Elementary Schools zoned in Old Town

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Actually, in the late 90's, they purposefully re-drew the boundaries to concentrate most of the public housing kids into Jefferson-Houston. They did it to bring up the scores of the other schools. Furthermore, the general consensus is that they are expanding it to k-8 to keep the public housing kids out of the middle school, thereby bringing up that school's test scores. If anyone ever wanted to expend the effort, there is a wonderful law suit here.

The principal at J-H, who was well-regarded, and the first one to stay more than about 9 months in recent memory, has been transferred to an administrative job, and the school is going to be run by a "Committee" of administrators. I'm not sure about the whole story, but it sounds like an attempt to avoid having any one person be accountable, and an absolute recipe for disaster. However, no one is every going to get that school to make AYP with the demographics it has.

I thought they did hire a new principal. They were advertising "meet the principal" night.

I agree that the school will never make AYP with the demographic but if it fails enough times won't they have to close? They have already tried reorganizing a couple times and it hasn't worked.

From the local paper:

"Alexandria City Public Schools Superintendent Morton Sherman has announced that Jefferson-Houston School will be operated by a principal for instruction, assisted by a chief executive officer, with oversight by an alternate governance committee comprised of school leadership, PTA representatives and central office staff. This committee will provide support and guidance needed to assist the principal in his or her quest to improve student achievement. The principal for instruction position is being advertised now with a goal of selecting a new principal by late July." I think they have selected a "finalist" for the "Principal for Instruction" position. Sounds like a way to spread the blame, so no one person has to take all the heat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
No, you draw the boundaries such that no one school is saddled with too high a porportion of kids from the various housing projects. Some (in South Old Town) go to Lyles-Crouch, some (in Parker-Gray) go to Maury, some go to Jeff-Houston, and some (in the far north end of Old Town) go to the new school in Potomac Yards. None of the kids from the projects would be bussed across town--they would all still be attending schools that are still just a few blocks from their homes. Concentrating the poor into one area (or one school) never helps the poor. The City Council doesn't seem to understand this as they keep building/renovating housing projects in Old Town. But ACPS should do its best to correct the City Council's errors by not funneling too many of the kids from the PJ's into one elementary school.

Every day I read about one more project near Old Town that's being replaced with expensive condos. Sounds like it's just not happening soon enough for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
No, you draw the boundaries such that no one school is saddled with too high a porportion of kids from the various housing projects. Some (in South Old Town) go to Lyles-Crouch, some (in Parker-Gray) go to Maury, some go to Jeff-Houston, and some (in the far north end of Old Town) go to the new school in Potomac Yards. None of the kids from the projects would be bussed across town--they would all still be attending schools that are still just a few blocks from their homes. Concentrating the poor into one area (or one school) never helps the poor. The City Council doesn't seem to understand this as they keep building/renovating housing projects in Old Town. But ACPS should do its best to correct the City Council's errors by not funneling too many of the kids from the PJ's into one elementary school.

Every day I read about one more project near Old Town that's being replaced with expensive condos. Sounds like it's just not happening soon enough for you.

So how is it good to concentrate all the poor kids at JH as is being done now? Leveling off the schools might also encourage rich parents who live in the JH zone to start sending their kid there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
No, you draw the boundaries such that no one school is saddled with too high a porportion of kids from the various housing projects. Some (in South Old Town) go to Lyles-Crouch, some (in Parker-Gray) go to Maury, some go to Jeff-Houston, and some (in the far north end of Old Town) go to the new school in Potomac Yards. None of the kids from the projects would be bussed across town--they would all still be attending schools that are still just a few blocks from their homes. Concentrating the poor into one area (or one school) never helps the poor. The City Council doesn't seem to understand this as they keep building/renovating housing projects in Old Town. But ACPS should do its best to correct the City Council's errors by not funneling too many of the kids from the PJ's into one elementary school.

Every day I read about one more project near Old Town that's being replaced with expensive condos. Sounds like it's just not happening soon enough for you.

Please provide links to those articles.

And you are right - it's not happening fast enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
No, you draw the boundaries such that no one school is saddled with too high a porportion of kids from the various housing projects. Some (in South Old Town) go to Lyles-Crouch, some (in Parker-Gray) go to Maury, some go to Jeff-Houston, and some (in the far north end of Old Town) go to the new school in Potomac Yards. None of the kids from the projects would be bussed across town--they would all still be attending schools that are still just a few blocks from their homes. Concentrating the poor into one area (or one school) never helps the poor. The City Council doesn't seem to understand this as they keep building/renovating housing projects in Old Town. But ACPS should do its best to correct the City Council's errors by not funneling too many of the kids from the PJ's into one elementary school.

