HARDY: Anyone know how many feeder school kids attending next yr?

[Anonymous]

Eaton is offering 2 OOB lottery spots for PK next year.
Hearst is offering 10.
I would bet that those numbers pretty much match the need for siblings of current OOB students who are enrolled.

[Anonymous]

I propose that the right approach to transforming Hardy back into a neighborhood school is simply not to accept any more OOB kids, except siblings of current OOB kids and OOB kids who are already enrolled in one of its feeder schools. If enrollment in next year's 6th grade drops from 130 to 30, so be it. IB enrollment at Mann is 87% and at Key and Soddert it is 84% Once those families see IB enrollment at Hardy approach 85%, they will flock to Hardy and enrollment will swell.

Would enrollment at Hardy return to its current level of 400 without admitting OOB students? It probably would given the total 3rd grade enrollment of 250 at its feeder schools. If Hardy captured only 50% of its feeder school 3rd graders, enrollment at Hardy would quickly hit 375, not counting OOB siblings. Even if enrollment peaked at only, say, 275 kids, who cares. What's wrong with a 90% IB MS in Georgetown with only 275 kids. Several DCPS MSs are of similar size, e.g., Elliot-Hine, Johnson, Kramer. During Pope's reign, enrollment at Hardy was much lower than it is now. Even the current enrollment of 400 is somewhat arbitrary as the building is said to have the capacity for 650.

But if budgets depend on number of enrolled students, how would they maintain enough staff and resources to keep the school open? They've closed my neighborhood middle school because of under-enrollment, despite demographic projections that show we will have the greatest growth in the city of school-aged children over the next 10 years. So I would be extremely angry to see a mostly-empty Hardy kept open. Extremely. And the divisive issues of race and class with regard to schools would get red hot all over again.

And I don't understand how 3rd grade enrollment at feeder schools is supposed to impact Hardy enrollment. Unless you're just leaving the real problem unsaid, and that's the issue of the feeder schools losing IB students at 3rd grade. If you want to completely eliminate OOB kids, you have to start kicking them out before they reach Hardy. Maybe that's no problem for Eaton, but Hearst would really need to get those vacated seats filled right away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I propose that the right approach to transforming Hardy back into a neighborhood school is simply not to accept any more OOB kids, except siblings of current OOB kids and OOB kids who are already enrolled in one of its feeder schools. If enrollment in next year's 6th grade drops from 130 to 30, so be it. IB enrollment at Mann is 87% and at Key and Soddert it is 84% Once those families see IB enrollment at Hardy approach 85%, they will flock to Hardy and enrollment will swell.

Would enrollment at Hardy return to its current level of 400 without admitting OOB students? It probably would given the total 3rd grade enrollment of 250 at its feeder schools. If Hardy captured only 50% of its feeder school 3rd graders, enrollment at Hardy would quickly hit 375, not counting OOB siblings. Even if enrollment peaked at only, say, 275 kids, who cares. What's wrong with a 90% IB MS in Georgetown with only 275 kids. Several DCPS MSs are of similar size, e.g., Elliot-Hine, Johnson, Kramer. During Pope's reign, enrollment at Hardy was much lower than it is now. Even the current enrollment of 400 is somewhat arbitrary as the building is said to have the capacity for 650.

But if budgets depend on number of enrolled students, how would they maintain enough staff and resources to keep the school open? They've closed my neighborhood middle school because of under-enrollment, despite demographic projections that show we will have the greatest growth in the city of school-aged children over the next 10 years. So I would be extremely angry to see a mostly-empty Hardy kept open. Extremely. And the divisive issues of race and class with regard to schools would get red hot all over again.

And I don't understand how 3rd grade enrollment at feeder schools is supposed to impact Hardy enrollment. Unless you're just leaving the real problem unsaid, and that's the issue of the feeder schools losing IB students at 3rd grade. If you want to completely eliminate OOB kids, you have to start kicking them out before they reach Hardy. Maybe that's no problem for Eaton, but Hearst would really need to get those vacated seats filled right away.

I mentioned 3rd grade enrollment because enrollment at the feeders drops significantly for 4th and 5th grade, presumably, as families head to privates and charters due to the lack of a neighborhood middle school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Sounds to me like that's exactly what's happening. Last year, there were 70 OOB slots for 6th grade in the lottery. (I know so from having applied and landed one.) I hear this year's number is more like a dozen or less so. Sounds to me like that's precisely the approach.

That seems like a fine approach to me. This doesn't mean OOB can't select Hardy as a lottery pick. There will be a significant waitlist, I'm sure. But offering up OOB spots via the lottery before even knowing how many IB kids may commit is foolhardy. The school can tap into the waitlist between May and August, after enrollment paperwork is due. That seems totally fair and reasonable.

