lafayette v. murch

[Anonymous]

we are trying to decide whether to buy a house in the murch or lafayette areas. any opinions on which elementary school is better? are they pretty similar at the end of the day?

[Anonymous]

Look a the stats on the greatschools website. You will get an idea of how students are performing academically from that data.

[Anonymous]

Yes, they are.

Lafayette has a stronger principal situation though, and open classrooms which a lot of people dislike.

Also, Lafayette has a more stable student population, with fewer kids leaving in older grades and fewer international kids from embassies moving in and out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, they are.

Lafayette has a stronger principal situation though, and open classrooms which a lot of people dislike.

Also, Lafayette has a more stable student population, with fewer kids leaving in older grades and fewer international kids from embassies moving in and out.

The flip side of this is that lafayette's population is much more homogeneous--racially, ethnically, and socioeconomically.

They are both great schools. Buy the house you like in the neighborhood you like!

[Anonymous]

I don't know what Lafayette is like on the inside. But, Murch is rather old and in need of renovations, I believe they are scheduled for 2014. Because of increasing enrollment they have "temporary" trailer like classrooms.

[Anonymous]

What does it mean to have an "open classroom"?

[Anonymous]

No walls between classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, they are.

Lafayette has a stronger principal situation though, and open classrooms which a lot of people dislike.

Also, Lafayette has a more stable student population, with fewer kids leaving in older grades and fewer international kids from embassies moving in and out.

Can someone please explain why the principal situation at Murch is weaker? Went to an open house at Murch this morning and really liked the principal. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, they are.

Lafayette has a stronger principal situation though, and open classrooms which a lot of people dislike.

Also, Lafayette has a more stable student population, with fewer kids leaving in older grades and fewer international kids from embassies moving in and out.

Can someone please explain why the principal situation at Murch is weaker? Went to an open house at Murch this morning and really liked the principal. Thanks!

Murch parent here, and while I don't claim to know all the ins and outs of the principal situation, I think the basic deal is that she isn't very engaged with parents and can be non-responsive--not that she literally ignores people as much as that she isn't particularly helpful or sympathetic when approached by parents with individual issues. And there was a bit of a class-assignment SNAFU at the beginning of this school year that was upsetting to a subset of parents.

That said (and even as the recipient of a sort of condescending and non-responsive e-mail from Ms. Ellis when we e-mailed her with a question/concern), the school is well-run, and I don't have any sense of pervasive dislike among the parents or the teachers. She really isn't a part of your day-to-day life--true of most principals, I think--unless you have a specific issue that you need to elevate. Also, the AP is very good, and I think she's really the first line of administration when you have an issue to discuss.

I think she's basically fine. She has only been around a few years (she was hired by Rhee), and I don't know how much longer she has until retirement; I imagine she's not in this for the super-long haul.

I think the Lafayette principal has been at the school forever; given the school's success, I think she gets a lot of credit and has a lot of loyalty among parents.

[Anonymous]

People rave about the art program which is run with the Kennedy Ctr. at Lafayette.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, they are.

Lafayette has a stronger principal situation though, and open classrooms which a lot of people dislike.

Also, Lafayette has a more stable student population, with fewer kids leaving in older grades and fewer international kids from embassies moving in and out.

Can someone please explain why the principal situation at Murch is weaker? Went to an open house at Murch this morning and really liked the principal. Thanks!

Murch parent here, and while I don't claim to know all the ins and outs of the principal situation, I think the basic deal is that she isn't very engaged with parents and can be non-responsive--not that she literally ignores people as much as that she isn't particularly helpful or sympathetic when approached by parents with individual issues. And there was a bit of a class-assignment SNAFU at the beginning of this school year that was upsetting to a subset of parents.

That said (and even as the recipient of a sort of condescending and non-responsive e-mail from Ms. Ellis when we e-mailed her with a question/concern), the school is well-run, and I don't have any sense of pervasive dislike among the parents or the teachers. She really isn't a part of your day-to-day life--true of most principals, I think--unless you have a specific issue that you need to elevate. Also, the AP is very good, and I think she's really the first line of administration when you have an issue to discuss.

I think she's basically fine. She has only been around a few years (she was hired by Rhee), and I don't know how much longer she has until retirement; I imagine she's not in this for the super-long haul.

I think the Lafayette principal has been at the school forever; given the school's success, I think she gets a lot of credit and has a lot of loyalty among parents.

Thank you so much for the detailed response! Good to know.

[Anonymous]

We are at Murch and while I am not a huge fan of the principal interpersonally, she is very good at her job and she also has a good rapport with the kids. I believe that she may have retired from MC where she had a lot of experience. Under her leadership the school was granted a special status that allows them to be more innovative as long as the test scores do not fall below a certain level, I believe only a handful of schools have that designation. Generally the school is very well run and the AP at Murch is very much a people person. I don't think you could go wrong with either school to be honest. I loved the arts program at Lafayette but one of my kids is easily distracted, I thought that the physical plant (walls) at Murch would be a better fit. Both schools feed to Deal, which many Murch families seem to be choosing.

[Anonymous]

00:43 here, was blanking on the term "autonomous status", only 7 schools in DCPS have it. You can learn more about Murch here
http://www.murchschool.org/images/pdfs/2010%20back%20to%20school%20night.pptx.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No walls between classes.

Just PK, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No walls between classes.

Just PK, right?

Nope - at all grade levels. It's what turned us off of Lafayette.