Every day I read about one more project near Old Town that's being replaced with expensive condos. Sounds like it's just not happening soon enough for you.

No pp, but actually, it's portions of two public housing areas that have been replaced with mixed market rate/public housing. The overall number of public housing units in Alexandria will not be decreased (it's that way pursuant to a City Council resolution). Considering the fight going on over the first of these redevelopments, it's possible that these will be the last. In fact, the public housing authority in Alexandria is in the process of buying an apartment building to from a church to make it into more public housing, so the number of units is going to increase. The public housing represents a stable voting bloc for the powers that be in Alexandria, so they will never go away or even be dispersed, even though Alexandria is probably the last jurisdiction in America that seems to think that concentrated public housing is good for anyone. The School Board purposefully concentrated the public housing kids in one school to get them out of the other schools in order to improve test scores and start to lure the middle class kids back. It worked, much to the detriment of the kids at J-H. This doesn't bother me, I can afford to send my kid to private school and/or move (in the process of doing both). Educated, savy parents work the system to get their kids "opted out" into another school. However, it is a real shame for the poor (literally) kids who are left behind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
No, you draw the boundaries such that no one school is saddled with too high a porportion of kids from the various housing projects. Some (in South Old Town) go to Lyles-Crouch, some (in Parker-Gray) go to Maury, some go to Jeff-Houston, and some (in the far north end of Old Town) go to the new school in Potomac Yards. None of the kids from the projects would be bussed across town--they would all still be attending schools that are still just a few blocks from their homes. Concentrating the poor into one area (or one school) never helps the poor. The City Council doesn't seem to understand this as they keep building/renovating housing projects in Old Town. But ACPS should do its best to correct the City Council's errors by not funneling too many of the kids from the PJ's into one elementary school.

Every day I read about one more project near Old Town that's being replaced with expensive condos. Sounds like it's just not happening soon enough for you.

No pp, but actually, it's portions of two public housing areas that have been replaced with mixed market rate/public housing. The overall number of public housing units in Alexandria will not be decreased (it's that way pursuant to a City Council resolution). Considering the fight going on over the first of these redevelopments, it's possible that these will be the last. In fact, the public housing authority in Alexandria is in the process of buying an apartment building to from a church to make it into more public housing, so the number of units is going to increase. The public housing represents a stable voting bloc for the powers that be in Alexandria, so they will never go away or even be dispersed, even though Alexandria is probably the last jurisdiction in America that seems to think that concentrated public housing is good for anyone. The School Board purposefully concentrated the public housing kids in one school to get them out of the other schools in order to improve test scores and start to lure the middle class kids back. It worked, much to the detriment of the kids at J-H. This doesn't bother me, I can afford to send my kid to private school and/or move (in the process of doing both). Educated, savy parents work the system to get their kids "opted out" into another school. However, it is a real shame for the poor (literally) kids who are left behind.

It sorta worked but it will never get to a mass concentration of middle class kids. I am the middle class - I can afford the house in Alexandria City but can not afford it plus a private school education. And I am not alone. So now that my child has hit school age, I will be moving on to Arlington Co. and I have neighbors who plan to move a little farther down the Parkway to be in Fairfax county. It's a shame really because the City could be great and have amazing schools if they started catering to the middle class.

The low income housing projects in Old Town need to be completely torn down and the entire areas turned into regular market rate housing. While I can understand accomodating some of those in low income housing in other parts of the City, I think anyone who is young and able bodied should get kicked out permanently. Public housing clearly has become a generational way of life and they only way to stop it is to go cold turkey.

[Anonymous]

Here's a funny thing, I had both my kids at Lyles Crouch and we loved it, for a while. Now it is operated like a mini private school with parents "donating" to the school and getting the teacher they want - pay to play.

Because the Middle School options in Alexandria are not to my liking we took a gamble in moving our son to the new Middle school program at J-H and our daughter to the 3rd grade much to the shock of some LC parents.

The result? My son has had a great Middle School experience in a small cadre of students (racially diverse not the dumping ground implied in some comments here) and sailed through his SOL's. My daughter achieved pass-adavnce in every SOL scoring near perfect in reading thanks in no small part to brilliant teaching at J-H.

It is sad Ms Graves has moved for family reasons but I have met the new team and have great confidence in them. If more local (non public housing) parents had the guts to enroll at J-H and engage rather than slagging it off, the school would really thrive.

There are many challenges due to the poverty experienced by many kids at the school and because the school building needs to be pulled down and replaced (and will be), but the school itself with its new IB program will be just fine.

