New to DCI-Anything we should know?
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Anonymous
| Agree with this take on DCI. The program is Diploma light, like the feeders are immersion light. What more can we expect from DC Public Charter under Bowser? |
Anonymous
In this universe, it makes sense to compare DCI to Metro area public IBD programs DCI families would have access to if they moved. Heck, we’d go for far more rigorous AP academics at J-R over DCI in a heartbeat if we moved to NW. Not uncommon for J-R students to take 8 or 10 APs scoring all 4s and 5s. |
Anonymous
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OP specifically asked for feedback from parents with kids at the school currently and the overwhelming responses on this thread are not from families with kids at the school.
Reading this thread there is 1 or 2 families with kids at the school currently who are not happy. Rest no kids at the school at all. Very telling and all the DCI thread devolves like this, because these people with absolutely no kids at the school overtake it. And it’s the same posters every time. I’m sure there are more than 1 or 2 families not happy at DCI and are not on here. I would also argue that if families are happy at their school, they usually are not on this board. DCI has a very high retention rate so data doesn’t support lots of unhappy families who could leave if they want. Data also shows lots more feeder families are tracking to the school. Lastly, the posters on here who are needing and advocating tracking in all subjects, you need to move to the burbs and get off the DC school site completely. It’s not happening in DC at any school. But if you look at the middle school options in the city, charter and DCPS, DCI is one of the best options especially if you factor in extracurriculars and facilities. That’s the bottom line folks. |
Anonymous
LOL! You have got to be kidding. JR has AP for all and the majority of kids can’t even score 4 or 5 on AP exams. The classes are also huge with 30 plus kids The high performing kids at Deal are not going to JR. JR has gone down the tubes with honors for all too. |
Anonymous
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You're exaggerating. J-R had students admitted to all 8 Ivies this past spring, mostly high SES white students.
Latin got two into Ivies. BASIS got none (but one into Cal Tech). DCI got one into Yale, an URM. |
Anonymous
That is misleading too since you are not factoring in class size. Just because some random person at a school--especially a large one such as J-R--gets into an Ivy doesn't mean that the school offers a good education and your kid will get into an Ivy. For example, the senior class last year at J-R was more than 12 times bigger than BASIS (BASIS only had 42 in the senior class). And BASIS has had plenty of Ivy admits in previous years. Given the wealth and education levels in NW and the fact that J-R is an boundary-restricted school, 8 Ivies (assuming that is accurate) in a class of over 500 kids is not particularly impressive in this area. A more useful measure is what percentage of the class gets into a top college. Over 2/3 of the last BASIS senior class is going to a Top 50 college. That certainly beats J-R, Latin, and DC. In fact, some graduates of those schools don't even attend college at all. |
Anonymous
As a DCI parent who's looking for a way out for high school for a high achiever entering 8th grade, I can't argue with this analysis. Don't believe the hype about DCI, OP. It seems fair to compare DCI's weak middle school PARCC scores to better scores at Hardy, Deal, Latin 1 and BASIS, whose demographics aren't all that different. As for IB scores, who knows. We're all in the dark and I'm sick of it. I'd love to know how many DCI students had an average OK score of 40+ this year. I'm guessing 1-2%. Fast forward 5 years, I'd wager 3-5%. Did I mentioned that I missed the parent presentation with the IB scores slide that everybody talks about? |
Anonymous
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Just found this thread. In my books here’s what OP needs to know. If your DCI student is an advanced learner and you’re an ambitious family where bilingualism and future college acceptances go, rolling with the punches at DCI requires a big dose of…patience.
