Current Ludlow families… what say you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Special education team is a hot mess, so stay away if you'll need those services.

Depends which ones. The problem has been staffing issues, not the staff they have. The speech therapist is actually fantastic, but was on maternity leave for 3 months and wasn’t replaced. She’s back now. They had trouble staffing a self contained classroom and had to move a resources teacher to cover, but hopefully that is sorted for next year. The ECE self contained classroom is the calmest I have ever been in and integrated into the ECE hallway and activities which is important to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Special education team is a hot mess, so stay away if you'll need those services.

+ 1000

Also, as someone mentioned, leadership is not good. And unfortunately, leadership makes or breaks a school. LT is more on the side of sinking at the moment.

LT has good test scores, no classroom teachers leaving this year, IB enrollment up like 25% in 6 years and 300 people show up to community events like 2 nights ago. Hardly sinking. I agree that the principal isn’t good, but she isn’t problematic just not a leader. She’s easily ignored by going to the senior teachers who run the show or the PTO depending on the issue.

[Anonymous]

A lot depends on your grade and teacher assignment. PK team is awesome but don't expect to love it every year. Some are better than others. PTO is good and aftercare/club situation is awesome. Facilities are fine. A lot of pressure to volunteer and be involved, so go into that with eyes open -- the reason the PTO is good and that there are great events is because people do a lot for the school. There are times when I feel we could do less and let people have some time back, without taking anything away from the kids.

I wish there was less time on screens, for younger kids in particular. Also wish they'd just drop uniforms altogether at this point -- it's a very relaxed uniform environment and at least the school colors are bright and kid-friendly, but at this point it would be so much easier to just let kids where whatever (which they already do once a week). I don't really understand what uniforms are adding to the experience here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A lot depends on your grade and teacher assignment. PK team is awesome but don't expect to love it every year. Some are better than others. PTO is good and aftercare/club situation is awesome. Facilities are fine. A lot of pressure to volunteer and be involved, so go into that with eyes open -- the reason the PTO is good and that there are great events is because people do a lot for the school. There are times when I feel we could do less and let people have some time back, without taking anything away from the kids.

I wish there was less time on screens, for younger kids in particular. Also wish they'd just drop uniforms altogether at this point -- it's a very relaxed uniform environment and at least the school colors are bright and kid-friendly, but at this point it would be so much easier to just let kids where whatever (which they already do once a week). I don't really understand what uniforms are adding to the experience here.

While I understand this sentiment (although, just don't bring your kid to every event then!), I don't think you appreciate how lucky you are to be in this situation with your school in DC. It's a pretty small group.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. We were matched for K! We are currently in the Cluster and really love the family and teacher community, so I have very high expectations on making a switch. I have always had a fondness for Ludlow (hence why we ranked them number 2!) and know about the school’s fantastic offerings and programs. Only reason we lotteried at all was for stronger language and music options - we have quite the little songbird and Spanish is important to us. We don’t want to keep doing school hopscotch - wherever we decide for K is where we’d like to stay through middle for the sake of her development and friendships - barring some dramatic series of events. We also want to create sibling preference for our young toddler with one drop off! We do love that LTES feeds back into the Cluster for middle, too. Seems like a win win but I want to be sure we aren’t wearing blinders.

One thing to consider is that most years not all of the In Bound PK3 kids get into PK3 at Ludlow-Taylor from the lottery. That means if your older kid is attending from out of bounds, your younger kid would be behind all of the In Bound kids for the lottery. Granted you would have this issue with Watkins/Peabody, and a Ludlow/Peabody drop off situation is probably easier geographically, but I just wanted to make sure you were aware that your younger kid's lottery preference wouldn't be a sure thing.

Ludlow-Taylor Lottery Preferences
1. In-boundary w Sibling Attending
2. In-boundary w Sibling Offered
3. In-boundary
4. Sibling Attending
5. Sibling Offered
6. Proximity

[Anonymous]

Ludlow just sent a really nice welcome email!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ludlow just sent a really nice welcome email!

And the posters who were talking about the afterschool offerings weren't kidding! The brochure for their clubs program reads like something from a private school. One day has 13 different clubs available?!? How did they manage to set this up / why don't other DCPS schools have something like it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ludlow just sent a really nice welcome email!

And the posters who were talking about the afterschool offerings weren't kidding! The brochure for their clubs program reads like something from a private school. One day has 13 different clubs available?!? How did they manage to set this up / why don't other DCPS schools have something like it?

An amazing and entrepreneurial PK teacher who runs the dance program and then set up an umbrella organization under which other teachers could set up clubs! The PTO has also contributed a lot of funds, etc to get the program off the ground and pay start-up materials costs for interested teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A lot depends on your grade and teacher assignment. PK team is awesome but don't expect to love it every year. Some are better than others. PTO is good and aftercare/club situation is awesome. Facilities are fine. A lot of pressure to volunteer and be involved, so go into that with eyes open -- the reason the PTO is good and that there are great events is because people do a lot for the school. There are times when I feel we could do less and let people have some time back, without taking anything away from the kids.

I wish there was less time on screens, for younger kids in particular. Also wish they'd just drop uniforms altogether at this point -- it's a very relaxed uniform environment and at least the school colors are bright and kid-friendly, but at this point it would be so much easier to just let kids where whatever (which they already do once a week). I don't really understand what uniforms are adding to the experience here.

