Maury Capitol Hill

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I have not seen anyone say Maury kids matter more than Miner kids (though obviously everyone's own kids are the most important to them). But they matter just as much, and DC is just as responsible for their welfare and education.

This, sadly, is correct.

The responses have been about:

Property values
Income tax brackets
Personal safety
Walking too much
"Hey Google...How much it costs to move to Virginia?"
"Why should I help others?"
"But how will I justify my falsely conjured SES to others?"
.
.
Strollers
.
.
Education standards

This is just dishonest. It ignores the huge volume of comments lending support to funneling all sorts of resources toward Miner, substantive ideas for how to improve the environment and outcomes at Miner, and lots of support for the idea of at-risk preferences in the lottery.

[Anonymous]

The OOB parents that send their kids to Miner do so because they deem it to be in the best interests of their children's education.

The people in-bounds for Miner that want to cluster with Maury deem it to be in the best interests in the education of their children.

The people at Maury that don't want to cluster with Miner deem it to be in the best interests of their children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The OOB parents that send their kids to Miner do so because they deem it to be in the best interests of their children's education.

The people in-bounds for Miner that want to cluster with Maury deem it to be in the best interests in the education of their children.

The people at Maury that don't want to cluster with Miner deem it to be in the best interests of their children.

Do the Miner families yet know what they want? It seems pretty clear that they haven’t been told by the DME if it will benefit their kids or not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I have not seen anyone say Maury kids matter more than Miner kids (though obviously everyone's own kids are the most important to them). But they matter just as much, and DC is just as responsible for their welfare and education.

This, sadly, is correct.

The responses have been about:

Property values
Income tax brackets
Personal safety
Walking too much
"Hey Google...How much it costs to move to Virginia?"
"Why should I help others?"
"But how will I justify my falsely conjured SES to others?"
.
.
Strollers
.
.
Education standards

This is just dishonest. It ignores the huge volume of comments lending support to funneling all sorts of resources toward Miner, substantive ideas for how to improve the environment and outcomes at Miner, and lots of support for the idea of at-risk preferences in the lottery.

I mean, it sounds pretty much like people just want to pay to make the “problem” (aka at risk kids) go far away…or at least a few blocks away.

[Anonymous]

Causal driveby observer with kids in a different DC school and I think it’s hilarious how badly the Maury families will get screwed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Causal driveby observer with kids in a different DC school and I think it’s hilarious how badly the Maury families will get screwed.

Haha yes it will screw them so badly to interact with THOSE people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People choose Miner for a lot of reasons. They don't want language instruction or they don't want Montessori for whatever reason. Or because they think Two Rivers stinks. Same for SSMA. Or because they want Eliot-Hine rights. Or because they need a self-contained classrooms and Miner's what they're offered.

"I'm choosing Miner because it gives me a path to EH." Said no one, ever, on Earth.

More myopia.

If you lived East of the river, you absolutely would seek out an EH feed. Where do you think all the OOB kids at EH and Eastern come from, friend?

By the way, if you are a Maury parent and this is your attitude about its MS feed, go ahead and leave because of the cluster. You were always going to leave anyway, and you aren't really the asset to the community you think you are.

That's a silly response. The people whom you dismiss are invested in trying to keep their ES on a positive track, and by association, EH on a positive trajectory. If those people pull out you'll have an EH with 60% at risk and 20% special ed. Sure, your kid and every other one in that school will be in a failing environment, but at least you'll feel morally superior. After all that's what counts, right?

Like it or not, UMC families who attend DCPS schools are an asset. Don't take my word for it, ask DME and DCPS. They're about to upend two schools to spread around the very people you dismiss. You don't have to like us, but you darn well sure need us to have a functioning public school system. If that hurts to hear, TFB.

The problem isn’t that you are seen as unneeded. The problem (and I’m not speaking about you personally) is that some of the UMC people look down on the at risk students. One person on that townhall even used the words “dilute our population.” And those comments stand out, even if they aren’t representative of a community as a whole.

I hear what you are saying and I understand the sentiment. I would ask you to consider what it means to "look down on" at risk students. If I don't want 60% of my school to be at risk, is that "looking down on" them? Or is that an acknowledgement that all data tells us the challenges that come with at risk require significant resources and that those kids tend to need intervention to catch up. Is it "looking down on at risk" to want my above grade level kid to be catered to as well, with coursework appropriate to their level and not just being warehoused?

I understand why "dilute" is a cringy and imprecise way to describe the issue. If we take our Language Police Hats off for a moment and react to what they meant, are they wrong to have expressed concern that if the demographics shift there may well be some challenges that accompany that? Do they not have the right to express that concern?