By the way the new school CEO is a former army colonel, who grew up in abject poverty to become the youngest Colonel in the Army, then he worked with Arnie Duncan in Illinois followed by a stint at the White House - do you really thing someone like that is not going to impact the African American (and other) boys?

J-H is heading on the right path, in 3-4 years it will be a new facility IB accredited program and people will be fighting to get their kids in there in particular as a Middle School alternative.

[Anonymous]

Interesting perspective on Lyles Crouch and J-H. While JH is not our home school, I have had occasion to visit the school and was very put off by some teachers yelling orders at their students via microphone as the childred moved to another classroom. Also, I'm curious about why you think the IB program is so great? Finally, I don't quite understand why the school needs a CEO if the principal, superentindent and other senior administrators are doing their job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting perspective on Lyles Crouch and J-H. While JH is not our home school, I have had occasion to visit the school and was very put off by some teachers yelling orders at their students via microphone as the childred moved to another classroom. Also, I'm curious about why you think the IB program is so great? Finally, I don't quite understand why the school needs a CEO if the principal, superentindent and other senior administrators are doing their job.

J-H was failing under the former principal, so the CEO was part of the mandated improvement program. I don't really see much evidence, however, that J-H is improving. Certainly the latest SOL scores do not show much school-wide progress. And DC-area schools have long had their fair share of retired Colonels, many of whom are not very good teachers or administrators.

[Anonymous]

I think the idea was for the CEO to focus on the planning/building of the new school, while the principal runs the existing school.
Of course you wonder what the Chief of Facilities is doing all day if he/she doesn't have to handle new school construction????
But it's Alexandria. There's always plenty of money to waste hiring more administrators and adding more bureaucracy. I suspect we spend more
on administration than any single HS school district in America.

What a waste of our tax money. FCPS outperforms ACPS by a mile, and because they enjoy economies of scale, they can do it while spending only $12,500 per student,
compared to ACPS's $17,000. Maybe one day we'll wise up and just pay FCPS to run our schools, the way the City of Fairfax does.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the idea was for the CEO to focus on the planning/building of the new school, while the principal runs the existing school.
Of course you wonder what the Chief of Facilities is doing all day if he/she doesn't have to handle new school construction????
But it's Alexandria. There's always plenty of money to waste hiring more administrators and adding more bureaucracy. I suspect we spend more
on administration than any single HS school district in America.

What a waste of our tax money. FCPS outperforms ACPS by a mile, and because they enjoy economies of scale, they can do it while spending only $12,500 per student,
compared to ACPS's $17,000. Maybe one day we'll wise up and just pay FCPS to run our schools, the way the City of Fairfax does.

It might make more sense to have Arlington take over the Alexandria schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the idea was for the CEO to focus on the planning/building of the new school, while the principal runs the existing school.
Of course you wonder what the Chief of Facilities is doing all day if he/she doesn't have to handle new school construction????
But it's Alexandria. There's always plenty of money to waste hiring more administrators and adding more bureaucracy. I suspect we spend more
on administration than any single HS school district in America.

What a waste of our tax money. FCPS outperforms ACPS by a mile, and because they enjoy economies of scale, they can do it while spending only $12,500 per student,
compared to ACPS's $17,000. Maybe one day we'll wise up and just pay FCPS to run our schools, the way the City of Fairfax does.

It might make more sense to have Arlington take over the Alexandria schools.

Or it may make sense to ship all of our economically poor students to Arlington and Fairfax. (Please note the sarcasm)

A parent's income and education have a greater effect on test scores than the teachers. Alexandria has greater proportional challenges than the districts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the idea was for the CEO to focus on the planning/building of the new school, while the principal runs the existing school.
Of course you wonder what the Chief of Facilities is doing all day if he/she doesn't have to handle new school construction????
But it's Alexandria. There's always plenty of money to waste hiring more administrators and adding more bureaucracy. I suspect we spend more
on administration than any single HS school district in America.

What a waste of our tax money. FCPS outperforms ACPS by a mile, and because they enjoy economies of scale, they can do it while spending only $12,500 per student,
compared to ACPS's $17,000. Maybe one day we'll wise up and just pay FCPS to run our schools, the way the City of Fairfax does.

It might make more sense to have Arlington take over the Alexandria schools.

Or it may make sense to ship all of our economically poor students to Arlington and Fairfax. (Please note the sarcasm)

A parent's income and education have a greater effect on test scores than the teachers. Alexandria has greater proportional challenges than the districts.

I am all for that - and I am not being sarcastic.

I also don't think J-H is getting better nor will it anytime soon. Just having an IB program means nothing. Students actually have to be in the program and do well and it remains to be seen whether that can happen.