Proposal is up!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The changing of Eastern feeder pattern is not highly controversial. It just makes more sense in some form by making Jefferson exclusively Eastern and taking the neighborhood of Kelly Miller students out of the mix. Now the questions still remains, how can DCPS ignore one of the largest middle schools of them all and that is Friendship MS. We constantly say that we are all one school system but the majority of Eastern eligible feeder students attend the second largest middle school in comparison to Deal. Friendship MS is located in Ward 6 neighborhood close to Eastern but many of those kids are shuffled off to Friendship HS in Ward 7. I will say it on this post too, where do the students from Browne Educational go to school when all is seemingly neighborhood generated...Spingarn is no longer available.


History note: Eastern used to have the following feeder schools:
Eliot
Browne
Sousa
Jefferson
Hine
Evans
Kelly Miller
Roper (Ron Brown)
Fletcher-Johnson
Stuart-Hobson
Woodson Jr

So the inventory of feeder schools have dwindled down from 11 to 3 but Eastern is still projected to be the second largest high-school next year.

Oh who bloody cares. I'll be surprised if a single kid from my child's DCPS Hill early childhood program (which is almost entirely high SES for PreK3, PreK4 and K, and white) ended up at Eastern (which is almost entirely low SES and AA). You'd need a generation to turn things around at this rate, not a mere decade.

It didn't take a generation for that to happen at Deal. Why not join up with your neighbors and make it happen sooner?

I still have trouble understanding exactly what the Hill families are looking for.

[Anonymous]

A SINGLE, HIGH-PERFORMING MIDDLE SCHOOL LIKE DEAL, as opposed to three lackluster options, all of which lead to Eastern. Indeed, a sizable chunk of the Brent district will be losing IB status for Wilson, along with the historic Van Ness, Amidon and Bowen districts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The changing of Eastern feeder pattern is not highly controversial. It just makes more sense in some form by making Jefferson exclusively Eastern and taking the neighborhood of Kelly Miller students out of the mix. Now the questions still remains, how can DCPS ignore one of the largest middle schools of them all and that is Friendship MS. We constantly say that we are all one school system but the majority of Eastern eligible feeder students attend the second largest middle school in comparison to Deal. Friendship MS is located in Ward 6 neighborhood close to Eastern but many of those kids are shuffled off to Friendship HS in Ward 7. I will say it on this post too, where do the students from Browne Educational go to school when all is seemingly neighborhood generated...Spingarn is no longer available.


History note: Eastern used to have the following feeder schools:
Eliot
Browne
Sousa
Jefferson
Hine
Evans
Kelly Miller
Roper (Ron Brown)
Fletcher-Johnson
Stuart-Hobson
Woodson Jr

So the inventory of feeder schools have dwindled down from 11 to 3 but Eastern is still projected to be the second largest high-school next year.

Oh who bloody cares. I'll be surprised if a single kid from my child's DCPS Hill early childhood program (which is almost entirely high SES for PreK3, PreK4 and K, and white) ended up at Eastern (which is almost entirely low SES and AA). You'd need a generation to turn things around at this rate, not a mere decade.

It didn't take a generation for that to happen at Deal. Why not join up with your neighbors and make it happen sooner?

Because on the Hill my neighbors are all zoned for different middle schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Too bad I have to walk out the door now. So far, so good on the maps though. Cap Hill is a big winner with Eastern.

Deal's gerrymandering to capture Mt. Pleasant is odd ball.

Save some observations for me!!!

Deal's always had Mt. Pleasant. Why would that be odd ball?

Deal's always had Crestwood too but they managed to kick Crestwood out--why does Mt. Pleasant get to stay? Gerrymandering odd ball is right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought Janney was overcapacity the day it opened after renovation?

That is why it is being renovated again right now. The new second floor addition will be ready for the Fall. Increasing capacity was the justification for the second renovation and there are more slots available as a result, pre-K 4 optional seats were significantly expanded for 2014. Murch is preparing for a major expansion as part of the modernization process. Two "bins" have been contracted and a 750+ school is being envisioned by the Murch principal. Hearst is fully utilized with a new optional pre-K 3 program, one of the first in Ward 3. Lafayette is expecting a decrease in enrollment.

Ward 3 overcrowding is a bit of an urban legend and/or will soon be resolved with the Murch modernization.

