Open house impressions thread

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am so annoyed at the way the calendar is set up on Myschoolsdc.org Am I missing something? I don't want to search by days. I want to be able to just select a school-and then ALL the open house days for that school will display. Its also frustrating when the school websites make you dig for the information. . DCPS needs to reorg that page next year.

That is how it works now. Search a school and look in the top right corner of each school profile page on my school DC. There's a block for Open Houses (above the map).

[Anonymous]

Bump

[Anonymous]

Was anyone at the Lee open house tonight? I thought it was very nice. The only thing that annoyed me was that they asked people not to bring kids, but so many people did, so it was loud and annoying. I would not have paid for a babysitter if I had known so many people were going to ignore the no-kids thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Was anyone at the Lee open house tonight? I thought it was very nice. The only thing that annoyed me was that they asked people not to bring kids, but so many people did, so it was loud and annoying. I would not have paid for a babysitter if I had known so many people were going to ignore the no-kids thing.

It's a sorting mechanism, perhaps? It certainly tells you about the attention span, intelligence, seriousness, and dedication of the potential families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Was anyone at the Lee open house tonight? I thought it was very nice. The only thing that annoyed me was that they asked people not to bring kids, but so many people did, so it was loud and annoying. I would not have paid for a babysitter if I had known so many people were going to ignore the no-kids thing.

It's a sorting mechanism, perhaps? It certainly tells you about the attention span, intelligence, seriousness, and dedication of the potential families.

What it tells you is that most families in DC don't have $15-20/hr for a sitter. What did they expect? They can try to use it as a subtle sorting mechanism, but ultimately, they have to take whoever lotteries in. If a school really wants to sort, it has to have expensive aftercare or locate far from the metro or major bus lines.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've seen it happen in a different city. Admittedly, DC does seem to have provincial, almost tribal, issues with integrating its socioeconomic populations... But this is only exacerbated by the "start your own unicorn charter" approach.

A school of 700 kids is also not unreasonable. About 4 or 5 classes per grade, and with that comes increased amenities, increased fundraising, increased opportunity.
The fact that so many of you oppose it because you're afraid of the children that might attend is not encouraging.

The data says that the charters - particularly the smaller ones - are more diverse racially and by SES than the traditional schools which uses geography / property values to shape the school populations.

It is also very hard for a charter operator to find a building that could hold 700 students.

Heck, it is hard for DCPS to find a building that can hold 700 students. Trailer city, baby.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've seen it happen in a different city. Admittedly, DC does seem to have provincial, almost tribal, issues with integrating its socioeconomic populations... But this is only exacerbated by the "start your own unicorn charter" approach.

A school of 700 kids is also not unreasonable. About 4 or 5 classes per grade, and with that comes increased amenities, increased fundraising, increased opportunity.
The fact that so many of you oppose it because you're afraid of the children that might attend is not encouraging.

The data says that the charters - particularly the smaller ones - are more diverse racially and by SES than the traditional schools which uses geography / property values to shape the school populations.

It is also very hard for a charter operator to find a building that could hold 700 students.

Heck, it is hard for DCPS to find a building that can hold 700 students. Trailer city, baby.

+2 = Janney & Murch

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For all the positives in the DC system as it is now, I see a lot of negatives. I am probably ignorant, and I won't deny that--but if that's your entire takeaway from my post, I wish you'd listen a little more.

School renovations. Funny, you bring up Shepherd as a perfect dcps school, because I am more familiar with it as a school that spent millions for underground parking and a second floor kiln... For, I believe, 300 students? At least Murch's underground parking might help the teachers of 700 park.

Shepherd is another example of a successful school that could expand its reach. It's not just charters who could do that--as examples like Much and Janney, who have, prove. (To be fair, Shepherd did add prek.)

DC schools--all of them--suffer from massive churn. Principals, teachers and students. You say the charters are diverse, and you're not wrong; but if the families currently living near Bruce Monroe, or Barnard, or Cooke, or Tubman invested in those schools, they'd be diverse too. And they'd feed into middle schools that would reflect the same diversity. And people wouldn't be wasting gasoline and time driving their kids halfway across the city.

Look, I do know things aren't that simple--and I'm a hypocrite, sending my children to a diverse charter school and not our local--but in my defense, I did try our local first. We tried to make it work, we tried really hard. It didn't work. The old adage, that one school is not for all kids is apparently true. And our local did not work for our kids.

