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Anonymous
It’s in the communication Principal Berkowitz sent to the Peabody & Watkins community about the upcoming LSAT meeting. Relevant snippet: “ In my conversations with the DME, the current proposal is to expand the Peabody and Watkins boundary to the south just south of Peabody (those addresses are currently zoned for Brent) and contract the eastern-most part of the boundary westward (these addresses are currently zoned for us but would be re-zoned for Payne. These changes not only impact elementary school zones, but also middle school feeder patterns. I don’t have specific addresses to share, but we can expect to hear these details on Tuesday night.” |
Anonymous
sorry this is DCPS in 2023. the quality of schools is not a goal and in fact, bringing down “good” schools a peg is the goal. gentrification is bad, but the only way to fix poorer performing majority black schools is to make them less black. however let’s not discuss how DCPS lets parents control school outcomes (one reason why Maury is “better” than Miner). Let’s also not discuss how Miner is located in absolutely of of the most dangerous blocks in NE right now - I think there have been 3 murders near the school in the past few days, plus two dudes found shot in the head just last night. The Aziz-Bates complex and Pentacle are very very rough & controlled by gangs (get on one of the MPD safety calls to hear about that). There is zero way I would ever let my child walk to Miner alone. Meanwhile you can be SURE that the DCPS Mrs Jellyby contingent will never do anything to actually a) improve Miner for the kids there now b) allocate law enforcement resources to reduce crime in Rosedale or c) do anything that could result in voluntary integration of the school, like offer a bilingual or stem or Montessori program with express assurance of grade-level instruction. |
Anonymous
This isn’t bad for current cluster parents. Payne is now quite solid and a lot of parents are happy with EH. I would probably prefer my kid to go to Payne rather than the Cluster, and would be fine as well to be rezoned to Payne from Brent. |
Anonymous
Can Payne really handle a bigger boundary? It has improved a lot in the past few years and has a lot more IB support and the enrollment number have gone up. But aren't they also having to take in the non-spanish kids from Tyler? How many more kids can Payne take before it becomes over crowded. |
Anonymous
Can someone post the addresses once those are shared? |
Anonymous
It sounds like people from Brent will be rezoned to the Cluster. I could see the Cluster to Payne rezoning being beneficial, because I do think EH will be better than SH in the long run. |
Anonymous
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All the rezoning is going to primarily affect the Cluster, and as of now, most people within the Cluster boundary can get proximity preference to some other school, so that will probably remain the same.
The bigger issue is merging Maury and Miner. |
Anonymous
| I think it is probably the entire section of the Brent boundary north of Pennsylvania. Long-term some of those families might actually like having rights to SH (instead of Jefferson) - it is a lot closer. |
Anonymous
| Are they merging Maury and Miner or just rezoning some of the eastern part of the Maury boundary to Miner for capacity reasons? |
Anonymous
This is what was in the Principal's weekly newsletter to families. "There are proposed boundary changes that could impact the Maury community. One challenge that the committee has identified is Maury and Miner’s close proximity and socio-economic segregation. The advisory committee is assessing whether pairing the two schools (similar to Peabody/Watkins) could help address this challenge. There will be a community conversation around potential boundary changes for Maury on November 28th at 6pm. This conversation will be held virtually, and all community members are invited to attend. We encourage Maury community members to share their voices around any proposed changes. |
Anonymous
That would make too much sense. |
Anonymous
You're misreading or have a typo. People will be rezoned from *Watkins* to Payne (fine in terms of Payne, will be unpopular in terms of SH; though I agree EH is improving, it is not as fast/as much as folks on this board would sometimes have to believe) and Brent to Watkins. There's also the wildcare that Tyler's kids who don't want Spanish immersion will be rezoned to Payne too; with the housing projects largely being Black/non-Spanish speaking, there is every reason to think many of those families may choose Payne. |
Anonymous
Agree. For current families who will be grandfathered in, this is a win. Brent-->SH. For future families, they are not going to be happy about the Brent for Watkins swap to put it mildly. |
Anonymous
Maury parents will be losing their minds. The truth is Maury and Miner aren’t unusually close together for the Hill. To put it into perspective, LT is closer to JOW, CHML and SWS than Maury & Miner are to each other. This is only being looked at because one of the schools is good and one is not, and DCPS is too stupid to care about anything but the latter. They will destroy Maury with a negligible benefit to Miner. The Cluster concept already doesn’t work well now that people aren’t desperate to go to the schools involved; why on earth would DCPS attempt to replicate it. |
Anonymous
The Brent changes don’t seem crazy. Future families on those blocks will be unhappy, but trying to decrease Brent’s overcrowding and sort of ungerrymander Watkins’ boundary a bit completely makes sense. Affected families are already closer to Peabody than Brent and have proximity preference (which some use) to SH. Obviously those families are far from Watkins, but that’s the problem with the stupid zone and they’re actually closer than the families north of them already zoned to Watkins. The Maury changes are totally different in character. They would completely change the school for the worse in multiple different ways and seemingly borne out of nothing more than deciding they care about “equity” for one specific school’s attendees vis-a-vis one other specific school’s attendees. Totally bizarre. There are almost as large demographic/quality differences between JOW and LT and they’re much closer together. But LT (lucky for them) isn’t quite too white yet, so they get a pass? By the way, Maury parents, worth pointing out that SWS is equally close to Miner as Maury and similar demographics-wise? If DCPS is only concerned about pulling Miner up, why not use SWS (a DCPS created school likely causing some of the issues by drawing UMC Miner students) to fix Miner? |