Best Cap Hill elementary to middle?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:SWS = Super White School

How can SWS be a “super white” school in a citywide school? Aren’t there a significant number of nonwhites that apply to the school in the lottery? Even if it is predominantly White, don’t they teach all students well with the Reggio method—especially those that start at preK?

It's called sibling preference.

And the fact that families of color don’t want to be “the only”. That is why we turned down our pk3 spot.

We are a minority’ and would take it any day if choices were a good school vs. being a minority.

There are better options. I think the primary draw is the demographics.

Nope, the primary draw is it’s a good school that has no neighborhood boundary limitation. I find it amusing how people justify a good school by racial lines. Get real, I could care less the demographics of the school.

Good for you. I know what it is like to be the only brown kid. Not going to do that to my kids.

Or at least not for SWS. Not worth it.

It’s good not great. Nothing special.

And I know what it’s like to be the one minority in a class of 200 kids. I’m not AA but a minority. No issues and my parents didn’t make it an issue. An AA family in our neighborhood we know listed the school very high with eyes open but they had a bad number. So you might have had a bad experience but not everyone does or feels the same.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:If I'd listened to you ten years ago lady, we'd be long gone from the Hill. We scraped together every dollar we had to by in-boundary for Brent.

My advice for OP is the opposite. Stand outside your schools of interest and drop-off and get a feel for the scene, to help you decide what you can live with. Even drop in on PTA meetings if you have the time. easily done and lots to learn. Search for real estate by school boundaries.

Some of us who've been on the Hill for a long time have seen dear friends bail for the burbs because they bought on the wrong side of a street. They thought they'd bought IB for in-boundary for Maury when they'd actually bought for Payne or Miner. The result was years of braving bad school commutes up to Inspired Teaching, Stokes or wherever. Not worth it. Live with the creaky stairs.

We are not at stokes but I’d take that over any Capitol Hill school.

Not buying it. Stokes isn't better than Brent or Maury. Even it were, who wants to commute half an hour to a school through evil traffic on North Capitol if there's a good school within a few blocks of home.

DP but I believe both Inspired and Stokes preform same or better than Brent when you compare apples to apples. Agree with commute but wanted to contend your first point.

DCPS can break down all they want with the stats to at risk, special needs, etc...so certain schools do a better job at serving these students. Honestly I could care less about that. If my child is advance, what I care about is peer group and I’m looking at the total percentage of kids scoring 4 on PARCC. 3 on PARCC isn’t even at grade level, it’s approaching grade level. Brent way outperforms based on this criteria.

2018 PARCC Scores: Percent scoring L4 or L5

School ELA Math
Watkins 49% 49%
Brent 62% 69%
Maury 69% 70%
Ludlow-Taylor 72% 51%

This is ridiculously impressive from L-T, actually. Particularly when you consider that the demographics of the testing grades are currently very different than Brent and Maury’s. L-T is gentrifying super quickly though and the demographics of the testing grades will look totally different (basically like Maury’s) in 3 years. No one leaves anymore.

[Anonymous]

My DH and 3 of his colleagues have all had to make this choice in the past year. All have or will have multiple kids; oldest is 4.5. Very highly educated but only decently paid profession means that school zones (for ES + MS) are the chief driver of location selection. 3 went with L-T and 1 went with Brent. Just one data point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If I'd listened to you ten years ago lady, we'd be long gone from the Hill. We scraped together every dollar we had to by in-boundary for Brent.

My advice for OP is the opposite. Stand outside your schools of interest and drop-off and get a feel for the scene, to help you decide what you can live with. Even drop in on PTA meetings if you have the time. easily done and lots to learn. Search for real estate by school boundaries.

Some of us who've been on the Hill for a long time have seen dear friends bail for the burbs because they bought on the wrong side of a street. They thought they'd bought IB for in-boundary for Maury when they'd actually bought for Payne or Miner. The result was years of braving bad school commutes up to Inspired Teaching, Stokes or wherever. Not worth it. Live with the creaky stairs.

We are not at stokes but I’d take that over any Capitol Hill school.

Not buying it. Stokes isn't better than Brent or Maury. Even it were, who wants to commute half an hour to a school through evil traffic on North Capitol if there's a good school within a few blocks of home.

DP but I believe both Inspired and Stokes preform same or better than Brent when you compare apples to apples. Agree with commute but wanted to contend your first point.

DCPS can break down all they want with the stats to at risk, special needs, etc...so certain schools do a better job at serving these students. Honestly I could care less about that. If my child is advance, what I care about is peer group and I’m looking at the total percentage of kids scoring 4 on PARCC. 3 on PARCC isn’t even at grade level, it’s approaching grade level. Brent way outperforms based on this criteria.

