For folks w/ kids that started at new schools... Any big surprises?

[Anonymous]

At risk of turning it into a ITDS thread. We are new. Suprises..

-2 outdoor play times everyday!! They go out in nearly all weather unless unsafe. So, gotta be more vigilant about checking weather. Our old school found nearly any reason to not go outside.

-Not one teacher yelling at any students and the general positive attitude of all the staff. Also, the general kindness and helpful attitude of many of the students. *Our old school had good teachers.. But lots of yelling everyday and belittling words at times. (Telling kids they are acting like younger grades is they were not walking silent in a perfect line etc. Yelling and calling kids out about behavior in afront of others. This didn't actually happen to my kid often but I saw it so much with others and it certainly effected kids self-esteem.) So, far at ITDS I am not worried about this at all.


-Cafeteria is a bit intense in the mornings. My kid is not able to handle the crazyness in the cafeteria in the mornings. We are lucky to be able to adjust our schedules at the moment. I am told lunch is much calmer and smaller.

-love that very one can get a before and aftercare spot if needed.

-actual diversity!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At risk of turning it into a ITDS thread. We are new. Suprises..

-2 outdoor play times everyday!! They go out in nearly all weather unless unsafe. So, gotta be more vigilant about checking weather. Our old school found nearly any reason to not go outside.

-Not one teacher yelling at any students and the general positive attitude of all the staff. Also, the general kindness and helpful attitude of many of the students. *Our old school had good teachers.. But lots of yelling everyday and belittling words at times. (Telling kids they are acting like younger grades is they were not walking silent in a perfect line etc. Yelling and calling kids out about behavior in afront of others. This didn't actually happen to my kid often but I saw it so much with others and it certainly effected kids self-esteem.) So, far at ITDS I am not worried about this at all.


-Cafeteria is a bit intense in the mornings. My kid is not able to handle the crazyness in the cafeteria in the mornings. We are lucky to be able to adjust our schedules at the moment. I am told lunch is much calmer and smaller.

-love that very one can get a before and aftercare spot if needed.

-actual diversity!

Very little SES diversity in the lower grades though.

[Anonymous]

Can we get back to the topic at hand? I’m curious to others first week at their new schools.

[Anonymous]

We are newly at our IB for K. The school's 2017-8 demographics (the most recent I can find) are ~1/2 AA and ~1/3rd white. I am obviously aware that because the school is gentrifying, younger grades would likely have slightly different demographics... but DC's class of ~20 had 3 AA kids. Total. In fact, it had more Asian kids than AA kids (while Asian kids are apparently only 2% of the school). Anyway, really not what I was expecting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are newly at our IB for K. The school's 2017-8 demographics (the most recent I can find) are ~1/2 AA and ~1/3rd white. I am obviously aware that because the school is gentrifying, younger grades would likely have slightly different demographics... but DC's class of ~20 had 3 AA kids. Total. In fact, it had more Asian kids than AA kids (while Asian kids are apparently only 2% of the school). Anyway, really not what I was expecting.

Yep, overall demographics at schools can be deceiving. Many schools look super diverse, but then their early grades are mostly white, or white and a few Asian. I'm thinking of our IB, another majority minority school EOTP, for which this is now the case.

[Anonymous]

First week at Langley was pretty smooth. Or as smooth as can be expected given all the additional staff they just hired and opening a new classroom over the weekend (!)

I am usually a more cynical person but I really did feel a spark. It is diverse AF!

[Anonymous]

Love love love fifth grade at Latin so far.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are newly at our IB for K. The school's 2017-8 demographics (the most recent I can find) are ~1/2 AA and ~1/3rd white. I am obviously aware that because the school is gentrifying, younger grades would likely have slightly different demographics... but DC's class of ~20 had 3 AA kids. Total. In fact, it had more Asian kids than AA kids (while Asian kids are apparently only 2% of the school). Anyway, really not what I was expecting.

Yep, overall demographics at schools can be deceiving. Many schools look super diverse, but then their early grades are mostly white, or white and a few Asian. I'm thinking of our IB, another majority minority school EOTP, for which this is now the case.

This is definitely the case at our new school Powell. We are in K.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:First week at Langley was pretty smooth. Or as smooth as can be expected given all the additional staff they just hired and opening a new classroom over the weekend (!)

I am usually a more cynical person but I really did feel a spark. It is diverse AF!

Our big surprise was getting in! Had to make a late-night Target run for uniforms, but everything went great and we feel fortunate to have a spot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are newly at our IB for K. The school's 2017-8 demographics (the most recent I can find) are ~1/2 AA and ~1/3rd white. I am obviously aware that because the school is gentrifying, younger grades would likely have slightly different demographics... but DC's class of ~20 had 3 AA kids. Total. In fact, it had more Asian kids than AA kids (while Asian kids are apparently only 2% of the school). Anyway, really not what I was expecting.

Yep, overall demographics at schools can be deceiving. Many schools look super diverse, but then their early grades are mostly white, or white and a few Asian. I'm thinking of our IB, another majority minority school EOTP, for which this is now the case.

This is definitely the case at our new school Powell. We are in K.

