Feedback/Experiences with DC Bilingual

[Anonymous]

wow i totally disagree. dc bilingual's scores are superior to any of the other schools mentioned. marie reed has an atrocious physical plant and the dual language program is not up to par. bancroft and powell have barely begun to iron out the kinks in their models either.....

[Anonymous]

Are they moving for the next school year? If so, where?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:wow i totally disagree. dc bilingual's scores are superior to any of the other schools mentioned. marie reed has an atrocious physical plant and the dual language program is not up to par. bancroft and powell have barely begun to iron out the kinks in their models either.....

I agree not interested in DC Bilingual at all. But intrigued by this because it makes no sense:

"Powell and Bancroft have barely begun to iron out the kinks in their models"????

Please give specific examples of the "kinks" you are referring to?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:wow i totally disagree. dc bilingual's scores are superior to any of the other schools mentioned. marie reed has an atrocious physical plant and the dual language program is not up to par. bancroft and powell have barely begun to iron out the kinks in their models either.....

Powell parent here, I would like to know what kinks you are referring to.

[Anonymous]

NP here would also like more feedback on this school. Any DC bilingual parents or staff out there?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:wow i totally disagree. dc bilingual's scores are superior to any of the other schools mentioned. marie reed has an atrocious physical plant and the dual language program is not up to par. bancroft and powell have barely begun to iron out the kinks in their models either.....

Powell parent here, I would like to know what kinks you are referring to.

I'm the other poster who asked for details on which kinks. I'm quite sure the silence and inability to give specifics is because... there are none. Not to say the schools are perfect, neither is perfect. But there are no kinks that I"m aware of that rise to the level of being a major problem that makes those schools somehow not on par with DC Bilingual.

I'd take Powell or Bancroft over DC Bilingual.

[Anonymous]

I wonder why they didn't go to the charter school expo yesterday. It seems like they missed the top recruitment opportunity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder why they didn't go to the charter school expo yesterday. It seems like they missed the top recruitment opportunity.

Between their unresponsiveness to so many here, the lack of any scheduled open houses, and their absence at an event like this, it is sadly likely that either they have some big bad thing going on internally right now that is sapping their attention, or they generally do not have their stuff together. That is an unacceptable level of non-communication (from the perspective of anxious parents trying to be ready for lottery deadline).

[Anonymous]

Well, they did finally schedule some open houses: http://www.myschooldc.org/key-dates/open-house-dates/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:wow i totally disagree. dc bilingual's scores are superior to any of the other schools mentioned. marie reed has an atrocious physical plant and the dual language program is not up to par. bancroft and powell have barely begun to iron out the kinks in their models either.....

Powell parent here, I would like to know what kinks you are referring to.

I'm the other poster who asked for details on which kinks. I'm quite sure the silence and inability to give specifics is because... there are none. Not to say the schools are perfect, neither is perfect. But there are no kinks that I"m aware of that rise to the level of being a major problem that makes those schools somehow not on par with DC Bilingual.

I'd take Powell or Bancroft over DC Bilingual.

Dig a little deeper into the history of their immersion efforts and you will see utter chaos (and this is true for bancroft and bruce monroe as well). different approaches being used both horizontally and vertically. doing immersion by the week instead of by the day or half day. inability to attract staff resulting in no immersion at all sometimes. Sounds "kinky" to me!!!!

[Anonymous]

Bruce Monroe and Powell don't operate the same dual-language models. It has been five years since someone could say Powell was chaos - new principal and turnaround were big changes. And I don't know why anyone should say Bruce Monroe is running a bad model, to my knowledge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bruce Monroe and Powell don't operate the same dual-language models. It has been five years since someone could say Powell was chaos - new principal and turnaround were big changes. And I don't know why anyone should say Bruce Monroe is running a bad model, to my knowledge.

There's only one person who has been boosting DC Bilingual and criticizing Powell, Bruce Monroe and Marie Reed in this thread, and they haven't backed up any of what they've said, so I would just discount it. The only accurate thing they said was about Marie-Reed's facilities (which are pretty old), but other than that, all dissing with no facts.

I'll be interested to hear how DC Bilingual's newly scheduled open houses go. I won't be there myself though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bruce Monroe and Powell don't operate the same dual-language models. It has been five years since someone could say Powell was chaos - new principal and turnaround were big changes. And I don't know why anyone should say Bruce Monroe is running a bad model, to my knowledge.

There's only one person who has been boosting DC Bilingual and criticizing Powell, Bruce Monroe and Marie Reed in this thread, and they haven't backed up any of what they've said, so I would just discount it. The only accurate thing they said was about Marie-Reed's facilities (which are pretty old), but other than that, all dissing with no facts.

I'll be interested to hear how DC Bilingual's newly scheduled open houses go. I won't be there myself though.

Facilities at Powell and Bancroft are bad, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bruce Monroe and Powell don't operate the same dual-language models. It has been five years since someone could say Powell was chaos - new principal and turnaround were big changes. And I don't know why anyone should say Bruce Monroe is running a bad model, to my knowledge.

There's only one person who has been boosting DC Bilingual and criticizing Powell, Bruce Monroe and Marie Reed in this thread, and they haven't backed up any of what they've said, so I would just discount it. The only accurate thing they said was about Marie-Reed's facilities (which are pretty old), but other than that, all dissing with no facts.

I'll be interested to hear how DC Bilingual's newly scheduled open houses go. I won't be there myself though.

Facilities at Powell and Bancroft are bad, too.

Powell parent here: Powell actually just had a great renovation of one of its wings, so pre-s/pre-k, 1st, and 2nd grades are all in right-sized, modern classes. With additional funding from the City, the rest of the existing building will be modernized and we will get two additional wings with more classroom space, a new cafeteria, etc. And, even the existing facilities are not bad, though I will fully admit that the crummy windows gave me that impression before I actually visited. Swing by for one of our Tuesday morning tours at 9:30, or our open house on MLK day (10 - 11:30) and explore it in person!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:wow i totally disagree. dc bilingual's scores are superior to any of the other schools mentioned. marie reed has an atrocious physical plant and the dual language program is not up to par. bancroft and powell have barely begun to iron out the kinks in their models either.....

Powell parent here, I would like to know what kinks you are referring to.

I'm the other poster who asked for details on which kinks. I'm quite sure the silence and inability to give specifics is because... there are none. Not to say the schools are perfect, neither is perfect. But there are no kinks that I"m aware of that rise to the level of being a major problem that makes those schools somehow not on par with DC Bilingual.

I'd take Powell or Bancroft over DC Bilingual.

Dig a little deeper into the history of their immersion efforts and you will see utter chaos (and this is true for bancroft and bruce monroe as well). different approaches being used both horizontally and vertically. doing immersion by the week instead of by the day or half day. inability to attract staff resulting in no immersion at all sometimes. Sounds "kinky" to me!!!!

You have to wonder how one parent could be so familiar with the details of the dual immersion programs at these schools. We're at Bancroft and the 1st-5th kids there are in a Spanish classroom half the day and English the other half.

Bancroft is also slated for a major modernization/renovation --not sure if it's starting this summer or 2015.