But that is all the more reason for successful programs to expand--so that kids who need them can find them. And can get into them. I may be expressing this badly, but I've noticed a certain smug elitism from parents at other hrcs. It's all there in the, "how could we possibly have more than two or three grades per class?" And the, "I've heard MV has some disruptive children."

Again, all I am saying is, if something is working, money should be spent to make it work for more kids. And perhaps not on underground parking and kilns.

I don't know anything about the underground parking or kilns, but I do know a thing or two about running a school. You simply don't get it: there is a huge difference between expanding an already successful school, and learning from what is working at that school and getting other leaders to apply it/implement it elsewhere. Seems like many have tried already to explain to you, and maybe your heels are just too dug in and you're beyond learning anything new about this, but you cannot just take schools that are working at a certain size and demand that they increase in classes significantly - for a variety of reasons.

But instead of explaining it to you again, because others have already made their points, I suggest you put your money where your mouth is and go work at a school or volunteer at a school that you think is working well. You have your child in a charter - volunteer there and ask the leadership why they don't expand to 700 students or double their number of classes.

Then report back on what their response is and whether you convinced them and they will indeed double in size or move into a bigger building, since you said it must be done.

New Poster to this interesting thread.

Regarding your statement in bold above, this is fine in theory but look what is happening in practice at some of the most popular charters.

LAMB does not accept kids after PK4, they say because this is necessary to preserve the montessori focus. But they have a lot of attrition in the upper grades. I think they have maybe 10-15 kids TOTAL for all of grade 5. Can a current LAMB parent provide details? I believe this is the main reason for their high test scores. They have very few kids in the testing grades (3-5), and it's not hard to achieve high scores for such a small number of students, whatever the demographics. The attrition might reduce now with the DCI feed but LAMB has been in business for 15 years now? So that's more than a decade of running, with taxpayer dollars, an "elementary school" that is really a montessori preschool with a very small upper grade school tacked on.

I believe Shining Stars also has a very small number of students in upper grades, again can any parents confirm? Creative Minds, I am not sure what their policy is on size, but every thread on CMI that I see on DCUM, parents are emphasizing the "cozy feel" of the school.

So I understand what you are saying, that not every school can be scaled to 700, but at the same time there seem to be some schools that are quite deliberately holding their student numbers very low. I think you are pushing back too hard against PP, I think s/he has a point.

Another issue in this thread is people treating school quality as being a function of teachers and facilities, whereas in reality most parents think, and research supports, that school quality is at least as much a function of the demographics of the parents whose kids attend. So for example when a PP above says, not sure if it was you, "DCPS should build great schools so it doesn't matter if a charter opens next door", sorry but this is nonsense. I am thinking of a particular DCPS elementary right now that has excellent admin and teachers, but a low income student body. The test scores are low. Many parents would call this a "low quality school" based on test scores and that's understandable. Based on what I have seen, the admin and teachers are great, no improvement needed. The issue is the demographics of the families there. So a lot of local families flee for charters. If they all attended this particular DCPS, the teachers wouldn't be so burdened and the test scores for all students would rise.

I respect the hard work you are doing to improve things, and in some cases in DC's very poorest and most dysfunctional and disenfranchised neighborhoods, perhaps it's true that years of neglect have left bad teachers and admin in place. But in most of the gentrifying neighborhoods (like the one I have in mind), the teachers are generally good and any remaining "quality" issues have to do with the high levels of poverty. And charters, which do serve a useful purpose in some ways, are now perpetuating the high levels of poverty at these neighborhood schools, preventing a greater socioeconomic diversity at those schools which would be better for all students, including the poorest.

But there is one thing I disagree on with the other PP: underground parking. Underground parking is just good common sense in dense urban areas. It frees up surface area for playgrounds and improves relations with the local community. Keep in mind the parking lot is unavailable to parents. It's for staff. We do not live in some post-car utopia in which all teachers live 5 blocks from their schools. Many of DC's best teachers live in places like Fairfax county. In a dense neighborhood and/or small school property it is completely reasonable to build adequate underground parking so that teachers are not circling the block 10 times to fight for parking with local residents. Please be real.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For all the positives in the DC system as it is now, I see a lot of negatives. I am probably ignorant, and I won't deny that--but if that's your entire takeaway from my post, I wish you'd listen a little more.

