Open house impressions thread

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Shining Stars would probably have a larger elementary school if they hadn't had the location issue two years ago. From what I understand from a friend whose child goes there, they are planning on expanding, and, unlike LAMB, they do accept in all grades.

I think Latin and Basis accepting in fifth is probably gutting the upper schools for a lot of charters.

But I agree with you--test scores for only a handful of kids are pretty meaningless. It is sort of sad though, that some schools are closed because of them... if their upper school kids aren't high SES.

Underground parking: you know, sometimes in other cities, I talk about DC--and when I mention the underground parking building there is hysterical laughter. Sad, hysterical laughter. You know what would work INSTEAD of underground parking? Giving your teachers neighborhood parking permits. And, if your school is in too urban an environment for that to work, then it is urban enough to be served by transit. Simple. Cost to taxpayers = nothing. But no, let's spend more tens of millions of dollars on underground parking lots. You know, for the kids.

Underground parking. DCPS parents... oh, I don't know what it says that this is the hill you've picked to die on. (Or--in, I guess--really.)

Wrong. They're gutting DCPS on the Hill.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Shining Stars would probably have a larger elementary school if they hadn't had the location issue two years ago. From what I understand from a friend whose child goes there, they are planning on expanding, and, unlike LAMB, they do accept in all grades.

I think Latin and Basis accepting in fifth is probably gutting the upper schools for a lot of charters.

But I agree with you--test scores for only a handful of kids are pretty meaningless. It is sort of sad though, that some schools are closed because of them... if their upper school kids aren't high SES.

Underground parking: you know, sometimes in other cities, I talk about DC--and when I mention the underground parking building there is hysterical laughter. Sad, hysterical laughter. You know what would work INSTEAD of underground parking? Giving your teachers neighborhood parking permits. And, if your school is in too urban an environment for that to work, then it is urban enough to be served by transit. Simple. Cost to taxpayers = nothing. But no, let's spend more tens of millions of dollars on underground parking lots. You know, for the kids.

Underground parking. DCPS parents... oh, I don't know what it says that this is the hill you've picked to die on. (Or--in, I guess--really.)

I don't know where you live, but some DC neighborhoods are more dense and urban than others. I think you are looking at this issue from the perspective of the residents, like, how entitled are these residents that they are unwilling to share their street parking with teachers! And yes in some cases that kind of nimbyism is going on. But you have to look at it from the perspective of teachers. In many of the dense areas of DC, handing out RPPs to teachers would stop them from getting parking tickets but it would not magically create the spots. The teachers would lose time every day searching for parking. It's really not fair for them, nor is it fair to require them to live near metro stops in VA and MD, which is where many of them live, and then change metro lines once or twice. For many teachers in the 'burbs cars are the most realistic commuting option. I am in favor of green growth and all that but it's more important to me that DCPS recruits and retains excellent teachers. If they want to drive to work, great, let's make it easier for them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Current LAMB parent here. I do not know the exact number of students in fifth grade (primarily because fourth and fifth are grouped together) but I saw at least 15 girls perform at the last peace ceremony, and around the same number of fifth grade boys perform at the one before. It is not true that the small class sizes are the reason for LAMB's high achievements. If you knew Montessori at all, you would know that class siZes are quite large. There are 29 children in each class (so 29 in a primary class consisting of pk3, pk4, and k). There was significant attrition before DCI, but my understanding is that this has changed. The school is still a small one, with our wonderful principal knowing the name of every student. I believe that there are many, many factors contributing to LAMB's success, not just the fact that our school is a small one.

I am familiar with montessori and I am not talking about the number of kids in a mixed-age classroom, I am talking about the number of kids at a grade level relative to the resources of the school, including admin, teachers, intervention teachers, PTO budget, and so on. It is a clear advantage to have a very small number of students at a given testing grade, no-one who has worked in education would dispute this. Take it to the limit and imagine 1 student per grade level.