2018 PARCC Scores: Percent scoring L4 or L5

School ELA Math
Watkins 49% 49%
Brent 62% 69%
Maury 69% 70%
Ludlow-Taylor 72% 51%

This is ridiculously impressive from L-T, actually. Particularly when you consider that the demographics of the testing grades are currently very different than Brent and Maury’s. L-T is gentrifying super quickly though and the demographics of the testing grades will look totally different (basically like Maury’s) in 3 years. No one leaves anymore.

Agreed. Which is why they score a whopping 10 points higher than Brent. Further reiterates why Brent is a meh school that doesn’t deserve any hype unless you only desire being in a upper SES white bubble.

[Anonymous]

*10 points higher on school report card

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SWS = Super White School

How can SWS be a “super white” school in a citywide school? Aren’t there a significant number of nonwhites that apply to the school in the lottery? Even if it is predominantly White, don’t they teach all students well with the Reggio method—especially those that start at preK?

It's called sibling preference.

And the fact that families of color don’t want to be “the only”. That is why we turned down our pk3 spot.

We are a minority’ and would take it any day if choices were a good school vs. being a minority.

There are better options. I think the primary draw is the demographics.

Nope, the primary draw is it’s a good school that has no neighborhood boundary limitation. I find it amusing how people justify a good school by racial lines. Get real, I could care less the demographics of the school.

Good for you. I know what it is like to be the only brown kid. Not going to do that to my kids.

Or at least not for SWS. Not worth it.

It’s good not great. Nothing special.

And I know what it’s like to be the one minority in a class of 200 kids. I’m not AA but a minority. No issues and my parents didn’t make it an issue. An AA family in our neighborhood we know listed the school very high with eyes open but they had a bad number. So you might have had a bad experience but not everyone does or feels the same.

Well good for you! I assure you, my parents tried hard to reduce racism but “not making it an issue” wasn’t possible for us. But thanks for your idiotic comment anyway!

I am not going to waste my time with a meh school with no diversity. You seem fine with it- it’s terrific for kids with special needs I’ll grant you that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DH and 3 of his colleagues have all had to make this choice in the past year. All have or will have multiple kids; oldest is 4.5. Very highly educated but only decently paid profession means that school zones (for ES + MS) are the chief driver of location selection. 3 went with L-T and 1 went with Brent. Just one data point.

Interesting. I know many who left ludlow for other schools after pk. Main objection was lots of tv time. Two others I know moved so their kids could attend Maury.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SWS = Super White School

How can SWS be a “super white” school in a citywide school? Aren’t there a significant number of nonwhites that apply to the school in the lottery? Even if it is predominantly White, don’t they teach all students well with the Reggio method—especially those that start at preK?

It's called sibling preference.

And the fact that families of color don’t want to be “the only”. That is why we turned down our pk3 spot.

We are a minority’ and would take it any day if choices were a good school vs. being a minority.

There are better options. I think the primary draw is the demographics.

Nope, the primary draw is it’s a good school that has no neighborhood boundary limitation. I find it amusing how people justify a good school by racial lines. Get real, I could care less the demographics of the school.

Good for you. I know what it is like to be the only brown kid. Not going to do that to my kids.

Or at least not for SWS. Not worth it.

It’s good not great. Nothing special.

And I know what it’s like to be the one minority in a class of 200 kids. I’m not AA but a minority. No issues and my parents didn’t make it an issue. An AA family in our neighborhood we know listed the school very high with eyes open but they had a bad number. So you might have had a bad experience but not everyone does or feels the same.

Well good for you! I assure you, my parents tried hard to reduce racism but “not making it an issue” wasn’t possible for us. But thanks for your idiotic comment anyway!

I am not going to waste my time with a meh school with no diversity. You seem fine with it- it’s terrific for kids with special needs I’ll grant you that.

Nope, my experiences and experiences of other minorities and AA, which may be different than what you experience, are not idiotic. You just sound that way by saying your experience alone was valid and making remarks such as “idiotic”.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DH and 3 of his colleagues have all had to make this choice in the past year. All have or will have multiple kids; oldest is 4.5. Very highly educated but only decently paid profession means that school zones (for ES + MS) are the chief driver of location selection. 3 went with L-T and 1 went with Brent. Just one data point.

Interesting. I know many who left ludlow for other schools after pk. Main objection was lots of tv time. Two others I know moved so their kids could attend Maury.