DCPS insiders say that the enrollment numbers will likely continue to decrease. DCPS may actually be accelerating this process with this boundary exercise that is scaring young parents. I know several over the last few months who moved straight to Bethesda, skipping DCPS for elementary. We thought we could at least handle the early years in DCPS, but I am not sure if we have the stomach for it anymore.

Tell that to the trailers at Key. Tell that to the 80+ inboundary families at Stoddert waitlisted for pre-K.

who wants to go to an elementary school with more than 750 kids? Seems like a zoo.

Even with these changes Murch and some other schools are on track for mammoth-sized elementary school. At some point in time, the growth might be self-correcting because folks won't want to go. If not, they are in trouble.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Isn't it interesting that the Committee charged with examining boundaries passed on the opportunity to address systemic overcrowding issues at Ward 3 elementaries even though those same schools are now expected to enroll the equivalent of 10 percent of their seats for OOB/at risk students. Why doesn't this seem to add up?

They got crucified for the tiny W3 changed they suggested...why would they go down that route again?

Look at the Washington Post map. They did it again!

I don't know the blocks by heart, but posters upthread suggested that they had greatly reduced the Murch/Hearst swap.

They pushed some Murch families to Lafayette, which makes a lot more sense geographically than the original Murch-to-Hearst proposal did.

That is correct that they reduced the Murch-Hearst swap, though they added a Hearst to Murch swap, which is crazy. How can you look anyone at Murch in the eye and say you have to go, but someone else gets to come in. And if no one lives in the Hearst to Murch swap, why do it?

The Murch to Lafayette swap doesn't make all that much sense geographically, but is easier for the Murch parents to swallow because of their irrational fear of Hearst.

If you look at a map of the area that's proposed to move from Hearst to Murch, it's maybe 15-20 houses on the south side of Albemarle down to Audubon Terrace. I doubt many, if any, would send their kids to DCPS no matter what, and it kind of makes sense because those couple of blocks seem to be more connected to the neighborhood to the north, rather than the one to the south--there aren't any through-streets to the south but there are going north. But they've left in the Hearst boundary what appear to be a handful of apartment buildings fronting Connecticut.

Yes, but if there aren't any families there, why switch the piece?
And if there are some families there, why switch close families and move ones in that are farther away?
Either way, it doesn't make sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It sounds to me like they are also eliminating principal discretion to let people who got into a school in boundary stay when they move out of boundary, unless they are high-risk. I think that's great and might relieve some of the overcrowding, to the extent that principals let students stay even when they move. I've heard this is a real problem at Oyster.

Huge problem at Oyster. Large number of kids that were IB in K and then moved far away.

Also the new proposal looks good for Oyster-Adams. They keep Wilson and add Roosevelt Dual Language as a HS option. Of course they lose Deal but Adams is renovating in a few years anyway and will probably be a preferred option for most Oyster-Adams parents by then. In the end, they keep Wilson -- which is all that mattered. Cardozo would have been a disaster.

Eaton loses Deal, which is a bummer. But Deal is overcrowded so this pretty much had to happen. Hardy might improve even more as a result of all this. Hardy draws from a lot of good areas, no reason why it shouldn't be as good as Deal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because the Ward 3 schools are not really overcrowded. They keep getting resources to expand and then are able to meet IB demand with the subsequent expansion, but more importantly they add new optional programming outlined in 00:52.

The plea of "overcrowding" is a resource mobilization strategy that has been working for decades. If you look at the historical documentation the DME provided you will see that Janney has been called "overcrowded" practically since it opened. How else can the city justify concentrating resources in this one school.

I can see why Janney's renovation and re-renovation would make people suspicious, although they haven't added "new optional programming"--except a fourth PK section that is filled with IB kids. Its original reno seems to have been poorly planned, but the school is undoubtedly bursting.

The idea that Murch is the beneficiary of an ongoing "resource mobilization" strategy is pretty nuts if you look at the facts. It was built in 1929 and has never been renovated. Bathrooms and closets have been turned into offices. It got a temporary demountable-type building in the late 1980s that became permanent. It was built for 400 kids and will have close to 700 next year; that's why the principal is planning for 750.

Lafayette is also long-overdue for renovation, especially when you consider what a terribly inefficient space the 70s reno left them with.

None of these schools is talking about adding new programming. The school adding programming is Hearst, which is undercrowded and should be a pressure valve for Murch and Janney.