I realize DCI is changing things and I acknowledged this in my original post, but LAMB's situation was allowed to continue for over a decade. And I do not intend to single out LAMB. There are a number of charters with small enrollments.

If you don't mean to single LAMB out, don't: what specific examples do you have of other highly-regarded charters with small enrollments in upper grades?

And another question, even if you can name a few other popular charters with significantly small upper grades, what exactly is the solution you are proposing? The posts you responded to were pointing out that just because a formula for curriculum and school culture and school size works well for a current size does not mean it's manageable for that school to expand numbers of classes or build a satellite school. If you can identify specific schools with very small upper grade class sizes (and you haven't yet other than LAMB, which several current LAMB parents are disputing), what exactly is the solution you are suggesting that doesn't compromise the model that made the school successful?

No, there are no LAMB parents in this thread disputing that this persisted in the past. I learned about this issue from LAMB parents in the first place, how else? Posters in this thread are saying that it will change now with DCI, and I myself said this before they did.

I mentioned SS as well but no parents have chimed in, and I mentioned CMI for small size overall. As you are likely aware, several of the "HRCS" are very new and don't even have a grade 5 or in some cases a grade 3.

What I would propose is that when a school gets its charter it commits to a minimum number of students served, or a range, and if due to its own restrictive policies it is falling below that range then it is required to adjust the policies or lose the charter. And the government when setting this range should aim for schools that have roughly the same number of students per grade as a typical DCPS. For example, for the last decade LAMB should have been required to admit students in the upper grades. Yes, this would have been a "disruption", but DCPS schools are forced to deal with this all the time. And CMI should have, in its charter, a commitment to X classes per grade, probably X=3 or 4 at minimum.

I have a problem with charter schools getting taxpayer money and then acting like private schools, even if it is not their intent but rather is an unintended function of well-meaning policies.

3 questions:

1) But charters get less per-pupil funding than DCPS, so what exactly is the source of your "problem" if CMI raises the rest of its money however it does (NOT with taxpayer money beyond charter funding) and can only be accessed through a public lottery and is free (other than expensive aftercare, which a few HRCS have in common and that is an issue but that's a different issue)?

2) And since you clearly are not considering the view of the founder of a charter school, do tell: if the PCSB mandates what your class and grade sizes have to be and if you can't maintain them for whatever reason, you would lose your charter, why in the world would you put in the sweat and blood and time and money to start a school in the first place?

3) When you have a specific model, like Montessori, how do you mandate a school like LAMB to accept in upper grades? You said you understand the Montessori model, so if you do, how do you maintain the Montessori structure and fidelity when you accept students randomly (because it would have to be random) in every grade and 98% of those students would have had no Montessori exposure ever before? How do you maintain fidelity and run your school with new students coming in at every grade?

These are real questions that would have to be answered if your points are taken seriously. Since you have strong opinions about what should happen, what are your answers to how these issues would be dealt with?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Current LAMB parent here. I do not know the exact number of students in fifth grade (primarily because fourth and fifth are grouped together) but I saw at least 15 girls perform at the last peace ceremony, and around the same number of fifth grade boys perform at the one before. It is not true that the small class sizes are the reason for LAMB's high achievements. If you knew Montessori at all, you would know that class siZes are quite large. There are 29 children in each class (so 29 in a primary class consisting of pk3, pk4, and k). There was significant attrition before DCI, but my understanding is that this has changed. The school is still a small one, with our wonderful principal knowing the name of every student. I believe that there are many, many factors contributing to LAMB's success, not just the fact that our school is a small one.

I am familiar with montessori and I am not talking about the number of kids in a mixed-age classroom, I am talking about the number of kids at a grade level relative to the resources of the school, including admin, teachers, intervention teachers, PTO budget, and so on. It is a clear advantage to have a very small number of students at a given testing grade, no-one who has worked in education would dispute this. Take it to the limit and imagine 1 student per grade level.

I realize DCI is changing things and I acknowledged this in my original post, but LAMB's situation was allowed to continue for over a decade. And I do not intend to single out LAMB. There are a number of charters with small enrollments.

