Cardozo Feeder Pattern Middle School

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can the Shaw MS folks explain to me the separate principal issue? I'm in a McKinley MS feeder, and the principal there is also the principal of McKinley Tech. My kid is still little so I know very little about MS issues, just starting to follow these threads. Thanks!

It is a focus thing and whether one admin can deal with everything going on at the school and all the central office BS.

From a social-emotional perspective, there is more uniformity of needs in an elementary school -- than there is between 6th-8th graders and high school students.

McKinley Tech has to manage an outreach and marketing program to try to get students to apply, and then get them into college. The IB MS population, at least now, should be getting significant academic support to bring them up to grade level proficiency or at least keep moving toward it.

The McKinley principal is good. But it is a lot to ask of one person.

The principal of Cardozo actually said in the public meeting that she did not have time for the middle school. She seems to be running three programs there and did not want of ask for this middle school business.

This. Is it too much to hope for that a school.be wanted and cared for by its own principal? No wonder the feeder capture rate is so low.

It is a mess, at least they are clear about fixing that now as the explained at last nights meeting. Maybe capture rates will go up. Hard to imagine that is all it takes to make the middle school there appealing, situated as it is next to a school with such a poor academic record, and a pregnant teen program. Or is that pregnant teen program a myth?

Why shouldn't pregnant teens have a program? Should we send them to a boarding school far away so you don't need to see them? Have them drop out and be under- or unemployed parents?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Save Shaw folks are preoccupied with having been wronged. Prevents them from talking about any other solution than clawing the Shaw site back from Banneker. It’s a shame because a lot of effort has been wasted on a hopeless cause.

I think it is about time downtown and the mayor's office faced some blowback for their habit of treating families and schools like crap. Hopefully this results in some real improvements at Cardozo. But that is the compromise result and Save Shaw should keep the pressure on, not fold.

Save Shaw would be able to apply more pressure if they had a viable demand. As seen from this weeks oversight hearings their leverage is minimal.

Why is their demand not viable? Banneker should be allowed to take whatever they want, is that why?

Banneker did not even 'want it" it landed in their lap during the modernization process. Obviously they want it now and even have become to feel entitled to it.

Nonetheless I agree with others who are noting the pure acrimony and little else of the SaveShaw MS twitter feed and ardent supporters. Such a waste of energy which could have been put to better use to get a good deal, and now all you have is a ungraded Cardozo as predicted. It is a shame that the "stand alone middle school" was either used as a strategy to get attention or a genuine demand, because it stoped you all from getting early political buy in for a compromise. And the politicians were looking for a compromise.

Why can't it still happen?

+1. Seems like based on the meeting handout, DCPS is acknowledging the need for improvements and we will likely see some.

Maybe it can. a big shift in the conversation is needed. and there is still the Banneker site which they don't seem to be giving to a charter just yet.

But right now all they are doing is investing in Cardozo middle. I think they will revisit this when the do the boundary redraw in a couple of years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Save Shaw folks are preoccupied with having been wronged. Prevents them from talking about any other solution than clawing the Shaw site back from Banneker. It’s a shame because a lot of effort has been wasted on a hopeless cause.

I think it is about time downtown and the mayor's office faced some blowback for their habit of treating families and schools like crap. Hopefully this results in some real improvements at Cardozo. But that is the compromise result and Save Shaw should keep the pressure on, not fold.

Save Shaw would be able to apply more pressure if they had a viable demand. As seen from this weeks oversight hearings their leverage is minimal.

Why is their demand not viable? Banneker should be allowed to take whatever they want, is that why?

Banneker did not even 'want it" it landed in their lap during the modernization process. Obviously they want it now and even have become to feel entitled to it.

Nonetheless I agree with others who are noting the pure acrimony and little else of the SaveShaw MS twitter feed and ardent supporters. Such a waste of energy which could have been put to better use to get a good deal, and now all you have is a ungraded Cardozo as predicted. It is a shame that the "stand alone middle school" was either used as a strategy to get attention or a genuine demand, because it stoped you all from getting early political buy in for a compromise. And the politicians were looking for a compromise.

Why can't it still happen?

+1. Seems like based on the meeting handout, DCPS is acknowledging the need for improvements and we will likely see some.

Maybe it can. a big shift in the conversation is needed. and there is still the Banneker site which they don't seem to be giving to a charter just yet.

But right now all they are doing is investing in Cardozo middle. I think they will revisit this when the do the boundary redraw in a couple of years.