School renovations. Funny, you bring up Shepherd as a perfect dcps school, because I am more familiar with it as a school that spent millions for underground parking and a second floor kiln... For, I believe, 300 students? At least Murch's underground parking might help the teachers of 700 park.

Shepherd is another example of a successful school that could expand its reach. It's not just charters who could do that--as examples like Much and Janney, who have, prove. (To be fair, Shepherd did add prek.)

DC schools--all of them--suffer from massive churn. Principals, teachers and students. You say the charters are diverse, and you're not wrong; but if the families currently living near Bruce Monroe, or Barnard, or Cooke, or Tubman invested in those schools, they'd be diverse too. And they'd feed into middle schools that would reflect the same diversity. And people wouldn't be wasting gasoline and time driving their kids halfway across the city.

Look, I do know things aren't that simple--and I'm a hypocrite, sending my children to a diverse charter school and not our local--but in my defense, I did try our local first. We tried to make it work, we tried really hard. It didn't work. The old adage, that one school is not for all kids is apparently true. And our local did not work for our kids.

But that is all the more reason for successful programs to expand--so that kids who need them can find them. And can get into them. I may be expressing this badly, but I've noticed a certain smug elitism from parents at other hrcs. It's all there in the, "how could we possibly have more than two or three grades per class?" And the, "I've heard MV has some disruptive children."

Again, all I am saying is, if something is working, money should be spent to make it work for more kids. And perhaps not on underground parking and kilns.

I don't know anything about the underground parking or kilns, but I do know a thing or two about running a school. You simply don't get it: there is a huge difference between expanding an already successful school, and learning from what is working at that school and getting other leaders to apply it/implement it elsewhere. Seems like many have tried already to explain to you, and maybe your heels are just too dug in and you're beyond learning anything new about this, but you cannot just take schools that are working at a certain size and demand that they increase in classes significantly - for a variety of reasons.

But instead of explaining it to you again, because others have already made their points, I suggest you put your money where your mouth is and go work at a school or volunteer at a school that you think is working well. You have your child in a charter - volunteer there and ask the leadership why they don't expand to 700 students or double their number of classes.

Then report back on what their response is and whether you convinced them and they will indeed double in size or move into a bigger building, since you said it must be done.

New Poster to this interesting thread.

Regarding your statement in bold above, this is fine in theory but look what is happening in practice at some of the most popular charters.

LAMB does not accept kids after PK4, they say because this is necessary to preserve the montessori focus. But they have a lot of attrition in the upper grades. I think they have maybe 10-15 kids TOTAL for all of grade 5. Can a current LAMB parent provide details? I believe this is the main reason for their high test scores. They have very few kids in the testing grades (3-5), and it's not hard to achieve high scores for such a small number of students, whatever the demographics. The attrition might reduce now with the DCI feed but LAMB has been in business for 15 years now? So that's more than a decade of running, with taxpayer dollars, an "elementary school" that is really a montessori preschool with a very small upper grade school tacked on.

This is wrong. LAMB had attrition due to the middle school situation. Many people left after 4th to secure a middle school slot. But their 3rd and 4th grade cohorts are not tiny.

Their 5th grade graduating class in 2015 was 18 children.

Their current 5th grade class exceeds 25.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For all the positives in the DC system as it is now, I see a lot of negatives. I am probably ignorant, and I won't deny that--but if that's your entire takeaway from my post, I wish you'd listen a little more.

School renovations. Funny, you bring up Shepherd as a perfect dcps school, because I am more familiar with it as a school that spent millions for underground parking and a second floor kiln... For, I believe, 300 students? At least Murch's underground parking might help the teachers of 700 park.

Shepherd is another example of a successful school that could expand its reach. It's not just charters who could do that--as examples like Much and Janney, who have, prove. (To be fair, Shepherd did add prek.)

DC schools--all of them--suffer from massive churn. Principals, teachers and students. You say the charters are diverse, and you're not wrong; but if the families currently living near Bruce Monroe, or Barnard, or Cooke, or Tubman invested in those schools, they'd be diverse too. And they'd feed into middle schools that would reflect the same diversity. And people wouldn't be wasting gasoline and time driving their kids halfway across the city.