Sure that’s fair. Everyone has the right to express concerns. It’s also fair to say hey, step up and help your neighbors by ensuring even kids who don’t have your advantages get a good education. Because even if your school is suddenly more at risk, your specific child isn’t going to be directly affected. He’s still going to get good grades. He’s still going to score well on PARCC (or whatever the new test they have switched to is called). And now a kid who is at risk is going to have access to a school with stability and support. And your kid’s school might be a 4 star or even a 3 star instead of a 5, but it’s not going to hurt him because there are still going to be the high performing kids at Maury play even a few from Miner (they’re rare but they exist).

I will reply because (at least from my perspective) this is a respectful and substantive conversation.

If I'm being honest, my emotional reaction to "step up and help your neighbors" is to scream "9+%!!!" That's the tax rate for every marginal dollar of income I earn. You can ask me to do more, but, with all due respect, the UMC folks who are told constantly they don't support low income communities are paying for the social services and interventions in those schools. So I don't react well when people act like I'm not contributing. I'd also suggest to you that you simply do not know whether more at risk kids will directly affect my kid. Two of my kids are now in MS. I can assure you that behavioral issues in upper ES derail learning on a near daily basis. You simply don't know what the impact will be, because even DME doesn't have projections (will they still be Title 1? what to enrollment projections look like?) Yes, my kid will do well on PARCC. But I will share with you some wisdom of a parent with an older kid. A 4 or 5 on PARCC does not mean the kid is at or above grade level. My oldest was getting 4s and 5s. Then they got to a non-DCSP MS and took a real national assessment test. The results were not pretty. We had to remediate, and my kid was top of his class in ES.

The gains at Maury were hard fought over a number of years. I think it a bit dismissive and possibly even disrespectful for you to come along and dismiss these concerns with "there there, your kid will be fine." You don't know that. Whether Maury is still Maury in 6 years or is Watkins is a big deal. Same way at risk folks don't want their existence and concerns dismissed, UMC families don't want our concerns and demands for a quality education dismissed with phrases like "good enough" and "you'll be fine".

I think I'm not supposed to say this part out loud, but I am happy to help, but NOT if it means my kid gets a sub-par education. Not if it means my kid is in classes constantly disrupted by fights and outbursts. Not if it means my kid is way behind when they leave DCPS. I will not apologize for not being ok with sacrificing my kids' educations in the name of some perverted view of "equity."

And there is the Maury sentiment in a nutshell:

1). You say you make more money and you already do enough so you shouldn’t have to do more. YOU GO TO PUBLIC SCHOOL.

2). You’re right, no one can know if your kids will be directly affected or not. Guess what, that means you also don’t know if there will be a horrible detriment to your child. While I can understand not wanting your kid to be an experiment, just remember if you want to control all the aspects of who attends your school, maybe you should PAY FOR PRIVATE SCHOOL.

3). I made the PARCC comments because that’s what everyone has been basing the academics on. I actually totally agree that standardized tests aren’t the answer to determining how well kids are doing, but at the end of the day the point is your kid will be fine (hence the woman who commented that her upper grader at Miner scored in the 99th percentile city wide despite being with all those awful at-risk children).

4). Also you say you had to remediate AND that you left DCPS. So you aren’t someone who is going to make the effort to stick with DCPS anyway and you have the money for tutoring. You are really not helping your case here.

5). At least you admit you aren’t supposed to say the “not in my backyard” comment out loud. But you did. You make all these comments about fights in class and outbursts. Why don’t you just say “I don’t want poor Black kids in my class.” And yes I may have made the race comment but we all know what you meant.

Too much to respond to everything. I left DCPS middle schools because they aren't good enough. They were even worse 4 years ago when we had to make the decision. That response is lazy. It is a creative way to ignore or dismiss people whose opinions you don't like. I have a kid in ES now. I pay taxes now. I get a voice now. You don't have to like it. Too bad.

P.S. I didn't say "I make more money". I said I pay insanely high taxes that pay for programs. So I don't have patience for people like you telling me I don't contribute. You want my money but you don't want me to contribute to discussions on where and how it is spent, unless it is to be an amen chorus for people like you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The OOB parents that send their kids to Miner do so because they deem it to be in the best interests of their children's education.

The people in-bounds for Miner that want to cluster with Maury deem it to be in the best interests in the education of their children.

The people at Maury that don't want to cluster with Miner deem it to be in the best interests of their children.

Yes, but only the first and second are entitled to speak in in their children's interests. When #3 does it is racist and elitist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I have not seen anyone say Maury kids matter more than Miner kids (though obviously everyone's own kids are the most important to them). But they matter just as much, and DC is just as responsible for their welfare and education.

This, sadly, is correct.