If you don't mean to single LAMB out, don't: what specific examples do you have of other highly-regarded charters with small enrollments in upper grades?

And another question, even if you can name a few other popular charters with significantly small upper grades, what exactly is the solution you are proposing? The posts you responded to were pointing out that just because a formula for curriculum and school culture and school size works well for a current size does not mean it's manageable for that school to expand numbers of classes or build a satellite school. If you can identify specific schools with very small upper grade class sizes (and you haven't yet other than LAMB, which several current LAMB parents are disputing), what exactly is the solution you are suggesting that doesn't compromise the model that made the school successful?

No, there are no LAMB parents in this thread disputing that this persisted in the past. I learned about this issue from LAMB parents in the first place, how else? Posters in this thread are saying that it will change now with DCI, and I myself said this before they did.

I mentioned SS as well but no parents have chimed in, and I mentioned CMI for small size overall. As you are likely aware, several of the "HRCS" are very new and don't even have a grade 5 or in some cases a grade 3.

What I would propose is that when a school gets its charter it commits to a minimum number of students served, or a range, and if due to its own restrictive policies it is falling below that range then it is required to adjust the policies or lose the charter. And the government when setting this range should aim for schools that have roughly the same number of students per grade as a typical DCPS. For example, for the last decade LAMB should have been required to admit students in the upper grades. Yes, this would have been a "disruption", but DCPS schools are forced to deal with this all the time. And CMI should have, in its charter, a commitment to X classes per grade, probably X=3 or 4 at minimum.

I have a problem with charter schools getting taxpayer money and then acting like private schools, even if it is not their intent but rather is an unintended function of well-meaning policies.

3 questions:

1) But charters get less per-pupil funding than DCPS, so what exactly is the source of your "problem" if CMI raises the rest of its money however it does (NOT with taxpayer money beyond charter funding) and can only be accessed through a public lottery and is free (other than expensive aftercare, which a few HRCS have in common and that is an issue but that's a different issue)?

2) And since you clearly are not considering the view of the founder of a charter school, do tell: if the PCSB mandates what your class and grade sizes have to be and if you can't maintain them for whatever reason, you would lose your charter, why in the world would you put in the sweat and blood and time and money to start a school in the first place?

3) When you have a specific model, like Montessori, how do you mandate a school like LAMB to accept in upper grades? You said you understand the Montessori model, so if you do, how do you maintain the Montessori structure and fidelity when you accept students randomly (because it would have to be random) in every grade and 98% of those students would have had no Montessori exposure ever before? How do you maintain fidelity and run your school with new students coming in at every grade?

These are real questions that would have to be answered if your points are taken seriously. Since you have strong opinions about what should happen, what are your answers to how these issues would be dealt with?

The second two are easy, let's start with those:

2) This is a democracy, we impose policy restrictions on all kinds of organizations, all of which feature a hard-working founder in their creation stories. Charter schools, non-profits, small businesses, large corporations. Charter schools and their founders should not be singled out as being especially virtuous or deserving of freedom from regulation. And like everyone else they will respond to incentives. In this case, they would not see their school close. They'd just have to accept students in every grade. Which brings us to:

3) The montessori model would suffer somewhat, but it would not collapse. You would see a gradual weakening of the montessori model as you went up the grades (which you might say is happening anyway at LAMB and other montessori schools, but that's another topic). And yes this would not be the "ideal" thing, but this is a public school system and every school has to take its share of the burden. How do you think DCPS dual language schools feel when they have to accept a student in an upper grade with no experience in the language? But they have to work with it, it's part of offering public education. You don't get to maintain ideological/pedagogical purity with taxpayer dollars, sorry, you need to found a private school for that.

1) This is hard to answer because I am not sure what the relevance is of the per-student funding in your mind. I am saying that a taxpayer-funded school should be required to meet certain standards and I am proposing minimum/maximum range of students served as one of those standards. You can agree or disagree with the standard but what is the point of your question exactly? You don't dispute that charters receive the majority of funding from taxpayers, so we are talking about public schools here, subject to regulation.