Look, I do know things aren't that simple--and I'm a hypocrite, sending my children to a diverse charter school and not our local--but in my defense, I did try our local first. We tried to make it work, we tried really hard. It didn't work. The old adage, that one school is not for all kids is apparently true. And our local did not work for our kids.

But that is all the more reason for successful programs to expand--so that kids who need them can find them. And can get into them. I may be expressing this badly, but I've noticed a certain smug elitism from parents at other hrcs. It's all there in the, "how could we possibly have more than two or three grades per class?" And the, "I've heard MV has some disruptive children."

Again, all I am saying is, if something is working, money should be spent to make it work for more kids. And perhaps not on underground parking and kilns.

I don't know anything about the underground parking or kilns, but I do know a thing or two about running a school. You simply don't get it: there is a huge difference between expanding an already successful school, and learning from what is working at that school and getting other leaders to apply it/implement it elsewhere. Seems like many have tried already to explain to you, and maybe your heels are just too dug in and you're beyond learning anything new about this, but you cannot just take schools that are working at a certain size and demand that they increase in classes significantly - for a variety of reasons.

But instead of explaining it to you again, because others have already made their points, I suggest you put your money where your mouth is and go work at a school or volunteer at a school that you think is working well. You have your child in a charter - volunteer there and ask the leadership why they don't expand to 700 students or double their number of classes.

Then report back on what their response is and whether you convinced them and they will indeed double in size or move into a bigger building, since you said it must be done.

New Poster to this interesting thread.

Regarding your statement in bold above, this is fine in theory but look what is happening in practice at some of the most popular charters.

LAMB does not accept kids after PK4, they say because this is necessary to preserve the montessori focus. But they have a lot of attrition in the upper grades. I think they have maybe 10-15 kids TOTAL for all of grade 5. Can a current LAMB parent provide details? I believe this is the main reason for their high test scores. They have very few kids in the testing grades (3-5), and it's not hard to achieve high scores for such a small number of students, whatever the demographics. The attrition might reduce now with the DCI feed but LAMB has been in business for 15 years now? So that's more than a decade of running, with taxpayer dollars, an "elementary school" that is really a montessori preschool with a very small upper grade school tacked on.

I believe Shining Stars also has a very small number of students in upper grades, again can any parents confirm? Creative Minds, I am not sure what their policy is on size, but every thread on CMI that I see on DCUM, parents are emphasizing the "cozy feel" of the school.

So I understand what you are saying, that not every school can be scaled to 700, but at the same time there seem to be some schools that are quite deliberately holding their student numbers very low. I think you are pushing back too hard against PP, I think s/he has a point.

Another issue in this thread is people treating school quality as being a function of teachers and facilities, whereas in reality most parents think, and research supports, that school quality is at least as much a function of the demographics of the parents whose kids attend. So for example when a PP above says, not sure if it was you, "DCPS should build great schools so it doesn't matter if a charter opens next door", sorry but this is nonsense. I am thinking of a particular DCPS elementary right now that has excellent admin and teachers, but a low income student body. The test scores are low. Many parents would call this a "low quality school" based on test scores and that's understandable. Based on what I have seen, the admin and teachers are great, no improvement needed. The issue is the demographics of the families there. So a lot of local families flee for charters. If they all attended this particular DCPS, the teachers wouldn't be so burdened and the test scores for all students would rise.

I respect the hard work you are doing to improve things, and in some cases in DC's very poorest and most dysfunctional and disenfranchised neighborhoods, perhaps it's true that years of neglect have left bad teachers and admin in place. But in most of the gentrifying neighborhoods (like the one I have in mind), the teachers are generally good and any remaining "quality" issues have to do with the high levels of poverty. And charters, which do serve a useful purpose in some ways, are now perpetuating the high levels of poverty at these neighborhood schools, preventing a greater socioeconomic diversity at those schools which would be better for all students, including the poorest.

But there is one thing I disagree on with the other PP: underground parking. Underground parking is just good common sense in dense urban areas. It frees up surface area for playgrounds and improves relations with the local community. Keep in mind the parking lot is unavailable to parents. It's for staff. We do not live in some post-car utopia in which all teachers live 5 blocks from their schools. Many of DC's best teachers live in places like Fairfax county. In a dense neighborhood and/or small school property it is completely reasonable to build adequate underground parking so that teachers are not circling the block 10 times to fight for parking with local residents. Please be real.