The responses have been about:

Property values
Income tax brackets
Personal safety
Walking too much
"Hey Google...How much it costs to move to Virginia?"
"Why should I help others?"
"But how will I justify my falsely conjured SES to others?"
.
.
Strollers
.
.
Education standards

This is just dishonest. It ignores the huge volume of comments lending support to funneling all sorts of resources toward Miner, substantive ideas for how to improve the environment and outcomes at Miner, and lots of support for the idea of at-risk preferences in the lottery.

Very much this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Causal driveby observer with kids in a different DC school and I think it’s hilarious how badly the Maury families will get screwed.

Thanks for nothing.

Ok-just slow down-these are children, mostly under 10-like what kind of fights and outbreaks are you referring to, because that comment is biased, completely unfair to automatically label all Miner students as disruptive and going to cause fights.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People choose Miner for a lot of reasons. They don't want language instruction or they don't want Montessori for whatever reason. Or because they think Two Rivers stinks. Same for SSMA. Or because they want Eliot-Hine rights. Or because they need a self-contained classrooms and Miner's what they're offered.

"I'm choosing Miner because it gives me a path to EH." Said no one, ever, on Earth.

More myopia.

If you lived East of the river, you absolutely would seek out an EH feed. Where do you think all the OOB kids at EH and Eastern come from, friend?

By the way, if you are a Maury parent and this is your attitude about its MS feed, go ahead and leave because of the cluster. You were always going to leave anyway, and you aren't really the asset to the community you think you are.

That's a silly response. The people whom you dismiss are invested in trying to keep their ES on a positive track, and by association, EH on a positive trajectory. If those people pull out you'll have an EH with 60% at risk and 20% special ed. Sure, your kid and every other one in that school will be in a failing environment, but at least you'll feel morally superior. After all that's what counts, right?

Like it or not, UMC families who attend DCPS schools are an asset. Don't take my word for it, ask DME and DCPS. They're about to upend two schools to spread around the very people you dismiss. You don't have to like us, but you darn well sure need us to have a functioning public school system. If that hurts to hear, TFB.

The problem isn’t that you are seen as unneeded. The problem (and I’m not speaking about you personally) is that some of the UMC people look down on the at risk students. One person on that townhall even used the words “dilute our population.” And those comments stand out, even if they aren’t representative of a community as a whole.

I hear what you are saying and I understand the sentiment. I would ask you to consider what it means to "look down on" at risk students. If I don't want 60% of my school to be at risk, is that "looking down on" them? Or is that an acknowledgement that all data tells us the challenges that come with at risk require significant resources and that those kids tend to need intervention to catch up. Is it "looking down on at risk" to want my above grade level kid to be catered to as well, with coursework appropriate to their level and not just being warehoused?

I understand why "dilute" is a cringy and imprecise way to describe the issue. If we take our Language Police Hats off for a moment and react to what they meant, are they wrong to have expressed concern that if the demographics shift there may well be some challenges that accompany that? Do they not have the right to express that concern?

Sure that’s fair. Everyone has the right to express concerns. It’s also fair to say hey, step up and help your neighbors by ensuring even kids who don’t have your advantages get a good education. Because even if your school is suddenly more at risk, your specific child isn’t going to be directly affected. He’s still going to get good grades. He’s still going to score well on PARCC (or whatever the new test they have switched to is called). And now a kid who is at risk is going to have access to a school with stability and support. And your kid’s school might be a 4 star or even a 3 star instead of a 5, but it’s not going to hurt him because there are still going to be the high performing kids at Maury play even a few from Miner (they’re rare but they exist).

I will reply because (at least from my perspective) this is a respectful and substantive conversation.

If I'm being honest, my emotional reaction to "step up and help your neighbors" is to scream "9+%!!!" That's the tax rate for every marginal dollar of income I earn. You can ask me to do more, but, with all due respect, the UMC folks who are told constantly they don't support low income communities are paying for the social services and interventions in those schools. So I don't react well when people act like I'm not contributing. I'd also suggest to you that you simply do not know whether more at risk kids will directly affect my kid. Two of my kids are now in MS. I can assure you that behavioral issues in upper ES derail learning on a near daily basis. You simply don't know what the impact will be, because even DME doesn't have projections (will they still be Title 1? what to enrollment projections look like?) Yes, my kid will do well on PARCC. But I will share with you some wisdom of a parent with an older kid. A 4 or 5 on PARCC does not mean the kid is at or above grade level. My oldest was getting 4s and 5s. Then they got to a non-DCSP MS and took a real national assessment test. The results were not pretty. We had to remediate, and my kid was top of his class in ES.