[Anonymous]

It's really not fair for them, nor is it fair to require them to live near metro stops in VA and MD, which is where many of them live, and then change metro lines once or twice. For many teachers in the 'burbs cars are the most realistic commuting option. I am in favor of green growth and all that but it's more important to me that DCPS recruits and retains excellent teachers. If they want to drive to work, great, let's make it easier for them.

Change metro trains??? The horror. I don't know how all of those people in other parts of the DMV manage to get anywhere at all.

I am all for making things easy for people to commute, and that is why I do things, like support public transit and allowing teachers to have Residential Parking Permits. If there was a school in an urban area of the city that was actually building an underground parking garage... your point might also have more merit. Is there? I am only aware of Murch and Shepherd (the latter school trying to fundraise to build one.) Neither of them are in urban environments. Both of them are in neighborhoods with tons of street parking during the day. The "hardship" of having a teacher walk three or four blocks to school is not something I am concerned about. In part, because I understand math, and that building underground parking garages (excuse me, I have to go laugh about it again with some people who live in other cities)--is not free.

Underground parking garages.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The second two are easy, let's start with those:

2) This is a democracy, we impose policy restrictions on all kinds of organizations, all of which feature a hard-working founder in their creation stories. Charter schools, non-profits, small businesses, large corporations. Charter schools and their founders should not be singled out as being especially virtuous or deserving of freedom from regulation. And like everyone else they will respond to incentives. In this case, they would not see their school close. They'd just have to accept students in every grade. Which brings us to:

3) The montessori model would suffer somewhat, but it would not collapse. You would see a gradual weakening of the montessori model as you went up the grades (which you might say is happening anyway at LAMB and other montessori schools, but that's another topic). And yes this would not be the "ideal" thing, but this is a public school system and every school has to take its share of the burden. How do you think DCPS dual language schools feel when they have to accept a student in an upper grade with no experience in the language? But they have to work with it, it's part of offering public education. You don't get to maintain ideological/pedagogical purity with taxpayer dollars, sorry, you need to found a private school for that.

1) This is hard to answer because I am not sure what the relevance is of the per-student funding in your mind. I am saying that a taxpayer-funded school should be required to meet certain standards and I am proposing minimum/maximum range of students served as one of those standards. You can agree or disagree with the standard but what is the point of your question exactly? You don't dispute that charters receive the majority of funding from taxpayers, so we are talking about public schools here, subject to regulation.

Not PP but thank god you are not in charge of anything. Your ideas are awful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Current LAMB parent here. I do not know the exact number of students in fifth grade (primarily because fourth and fifth are grouped together) but I saw at least 15 girls perform at the last peace ceremony, and around the same number of fifth grade boys perform at the one before. It is not true that the small class sizes are the reason for LAMB's high achievements. If you knew Montessori at all, you would know that class siZes are quite large. There are 29 children in each class (so 29 in a primary class consisting of pk3, pk4, and k). There was significant attrition before DCI, but my understanding is that this has changed. The school is still a small one, with our wonderful principal knowing the name of every student. I believe that there are many, many factors contributing to LAMB's success, not just the fact that our school is a small one.


I am familiar with montessori and I am not talking about the number of kids in a mixed-age classroom, I am talking about the number of kids at a grade level relative to the resources of the school, including admin, teachers, intervention teachers, PTO budget, and so on. It is a clear advantage to have a very small number of students at a given testing grade, no-one who has worked in education would dispute this. Take it to the limit and imagine 1 student per grade level.

I realize DCI is changing things and I acknowledged this in my original post, but LAMB's situation was allowed to continue for over a decade. And I do not intend to single out LAMB. There are a number of charters with small enrollments.


If you don't mean to single LAMB out, don't: what specific examples do you have of other highly-regarded charters with small enrollments in upper grades?

