Eliot-Hines Middle School

[Anonymous]

- If you're there on a Saturday trace back your steps and consider paying the DC Youth Orchestra Program at Eastern visit, grab a slice of pizza in the cafeteria just behind the marble stairway, and stroll around its lovely atriums and classrooms one and two floors up.

really? i had no idea that i could check out the insides of eastern on a saturday! i've been dying to get a look at the place since the re-opening!....i have lived north of lincoln park for the past 10 years (and closer in capitol hill for 10 years prior to that) and i can unequivocally state that the walk from RFK east (towards the capitol) hasn't been "dicey" in about 15 years. really, it's all strollers and dogs and has been for a long while now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:really? i had no idea that i could check out the insides of eastern on a saturday! i've been dying to get a look at the place since the re-opening!....

Yes you can. Enter through the gray wheelchair accessible metal door right next to the historic wooden doors. Once inside, consider checking in with the security guard. Signs will direct you not to use the historic marble steps but to go around them and use the stairways instead. There is also an elevator down the hall to the left (from where you can get to the DCYOP offices by turning one more corner). Saturday music classes are held on the second and third floor. I'm not sure how late the building is open but it opens as early as 9 am on Saturday.

[Anonymous]

I would not recommend for you to go to Eastern and tour the school in that manner. I would strongly urge that you contact the school at 202-698-4500 and set up an appointment with the school. They will glady have someone walk you into each and every part of the building that is worthy of a tour. They can also answer all of your pertinent questions as it relates to the school in its present state.

We welcome all to Eastern and would love the transparency of visitors to be genuine and not covert. Our Principal is wonderful and if given proper notice will make herself available for such a tour. Those who enter on Saturday are entering for a specific purpose and that is DCYO and not the tour of Eastern.

Reasons being many see the school on Saturday in full regalia and have this false sense of the school ambiance. Thinking that there's diversity in the school at an acceptable rate. Currently, Eastern's population is predominantly AA with one white, one other and two Asians. By no means am I a stating that all is not well with that mixture. But I have seen too many disappointed parents who attend subsequent meetings and notice the true demographics. Then they feel there's a feeling being fooled.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would not recommend for you to go to Eastern and tour the school in that manner. I would strongly urge that you contact the school at 202-698-4500 and set up an appointment with the school. They will glady have someone walk you into each and every part of the building that is worthy of a tour. They can also answer all of your pertinent questions as it relates to the school in its present state.

We welcome all to Eastern and would love the transparency of visitors to be genuine and not covert. Our Principal is wonderful and if given proper notice will make herself available for such a tour. Those who enter on Saturday are entering for a specific purpose and that is DCYO and not the tour of Eastern.


Reasons being many see the school on Saturday in full regalia and have this false sense of the school ambiance. Thinking that there's diversity in the school at an acceptable rate. Currently, Eastern's population is predominantly AA with one white, one other and two Asians. By no means am I a stating that all is not well with that mixture. But I have seen too many disappointed parents who attend subsequent meetings and notice the true demographics. Then they feel there's a feeling being fooled.

Eastern will diversify although E-H has to improve and diversify for Eastern to realize its potential.

[Anonymous]

If diversity is needed to reach some superficial form of potential at Eastern. Then you my friendly poster has just fed into the hysteria for many AA's that whites have this so-called plan to divide and conquer.

Please tell us how you will achieve division, uh-oh I mean diversity. My bad.

[Anonymous]

White people don't want to take over EH, they just want to rent it for 10 years.

[Anonymous]

i guess i'm one dumb cracker. i don't see how Eastern (and E-H) diversifying is a white plan to "divide and conquer". neighborhood schools SHOULD reflect their neighborhoods. look around!! capitol hill (hill east) is home to a mix of people. the white kids have just as much a right to attend E-H and Eastern as the AA kids. so get over yourselves. Eastern will not be predominantly AA forever. and that's a good thing for black kids and white kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Reasons being many see the school on Saturday in full regalia and have this false sense of the school ambiance. Thinking that there's diversity in the school at an acceptable rate. Currently, Eastern's population is predominantly AA with one white, one other and two Asians. By no means am I a stating that all is not well with that mixture. But I have seen too many disappointed parents who attend subsequent meetings and notice the true demographics. Then they feel there's a feeling being fooled.