Is this a coded way of saying the school only wants families with a stay at home or part time work parent? Like the PTO is all SAHMs who make unreasonable requests of families with 2 working parents? I’m trying to get a handle on what you mean by I need to have my eyes open?

[Anonymous]

Not in my experience. For what it’s worth the PTO team juggle these events while all holding down full time jobs outside of the home. A ton of amazing events you can be part of, but I’ve not felt pressured to help beyond what works for our family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot depends on your grade and teacher assignment. PK team is awesome but don't expect to love it every year. Some are better than others. PTO is good and aftercare/club situation is awesome. Facilities are fine. A lot of pressure to volunteer and be involved, so go into that with eyes open -- the reason the PTO is good and that there are great events is because people do a lot for the school. There are times when I feel we could do less and let people have some time back, without taking anything away from the kids.

I wish there was less time on screens, for younger kids in particular. Also wish they'd just drop uniforms altogether at this point -- it's a very relaxed uniform environment and at least the school colors are bright and kid-friendly, but at this point it would be so much easier to just let kids where whatever (which they already do once a week). I don't really understand what uniforms are adding to the experience here.

Is this a coded way of saying the school only wants families with a stay at home or part time work parent? Like the PTO is all SAHMs who make unreasonable requests of families with 2 working parents? I’m trying to get a handle on what you mean by I need to have my eyes open?

I believe everyone on the PTO works full time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot depends on your grade and teacher assignment. PK team is awesome but don't expect to love it every year. Some are better than others. PTO is good and aftercare/club situation is awesome. Facilities are fine. A lot of pressure to volunteer and be involved, so go into that with eyes open -- the reason the PTO is good and that there are great events is because people do a lot for the school. There are times when I feel we could do less and let people have some time back, without taking anything away from the kids.

I wish there was less time on screens, for younger kids in particular. Also wish they'd just drop uniforms altogether at this point -- it's a very relaxed uniform environment and at least the school colors are bright and kid-friendly, but at this point it would be so much easier to just let kids where whatever (which they already do once a week). I don't really understand what uniforms are adding to the experience here.

Is this a coded way of saying the school only wants families with a stay at home or part time work parent? Like the PTO is all SAHMs who make unreasonable requests of families with 2 working parents? I’m trying to get a handle on what you mean by I need to have my eyes open?

No. I agree with PP that I sometimes feel guilty about not doing more, but only because it is so clear that the PTO board busts its ass. They all have real full time jobs, most have multiple kids, etc. There is no good reason why they should do so much while I don’t, but I think a lot of them are just super type A personalities and really good at getting stuff done.

[Anonymous]

The administration is a hot mess and if there is any chance that your child will not be the type that thrives without extra support, I’d think twice. For issues involving the principal, she just doesn’t respond. For weeks in end. And then makes promises that she fails to follow through on. And there seems to be active discouragement of diagnosing issues, in order to not tax the school’s non-existent resources (psychology, behavioral, etc.). We’ve got one kid who is doing fine there and one who is flailing. We are trying to leave through the lottery, despite being in bounds. (We have also found that “very involved parent community” to be clique-y and not always welcoming.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The administration is a hot mess and if there is any chance that your child will not be the type that thrives without extra support, I’d think twice. For issues involving the principal, she just doesn’t respond. For weeks in end. And then makes promises that she fails to follow through on. And there seems to be active discouragement of diagnosing issues, in order to not tax the school’s non-existent resources (psychology, behavioral, etc.). We’ve got one kid who is doing fine there and one who is flailing. We are trying to leave through the lottery, despite being in bounds. (We have also found that “very involved parent community” to be clique-y and not always welcoming.)

I hate agreeing with the bolded but I do. We haven't had the bad experiences regarding services (no IEP) but it has been frustrating how non-communicative the administration is. Last year we wound up in a PK class that started the year without a teacher, and while it eventually got worked out and the rest of the year went fine, it was crazy to me how little communication we got about that situation. However, we are grateful for the aftercare programming and appreciate that our school is within walking distance. We've seen a number of other families leave even in just the two years we've been here though, including some of the few parents that we actually did feel more kinship with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The administration is a hot mess and if there is any chance that your child will not be the type that thrives without extra support, I’d think twice. For issues involving the principal, she just doesn’t respond. For weeks in end. And then makes promises that she fails to follow through on. And there seems to be active discouragement of diagnosing issues, in order to not tax the school’s non-existent resources (psychology, behavioral, etc.). We’ve got one kid who is doing fine there and one who is flailing. We are trying to leave through the lottery, despite being in bounds. (We have also found that “very involved parent community” to be clique-y and not always welcoming.)

I honestly very much disagree with the bolded. The PTO is alway begging people to volunteer at events, etc and absolutely takes all comers. I joined the Auction Committee as a way to get to know people while helping out and I’ve found it great. I’m OOB and none of the people running it have kids in my kid’s grades and they couldn’t be friendlier. They’re also a great source of info and gossip if you just ask. Most of the Board has kids in different years and didn't even know each other before getting elected, so the clique thing seems a stretch. Anyway, seriously, I urge you to get involved now if you want to meet people.

The principal not responding? That’s totally true. Just reach out to your teacher instead.