The gains at Maury were hard fought over a number of years. I think it a bit dismissive and possibly even disrespectful for you to come along and dismiss these concerns with "there there, your kid will be fine." You don't know that. Whether Maury is still Maury in 6 years or is Watkins is a big deal. Same way at risk folks don't want their existence and concerns dismissed, UMC families don't want our concerns and demands for a quality education dismissed with phrases like "good enough" and "you'll be fine".

I think I'm not supposed to say this part out loud, but I am happy to help, but NOT if it means my kid gets a sub-par education. Not if it means my kid is in classes constantly disrupted by fights and outbursts. Not if it means my kid is way behind when they leave DCPS. I will not apologize for not being ok with sacrificing my kids' educations in the name of some perverted view of "equity."

And there is the Maury sentiment in a nutshell:

1). You say you make more money and you already do enough so you shouldn’t have to do more. YOU GO TO PUBLIC SCHOOL.

2). You’re right, no one can know if your kids will be directly affected or not. Guess what, that means you also don’t know if there will be a horrible detriment to your child. While I can understand not wanting your kid to be an experiment, just remember if you want to control all the aspects of who attends your school, maybe you should PAY FOR PRIVATE SCHOOL.

3). I made the PARCC comments because that’s what everyone has been basing the academics on. I actually totally agree that standardized tests aren’t the answer to determining how well kids are doing, but at the end of the day the point is your kid will be fine (hence the woman who commented that her upper grader at Miner scored in the 99th percentile city wide despite being with all those awful at-risk children).

4). Also you say you had to remediate AND that you left DCPS. So you aren’t someone who is going to make the effort to stick with DCPS anyway and you have the money for tutoring. You are really not helping your case here.

5). At least you admit you aren’t supposed to say the “not in my backyard” comment out loud. But you did. You make all these comments about fights in class and outbursts. Why don’t you just say “I don’t want poor Black kids in my class.” And yes I may have made the race comment but we all know what you meant.

Too much to respond to everything. I left DCPS middle schools because they aren't good enough. They were even worse 4 years ago when we had to make the decision. That response is lazy. It is a creative way to ignore or dismiss people whose opinions you don't like. I have a kid in ES now. I pay taxes now. I get a voice now. You don't have to like it. Too bad.

P.S. I didn't say "I make more money". I said I pay insanely high taxes that pay for programs. So I don't have patience for people like you telling me I don't contribute. You want my money but you don't want me to contribute to discussions on where and how it is spent, unless it is to be an amen chorus for people like you.

I don’t want your money. I don’t even necessarily agree with the cluster/merger. I do want people like you to realize you are the reason schools like Miner and Eliot-Hine and countless others need help because you leave when it gets tough because it’s not “good enough” and you get mad when people have the audacity to ask you to do more. It’s easy to run away. The people who worked hard to make Maury the good school it is today didn’t run away. I watched them work hard. Really hard. And people like you benefitted from that. Now maybe it’s time for other kids to benefit from it too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People choose Miner for a lot of reasons. They don't want language instruction or they don't want Montessori for whatever reason. Or because they think Two Rivers stinks. Same for SSMA. Or because they want Eliot-Hine rights. Or because they need a self-contained classrooms and Miner's what they're offered.

"I'm choosing Miner because it gives me a path to EH." Said no one, ever, on Earth.

More myopia.

If you lived East of the river, you absolutely would seek out an EH feed. Where do you think all the OOB kids at EH and Eastern come from, friend?

By the way, if you are a Maury parent and this is your attitude about its MS feed, go ahead and leave because of the cluster. You were always going to leave anyway, and you aren't really the asset to the community you think you are.

That's a silly response. The people whom you dismiss are invested in trying to keep their ES on a positive track, and by association, EH on a positive trajectory. If those people pull out you'll have an EH with 60% at risk and 20% special ed. Sure, your kid and every other one in that school will be in a failing environment, but at least you'll feel morally superior. After all that's what counts, right?

Like it or not, UMC families who attend DCPS schools are an asset. Don't take my word for it, ask DME and DCPS. They're about to upend two schools to spread around the very people you dismiss. You don't have to like us, but you darn well sure need us to have a functioning public school system. If that hurts to hear, TFB.

The problem isn’t that you are seen as unneeded. The problem (and I’m not speaking about you personally) is that some of the UMC people look down on the at risk students. One person on that townhall even used the words “dilute our population.” And those comments stand out, even if they aren’t representative of a community as a whole.

I hear what you are saying and I understand the sentiment. I would ask you to consider what it means to "look down on" at risk students. If I don't want 60% of my school to be at risk, is that "looking down on" them? Or is that an acknowledgement that all data tells us the challenges that come with at risk require significant resources and that those kids tend to need intervention to catch up. Is it "looking down on at risk" to want my above grade level kid to be catered to as well, with coursework appropriate to their level and not just being warehoused?