And another question, even if you can name a few other popular charters with significantly small upper grades, what exactly is the solution you are proposing? The posts you responded to were pointing out that just because a formula for curriculum and school culture and school size works well for a current size does not mean it's manageable for that school to expand numbers of classes or build a satellite school. If you can identify specific schools with very small upper grade class sizes (and you haven't yet other than LAMB, which several current LAMB parents are disputing), what exactly is the solution you are suggesting that doesn't compromise the model that made the school successful?


No, there are no LAMB parents in this thread disputing that this persisted in the past. I learned about this issue from LAMB parents in the first place, how else? Posters in this thread are saying that it will change now with DCI, and I myself said this before they did.

I mentioned SS as well but no parents have chimed in, and I mentioned CMI for small size overall. As you are likely aware, several of the "HRCS" are very new and don't even have a grade 5 or in some cases a grade 3.

What I would propose is that when a school gets its charter it commits to a minimum number of students served, or a range, and if due to its own restrictive policies it is falling below that range then it is required to adjust the policies or lose the charter. And the government when setting this range should aim for schools that have roughly the same number of students per grade as a typical DCPS. For example, for the last decade LAMB should have been required to admit students in the upper grades. Yes, this would have been a "disruption", but DCPS schools are forced to deal with this all the time. And CMI should have, in its charter, a commitment to X classes per grade, probably X=3 or 4 at minimum.

I have a problem with charter schools getting taxpayer money and then acting like private schools, even if it is not their intent but rather is an unintended function of well-meaning policies.



3 questions:

1) But charters get less per-pupil funding than DCPS, so what exactly is the source of your "problem" if CMI raises the rest of its money however it does (NOT with taxpayer money beyond charter funding) and can only be accessed through a public lottery and is free (other than expensive aftercare, which a few HRCS have in common and that is an issue but that's a different issue)?

2) And since you clearly are not considering the view of the founder of a charter school, do tell: if the PCSB mandates what your class and grade sizes have to be and if you can't maintain them for whatever reason, you would lose your charter, why in the world would you put in the sweat and blood and time and money to start a school in the first place?

3) When you have a specific model, like Montessori, how do you mandate a school like LAMB to accept in upper grades? You said you understand the Montessori model, so if you do, how do you maintain the Montessori structure and fidelity when you accept students randomly (because it would have to be random) in every grade and 98% of those students would have had no Montessori exposure ever before? How do you maintain fidelity and run your school with new students coming in at every grade?

These are real questions that would have to be answered if your points are taken seriously. Since you have strong opinions about what should happen, what are your answers to how these issues would be dealt with?


The second two are easy, let's start with those:

2) This is a democracy, we impose policy restrictions on all kinds of organizations, all of which feature a hard-working founder in their creation stories. Charter schools, non-profits, small businesses, large corporations. Charter schools and their founders should not be singled out as being especially virtuous or deserving of freedom from regulation. And like everyone else they will respond to incentives. In this case, they would not see their school close. They'd just have to accept students in every grade. Which brings us to:

3) The montessori model would suffer somewhat, but it would not collapse. You would see a gradual weakening of the montessori model as you went up the grades (which you might say is happening anyway at LAMB and other montessori schools, but that's another topic). And yes this would not be the "ideal" thing, but this is a public school system and every school has to take its share of the burden. How do you think DCPS dual language schools feel when they have to accept a student in an upper grade with no experience in the language? But they have to work with it, it's part of offering public education. You don't get to maintain ideological/pedagogical purity with taxpayer dollars, sorry, you need to found a private school for that.

1) This is hard to answer because I am not sure what the relevance is of the per-student funding in your mind. I am saying that a taxpayer-funded school should be required to meet certain standards and I am proposing minimum/maximum range of students served as one of those standards. You can agree or disagree with the standard but what is the point of your question exactly? You don't dispute that charters receive the majority of funding from taxpayers, so we are talking about public schools here, subject to regulation.

Did that PP actually ask, with a straight face, why anyone would start a charter school at all if they couldn't have it exactly how they wanted it, catering to their own children?