The idea of a compromise at this point sounds like a joke to me, and the idea of blaming the Save Shaw folks who are doing an excellent job raising important issues is silly. I have heard of no olive branches offered by DCPS or anybody else for that matter. I have not heard wind of any proposals on the table whatsoever other than: "Suck it up, you're not getting anything but the status quo." Maybe those more involved in the discussions know more but my kid is directly affected by all of this and I've heard nothing offered or discussed reasonably from this administration.

[Anonymous]

Can anyone recap what they are proposing for Cardozo?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Save Shaw folks are preoccupied with having been wronged. Prevents them from talking about any other solution than clawing the Shaw site back from Banneker. It’s a shame because a lot of effort has been wasted on a hopeless cause.

I think it is about time downtown and the mayor's office faced some blowback for their habit of treating families and schools like crap. Hopefully this results in some real improvements at Cardozo. But that is the compromise result and Save Shaw should keep the pressure on, not fold.

Save Shaw would be able to apply more pressure if they had a viable demand. As seen from this weeks oversight hearings their leverage is minimal.

Why is their demand not viable? Banneker should be allowed to take whatever they want, is that why?

Banneker did not even 'want it" it landed in their lap during the modernization process. Obviously they want it now and even have become to feel entitled to it.

Nonetheless I agree with others who are noting the pure acrimony and little else of the SaveShaw MS twitter feed and ardent supporters. Such a waste of energy which could have been put to better use to get a good deal, and now all you have is a ungraded Cardozo as predicted. It is a shame that the "stand alone middle school" was either used as a strategy to get attention or a genuine demand, because it stoped you all from getting early political buy in for a compromise. And the politicians were looking for a compromise.

Why can't it still happen?

+1. Seems like based on the meeting handout, DCPS is acknowledging the need for improvements and we will likely see some.

Maybe it can. a big shift in the conversation is needed. and there is still the Banneker site which they don't seem to be giving to a charter just yet.

But right now all they are doing is investing in Cardozo middle. I think they will revisit this when the do the boundary redraw in a couple of years.

The idea of a compromise at this point sounds like a joke to me, and the idea of blaming the Save Shaw folks who are doing an excellent job raising important issues is silly. I have heard of no olive branches offered by DCPS or anybody else for that matter. I have not heard wind of any proposals on the table whatsoever other than: "Suck it up, you're not getting anything but the status quo." Maybe those more involved in the discussions know more but my kid is directly affected by all of this and I've heard nothing offered or discussed reasonably from this administration.

Exactly, this. There have been proposals offered by the Save Shaw folks. Good proposals that provide transport and affordable housing to boot. The question is why is it the Save Shaw people who should compromise? They're the ones losing the hope of ever having a stand alone middle school in their neighborhood. How can you blame them for fighting for that? What is Banneker losing? Nothing. They lose nothing. And, they still gain a renovated and great space for their students in an existing historic building. I, for one, am glad that they keep fighting. It's indulgent enough for me to be on DCUM in the middle of the day. I can't imagine the amount of time those folks are spending on this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because that decision is made. So negotiate the best Plan B you can.

Or keep venting your collective spleens and wind up with nothing or another option you hate.

I think it is important to have public accountability for their poor treatment of Cardozo and its feeders, both in their taking away a promised building, and the years of neglect that got us to this place. Letting them walk all over us may be convenient for Banneker but it will not be healthy for the school district as a whole. We have to stand up for ourselves even if we may not end up with a freestanding MS. It is about the principle of how DCPS treats families.

Oh my god. Get over yourself. Use your energy in a more productive, and helpful way. All you stand for is a "stand alone" middle school which the neighborhood numbers and DCPS don't support. Keep standing, off you go. Please, and let more reasonable and savvy people be the voice for the neighbourhood.

Some day they may treat you like crap too, you know.

I am part of Shaw, and I do feel like DCPS treatment me, and you like crap. But it was a make lemonade situation and unfortunately that moment has passed. Part of the dynamic was everyone who thought they saved garrision and francis stevens thought they could do a repeat, but the merits of the case for "stand alone" this time were not on their side, or the politics.

And the politics are different. Everyone can get behind a movement to save an existing local school from closing. Here there is an abandoned building that hasn’t been a school for 10 years. And the city is going to build a great new school. And that school has strong curry wide backing. It’s a much more difficult fight.

[Anonymous]

*curry* = city

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can anyone recap what they are proposing for Cardozo?