I understand why "dilute" is a cringy and imprecise way to describe the issue. If we take our Language Police Hats off for a moment and react to what they meant, are they wrong to have expressed concern that if the demographics shift there may well be some challenges that accompany that? Do they not have the right to express that concern?

Sure that’s fair. Everyone has the right to express concerns. It’s also fair to say hey, step up and help your neighbors by ensuring even kids who don’t have your advantages get a good education. Because even if your school is suddenly more at risk, your specific child isn’t going to be directly affected. He’s still going to get good grades. He’s still going to score well on PARCC (or whatever the new test they have switched to is called). And now a kid who is at risk is going to have access to a school with stability and support. And your kid’s school might be a 4 star or even a 3 star instead of a 5, but it’s not going to hurt him because there are still going to be the high performing kids at Maury play even a few from Miner (they’re rare but they exist).

I will reply because (at least from my perspective) this is a respectful and substantive conversation.

If I'm being honest, my emotional reaction to "step up and help your neighbors" is to scream "9+%!!!" That's the tax rate for every marginal dollar of income I earn. You can ask me to do more, but, with all due respect, the UMC folks who are told constantly they don't support low income communities are paying for the social services and interventions in those schools. So I don't react well when people act like I'm not contributing. I'd also suggest to you that you simply do not know whether more at risk kids will directly affect my kid. Two of my kids are now in MS. I can assure you that behavioral issues in upper ES derail learning on a near daily basis. You simply don't know what the impact will be, because even DME doesn't have projections (will they still be Title 1? what to enrollment projections look like?) Yes, my kid will do well on PARCC. But I will share with you some wisdom of a parent with an older kid. A 4 or 5 on PARCC does not mean the kid is at or above grade level. My oldest was getting 4s and 5s. Then they got to a non-DCSP MS and took a real national assessment test. The results were not pretty. We had to remediate, and my kid was top of his class in ES.

The gains at Maury were hard fought over a number of years. I think it a bit dismissive and possibly even disrespectful for you to come along and dismiss these concerns with "there there, your kid will be fine." You don't know that. Whether Maury is still Maury in 6 years or is Watkins is a big deal. Same way at risk folks don't want their existence and concerns dismissed, UMC families don't want our concerns and demands for a quality education dismissed with phrases like "good enough" and "you'll be fine".

I think I'm not supposed to say this part out loud, but I am happy to help, but NOT if it means my kid gets a sub-par education. Not if it means my kid is in classes constantly disrupted by fights and outbursts. Not if it means my kid is way behind when they leave DCPS. I will not apologize for not being ok with sacrificing my kids' educations in the name of some perverted view of "equity."

And there is the Maury sentiment in a nutshell:

1). You say you make more money and you already do enough so you shouldn’t have to do more. YOU GO TO PUBLIC SCHOOL.

2). You’re right, no one can know if your kids will be directly affected or not. Guess what, that means you also don’t know if there will be a horrible detriment to your child. While I can understand not wanting your kid to be an experiment, just remember if you want to control all the aspects of who attends your school, maybe you should PAY FOR PRIVATE SCHOOL.

3). I made the PARCC comments because that’s what everyone has been basing the academics on. I actually totally agree that standardized tests aren’t the answer to determining how well kids are doing, but at the end of the day the point is your kid will be fine (hence the woman who commented that her upper grader at Miner scored in the 99th percentile city wide despite being with all those awful at-risk children).

4). Also you say you had to remediate AND that you left DCPS. So you aren’t someone who is going to make the effort to stick with DCPS anyway and you have the money for tutoring. You are really not helping your case here.

5). At least you admit you aren’t supposed to say the “not in my backyard” comment out loud. But you did. You make all these comments about fights in class and outbursts. Why don’t you just say “I don’t want poor Black kids in my class.” And yes I may have made the race comment but we all know what you meant.

Too much to respond to everything. I left DCPS middle schools because they aren't good enough. They were even worse 4 years ago when we had to make the decision. That response is lazy. It is a creative way to ignore or dismiss people whose opinions you don't like. I have a kid in ES now. I pay taxes now. I get a voice now. You don't have to like it. Too bad.

P.S. I didn't say "I make more money". I said I pay insanely high taxes that pay for programs. So I don't have patience for people like you telling me I don't contribute. You want my money but you don't want me to contribute to discussions on where and how it is spent, unless it is to be an amen chorus for people like you.

I don’t want your money. I don’t even necessarily agree with the cluster/merger. I do want people like you to realize you are the reason schools like Miner and Eliot-Hine and countless others need help because you leave when it gets tough because it’s not “good enough” and you get mad when people have the audacity to ask you to do more. It’s easy to run away. The people who worked hard to make Maury the good school it is today didn’t run away. I watched them work hard. Really hard. And people like you benefitted from that. Now maybe it’s time for other kids to benefit from it too.