Current LAMB parent here. I do not know the exact number of students in fifth grade (primarily because fourth and fifth are grouped together) but I saw at least 15 girls perform at the last peace ceremony, and around the same number of fifth grade boys perform at the one before. It is not true that the small class sizes are the reason for LAMB's high achievements. If you knew Montessori at all, you would know that class siZes are quite large. There are 29 children in each class (so 29 in a primary class consisting of pk3, pk4, and k). There was significant attrition before DCI, but my understanding is that this has changed. The school is still a small one, with our wonderful principal knowing the name of every student. I believe that there are many, many factors contributing to LAMB's success, not just the fact that our school is a small one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For all the positives in the DC system as it is now, I see a lot of negatives. I am probably ignorant, and I won't deny that--but if that's your entire takeaway from my post, I wish you'd listen a little more.

School renovations. Funny, you bring up Shepherd as a perfect dcps school, because I am more familiar with it as a school that spent millions for underground parking and a second floor kiln... For, I believe, 300 students? At least Murch's underground parking might help the teachers of 700 park.

Shepherd is another example of a successful school that could expand its reach. It's not just charters who could do that--as examples like Much and Janney, who have, prove. (To be fair, Shepherd did add prek.)

DC schools--all of them--suffer from massive churn. Principals, teachers and students. You say the charters are diverse, and you're not wrong; but if the families currently living near Bruce Monroe, or Barnard, or Cooke, or Tubman invested in those schools, they'd be diverse too. And they'd feed into middle schools that would reflect the same diversity. And people wouldn't be wasting gasoline and time driving their kids halfway across the city.

Look, I do know things aren't that simple--and I'm a hypocrite, sending my children to a diverse charter school and not our local--but in my defense, I did try our local first. We tried to make it work, we tried really hard. It didn't work. The old adage, that one school is not for all kids is apparently true. And our local did not work for our kids.

But that is all the more reason for successful programs to expand--so that kids who need them can find them. And can get into them. I may be expressing this badly, but I've noticed a certain smug elitism from parents at other hrcs. It's all there in the, "how could we possibly have more than two or three grades per class?" And the, "I've heard MV has some disruptive children."

Again, all I am saying is, if something is working, money should be spent to make it work for more kids. And perhaps not on underground parking and kilns.

I don't know anything about the underground parking or kilns, but I do know a thing or two about running a school. You simply don't get it: there is a huge difference between expanding an already successful school, and learning from what is working at that school and getting other leaders to apply it/implement it elsewhere. Seems like many have tried already to explain to you, and maybe your heels are just too dug in and you're beyond learning anything new about this, but you cannot just take schools that are working at a certain size and demand that they increase in classes significantly - for a variety of reasons.

But instead of explaining it to you again, because others have already made their points, I suggest you put your money where your mouth is and go work at a school or volunteer at a school that you think is working well. You have your child in a charter - volunteer there and ask the leadership why they don't expand to 700 students or double their number of classes.

Then report back on what their response is and whether you convinced them and they will indeed double in size or move into a bigger building, since you said it must be done.

New Poster to this interesting thread.

Regarding your statement in bold above, this is fine in theory but look what is happening in practice at some of the most popular charters.

LAMB does not accept kids after PK4, they say because this is necessary to preserve the montessori focus. But they have a lot of attrition in the upper grades. I think they have maybe 10-15 kids TOTAL for all of grade 5. Can a current LAMB parent provide details? I believe this is the main reason for their high test scores. They have very few kids in the testing grades (3-5), and it's not hard to achieve high scores for such a small number of students, whatever the demographics. The attrition might reduce now with the DCI feed but LAMB has been in business for 15 years now? So that's more than a decade of running, with taxpayer dollars, an "elementary school" that is really a montessori preschool with a very small upper grade school tacked on.

This is wrong. LAMB had attrition due to the middle school situation. Many people left after 4th to secure a middle school slot. But their 3rd and 4th grade cohorts are not tiny.

Their 5th grade graduating class in 2015 was 18 children.

Their current 5th grade class exceeds 25.

