New DCPS Middle School to Serve Mid-Town

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone please explain why the Garnett-Patterson site was never considered for a Shaw Middle School?

It’s in Shaw. Just a few blocks north of New Banneker. Why wasn’t it considered?

It was considered, just not chosen. There is a middle school already with plenty of capacity for the feeder schools--no need to build a new building. Some people don't like that it's co-located with a high school (though some of them seemed totally fine with co-locating with Banneker, undermining that argument). Some said it was too far away (but it really is not far for a middle schooler and many would travel even further to school if they moved or did charters). Some felt the Cardozo principal was uninterested in middle school (which seems legit but the solution then is getting a middle school principal and not building a new middle school). And some didn't like that the Cardozo test scores are low, but there's no reason to think that a new building would change that.

Come on this argument is a dead horse. It’s been pushed over and run over 3 dozen times.

The FASTEST way to improve a school is to make a new one when there are feeders that are improving. Period. I know people want Cardozo middle to improve. Great. But there’s a chicken and egg problem.

The way you MOVE FORWARD from the chicken and egg problem is to create a new school. Like almost all Shaw parents, white and non-white, wealthy and non-wealthy, have been calling for.

Every time you say “Just improve Cardozo!!” you’re basically saying “throw away all the improvements at Garrison and other elementaries while we wait a decade or two for Cardozo to get better.” That’s not a good solution. Elementary parents at Garrison need a new middle school option SOON.




Ps Garnet-Patterson was not considered in any real way. Why wasn’t it presented as another option in the Shaw Middle/Banneker site discussion?

[Anonymous]

You literally think that building a new building is going to convince high-scoring kids to attend a given middle school? That is just not how this works. Go to Brookland middle school if you don't believe me.

I cannot imagine that of all the ways for DCPS to spend $200 MILLION on improving middle schools, the best one would be to build a new building on valuable land for 3 elementary schools to feed into, leaving another recently-renovated school half empty.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You literally think that building a new building is going to convince high-scoring kids to attend a given middle school?.

Yes.



The fastest way to make a new high quality middle school is to build a new one IF there are improving feeders.

[Anonymous]

Make it a test-in middle school located in the center of the city. Heck, just label Banneker a 5th-12th educational campus and put it there. We need a DCPS magnet middle anyway, and the city-wide draw would satisfy a lot of people.

If the Shaw neighborhood students aren't good enough to get in, well there's always Cardozo or a charter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Make it a test-in middle school located in the center of the city. Heck, just label Banneker a 5th-12th educational campus and put it there. We need a DCPS magnet middle anyway, and the city-wide draw would satisfy a lot of people.

If the Shaw neighborhood students aren't good enough to get in, well there's always Cardozo or a charter.

Test in middle schools are bad for public school systems and the children in them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Make it a test-in middle school located in the center of the city. Heck, just label Banneker a 5th-12th educational campus and put it there. We need a DCPS magnet middle anyway, and the city-wide draw would satisfy a lot of people.

If the Shaw neighborhood students aren't good enough to get in, well there's always Cardozo or a charter.

Test in middle schools are bad for public school systems and the children in them.

Might as well just get rid of the SAT/ACT, all college admissions tests, while we're at it then. Make Harvard admissions a lottery system...hell, grades are bad for kids, too, just let them submit a self-assessment to the teacher every semester...

[Anonymous]

weed at school in the 6th grade? that is nuts. If the kids know about it, how are the teachers all turning a blind eye to it. that should be automatic expulsion, not suspension. Of crouse Grosso won't allow that.

[Anonymous]

What I think is kind of interesting is that there seems to be a sort of strange (to me) pattern for where elementary schools feed to. All the Shaw schools go to Cardozo. Then Langley (which is really close to the Shaw schools) and Langdon (which is way east) go to McKinley, which makes sense for Langley (since it's right next door), but seems much smaller than other middles, and seems a weird grouping. Then Brookland Middle again has a large number of schools feeding it, and for whatever reason Noyes goes to Brookland Middle, even though it's closer to McKinley than Langdon. Marie Reed spanish track has to trek up to CHEC, instead of shuffling over to Oyster.

I get that middle schoolers are more able to jump on a bus, but it just feels like we are due for another realignment of which schools feed to where. Or perhaps they should expand the idea of proximity, so you could be something like "IB" at two middle schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What I think is kind of interesting is that there seems to be a sort of strange (to me) pattern for where elementary schools feed to. All the Shaw schools go to Cardozo. Then Langley (which is really close to the Shaw schools) and Langdon (which is way east) go to McKinley, which makes sense for Langley (since it's right next door), but seems much smaller than other middles, and seems a weird grouping. Then Brookland Middle again has a large number of schools feeding it, and for whatever reason Noyes goes to Brookland Middle, even though it's closer to McKinley than Langdon. Marie Reed spanish track has to trek up to CHEC, instead of shuffling over to Oyster.

I get that middle schoolers are more able to jump on a bus, but it just feels like we are due for another realignment of which schools feed to where. Or perhaps they should expand the idea of proximity, so you could be something like "IB" at two middle schools.

Brookland has three feeders. A lot of this is due to building capacity. McKinley Middle can only be so big because it shares a building with McKinley Tech, so they didn't want to put in too many schools. There are also programmatic feeder paths like for MacFarland.