If you want people to stay and invest in schools, this is not the way to go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People choose Miner for a lot of reasons. They don't want language instruction or they don't want Montessori for whatever reason. Or because they think Two Rivers stinks. Same for SSMA. Or because they want Eliot-Hine rights. Or because they need a self-contained classrooms and Miner's what they're offered.

"I'm choosing Miner because it gives me a path to EH." Said no one, ever, on Earth.

More myopia.

If you lived East of the river, you absolutely would seek out an EH feed. Where do you think all the OOB kids at EH and Eastern come from, friend?

By the way, if you are a Maury parent and this is your attitude about its MS feed, go ahead and leave because of the cluster. You were always going to leave anyway, and you aren't really the asset to the community you think you are.

That's a silly response. The people whom you dismiss are invested in trying to keep their ES on a positive track, and by association, EH on a positive trajectory. If those people pull out you'll have an EH with 60% at risk and 20% special ed. Sure, your kid and every other one in that school will be in a failing environment, but at least you'll feel morally superior. After all that's what counts, right?

Like it or not, UMC families who attend DCPS schools are an asset. Don't take my word for it, ask DME and DCPS. They're about to upend two schools to spread around the very people you dismiss. You don't have to like us, but you darn well sure need us to have a functioning public school system. If that hurts to hear, TFB.

The problem isn’t that you are seen as unneeded. The problem (and I’m not speaking about you personally) is that some of the UMC people look down on the at risk students. One person on that townhall even used the words “dilute our population.” And those comments stand out, even if they aren’t representative of a community as a whole.

I hear what you are saying and I understand the sentiment. I would ask you to consider what it means to "look down on" at risk students. If I don't want 60% of my school to be at risk, is that "looking down on" them? Or is that an acknowledgement that all data tells us the challenges that come with at risk require significant resources and that those kids tend to need intervention to catch up. Is it "looking down on at risk" to want my above grade level kid to be catered to as well, with coursework appropriate to their level and not just being warehoused?

I understand why "dilute" is a cringy and imprecise way to describe the issue. If we take our Language Police Hats off for a moment and react to what they meant, are they wrong to have expressed concern that if the demographics shift there may well be some challenges that accompany that? Do they not have the right to express that concern?

Sure that’s fair. Everyone has the right to express concerns. It’s also fair to say hey, step up and help your neighbors by ensuring even kids who don’t have your advantages get a good education. Because even if your school is suddenly more at risk, your specific child isn’t going to be directly affected. He’s still going to get good grades. He’s still going to score well on PARCC (or whatever the new test they have switched to is called). And now a kid who is at risk is going to have access to a school with stability and support. And your kid’s school might be a 4 star or even a 3 star instead of a 5, but it’s not going to hurt him because there are still going to be the high performing kids at Maury play even a few from Miner (they’re rare but they exist).

I will reply because (at least from my perspective) this is a respectful and substantive conversation.

If I'm being honest, my emotional reaction to "step up and help your neighbors" is to scream "9+%!!!" That's the tax rate for every marginal dollar of income I earn. You can ask me to do more, but, with all due respect, the UMC folks who are told constantly they don't support low income communities are paying for the social services and interventions in those schools. So I don't react well when people act like I'm not contributing. I'd also suggest to you that you simply do not know whether more at risk kids will directly affect my kid. Two of my kids are now in MS. I can assure you that behavioral issues in upper ES derail learning on a near daily basis. You simply don't know what the impact will be, because even DME doesn't have projections (will they still be Title 1? what to enrollment projections look like?) Yes, my kid will do well on PARCC. But I will share with you some wisdom of a parent with an older kid. A 4 or 5 on PARCC does not mean the kid is at or above grade level. My oldest was getting 4s and 5s. Then they got to a non-DCSP MS and took a real national assessment test. The results were not pretty. We had to remediate, and my kid was top of his class in ES.

The gains at Maury were hard fought over a number of years. I think it a bit dismissive and possibly even disrespectful for you to come along and dismiss these concerns with "there there, your kid will be fine." You don't know that. Whether Maury is still Maury in 6 years or is Watkins is a big deal. Same way at risk folks don't want their existence and concerns dismissed, UMC families don't want our concerns and demands for a quality education dismissed with phrases like "good enough" and "you'll be fine".

I think I'm not supposed to say this part out loud, but I am happy to help, but NOT if it means my kid gets a sub-par education. Not if it means my kid is in classes constantly disrupted by fights and outbursts. Not if it means my kid is way behind when they leave DCPS. I will not apologize for not being ok with sacrificing my kids' educations in the name of some perverted view of "equity."