Well, PP, one thing: if that is your attitude, perhaps you should not be starting a charter school.

In my experience, (and I daresay I have more than either of you two) with an upper grade DC school accepting students outside of its pedagogy in the upper grades... there's no "dilution." There's some adjustment, but these are just kids. THere is nothing wrong with them. If you are the kind of person who worries that your school is being "diluted" with new kids coming in, then you are probably not the kind of person who will be keeping your children in public school--not even charter--so why on earth should anyone cater to you?

[Anonymous]

Not PP but thank god you are not in charge of anything. Your ideas are awful.

Not that PP either, but here's a litmus test for your OWN brilliant ideas (which were obviously so amazing you couldn't share them with us.)

Do you think underground parking garages are a good idea for public schools and an effective use of education funding?

If you answer yes, then there's nothing really more to discuss because you are probably brain-damaged.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The second two are easy, let's start with those:

2) This is a democracy, we impose policy restrictions on all kinds of organizations, all of which feature a hard-working founder in their creation stories. Charter schools, non-profits, small businesses, large corporations. Charter schools and their founders should not be singled out as being especially virtuous or deserving of freedom from regulation. And like everyone else they will respond to incentives. In this case, they would not see their school close. They'd just have to accept students in every grade. Which brings us to:

3) The montessori model would suffer somewhat, but it would not collapse. You would see a gradual weakening of the montessori model as you went up the grades (which you might say is happening anyway at LAMB and other montessori schools, but that's another topic). And yes this would not be the "ideal" thing, but this is a public school system and every school has to take its share of the burden. How do you think DCPS dual language schools feel when they have to accept a student in an upper grade with no experience in the language? But they have to work with it, it's part of offering public education. You don't get to maintain ideological/pedagogical purity with taxpayer dollars, sorry, you need to found a private school for that.

1) This is hard to answer because I am not sure what the relevance is of the per-student funding in your mind. I am saying that a taxpayer-funded school should be required to meet certain standards and I am proposing minimum/maximum range of students served as one of those standards. You can agree or disagree with the standard but what is the point of your question exactly? You don't dispute that charters receive the majority of funding from taxpayers, so we are talking about public schools here, subject to regulation.

Not PP but thank god you are not in charge of anything. Your ideas are awful.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

It's really not fair for them, nor is it fair to require them to live near metro stops in VA and MD, which is where many of them live, and then change metro lines once or twice. For many teachers in the 'burbs cars are the most realistic commuting option. I am in favor of green growth and all that but it's more important to me that DCPS recruits and retains excellent teachers. If they want to drive to work, great, let's make it easier for them.

Change metro trains??? The horror. I don't know how all of those people in other parts of the DMV manage to get anywhere at all.

I am all for making things easy for people to commute, and that is why I do things, like support public transit and allowing teachers to have Residential Parking Permits. If there was a school in an urban area of the city that was actually building an underground parking garage... your point might also have more merit. Is there? I am only aware of Murch and Shepherd (the latter school trying to fundraise to build one.) Neither of them are in urban environments. Both of them are in neighborhoods with tons of street parking during the day. The "hardship" of having a teacher walk three or four blocks to school is not something I am concerned about. In part, because I understand math, and that building underground parking garages (excuse me, I have to go laugh about it again with some people who live in other cities)--is not free.

Underground parking garages.

Ok, i'll bite, what other cities? All large cities have parking requirements for major construction in dense areas. Office building, condo building, school, whatever, you need to build parking for the tenants. This has become a fight recently with green growth advocates asking that these reqs be reduced or eliminated but as a general rule they exist.

BTW you keep disparaging "dcps parents". Do you have kids?

[Anonymous]

Yes, I have children. In DC. Who have attended both DCPS and DCPCS schools. I disparage DC parents as a group, inclusive of both school boards, when they talk about what is in it for them--or underground parking garages. That is because when you guys talk about things like this, I feel like my head is exploding. Sometimes I even check--wondering if it is me. This is how I learned that no, it is not me, and many of my friends in other places think this is sad and funny at the same time. Because it is. What does DC need for its schools? Underground parking garages. Because otherwise no one will want to teach at them. Apparently.