The issue is not the number of OOB spots made available during the lotterry. It's the number of OOB kids who will be admitted off of the wait list between May and August. If only, say, 30 IB kids enroll by May, along with 10 OOB siblings from the lottery, Pride will feel enormous pressure to admit lots of kids from the wait list, and the 6th grade will end up 70% OOB.

On the other hand, if Pride just takes the funding cut and keeps next year's 6th grade at 40 kids, that number will grow over the course of the year. IB families who opted for Latin, BASIS, privates, etc. will see that Pride is serious about transforming Hardy into a neighborhood school and that the transformation is finally underway. When the commute to Latin, the rigor of BASIS, etc. become issues, those families will reconsider their decision to write Hardy off.

So, perhaps the class of 40 grows to 50 or more over the course of the year. The following year, perhaps 60 IB families choose Hardy for 6th grade. Within three years, total IB enrollment at Hardy would most lilkely exceed 150 and approach 200. Within five years, Hardy might well have to evict Fillmore to make room for all the IB kids.

[Anonymous]

Folks- my OOB student goes to hardy and could have taken his advanced test scores wherever he liked in 4th grade to 5th grade. We chose a feeder to hardy and have been super happy. If you're not interested please don't come. Choose something else because there are 375 families who are perfectly happy there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Folks- my OOB student goes to hardy and could have taken his advanced test scores wherever he liked in 4th grade to 5th grade. We chose a feeder to hardy and have been super happy. If you're not interested please don't come. Choose something else because there are 375 families who are perfectly happy there.

Not sure why you feel the need to speak on behalf of 375 families and tell us they are all happy. How the hell do you know that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Folks- my OOB student goes to hardy and could have taken his advanced test scores wherever he liked in 4th grade to 5th grade. We chose a feeder to hardy and have been super happy. If you're not interested please don't come. Choose something else because there are 375 families who are perfectly happy there.

Not sure why you feel the need to speak on behalf of 375 families and tell us they are all happy. How the hell do you know that?

Maybe PP works at NSA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Folks- my OOB student goes to hardy and could have taken his advanced test scores wherever he liked in 4th grade to 5th grade. We chose a feeder to hardy and have been super happy. If you're not interested please don't come. Choose something else because there are 375 families who are perfectly happy there.

Not sure why you feel the need to speak on behalf of 375 families and tell us they are all happy. How the hell do you know that?

Maybe PP works at NSA.

Ummm....maybe PP actually goes to Hardy and therefore knows something about the school, the students that attend, and their families - unlike 90% of the posters on this particular thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Folks- my OOB student goes to hardy and could have taken his advanced test scores wherever he liked in 4th grade to 5th grade. We chose a feeder to hardy and have been super happy. If you're not interested please don't come. Choose something else because there are 375 families who are perfectly happy there.

Not sure why you feel the need to speak on behalf of 375 families and tell us they are all happy. How the hell do you know that?

Maybe PP works at NSA.

Ummm....maybe PP actually goes to Hardy and therefore knows something about the school, the students that attend, and their families - unlike 90% of the posters on this particular thread.

We've been at Mann for eight years and could not say whether the families of the other 280 kids are perfectly happy there. Chances are that many are not for various reasons, but we know only a small fraction of them.

It was a self-serving assertion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Folks- my OOB student goes to hardy and could have taken his advanced test scores wherever he liked in 4th grade to 5th grade. We chose a feeder to hardy and have been super happy. If you're not interested please don't come. Choose something else because there are 375 families who are perfectly happy there.

Since you are OOB, it sounds like to lotteried into a Hardy feeder. How many options did you really have?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Folks- my OOB student goes to hardy and could have taken his advanced test scores wherever he liked in 4th grade to 5th grade. We chose a feeder to hardy and have been super happy. If you're not interested please don't come. Choose something else because there are 375 families who are perfectly happy there.

Not sure why you feel the need to speak on behalf of 375 families and tell us they are all happy. How the hell do you know that?

Maybe PP works at NSA.

Ummm....maybe PP actually goes to Hardy and therefore knows something about the school, the students that attend, and their families - unlike 90% of the posters on this particular thread.

Touche!

[Anonymous]

Sweeping aside whether hardy/Gordon was ever an in bounds school...

Watch for any change in the proportion of in bounds kids who remain after their first year.

That's a metric this skeptic will give some real weight.

Someone in bounds with 1 to 27 kids they intend to send to school x or y is welcome but aspirational.