We've owned a house in the Ludlow-Taylor District for 15 years, a couple blocks from the school. None of our longtime professional friends or neighbors enrolled there after K until the new (male) principal arrived several years ago. Everybody we know with little kid went private, charter, or lotteried into SWS, Maury, Brent or Tyler Spanish Immersion under Principle Cobbs and her successor, who lasted just two school years. The parents of 3, 4 and 5 year-olds around us do seem to be planning to stay at Ludlow into the upper grades. The program is obviously on the up and up, but I'm not buying that most IB parents would still choose it over Maury, SWS or Brent for the upper grades. It's still very hard for Ludlow to compete with schools whose PTAs raise six figures, other than Watkins. In 3 or 4 years, things surely will be different.

[Anonymous]

To be sure, boosters tend to exaggerate how well Hills schools are doing. They always want to attract more IB parents!!

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:This is true. I sometimes wonder if Spanish immersion was a good choice for Tyler ES a decade back. Payne's prospects look brighter to me, with a snazzy renovation a few years ago, strong new leadership, greater community buy-in in the lower grades all the time, and hundreds of new residential units going up in the Payne District.

If I were the chancellor, I would cluster Brent and Tyler. Make the smaller school all bilingual and the larger monolingual and let everyone in-boundary rank their preferences. More bilingual seats and greater economic diversity.

Clustering is the solution to improving Miner, Payne, and Tyler that freaks everyone the f out. But I am in favor of it. EH should be closed and combined with SH or Jefferson. QED.

I would love to see Maury and Miner clustered (you could make Miner the PK3-1 and Maury the 2-5) and Brent and Tyler clustered (one bilingual one not).

If EH closes and everyone gets a right to SH (closer than Jefferson) the school would be overcrowded. One option would be to put all the 6th and 7th graders at one and the 8th graders at another (or do 5th and 6th at one, 7&8 at the other, and leave more room for PK-4 at the elementaries). It would also help if Payne became a Jefferson feeder and SWS stopped having a feeder--it's a citywide school so everyone could just go to their IB MS.

SWS feeder irrelevant as very few families no one goes to EH. Maybe DCPS should let SWS go through 8th grade like CHML

Horrible idea - SWS has a hard time dealing with upper elementary, which is part of the reason why people aren’t unhappy to jump to charter at 5th.

[Anonymous]

Horrible idea - SWS has a hard time dealing with upper elementary, which is part of the reason why people aren’t unhappy to jump to charter at 5th.


Strongly disagree with above comment. SWS has the highest PARCC scores on the hill, and if I'm not mistaken, highest outside of Ward 3. Those are upper elem kids. SWS seems loosey goosey which makes a lot of parents nervous but it appears that SWS does a good job "dealing with upper elementary."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is true. I sometimes wonder if Spanish immersion was a good choice for Tyler ES a decade back. Payne's prospects look brighter to me, with a snazzy renovation a few years ago, strong new leadership, greater community buy-in in the lower grades all the time, and hundreds of new residential units going up in the Payne District.

If I were the chancellor, I would cluster Brent and Tyler. Make the smaller school all bilingual and the larger monolingual and let everyone in-boundary rank their preferences. More bilingual seats and greater economic diversity.

Clustering is the solution to improving Miner, Payne, and Tyler that freaks everyone the f out. But I am in favor of it. EH should be closed and combined with SH or Jefferson. QED.

I would love to see Maury and Miner clustered (you could make Miner the PK3-1 and Maury the 2-5) and Brent and Tyler clustered (one bilingual one not).

If EH closes and everyone gets a right to SH (closer than Jefferson) the school would be overcrowded. One option would be to put all the 6th and 7th graders at one and the 8th graders at another (or do 5th and 6th at one, 7&8 at the other, and leave more room for PK-4 at the elementaries). It would also help if Payne became a Jefferson feeder and SWS stopped having a feeder--it's a citywide school so everyone could just go to their IB MS.

SWS feeder irrelevant as very few families no one goes to EH. Maybe DCPS should let SWS go through 8th grade like CHML

Horrible idea - SWS has a hard time dealing with upper elementary, which is part of the reason why people aren’t unhappy to jump to charter at 5th.

The parents who jump from SWS do so in 5th grade, not 3rd or 4th, and they do so for the exact same reasons that Brent and Maury families leave - because they see a better MS path in charters. A lot of those families would stay through 8th if the option was there. For a school that spends zero time doing PARCC prep SWS still scores among the highest in DC, including 5th grade.

[Anonymous]

I can't believe people are still wasting time on this debate. Focus on improving your IB school. If you don't want to attend, then don't, but don't complain about it. Don't bash other schools or claim your school is inherently superior, or another school is inherently inferior. The end.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can't believe people are still wasting time on this debate. Focus on improving your IB school. If you don't want to attend, then don't, but don't complain about it. Don't bash other schools or claim your school is inherently superior, or another school is inherently inferior. The end.

addendum: You MAY complain about JOW because that sh*t is cray over there, apparently.