Right.

One thing that you might now know, having spent your entire existence in a place like Rockville or Laurel or Loudon, is that when you have urban density, you actually need LESS parking, not more. That is because people don't need cars. Wasting money by retrofitting buildings built in the 20s or 40s with underground parking garages isn't something done in New York, or Boston, or anywhere else. Why? Because it is a massive waste of MONEY, even for well-connected people in the building industry (cough, New York). And the schools you're talking about--they're not serving a lot of kids. You are talking about very expensive retrofits for a modicum of convenience. You know what I bet those teachers would like MORE than an underground parking spot? An extra 10K a year. Funny thing... if you weren't so busy building atriums and parking garages, you might be able to give it to them too.

[Anonymous]

So if a school is doing well, your idea is to mess with it so more people can send their kids there, regardless of the fact that it may ruin the good job it's doing?

Thank god you're just a loser on the Internet.

[Anonymous]

Hey remember when we were talking about open houses?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Shining Stars would probably have a larger elementary school if they hadn't had the location issue two years ago. From what I understand from a friend whose child goes there, they are planning on expanding, and, unlike LAMB, they do accept in all grades.

I think Latin and Basis accepting in fifth is probably gutting the upper schools for a lot of charters.

But I agree with you--test scores for only a handful of kids are pretty meaningless. It is sort of sad though, that some schools are closed because of them... if their upper school kids aren't high SES.

Underground parking: you know, sometimes in other cities, I talk about DC--and when I mention the underground parking building there is hysterical laughter. Sad, hysterical laughter. You know what would work INSTEAD of underground parking? Giving your teachers neighborhood parking permits. And, if your school is in too urban an environment for that to work, then it is urban enough to be served by transit. Simple. Cost to taxpayers = nothing. But no, let's spend more tens of millions of dollars on underground parking lots. You know, for the kids.

Underground parking. DCPS parents... oh, I don't know what it says that this is the hill you've picked to die on. (Or--in, I guess--really.)

Wrong. They're gutting DCPS on the Hill.

Because if Latin and Basis weren't there those ~100 students would all be at their IB middle schools? Right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, I have children. In DC. Who have attended both DCPS and DCPCS schools. I disparage DC parents as a group, inclusive of both school boards, when they talk about what is in it for them--or underground parking garages. That is because when you guys talk about things like this, I feel like my head is exploding. Sometimes I even check--wondering if it is me. This is how I learned that no, it is not me, and many of my friends in other places think this is sad and funny at the same time. Because it is. What does DC need for its schools? Underground parking garages. Because otherwise no one will want to teach at them. Apparently.

Right.

One thing that you might now know, having spent your entire existence in a place like Rockville or Laurel or Loudon, is that when you have urban density, you actually need LESS parking, not more. That is because people don't need cars. Wasting money by retrofitting buildings built in the 20s or 40s with underground parking garages isn't something done in New York, or Boston, or anywhere else. Why? Because it is a massive waste of MONEY, even for well-connected people in the building industry (cough, New York). And the schools you're talking about--they're not serving a lot of kids. You are talking about very expensive retrofits for a modicum of convenience. You know what I bet those teachers would like MORE than an underground parking spot? An extra 10K a year. Funny thing... if you weren't so busy building atriums and parking garages, you might be able to give it to them too.

Your assumptions about my upbringing are odd. Most of us on DCUM are "high-SES" transplants who didn't grow up in the DC area.

Janney is an example of a dense location that needs its own parking. There are others but I won't name them because you would probably show up with protest signs.

The retrofit example you are using sounds specific to Shepherd, a school that has not had underground parking approved in its plans IIUC.

More broadly, DC is dense enough to have traffic problems but not dense enough for public transit to be anywhere near universal. Lots of people on Greater Greater Washington who wish it otherwise (you'd love it over there btw), but that's the truth.