I am PP, what I wrote was not wrong, at least for grade 5. What were the numbers for grades 3 and 4, prior to DCI?

I wrote that DCI would change this, but LAMB has been in business for 15 years, right? So LAMB has had a tiny 5th grade class for all these years up until now, correct? And during this time the government allowed them to maintain their policy of not admitting past PK4. This is the kind of thing the other PP is talking about.

If all DCPS schools stopped admitting people beyond PK4, believe me, the test scores would be amazing across the board. (You can see this at schools like Ross and Brent. The attrition in grade 5 is an advantage for test scores in grade 5.) But of course, where would those students go. So it's only charters that get to do this, and I can't understand why the government allows it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For all the positives in the DC system as it is now, I see a lot of negatives. I am probably ignorant, and I won't deny that--but if that's your entire takeaway from my post, I wish you'd listen a little more.

School renovations. Funny, you bring up Shepherd as a perfect dcps school, because I am more familiar with it as a school that spent millions for underground parking and a second floor kiln... For, I believe, 300 students? At least Murch's underground parking might help the teachers of 700 park.

Shepherd is another example of a successful school that could expand its reach. It's not just charters who could do that--as examples like Much and Janney, who have, prove. (To be fair, Shepherd did add prek.)

DC schools--all of them--suffer from massive churn. Principals, teachers and students. You say the charters are diverse, and you're not wrong; but if the families currently living near Bruce Monroe, or Barnard, or Cooke, or Tubman invested in those schools, they'd be diverse too. And they'd feed into middle schools that would reflect the same diversity. And people wouldn't be wasting gasoline and time driving their kids halfway across the city.

Look, I do know things aren't that simple--and I'm a hypocrite, sending my children to a diverse charter school and not our local--but in my defense, I did try our local first. We tried to make it work, we tried really hard. It didn't work. The old adage, that one school is not for all kids is apparently true. And our local did not work for our kids.

But that is all the more reason for successful programs to expand--so that kids who need them can find them. And can get into them. I may be expressing this badly, but I've noticed a certain smug elitism from parents at other hrcs. It's all there in the, "how could we possibly have more than two or three grades per class?" And the, "I've heard MV has some disruptive children."

Again, all I am saying is, if something is working, money should be spent to make it work for more kids. And perhaps not on underground parking and kilns.

I don't know anything about the underground parking or kilns, but I do know a thing or two about running a school. You simply don't get it: there is a huge difference between expanding an already successful school, and learning from what is working at that school and getting other leaders to apply it/implement it elsewhere. Seems like many have tried already to explain to you, and maybe your heels are just too dug in and you're beyond learning anything new about this, but you cannot just take schools that are working at a certain size and demand that they increase in classes significantly - for a variety of reasons.

But instead of explaining it to you again, because others have already made their points, I suggest you put your money where your mouth is and go work at a school or volunteer at a school that you think is working well. You have your child in a charter - volunteer there and ask the leadership why they don't expand to 700 students or double their number of classes.

Then report back on what their response is and whether you convinced them and they will indeed double in size or move into a bigger building, since you said it must be done.

New Poster to this interesting thread.

Regarding your statement in bold above, this is fine in theory but look what is happening in practice at some of the most popular charters.

LAMB does not accept kids after PK4, they say because this is necessary to preserve the montessori focus. But they have a lot of attrition in the upper grades. I think they have maybe 10-15 kids TOTAL for all of grade 5. Can a current LAMB parent provide details? I believe this is the main reason for their high test scores. They have very few kids in the testing grades (3-5), and it's not hard to achieve high scores for such a small number of students, whatever the demographics. The attrition might reduce now with the DCI feed but LAMB has been in business for 15 years now? So that's more than a decade of running, with taxpayer dollars, an "elementary school" that is really a montessori preschool with a very small upper grade school tacked on.

I believe Shining Stars also has a very small number of students in upper grades, again can any parents confirm? Creative Minds, I am not sure what their policy is on size, but every thread on CMI that I see on DCUM, parents are emphasizing the "cozy feel" of the school.

So I understand what you are saying, that not every school can be scaled to 700, but at the same time there seem to be some schools that are quite deliberately holding their student numbers very low. I think you are pushing back too hard against PP, I think s/he has a point.