You need to recognize that many parents around you, for example those whose children are either the only or one among few white children in a school or classroom, have learned to look beyond appearances. Yes, I want a piece of Eastern but not because of some weird plan to divide and conquer (divide what? conquer what?) but because my tax dollars helped pay for it. And it's completely legitimate and a good idea that everybody walk in and out of there longing to see all their teenage children thrive in an environment that is bright, well maintained, conveys historic importance, brings a community together, and takes students seriously. Gone shall be the days that schools feature thick blue metal doors leaving it to the timid observer to guess which one might respond if a well hidden button is pressed.

[Anonymous]

Ok dumb cracker...schools don't reflect their neighborhoods they reflect their school boundaries. You cracker-jack, there's not enough white kids in the neighborhood to make a substantial change to any neighborhood school. Case in point y'all travel as a klan and therefore you will only enter a place if there's more than one of you present. So, as predictable as it is, the only way Eastern will become more diverse if only a group of whites decides collectively to enroll as neighborhood faction. I didn't know crackers still exist but who am I to think otherwise. Your description lacked the word white as in you are one dumb WHITE cracker. If we are going to talk of the era then we will be only destined to repeat it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ok dumb cracker...schools don't reflect their neighborhoods they reflect their school boundaries. You cracker-jack, there's not enough white kids in the neighborhood to make a substantial change to any neighborhood school. Case in point y'all travel as a klan and therefore you will only enter a place if there's more than one of you present. So, as predictable as it is, the only way Eastern will become more diverse if only a group of whites decides collectively to enroll as neighborhood faction. I didn't know crackers still exist but who am I to think otherwise. Your description lacked the word white as in you are one dumb WHITE cracker. If we are going to talk of the era then we will be only destined to repeat it.

This doesn't make sense. First you say that there are not enough white kids in the neighborhood to make a change, but then you say that the number would change if a "faction" of white kids in the neighborhood decided to join.

Based on the percentages, it appears as if there are fewer than 10 white kids attending EH and Eastern combined. If you counted all the white kids in charter/private schools on the Hill just in middle schools, you would get at least 40.

Parents avoid EH and Eastern for quality of education reasons not race reasons.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ok dumb cracker...schools don't reflect their neighborhoods they reflect their school boundaries. You cracker-jack, there's not enough white kids in the neighborhood to make a substantial change to any neighborhood school. Case in point y'all travel as a klan and therefore you will only enter a place if there's more than one of you present. So, as predictable as it is, the only way Eastern will become more diverse if only a group of whites decides collectively to enroll as neighborhood faction. I didn't know crackers still exist but who am I to think otherwise. Your description lacked the word white as in you are one dumb WHITE cracker. If we are going to talk of the era then we will be only destined to repeat it.

Yawn Boring troll is boring. And likely a white woman from Dumfries at that..

[Anonymous]

This is not about race. Please stop trying to make it be about race.

[Anonymous]

I agree. It is not about race, not in the least. It is all about a reasonable number of kids enrolling who are actually ready for a rigorous 6th grade program at EH and a rigorous 9tj grade program ay Eastern. Black, white or purple. When the feeder elementary schools or out of boundary lottery start providing a significant number of students who can actually do math and read English at an appropriate grade level, that's when you will see surging enrollment ( that's a good thing, right? ) at both schools.

[Anonymous]

Hmmm, I see you have gathered your numbers to see if you can make an impact. You're right, the word change was the wrong word. I betcha a dime to doughnuts, you have probably started a coalition named WTE (Whites To Eastern). Wow!! 40 incoming white students at Eastern Senior High School next year. That show us AA's that we as Whites mean business and are ready to raise the quality of education at Eastern Senior High School.

Those who avoid us are probably the same ones we want to avoid. Education is still happening at Eastern Senior High School contrary to those who believe otherwise. We do have parents of one majority race who still believes that their child[ren] can recieve an excellent education at Eastern Senior High School. Believe me, if that race would've start avoiding Eastern Senior High School then I would wonder.

To that poster who just wants a piece of Eastern, that is all well an good but there's such historic lesson learned from those who just wanted at piece of Eastern and that is what left us in shambles before.

Quite frankly, it was the pieces of Rhee's conversations with the AA community that made us skeptical. Although she's gone her predictions or outlines have come true with each situation that has been presented. I will go even further with the blueprints discussions that Dr. Janey was even more straitghtfoward in his discussions of Eastern as his 5-7 plans had a warning of "you better beware."

So we all are historically motivated. Aren't we?

[Anonymous]

Word salad!