got a lot of 70s with notes saying she didn't seem to understand the assignment, she didn't fully answer questions, or she left things blank. I told her to go to the office hours for the teachers (mostly during lunch or after school). This was about 2 weeks ago. Since then, she seems to be doing a lot better. The 70s are up to high 80s/low 90s.

She seems to be enjoying herself so far. I had to force her to join two clubs in 7th and 8th grade (she didn't want to join any in 8th grade). They had a club fair last week, and she joined four on her own. She also signed up for several community service activities as well. She's in the engineering academy and seems to enjoy the intro class for that.

As far as negatives: she says it's incredibly loud in the halls and sometimes in the classrooms "with the teachers who are too nice."

[Anonymous]

NP. I hear a lot about the in-class disruptions. There are kids who can focus and learn even with all that happening around them. My kid is not one of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Any real life examples of how the school is for kids who may need to go for teachers for extra help? Do they make time? How crowded are classes? And most importantly, does your child like J-R? Asking especially around the 9th grade experiences for a possibly new student transferring in this year.

I can only speak from last year's experience (although this year is similar) -- teachers are willing to help and have office hours. DC likes JR and was much happier in 9th grade than in middle school (and still is). It is crowded and somewhat chaotic but I suppose so is every urban public high school.

[Anonymous]

I don't have exactly the same situation, but I do have a kid in 9th grade at JR who is new to DCPS (went to a public charter school) . After some trepidation given that most kids already know other kids and he didn't, he is doing fine. Only one of his classes is overfull, but it's advisory, so it doesn't seem that important. The first parent-teacher conferences are this week, so I'll be interested to see if any of them actually know which kid mine is!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any real life examples of how the school is for kids who may need to go for teachers for extra help? Do they make time? How crowded are classes? And most importantly, does your child like J-R? Asking especially around the 9th grade experiences for a possibly new student transferring in this year.

I can only speak from last year's experience (although this year is similar) -- teachers are willing to help and have office hours. DC likes JR and was much happier in 9th grade than in middle school (and still is). It is crowded and somewhat chaotic but I suppose so is every urban public high school.

No, not every urban public school is crowded and chaotic.