And there is the Maury sentiment in a nutshell:

1). You say you make more money and you already do enough so you shouldn’t have to do more. YOU GO TO PUBLIC SCHOOL.

2). You’re right, no one can know if your kids will be directly affected or not. Guess what, that means you also don’t know if there will be a horrible detriment to your child. While I can understand not wanting your kid to be an experiment, just remember if you want to control all the aspects of who attends your school, maybe you should PAY FOR PRIVATE SCHOOL.

3). I made the PARCC comments because that’s what everyone has been basing the academics on. I actually totally agree that standardized tests aren’t the answer to determining how well kids are doing, but at the end of the day the point is your kid will be fine (hence the woman who commented that her upper grader at Miner scored in the 99th percentile city wide despite being with all those awful at-risk children).

4). Also you say you had to remediate AND that you left DCPS. So you aren’t someone who is going to make the effort to stick with DCPS anyway and you have the money for tutoring. You are really not helping your case here.

5). At least you admit you aren’t supposed to say the “not in my backyard” comment out loud. But you did. You make all these comments about fights in class and outbursts. Why don’t you just say “I don’t want poor Black kids in my class.” And yes I may have made the race comment but we all know what you meant.

A-MEN.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People choose Miner for a lot of reasons. They don't want language instruction or they don't want Montessori for whatever reason. Or because they think Two Rivers stinks. Same for SSMA. Or because they want Eliot-Hine rights. Or because they need a self-contained classrooms and Miner's what they're offered.

"I'm choosing Miner because it gives me a path to EH." Said no one, ever, on Earth.

More myopia.

If you lived East of the river, you absolutely would seek out an EH feed. Where do you think all the OOB kids at EH and Eastern come from, friend?

By the way, if you are a Maury parent and this is your attitude about its MS feed, go ahead and leave because of the cluster. You were always going to leave anyway, and you aren't really the asset to the community you think you are.

That's a silly response. The people whom you dismiss are invested in trying to keep their ES on a positive track, and by association, EH on a positive trajectory. If those people pull out you'll have an EH with 60% at risk and 20% special ed. Sure, your kid and every other one in that school will be in a failing environment, but at least you'll feel morally superior. After all that's what counts, right?

Like it or not, UMC families who attend DCPS schools are an asset. Don't take my word for it, ask DME and DCPS. They're about to upend two schools to spread around the very people you dismiss. You don't have to like us, but you darn well sure need us to have a functioning public school system. If that hurts to hear, TFB.

The problem isn’t that you are seen as unneeded. The problem (and I’m not speaking about you personally) is that some of the UMC people look down on the at risk students. One person on that townhall even used the words “dilute our population.” And those comments stand out, even if they aren’t representative of a community as a whole.

I hear what you are saying and I understand the sentiment. I would ask you to consider what it means to "look down on" at risk students. If I don't want 60% of my school to be at risk, is that "looking down on" them? Or is that an acknowledgement that all data tells us the challenges that come with at risk require significant resources and that those kids tend to need intervention to catch up. Is it "looking down on at risk" to want my above grade level kid to be catered to as well, with coursework appropriate to their level and not just being warehoused?

I understand why "dilute" is a cringy and imprecise way to describe the issue. If we take our Language Police Hats off for a moment and react to what they meant, are they wrong to have expressed concern that if the demographics shift there may well be some challenges that accompany that? Do they not have the right to express that concern?

Sure that’s fair. Everyone has the right to express concerns. It’s also fair to say hey, step up and help your neighbors by ensuring even kids who don’t have your advantages get a good education. Because even if your school is suddenly more at risk, your specific child isn’t going to be directly affected. He’s still going to get good grades. He’s still going to score well on PARCC (or whatever the new test they have switched to is called). And now a kid who is at risk is going to have access to a school with stability and support. And your kid’s school might be a 4 star or even a 3 star instead of a 5, but it’s not going to hurt him because there are still going to be the high performing kids at Maury play even a few from Miner (they’re rare but they exist).

I will reply because (at least from my perspective) this is a respectful and substantive conversation.

If I'm being honest, my emotional reaction to "step up and help your neighbors" is to scream "9+%!!!" That's the tax rate for every marginal dollar of income I earn. You can ask me to do more, but, with all due respect, the UMC folks who are told constantly they don't support low income communities are paying for the social services and interventions in those schools. So I don't react well when people act like I'm not contributing. I'd also suggest to you that you simply do not know whether more at risk kids will directly affect my kid. Two of my kids are now in MS. I can assure you that behavioral issues in upper ES derail learning on a near daily basis. You simply don't know what the impact will be, because even DME doesn't have projections (will they still be Title 1? what to enrollment projections look like?) Yes, my kid will do well on PARCC. But I will share with you some wisdom of a parent with an older kid. A 4 or 5 on PARCC does not mean the kid is at or above grade level. My oldest was getting 4s and 5s. Then they got to a non-DCSP MS and took a real national assessment test. The results were not pretty. We had to remediate, and my kid was top of his class in ES.

