New to DCI at middle school?

[Anonymous]

Same. On the fence about the high school. Middle school good enough for bright, fairly industrious student if you supplement and don't expect too much....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Please don't invest too much in the postings of our resident malcontent who claims to know about writing tutors, poor Chinese, etc. He/She is the biggest critic of DCI on this forum, yet still keeps his/her child/children in the school. So exhausting and unfair to new parents!
My child graduated this year and had a stellar experience and multiple offers from great universities.
The DCI IB for All model is perhaps the single biggest educational equity opportunity in this city for a diverse group of learners.
Middle school is a time when kids branch out and start forming new friend groups, so your child will make friends quickly and won't suffer from not having been in a feeder. He/She will enjoy learning Chinese at a beginner level and have plenty of time to become proficient (not saying bilingual).
The high school program is wonderful, because the students get a solid preparation for the DP program from their years in the MYP program. The DP program is VERY rigorous, and your child will be beyond prepared for postsecondary education.
Please know that your child will be welcomed, included, and have opportunities to grow and learn far beyond most schools. Welcome!!!!

In our experience, there are several major and enduring problems with the Diploma program at DCI. The rigor is essentially too little, too late, because the prep provided by the DCI feeders and DCI middle school is mediocre. Admins ensure that the program is mired in relatavism. They take the attitude that because DCI Diploma rigor is greater than that at Eastern and Banneker, the other IBD programs in the DC public system, it's good enough for the District, particularly for languages. IB Diploma language study is geared toward speaking and listening, while the prep up the chain emphasizes writing and reading. So in order for your student to get on track to achieve decent IB Diploma language scores even at the Standard Level eventually (DCI only teaches Spanish at the Higher Level for now), you need to start paying for for true immersion experiences during the middle school years, e.g. summer immersion camps. Another serious problem is very limited subject choice of Diploma exams, particularly for the arts requirement and Higher Level humanities and sciences. A third problem is that the high school students aren't encouraged to double up on the AP exams that overlap IB subject exams, or to take 2 IBD SL exams junior year (permitted by the Geneva testers). What happens is that DCI seniors wind up applying to college without nearly enough high standardized test scores to be taken seriously by the most competitive institutions. If you're looking for a serious IB Diploma program, where most of the students score in the mid to high 30s and low 40s, you need to look to the burbs (Fairfax, Arlington, MoCo). Alternatively, to stay in the DC public system with more rigor in the mix, your kid can try to test into School Without Walls, switching to an AP program. From what I've seen, the DCI 8th graders who are good at math generally make the cut at Walls.

[Anonymous]

What is the percentage of Middle Schoolers who stay for nigh school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is the percentage of Middle Schoolers who stay for nigh school?

More than 80%, but then most DCI MS and HS students are low SES.

A more interesting percentage is how many high SES DCI Middle Schoolers stay for high school. I estimate around half in the last two years. If you read between the lines on the data DCPC collects (look at the spike in the at-risk population between MS & HS). The main problem is that many of the strongest feeder students leave for BASIS or Latin after 4th grade. There's another big drop-off of UMC families after 8th grade, with parents leaving for Walls, Wilson, Banneker, privates, the burbs. Admins don't seem to give a hoot about the high SES exodus. They care about the length of DCI waiting lists/bodies in seats.

[Anonymous]

OP, I'd take these posts with a grain of salt.

I suggest taking DCI year by year. Once you're there, make a point of talking to parents of kids something like yours but a grade or two ahead, people who might have similar career hopes for their children.

Don't go in wearing rose colored glasses. Hire a tutor or two to cover your bases. Look out for hippie type parents, teachers and admins who might see you as a Tiger Parent. See how it goes.

[Anonymous]

What we’re really trying to do is decide between DCI and local DCPS and it seems strange to think that DCI in the end might less to a student who is doing better than peers or generally be indifferent to differentiation. I generally have a hard time trusting posters here (because of what I usually consider overly reactionary self-justification among users) but I don’t really have places to turn for opinions based on experience.

[Anonymous]

Stating the obvious here, but if you've got a spot waiting for you at DCI, you can try the program and bail for the DCPS if you're not satisfied but not the other way around.

You have places to turn for opinions based on experience in a sense if you do more research because around half of the high SES families coming up through the DCI feeders reject the school, either for 5th grade or for 9th grade, while the other half embrace it. DCI families aren't all that hard to find if you live in SE or NE; ask around in your neighborhood.

If you reside outside the Deal and Hardy Districts, the great majority of high SES families have been rejecting your in-boundary DCPS middle school for many years. Sounds like DCI is the safer bet, much safer.

[Anonymous]

If PP is going to commute from SE to Walter Read, at least 40 mins, her in bounds school might not be the worst option!

[Anonymous]

Car pool with other DCI families, or arrange to have DCI kids in the neighborhood Metro and take city buses with her kid. She can find these families in the school community.

[Anonymous]

OP, you can make an appointment to meet with DCI admins in the building if you haven't done this already, tell them you're on the fence about enrolling.

We did that before enrolling. We lasted 2 years at DCI.

[Anonymous]

I thought the IB coursework/diploma made the school much more challenging for advanced students. isn't IB a set curriculum?

[Anonymous]

isn't the IB curriculum something they're dragging all students through, moving at the speed of the slowest student, thereby giving very little challenge to good students and probably not sticking to the IB program faithfully?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I thought the IB coursework/diploma made the school much more challenging for advanced students. isn't IB a set curriculum?

I earned the Diploma and taught at an IB Diploma international school for a few years a decade back.

The IB Diploma Middle Years (grades 6-10) and IB Diploma (grades 11 and 12) Curricula are only as strong as the students and IB World Schools following them. DCI currently offers around half of the IB Diploma subjects/tests available from the IBD HQ Geneva, within the parameters of the several languages taught there. With around one-third of DCI MS students not testing proficient in ELA and math, and academic tracking offered only for math and languages at the middle school level, DCI's leaders have made policy decisions not to support high IB Diploma points totals. IBD Geneva does not prevent or support academic tracking within schools.

DCI is pretty clearly aiming for points scores in the mid to high 20s and low 30s, on a points pass total scale of 24-45, for man years to come. The only language DCI currently teaches at the advanced level by IBD standards is Spanish. It is what it is.

[Anonymous]

which schools are the French ones?

[Anonymous]

You mean Stokes? That's the French immersion DCI feeder, only they no longer offer immersion.