If you’re short on patience, you’re unlikely to last. We weren’t patient enough for DCI, motivating us to leave for a private 2 years in. |
Anonymous
Minus the nasty attitude, this PP is spot on. Most DCI families are choosing DCI because: (1) it's an alternative to their underperforming IB option, and doesn't require winning the lottery like Latin or Basis; then (2) to continue language immersion from elementary school. The IB program is like expeditionary learning - a nice bonus for some families, but unlikely the reason to choose that school over others. They'd be equally happy with a middle-high school language feeder option that had AP instead of IB, and don't know or care enough about the international IB program to dig too deeply into how it performs at DCI. Serious IB families are the ones posting on this thread, which is why they're comparing DCI to suburban programs and WIS, not DCI to Roosevelt or Banneker. DCI is good enough for most average to slightly above average students, so why cause a fuss and look for reasons to be unhappy? That said, if you're going into DCI expecting a full, rigorous IB program, you're going to be disappointed. IB for all just can't compete in terms of rigor to other programs in the DC area, so go with eyes open and don't expect it to be what it's not. |
Anonymous
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Right, don’t expect great rigor or serious IBD at DCI, but no need to be passive in the face of mediocrity as a DCI stakeholder either. OP should know that small groups of DCI parents have organized and pushed successfully for a variety of academic upgrades in the last 5 years. These include DCI offering the 2 standard level early/junior year exams Geneva allows and more higher level courses and exams. Parents have also started teaming up to register and transport students for AP exams at other schools and distant summer immersion programs.
This is your public school system. There’s no rule that you, as a parent stakeholder, need to accept lack of ambition in the part of a charter’s board members, admins, teachers and fellow parents sitting down. |
Anonymous
| Good post. DCI parents have also pushed for more math acceleration in the last few years, with real success. A few 8th graders will be permitted to take 10th grade math for the first time in the upcoming school year. Admins have been more passive than parents. |
Anonymous
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OP, this thread could give you the impression that nobody at DCI cares about students scoring high on IBD or being admitted to highly competitive colleges. That's not true. There's a group of us that does care and has since the feeder and middle school years. We support one another. It's just that we're low-key about our ambitions and extra prep to avoid becoming lightning rods for accusations of elitism and tiger parenting.
One thing some of us do is collect and share Oxford IB subject study guides and have kids get together to work with tutors with IB exam prep experience. My eldest just returned from the UK where they attended a 10-day mid-IBD subject review program (post 11th grade) with Oxford Study Courses. We know a DCI family who did the same thing in Vienna with IBWise in conjunction w/a vacation. A few of the families are considering sending younger sibs to Sevenoaks school in Kent, England next summer for a couple weeks of intensive prep for Higher Level subjects. The program isn't all that expensive if the kids stay off campus w/a parent chaperone. Just because we can't afford WIS and won't move to MoCo for IBD doesn't mean that we're not investing in aiming high. There will be more of us at DCI in the future. Good luck, OP. |
Anonymous
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interesting and not surprising
the more popular dci becomes with umc families the more resourceful ambitious parents with resources to supplement become |
Anonymous
We don't care about class size; we care about appropriate rigor for our very bright and often academically enthusiastic 14 year old who needs a push to work hard. At J-R, top students can take advantage of tougher classes with more experienced teachers overall than at DCI, particularly in stem subjects. If you want language instruction past the AP level, dual enrollment at Georgetown or GW is an option from J-R, along with community college language classes, on-line language classes and MoCo weekend heritage programs you pay for Extra-curriculars are much more serious at J-R, too. I'm just not seeing an upside to DCI for a high achieving students on the college prep front if you have access to J-R, particularly since IBD isn't too serious at DCI. DCI's high school is for parents EotP the don't crack Walls or McArthur and don't care for Banneker or McKinley. |
Anonymous
I think this is key: "on the high college prep front." I have a high-achieving child going into 8th grade at DCI, and we're definitely staying for high school. Will he only be surrounded by high-achieving students at DCI? No. If we moved out of DC, might he end up with higher IB scores? Sure. If he'd gone to BASIS (we didn't lottery for it), might he have a better change of geting into a higher-ranked college? Maybe. (But the odds are low for any student!) But the key question for us is, if he gets into a college that's top-15 ranked instead of top-30 ranked, how different will his life be? And are those chances worth the extra stress of high school? What about him seeing that his parents want him segregated from lower-achieving students? What about him being segregated from the demographics of the city he's grown up in? (BASIS is only 30% Black or Hispanic; even less if we move to a suburban IB program.) Instead, we think that DCI will give him a good academic education, he'll get into a fine college, he'll be fine. And he will have gone to a high school that has, and lives, truly democratic values. Most importantly: it's a school where he's incredibly happy. I wish the same for all your children. |