I am really curious to see what our IB looks like in 5 years. We only met 1 family at PK4 drop off that didn’t have either a doctor or a lawyer as a parent (or both) and those parents were an economist and a social worker. Insane! This is a school that was T1 until last year (or maybe two years ago). Not at all what I was expecting for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are newly at our IB for K. The school's 2017-8 demographics (the most recent I can find) are ~1/2 AA and ~1/3rd white. I am obviously aware that because the school is gentrifying, younger grades would likely have slightly different demographics... but DC's class of ~20 had 3 AA kids. Total. In fact, it had more Asian kids than AA kids (while Asian kids are apparently only 2% of the school). Anyway, really not what I was expecting.

Yep, overall demographics at schools can be deceiving. Many schools look super diverse, but then their early grades are mostly white, or white and a few Asian. I'm thinking of our IB, another majority minority school EOTP, for which this is now the case.

This is definitely the case at our new school Powell. We are in K.

I am really curious to see what our IB looks like in 5 years. We only met 1 family at PK4 drop off that didn’t have either a doctor or a lawyer as a parent (or both) and those parents were an economist and a social worker. Insane! This is a school that was T1 until last year (or maybe two years ago). Not at all what I was expecting for.

What school is this? Is it on Capital Hill?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are newly at our IB for K. The school's 2017-8 demographics (the most recent I can find) are ~1/2 AA and ~1/3rd white. I am obviously aware that because the school is gentrifying, younger grades would likely have slightly different demographics... but DC's class of ~20 had 3 AA kids. Total. In fact, it had more Asian kids than AA kids (while Asian kids are apparently only 2% of the school). Anyway, really not what I was expecting.

Yep, overall demographics at schools can be deceiving. Many schools look super diverse, but then their early grades are mostly white, or white and a few Asian. I'm thinking of our IB, another majority minority school EOTP, for which this is now the case.

This is definitely the case at our new school Powell. We are in K.

I am really curious to see what our IB looks like in 5 years. We only met 1 family at PK4 drop off that didn’t have either a doctor or a lawyer as a parent (or both) and those parents were an economist and a social worker. Insane! This is a school that was T1 until last year (or maybe two years ago). Not at all what I was expecting for.

What school is this? Is it on Capital Hill?

My guess is Van Ness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are newly at our IB for K. The school's 2017-8 demographics (the most recent I can find) are ~1/2 AA and ~1/3rd white. I am obviously aware that because the school is gentrifying, younger grades would likely have slightly different demographics... but DC's class of ~20 had 3 AA kids. Total. In fact, it had more Asian kids than AA kids (while Asian kids are apparently only 2% of the school). Anyway, really not what I was expecting.

Yep, overall demographics at schools can be deceiving. Many schools look super diverse, but then their early grades are mostly white, or white and a few Asian. I'm thinking of our IB, another majority minority school EOTP, for which this is now the case.

This is definitely the case at our new school Powell. We are in K.

I am really curious to see what our IB looks like in 5 years. We only met 1 family at PK4 drop off that didn’t have either a doctor or a lawyer as a parent (or both) and those parents were an economist and a social worker. Insane! This is a school that was T1 until last year (or maybe two years ago). Not at all what I was expecting for.

What school is this? Is it on Capital Hill?

My guess is Van Ness.

Yes, Capitol Hill. L-T.

[Anonymous]

Just started 5th grade at Latin. Unpleasantly surprised by how draining the longer commute is (and that was during the best commuting week of the year - dreading the week after Labor Day, one of the worst commuting weeks of the year). Pleasantly surprised by how much DC loves it.

[Anonymous]

So I'm going to try to anonymize this a little, but here goes:
People tend to think of DCPS as heavily African-American outside of Ward 3. That is not the case in a number of schools in Wards 1 and 4 and 5 with large Spanish-speaking populations. Where there are more of these kids, the schools are often heavily ELL.
The demand for early childhood programs among all families in DC means there are proportionally more white and Asian and overall upper income families in all sorts of DCPS than you might expect.
In demand programs have higher shares of upper income families as they take efforts at the margins to get into these programs (usually due to knowledge others do not have).

Historically, these upper income families, white, Asian, black and others who see that the students around their prepared children are not meeting test score expectations start to move them to other schools. (While I dislike this I am laying out a trend.)

This means that overall reporting on the demographics of schools reflect schools that are proportionately less white, Asian, and upper income than what you see in the earliest grades.

Overall, I would say, however, that in many of these schools despite what you NOTICE the actual proportions of white and Asian and other students remains quite small.

I certainly notice the number of white and Asian students in my kids' classes, but they are still 3-4 kids out of classes of 20-25. It's not nothing, but it's no kind of revolution.

Frankly, having a slightly higher proportion of students likely to be at grade level, which usually has to do with parental education level, creates the possibility that teachers can direct a little bit of direct support to a group of kids who are similar in terms of English and math ability and not struggling to reach grade level, rather than have a couple of oddball students every so often they aren't sure what to do with.

So your continued participation in your schools after K, with your fellow classroom families, will mean a lot down the line, even if there aren't many like you 2-3 is better than just one.