For now, it sounds like they have contracted a program to help all the one star schools. In addition to whatever that program entails, they are adding additional assistant principals for math and literacy (Not a Middle School Principal). They had a few other things, and will go into more detail at Cardozo on the 30th. It’s a start, but they need more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Save Shaw folks are preoccupied with having been wronged. Prevents them from talking about any other solution than clawing the Shaw site back from Banneker. It’s a shame because a lot of effort has been wasted on a hopeless cause.

I think it is about time downtown and the mayor's office faced some blowback for their habit of treating families and schools like crap. Hopefully this results in some real improvements at Cardozo. But that is the compromise result and Save Shaw should keep the pressure on, not fold.

Save Shaw would be able to apply more pressure if they had a viable demand. As seen from this weeks oversight hearings their leverage is minimal.

Why is their demand not viable? Banneker should be allowed to take whatever they want, is that why?

Banneker did not even 'want it" it landed in their lap during the modernization process. Obviously they want it now and even have become to feel entitled to it.

Nonetheless I agree with others who are noting the pure acrimony and little else of the SaveShaw MS twitter feed and ardent supporters. Such a waste of energy which could have been put to better use to get a good deal, and now all you have is a ungraded Cardozo as predicted. It is a shame that the "stand alone middle school" was either used as a strategy to get attention or a genuine demand, because it stoped you all from getting early political buy in for a compromise. And the politicians were looking for a compromise.

Why can't it still happen?

+1. Seems like based on the meeting handout, DCPS is acknowledging the need for improvements and we will likely see some.

Maybe it can. a big shift in the conversation is needed. and there is still the Banneker site which they don't seem to be giving to a charter just yet.

But right now all they are doing is investing in Cardozo middle. I think they will revisit this when the do the boundary redraw in a couple of years.

The idea of a compromise at this point sounds like a joke to me, and the idea of blaming the Save Shaw folks who are doing an excellent job raising important issues is silly. I have heard of no olive branches offered by DCPS or anybody else for that matter. I have not heard wind of any proposals on the table whatsoever other than: "Suck it up, you're not getting anything but the status quo." Maybe those more involved in the discussions know more but my kid is directly affected by all of this and I've heard nothing offered or discussed reasonably from this administration.

Exactly, this. There have been proposals offered by the Save Shaw folks. Good proposals that provide transport and affordable housing to boot. The question is why is it the Save Shaw people who should compromise? They're the ones losing the hope of ever having a stand alone middle school in their neighborhood. How can you blame them for fighting for that? What is Banneker losing? Nothing. They lose nothing. And, they still gain a renovated and great space for their students in an existing historic building. I, for one, am glad that they keep fighting. It's indulgent enough for me to be on DCUM in the middle of the day. I can't imagine the amount of time those folks are spending on this.

The proposal/site plan circulated by Save Shaw did not keep Banneker at the site, so it was not the win-win solution that any politician was able to work with. Save Shaw folk ARE doing an excellent job of raising issues but this is the limit of their ability, because all they want to do is win for themselves, not for Banneker also. It is not that I blame them for being so bad at this, I am just pointing it out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Save Shaw, folks. You've got to let go of the "their lies" thing. The outcome of the boundary review was a policy document. It contained recommendations. Some of the recommendations were implemented. Some were not.

There was never a promise to open a Shaw middle school at the Shaw site, just like there was no promise to reserve at least 10% of seats in each zoned middle school for NEW out of boundary students at 6th grade. Both are recommendations that DCPS did not implement.

It isn't that the freestanding middle school was a lie, it is that the process in general has been fraught with chronic lying, just like every other experience I have had with downtown in my many years of DCPS involvement.

Yeah, the lying (or, more charitably, obfuscation) occurs so frequently over such a long time that it's a feature not a bug of the DCPS bureaucracy. Going hand in hand with the obfuscation is the incompetence, e.g.: never having the correct enrollment projections when reliable data is easily available; cutting school budgets without regard for the prior year's FTEs; not accounting for life cycles for computer technology; relatedly, from the outset, not purchasing enough computers/laptops to be used by current numbers of staff and students; also relatedly, purchasing IT technology within any given school from different manufacturers which use different operating systems (!); and of course not enough money for paper, pencils, and such. Just to name a few examples.

Sounds like a normal organization to me. I assume you have never worked in one. Or one that is influenced by politics and relationships. Getting on the right side of that is how Save Shaw people could have gotten something more out of this.