The gains at Maury were hard fought over a number of years. I think it a bit dismissive and possibly even disrespectful for you to come along and dismiss these concerns with "there there, your kid will be fine." You don't know that. Whether Maury is still Maury in 6 years or is Watkins is a big deal. Same way at risk folks don't want their existence and concerns dismissed, UMC families don't want our concerns and demands for a quality education dismissed with phrases like "good enough" and "you'll be fine".

I think I'm not supposed to say this part out loud, but I am happy to help, but NOT if it means my kid gets a sub-par education. Not if it means my kid is in classes constantly disrupted by fights and outbursts. Not if it means my kid is way behind when they leave DCPS. I will not apologize for not being ok with sacrificing my kids' educations in the name of some perverted view of "equity."

And there is the Maury sentiment in a nutshell:

1). You say you make more money and you already do enough so you shouldn’t have to do more. YOU GO TO PUBLIC SCHOOL.

2). You’re right, no one can know if your kids will be directly affected or not. Guess what, that means you also don’t know if there will be a horrible detriment to your child. While I can understand not wanting your kid to be an experiment, just remember if you want to control all the aspects of who attends your school, maybe you should PAY FOR PRIVATE SCHOOL.

3). I made the PARCC comments because that’s what everyone has been basing the academics on. I actually totally agree that standardized tests aren’t the answer to determining how well kids are doing, but at the end of the day the point is your kid will be fine (hence the woman who commented that her upper grader at Miner scored in the 99th percentile city wide despite being with all those awful at-risk children).

4). Also you say you had to remediate AND that you left DCPS. So you aren’t someone who is going to make the effort to stick with DCPS anyway and you have the money for tutoring. You are really not helping your case here.

5). At least you admit you aren’t supposed to say the “not in my backyard” comment out loud. But you did. You make all these comments about fights in class and outbursts. Why don’t you just say “I don’t want poor Black kids in my class.” And yes I may have made the race comment but we all know what you meant.

Too much to respond to everything. I left DCPS middle schools because they aren't good enough. They were even worse 4 years ago when we had to make the decision. That response is lazy. It is a creative way to ignore or dismiss people whose opinions you don't like. I have a kid in ES now. I pay taxes now. I get a voice now. You don't have to like it. Too bad.

P.S. I didn't say "I make more money". I said I pay insanely high taxes that pay for programs. So I don't have patience for people like you telling me I don't contribute. You want my money but you don't want me to contribute to discussions on where and how it is spent, unless it is to be an amen chorus for people like you.

I don’t want your money. I don’t even necessarily agree with the cluster/merger. I do want people like you to realize you are the reason schools like Miner and Eliot-Hine and countless others need help because you leave when it gets tough because it’s not “good enough” and you get mad when people have the audacity to ask you to do more. It’s easy to run away. The people who worked hard to make Maury the good school it is today didn’t run away. I watched them work hard. Really hard. And people like you benefitted from that. Now maybe it’s time for other kids to benefit from it too.

If you want people to stay and invest in schools, this is not the way to go.

Maybe not, but Miner families are tired of being treated like they live on the wrong side of the tracks. A lot of Maury families don’t treat them as such but many do, and that was clear in 2017 when this idea was first floated and it’s just as clear today. Can you imagine working and working and working just to feel like you’re running into a brick wall? Literally in a 3 day period Miner lost their principal, found out there was a a possible cluster merger, and then sat through a townhall where a lot of people made disparaging comments. Honestly, it’s exhausting. I’m not PP and I don’t necessarily condone all he/she said, but I get it. To work and work and work and then be told on this message board by Maury parents “your IB families just don’t make enough of an effort” or “oh it’s so inconvenient to walk that extra 3 blocks” or “maybe I just don’t want my kids in classrooms where there are at risk kids causing disruptions.” Ok you’re right, losing our cool and calling out people isn’t the answer. But my God what is? And why is no one doing it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Causal driveby observer with kids in a different DC school and I think it’s hilarious how badly the Maury families will get screwed.

Thanks for nothing.

Ok-just slow down-these are children, mostly under 10-like what kind of fights and outbreaks are you referring to, because that comment is biased, completely unfair to automatically label all Miner students as disruptive and going to cause fights.

Are you so racist that you hallucinated the previous comment mentioned fights and outbreaks?