Bancroft-Specific Boundary Study Thread

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wouldn't current Bancroft families be grandfathered into their current path? That's how DCPS previously has done it.

What grade level is the cutoff for grandfathering? Have PK kids been included?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wouldn't current Bancroft families be grandfathered into their current path? That's how DCPS previously has done it.

What grade level is the cutoff for grandfathering? Have PK kids been included?

We live in an area that was moved out of Deal IB last time and kids that were enrolled in DCPS at the time of the change were grandfathered.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wouldn't current Bancroft families be grandfathered into their current path? That's how DCPS previously has done it.

What grade level is the cutoff for grandfathering? Have PK kids been included?

We live in an area that was moved out of Deal IB last time and kids that were enrolled in DCPS at the time of the change were grandfathered.

Yes, within the current community, this primarily matters for... real estate values & realtor profits. But I'm sure everyone -- especially the very loud realtors -- are arguing merely from a position of principle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wouldn't current Bancroft families be grandfathered into their current path? That's how DCPS previously has done it.

What grade level is the cutoff for grandfathering? Have PK kids been included?

We live in an area that was moved out of Deal IB last time and kids that were enrolled in DCPS at the time of the change were grandfathered.

Yes, within the current community, this primarily matters for... real estate values & realtor profits. But I'm sure everyone -- especially the very loud realtors -- are arguing merely from a position of principle.

I’m not sure this is accurate. We were enrolled at Eaton at the time of the last review and our child did not have a choice, nor did the I think two grades above her. I believe only grades 3-5 were able to continue to choose between deal and hardy, then the current second graders were the first class to only have hardy. I think the class that just finished 8th grade at hardy may have been the first Eaton grads who were not grandfathered.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wouldn't current Bancroft families be grandfathered into their current path? That's how DCPS previously has done it.

What grade level is the cutoff for grandfathering? Have PK kids been included?

We live in an area that was moved out of Deal IB last time and kids that were enrolled in DCPS at the time of the change were grandfathered.

Yes, within the current community, this primarily matters for... real estate values & realtor profits. But I'm sure everyone -- especially the very loud realtors -- are arguing merely from a position of principle.

I’m not sure this is accurate. We were enrolled at Eaton at the time of the last review and our child did not have a choice, nor did the I think two grades above her. I believe only grades 3-5 were able to continue to choose between deal and hardy, then the current second graders were the first class to only have hardy. I think the class that just finished 8th grade at hardy may have been the first Eaton grads who were not grandfathered.

Both may be true, evidenced by friends that were at Eaton and would have gone to Hardy but for living in a neighborhood previously IB for Deal.

[Anonymous]

Yes, former Eaton parent here echoing - there's no way they'd grandfather the whole school. They want the changes to show impact fairly quickly. Best you might hope for is 3-5 grandfathered, but below that is the new pattern.

[Anonymous]

The Adams option is interesting- the building is currently getting renovated (students in swing space starting Sept). I don’t know enough about the plans to say how any influx of new students would mesh with what the reno is supposed to encompass. Sounds like the timing mismatch could be a challenge but maybe it would be early enough to adjust.

[Anonymous]

FWIW, here's what DCPS did with grandfathering the last time they redrew the boundaries:

https://dcps.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dcps/publication/attachments/Boundary%20and%20Feeder%20Pattern%20Changes%20FAQ.pdf

At Eaton, only the kids in grades 3-5 during the last year of the Deal feed (2014-15) were grandfathered into Deal (unless they were in a lower grade but had an older sibling who went to Deal).

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure how DCPS would justify moving Bancroft to Adams for Middle School when another dual-language school (Marie Reed) is adjacent to the Adams Boundary?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure how DCPS would justify moving Bancroft to Adams for Middle School when another dual-language school (Marie Reed) is adjacent to the Adams Boundary?

+1. Adams is wishful thinking. Bancroft, MR, and all of the other bilingual elementary schools aside from O-A already have programmatic feeder rights to MacFarland, CHEC (for middle), and Roosevelt, which are the designated dual language programs in DCPS. DCPS will look at the geographic proximity, existing feeder rights, and policy initiative to grow the DL programs in those schools. If any school was going to be rezoned to Adams, it would be MR, not Bancroft. But I highly doubt DCPS would change the feeder pattern in the middle of the Adams renovation that was planned as a 4th-8th grade school at current capacity (486 students) and not an influx of new 6th graders.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some of the loudest voices advocating for retaining rights to Deal/JR are also the ones who have the most to lose to their livelihood. e.g. It’s not a good look when neighborhood realtor residents/parents are arguing for “diversity” when clearly a shift would impact their bottom line.

I’m not going to say that most Bancroft parents’ concerns aren’t mainly for their own kids (that’s the case with most parents, right?), but it’s ridiculous to say that profit is the big motivation. Most neighborhood parents feel very strongly about keeping Deal feeder rights for their kids, and very few of them are real estate agents.

And yes, it might have some effect on house prices in the neighborhood, but probably not much. Bancroft will still be very desirable for elementary, and Mt P is an amazing neighborhood in any case.

Losing access to Deal 10 years ago affected the demographics in nearby Kalorama Triangle. Fewer families and especially fewer kids beyond early elementary grades than when the neighborhood fed to Deal.

I foresee this possibility as well. Mount Pleasant ("Mount Pregnant") has boomed as a young family destination over the last decade, and Bancroft's success is an outsized part of that. Yes, a lot of the families skew Caucasian and UMC, but there are a number of Asian, Latino, and Black parents who are fighting these changes as well.

Unsure of the effects on property values (which has been an elephant in the room), but families with the means to move will move. They settled in Mount Pleasant precisely because they wanted their kids to go to Deal/JR. While Adams/JR seemed like a palatable alternative floated in the last meeting, it was overwhelmingly clear in both the Spanish and English meetings that parents don't want to change the status quo.

HOuses in Mnt P are insanely expensive, a renovated row house is going to start at 1.3 and thats get a bidding war started

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is there room at Adams for Bancroft kids? And would it feed into JR or Roosevelt?

I'd rather see Oyster-Adams become a PK3-5 school and then it and Bancroft can both go to MacFarland and Roosevelt. That feeder pattern has a lot of potential.

Adams is currently being renovated to accomodate the existing and expected number of kids for 5th-7th. Highly doubt they could add another 50-75 kids from bancroft. The city needs to make MacFarland into two schools essentially, one that has a test in academy for high achieving kids. otherwise UMC parents are not going to be that interested. I know we werent and moved away from our bilingual feeder elem due to middle school

[Anonymous]

I also think finding Bancroft a new, standalone PK seems unrealistic. Removing PK3 or changing the Spanish dominant ratio seems more realistic. But this is based on nothing substantive.

[Anonymous]

Crestwood didn't see a decline in RE values when it lost feeder rights to Deal/JR a decade ago.

[Anonymous]

Bancroft has fed to Deal for as long as I can remember so it is going to be hard politically to change that. But if the issue they're solving for is Deal overcrowding, Bancroft would be a likely school to move, and Adams could make a lot of sense if there's still time to factor that into the renovation. It is probably more palatable than other options and it is right on the 42 bus line.

Bancroft kids could still go to J-R for high school (since MacArthur is lessening the burden there). That would be one of the least disruptive but most impactful changes.