[Anonymous]

The thing that really pisses me off is that Brookland Middle School is being used as the poster child for NOT doing stand-alone middle schools. But guess what, they picked Ward 5 that has the highest concentration of charters, so Brookland MS was doomed to fail. Yet, what happened there will be used repeatedly as a reason not to fund MS elsewhere even if the situation is much different. The elementary schools in the Cardozo feeder are doing fairly well and enrollment is increasing year by year (same couldn't have been said for all the Brookland MS feeders).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can the Shaw MS folks explain to me the separate principal issue? I'm in a McKinley MS feeder, and the principal there is also the principal of McKinley Tech. My kid is still little so I know very little about MS issues, just starting to follow these threads. Thanks!

It is a focus thing and whether one admin can deal with everything going on at the school and all the central office BS.

From a social-emotional perspective, there is more uniformity of needs in an elementary school -- than there is between 6th-8th graders and high school students.

McKinley Tech has to manage an outreach and marketing program to try to get students to apply, and then get them into college. The IB MS population, at least now, should be getting significant academic support to bring them up to grade level proficiency or at least keep moving toward it.

The McKinley principal is good. But it is a lot to ask of one person.

The principal of Cardozo actually said in the public meeting that she did not have time for the middle school. She seems to be running three programs there and did not want of ask for this middle school business.

This. Is it too much to hope for that a school.be wanted and cared for by its own principal? No wonder the feeder capture rate is so low.

It is a mess, at least they are clear about fixing that now as the explained at last nights meeting. Maybe capture rates will go up. Hard to imagine that is all it takes to make the middle school there appealing, situated as it is next to a school with such a poor academic record, and a pregnant teen program. Or is that pregnant teen program a myth?

Why shouldn't pregnant teens have a program? Should we send them to a boarding school far away so you don't need to see them? Have them drop out and be under- or unemployed parents?

They should have a program, but a school with a pregnant teen program is one that I will opt out of. Is all I am saying. Especially a pregnant teem program at a school where most kids cannot read and write at grade level. Just realistic given the choices I have. Having more middle school teaching staff and a principal will make it more appealing to some though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The thing that really pisses me off is that Brookland Middle School is being used as the poster child for NOT doing stand-alone middle schools. But guess what, they picked Ward 5 that has the highest concentration of charters, so Brookland MS was doomed to fail. Yet, what happened there will be used repeatedly as a reason not to fund MS elsewhere even if the situation is much different. The elementary schools in the Cardozo feeder are doing fairly well and enrollment is increasing year by year (same couldn't have been said for all the Brookland MS feeders).

I don't really get why Brookland is seen as a total failure, because in-boundry uptake is increasing there. And building utilization would have been better if they had built smaller, but DCPS does not want small middle schools. I don't know the math, sure it would not have all the bells and whistles but lets have a conversation about that for Shaw. Instead there is a conversations about apple pie criteria like equity and proximity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing that really pisses me off is that Brookland Middle School is being used as the poster child for NOT doing stand-alone middle schools. But guess what, they picked Ward 5 that has the highest concentration of charters, so Brookland MS was doomed to fail. Yet, what happened there will be used repeatedly as a reason not to fund MS elsewhere even if the situation is much different. The elementary schools in the Cardozo feeder are doing fairly well and enrollment is increasing year by year (same couldn't have been said for all the Brookland MS feeders).

I don't really get why Brookland is seen as a total failure, because in-boundry uptake is increasing there. And building utilization would have been better if they had built smaller, but DCPS does not want small middle schools. I don't know the math, sure it would not have all the bells and whistles but lets have a conversation about that for Shaw. Instead there is a conversations about apple pie criteria like equity and proximity.

And I do not see why 500 kids should be the minimum requirememt when Brookland exists in the mid-200s.

It seems silly to fuss over in-boundary numbers when a school is centrally located and on the metro and several good bus lines. I live OOB for it, but can still easily walk to it, and would consider it a terrific location for my child.

[Anonymous]

The frustrating part about this process for me is that it seems to have revealed that DCPS doesn’t care about academic excellence.
You create programs for the top 10% of students not because your kid will necessarily BE one of those kids, but because a good way to bring the whole school up is to attract and retain very smart kids. Those kids help attract good teachers and attract aspirational families to move inbounds.

If the city can’t create a good middle school option for Seaton and Garrison that has programs for all kids including the top students, DCPS will lose the opportunity to build an amazing school program in Shaw. They have at the elementary level the principals, the buildings, and enough families for positive momentum. If they don’t create a good middle school they’re just lighting on fire all that elementary school potential. Would be a huge missed opportunity.

(Note I think Banneker is a huge success story and needs to be considered strongly in any Shaw MS plan.)