Another issue in this thread is people treating school quality as being a function of teachers and facilities, whereas in reality most parents think, and research supports, that school quality is at least as much a function of the demographics of the parents whose kids attend. So for example when a PP above says, not sure if it was you, "DCPS should build great schools so it doesn't matter if a charter opens next door", sorry but this is nonsense. I am thinking of a particular DCPS elementary right now that has excellent admin and teachers, but a low income student body. The test scores are low. Many parents would call this a "low quality school" based on test scores and that's understandable. Based on what I have seen, the admin and teachers are great, no improvement needed. The issue is the demographics of the families there. So a lot of local families flee for charters. If they all attended this particular DCPS, the teachers wouldn't be so burdened and the test scores for all students would rise.

I respect the hard work you are doing to improve things, and in some cases in DC's very poorest and most dysfunctional and disenfranchised neighborhoods, perhaps it's true that years of neglect have left bad teachers and admin in place. But in most of the gentrifying neighborhoods (like the one I have in mind), the teachers are generally good and any remaining "quality" issues have to do with the high levels of poverty. And charters, which do serve a useful purpose in some ways, are now perpetuating the high levels of poverty at these neighborhood schools, preventing a greater socioeconomic diversity at those schools which would be better for all students, including the poorest.

But there is one thing I disagree on with the other PP: underground parking. Underground parking is just good common sense in dense urban areas. It frees up surface area for playgrounds and improves relations with the local community. Keep in mind the parking lot is unavailable to parents. It's for staff. We do not live in some post-car utopia in which all teachers live 5 blocks from their schools. Many of DC's best teachers live in places like Fairfax county. In a dense neighborhood and/or small school property it is completely reasonable to build adequate underground parking so that teachers are not circling the block 10 times to fight for parking with local residents. Please be real.

Current LAMB parent here. I do not know the exact number of students in fifth grade (primarily because fourth and fifth are grouped together) but I saw at least 15 girls perform at the last peace ceremony, and around the same number of fifth grade boys perform at the one before. It is not true that the small class sizes are the reason for LAMB's high achievements. If you knew Montessori at all, you would know that class siZes are quite large. There are 29 children in each class (so 29 in a primary class consisting of pk3, pk4, and k). There was significant attrition before DCI, but my understanding is that this has changed. The school is still a small one, with our wonderful principal knowing the name of every student. I believe that there are many, many factors contributing to LAMB's success, not just the fact that our school is a small one.

I am familiar with montessori and I am not talking about the number of kids in a mixed-age classroom, I am talking about the number of kids at a grade level relative to the resources of the school, including admin, teachers, intervention teachers, PTO budget, and so on. It is a clear advantage to have a very small number of students at a given testing grade, no-one who has worked in education would dispute this. Take it to the limit and imagine 1 student per grade level.

I realize DCI is changing things and I acknowledged this in my original post, but LAMB's situation was allowed to continue for over a decade. And I do not intend to single out LAMB. There are a number of charters with small enrollments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Current LAMB parent here. I do not know the exact number of students in fifth grade (primarily because fourth and fifth are grouped together) but I saw at least 15 girls perform at the last peace ceremony, and around the same number of fifth grade boys perform at the one before. It is not true that the small class sizes are the reason for LAMB's high achievements. If you knew Montessori at all, you would know that class siZes are quite large. There are 29 children in each class (so 29 in a primary class consisting of pk3, pk4, and k). There was significant attrition before DCI, but my understanding is that this has changed. The school is still a small one, with our wonderful principal knowing the name of every student. I believe that there are many, many factors contributing to LAMB's success, not just the fact that our school is a small one.

I am familiar with montessori and I am not talking about the number of kids in a mixed-age classroom, I am talking about the number of kids at a grade level relative to the resources of the school, including admin, teachers, intervention teachers, PTO budget, and so on. It is a clear advantage to have a very small number of students at a given testing grade, no-one who has worked in education would dispute this. Take it to the limit and imagine 1 student per grade level.

I realize DCI is changing things and I acknowledged this in my original post, but LAMB's situation was allowed to continue for over a decade. And I do not intend to single out LAMB. There are a number of charters with small enrollments.

If you don't mean to single LAMB out, don't: what specific examples do you have of other highly-regarded charters with small enrollments in upper grades?