+1 Not at Murch or Janney, but both schools are in need of renovation. That doesn't mean that lots of other school across the District are not as well, but I hope we can agree that both of these schools could use updating and more space. Also, as a parent at a school that has had to fight for a desperately needed renovation at Hearst, let's not put down each others' appeals for resources. These efforts are consuming and take away energy from our kids and broader school communities. Really no one should have to fight as hard as is necessary in DC to get these things done. Best of luck to both school on their renovations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Too bad I have to walk out the door now. So far, so good on the maps though. Cap Hill is a big winner with Eastern.

Deal's gerrymandering to capture Mt. Pleasant is odd ball.

Save some observations for me!!!

Deal's always had Mt. Pleasant. Why would that be odd ball?

Odd by it's shape on the map.

That's Crestwood that was neatly cut out of Deal and Wilson boundaries. Biggest loser under this proposal (w/ 16th St H).

Well we knew this was going to be proposed eventually, but the promise of a new MacFarland is not comforting without some additional commitment from DCPS. I think there are enough parents to make it work, but we need a lot from DCPS too.
Jeff, did that list of ideas for how to make MacFarland and Jefferson ever go anywhere?

Being that they can contine at Deal for immediate future, it's hard to say they are losers. Who know what will happen will MacFarland opens?

Crestwood is losing because anyone looking to purchase a home there will not have the security of knowing that Deal and Wilson will ALWAYS be the schools by right. This will affect home values.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Too bad I have to walk out the door now. So far, so good on the maps though. Cap Hill is a big winner with Eastern.

Deal's gerrymandering to capture Mt. Pleasant is odd ball.

Save some observations for me!!!

Deal's always had Mt. Pleasant. Why would that be odd ball?

Odd by it's shape on the map.

That's Crestwood that was neatly cut out of Deal and Wilson boundaries. Biggest loser under this proposal (w/ 16th St H).

Well we knew this was going to be proposed eventually, but the promise of a new MacFarland is not comforting without some additional commitment from DCPS. I think there are enough parents to make it work, but we need a lot from DCPS too.
Jeff, did that list of ideas for how to make MacFarland and Jefferson ever go anywhere?

Yeah, I'm blaming our ANC, who has spoken to me three times. All three times, she told me, unprompted and a propos of nothing, that Crestwood is safe in the Deal/Wilson boundaries.

Is your ANC person Gail Black? She told me the SAME THING.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A SINGLE, HIGH-PERFORMING MIDDLE SCHOOL LIKE DEAL, as opposed to three lackluster options, all of which lead to Eastern. Indeed, a sizable chunk of the Brent district will be losing IB status for Wilson, along with the historic Van Ness, Amidon and Bowen districts.

Are any of the MS big enough to hold all of the students?

[Anonymous]

My IB schools will be MacFarland and Roosevelt...I could be crazy and could ultimately be worn down by the bueacracy, but I'm actually kind of excited at the prospect of those as new schools. I really, really, really hope that DCPS builds programs there that would attract the high-SES families who are moving into Petworth and 16 Street Heights. My kids are still young enough that MacFarland and Roosevelt could be renovated and reopened as attractive programs. Unfortunately, I'm not thrilled with the plan that Roosevelt will have a world language focus, since our IB elementary school doesn't offer much of anything beyond having a teaching assistant who is Spanish speaking and the limited "world language" requirement set in place by DCPS last year. Wish/hope there will be a shift to STEM or simply a strong commitment to creating lots of advanced classes.

[Anonymous]

Does anyone know the percentage of Crestwood families who actually send their children to Deal. It is my perception that most send their children to privates and maybe some charters. It also seems that those who do attend DCPS would be more likely to attend Shepherd than West. Might this be why Crestwood was given the boot as opposed to MP?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A SINGLE, HIGH-PERFORMING MIDDLE SCHOOL LIKE DEAL, as opposed to three lackluster options, all of which lead to Eastern. Indeed, a sizable chunk of the Brent district will be losing IB status for Wilson, along with the historic Van Ness, Amidon and Bowen districts.

Are any of the MS big enough to hold all of the students?

Eliot-hine's enrollment is less than 300, only 23 percent of whom are IB, with a capacity of more than 750. Less than 40 percent utilization. I think the numbers are similar for Jefferson. Unfortunately, DCPS continues to make most of its capital investments in SH, which benefits relatively few Hill families.

[Anonymous]

Jefferson

Enrollment. 300
Capacity. 570
In-bound 53%