Brookland-Bunker Hill
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Anonymous
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Anybody want to talk about this school? It is our inboundary school. There has been a bit of talk on the local list lately about more Brookland-area parents sending their kids to this school. Someone has mentioned being impressed by a tour (for preschool) but disappointed with the lack of diversity (racial and economic I presume), which does not reflect the neighborhood, particularly the families with young kids. The president of the PTA has also posted about the parental involvement events they have etc.
This is the profile: www.dcps.dc.gov/DCPS/brookland Thanks. |
Anonymous
| OP here. Somebody mentioned this school in the "best in boundary potential for improvement thread." Nothing to say now? Thanks for any thoughts? |
Anonymous
| Bump. Anybody applying to Bunker Hill for preS or PK this year? |
Anonymous
| I used to teach there. Incredible lot, huge field, historic building with great bones, terrific potential. Never understood why the local neighborhood didn't embrace this potential gem. |
Anonymous
| I am actually OOB for this school, but I am considering to put in on the lottery list. It seems to have progressed in a good direction. |
Anonymous
Please take a second look at the newly released data. Unless you're looking for free daycare, this school is ill-advised. |
Anonymous
I find the charters in Brookland and surrounding area much more innovative and exciting than this traditional school. We have lived in Brookland a number of years. I don't know of a single middle-to-upper class family who sends their children to this school. |
Anonymous
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I don't disagree but it's hard to get into those charters (well, after Stokes got more popular, and now that Yu Ying is through its bumper crop of PreKers). This is why Brookland parents are so stressed out at lottery time!
When is the neighborhood going to come together--like we've seen happen on Cap Hill? Surely Payne is no better a school than Bunker Hill -- yet Hill parents seem to be rallying around it. |
Anonymous
It def. is a stressful time. As a family new in the area, we try hard t0 find "good" options as close to home as possible. Private don't exist in my world. Too expensive. |
Anonymous
Don't know how bad Payne is, but it's got to be a royal challenge to be worse than Brookland/Bunker Hill. Charter, private, or move. Rail at me now, but if you don't follow one of the three above it's your own children you're screwing over. (Your venom might make you feel good, but I couldn't care less.) |
Anonymous
| It really is too bad we can't always see who is writing these comments. To previous poster: My world isn't your world. |
Anonymous
I agree with your statement. People make these broad declarations with no backup. Where does this PP live. What, if any, children do she know attending the school. What is so bad about the school that she would tak, in her words, venomous attitude. |
Anonymous
Oh, for God's sake, why does anyone even listen to people like this???? I imagine this person has not ever step foot in one of the "undesirable" areas of DC that doesn't have a JKLM school |
Anonymous
Hi, my name is Faye and, together with a few other parents, I tried putting together exactly such an effort. Burroughs (the other inbounds brookland school) is another potentially good school. AYP is not there, but I'm not much for testing by itself. Unfortunately, Burroughs was all about reading and math, math and reading. No language teacher, art, gym, etc, other "specials" were a half an hour a week. A week! The principals at both Brookland Bunker Hill and Burroughs were engaged, dedicated and willing to reach out to parents. Unfortunately, the parents group was totally turned off by the direction and the lack of focus on humanities at Burroughs. Most of us cared less about test scores and more about the fact that there was no language teacher at the school, even though there is a middle school within the campus. There was a half time language instructor, but she was let go in order to redirect resources toward reading and math subjects, which is what we learned from current parents. Absolutely everything centered around reading and math with no humanities. It was hard to tell, having just started looking at schools, if this was something systemic across all DCPS or if this was really the direction that one school took. Without attractive charters to lure away parents, we may have had sufficient numbers enrolling at our in-bounds to make a difference, but ultimately parents were turned off by the school's focus and went elsewhere. (Which I don't blame them for!). Thus, we lacked critical mass to help shape the school and help the school grow stronger. We didn't want to make sweeping changes, but the lack of even basic humanities focus was a dealbreaker. I know this thread is mainly about Brookland Bunker Hill but I wanted to take the time to address the comment above, directly, about parents in our area coming together. Oddly enough, that is closer to my house but not my in-bounds school. I'd be interested in reevaluating the school and learning more about it if some parents were interested in a renewed effort. If you'd like to email me, OP, or others, I'm at fayebird at gmail. I will say: Bunker Hill is a beautiful school, that's one thing going for it! |
Anonymous
| I am a Brookland parent that never used the Brookland schools because the issue above. The constant focus on just reading and math is a totally failed policy because it doesn't even help the kids that are behind and pushes out parents that may be willing to be part of the community if there was a high quality broad curriculum that included not just art and music but also science and social studies. This has to be something that central office gets or these schools are just doomed to be high poverty centers. |