And another question, even if you can name a few other popular charters with significantly small upper grades, what exactly is the solution you are proposing? The posts you responded to were pointing out that just because a formula for curriculum and school culture and school size works well for a current size does not mean it's manageable for that school to expand numbers of classes or build a satellite school. If you can identify specific schools with very small upper grade class sizes (and you haven't yet other than LAMB, which several current LAMB parents are disputing), what exactly is the solution you are suggesting that doesn't compromise the model that made the school successful?

[Anonymous]

Shining Stars would probably have a larger elementary school if they hadn't had the location issue two years ago. From what I understand from a friend whose child goes there, they are planning on expanding, and, unlike LAMB, they do accept in all grades.

I think Latin and Basis accepting in fifth is probably gutting the upper schools for a lot of charters.

But I agree with you--test scores for only a handful of kids are pretty meaningless. It is sort of sad though, that some schools are closed because of them... if their upper school kids aren't high SES.

Underground parking: you know, sometimes in other cities, I talk about DC--and when I mention the underground parking building there is hysterical laughter. Sad, hysterical laughter. You know what would work INSTEAD of underground parking? Giving your teachers neighborhood parking permits. And, if your school is in too urban an environment for that to work, then it is urban enough to be served by transit. Simple. Cost to taxpayers = nothing. But no, let's spend more tens of millions of dollars on underground parking lots. You know, for the kids.

Underground parking. DCPS parents... oh, I don't know what it says that this is the hill you've picked to die on. (Or--in, I guess--really.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Current LAMB parent here. I do not know the exact number of students in fifth grade (primarily because fourth and fifth are grouped together) but I saw at least 15 girls perform at the last peace ceremony, and around the same number of fifth grade boys perform at the one before. It is not true that the small class sizes are the reason for LAMB's high achievements. If you knew Montessori at all, you would know that class siZes are quite large. There are 29 children in each class (so 29 in a primary class consisting of pk3, pk4, and k). There was significant attrition before DCI, but my understanding is that this has changed. The school is still a small one, with our wonderful principal knowing the name of every student. I believe that there are many, many factors contributing to LAMB's success, not just the fact that our school is a small one.

I am familiar with montessori and I am not talking about the number of kids in a mixed-age classroom, I am talking about the number of kids at a grade level relative to the resources of the school, including admin, teachers, intervention teachers, PTO budget, and so on. It is a clear advantage to have a very small number of students at a given testing grade, no-one who has worked in education would dispute this. Take it to the limit and imagine 1 student per grade level.

I realize DCI is changing things and I acknowledged this in my original post, but LAMB's situation was allowed to continue for over a decade. And I do not intend to single out LAMB. There are a number of charters with small enrollments.

If you don't mean to single LAMB out, don't: what specific examples do you have of other highly-regarded charters with small enrollments in upper grades?

And another question, even if you can name a few other popular charters with significantly small upper grades, what exactly is the solution you are proposing? The posts you responded to were pointing out that just because a formula for curriculum and school culture and school size works well for a current size does not mean it's manageable for that school to expand numbers of classes or build a satellite school. If you can identify specific schools with very small upper grade class sizes (and you haven't yet other than LAMB, which several current LAMB parents are disputing), what exactly is the solution you are suggesting that doesn't compromise the model that made the school successful?

No, there are no LAMB parents in this thread disputing that this persisted in the past. I learned about this issue from LAMB parents in the first place, how else? Posters in this thread are saying that it will change now with DCI, and I myself said this before they did.

I mentioned SS as well but no parents have chimed in, and I mentioned CMI for small size overall. As you are likely aware, several of the "HRCS" are very new and don't even have a grade 5 or in some cases a grade 3.

What I would propose is that when a school gets its charter it commits to a minimum number of students served, or a range, and if due to its own restrictive policies it is falling below that range then it is required to adjust the policies or lose the charter. And the government when setting this range should aim for schools that have roughly the same number of students per grade as a typical DCPS. For example, for the last decade LAMB should have been required to admit students in the upper grades. Yes, this would have been a "disruption", but DCPS schools are forced to deal with this all the time. And CMI should have, in its charter, a commitment to X classes per grade, probably X=3 or 4 at minimum.

I have a problem with charter schools getting taxpayer money and then acting like private schools, even if it is not their intent but rather is an unintended function of well-meaning policies.