Open house impressions thread

[Anonymous]

Guys please stop arguing with underground parking lady. She used to go to Shepherd (supposedly lives in Shepherd Park) and is uber crazy. She will not end and will make the pages miles long with her essays. Just give up and go back to open houses. Speaking of, I heard great things about the Shepherd open house.

[Anonymous]

Re: Shepherd--there are no plans for underground parking. It was originally in the renovations plans, but was later removed. There was a petition being circulated last year to try to get the underground parking along with other items reinstated--a full kitchen, and gym renovations--but it was ultimately unsuccessful. There has never been a fundraising effort for underground parking at Shepherd.

If this was what has the anti-underground parking lady so up at arms--she can now rest easy, since it's not happening.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, there are no LAMB parents in this thread disputing that this persisted in the past. I learned about this issue from LAMB parents in the first place, how else? Posters in this thread are saying that it will change now with DCI, and I myself said this before they did.

I mentioned SS as well but no parents have chimed in, and I mentioned CMI for small size overall. As you are likely aware, several of the "HRCS" are very new and don't even have a grade 5 or in some cases a grade 3.

What I would propose is that when a school gets its charter it commits to a minimum number of students served, or a range, and if due to its own restrictive policies it is falling below that range then it is required to adjust the policies or lose the charter. And the government when setting this range should aim for schools that have roughly the same number of students per grade as a typical DCPS. For example, for the last decade LAMB should have been required to admit students in the upper grades. Yes, this would have been a "disruption", but DCPS schools are forced to deal with this all the time. And CMI should have, in its charter, a commitment to X classes per grade, probably X=3 or 4 at minimum.

I have a problem with charter schools getting taxpayer money and then acting like private schools, even if it is not their intent but rather is an unintended function of well-meaning policies.

3 questions:

1) But charters get less per-pupil funding than DCPS, so what exactly is the source of your "problem" if CMI raises the rest of its money however it does (NOT with taxpayer money beyond charter funding) and can only be accessed through a public lottery and is free (other than expensive aftercare, which a few HRCS have in common and that is an issue but that's a different issue)?

2) And since you clearly are not considering the view of the founder of a charter school, do tell: if the PCSB mandates what your class and grade sizes have to be and if you can't maintain them for whatever reason, you would lose your charter, why in the world would you put in the sweat and blood and time and money to start a school in the first place?

3) When you have a specific model, like Montessori, how do you mandate a school like LAMB to accept in upper grades? You said you understand the Montessori model, so if you do, how do you maintain the Montessori structure and fidelity when you accept students randomly (because it would have to be random) in every grade and 98% of those students would have had no Montessori exposure ever before? How do you maintain fidelity and run your school with new students coming in at every grade?

These are real questions that would have to be answered if your points are taken seriously. Since you have strong opinions about what should happen, what are your answers to how these issues would be dealt with?

The second two are easy, let's start with those:

2) This is a democracy, we impose policy restrictions on all kinds of organizations, all of which feature a hard-working founder in their creation stories. Charter schools, non-profits, small businesses, large corporations. Charter schools and their founders should not be singled out as being especially virtuous or deserving of freedom from regulation. And like everyone else they will respond to incentives. In this case, they would not see their school close. They'd just have to accept students in every grade. Which brings us to:

3) The montessori model would suffer somewhat, but it would not collapse. You would see a gradual weakening of the montessori model as you went up the grades (which you might say is happening anyway at LAMB and other montessori schools, but that's another topic). And yes this would not be the "ideal" thing, but this is a public school system and every school has to take its share of the burden. How do you think DCPS dual language schools feel when they have to accept a student in an upper grade with no experience in the language? But they have to work with it, it's part of offering public education. You don't get to maintain ideological/pedagogical purity with taxpayer dollars, sorry, you need to found a private school for that.

1) This is hard to answer because I am not sure what the relevance is of the per-student funding in your mind. I am saying that a taxpayer-funded school should be required to meet certain standards and I am proposing minimum/maximum range of students served as one of those standards. You can agree or disagree with the standard but what is the point of your question exactly? You don't dispute that charters receive the majority of funding from taxpayers, so we are talking about public schools here, subject to regulation.

I'm the PP who asked the questions, and thanks, I just wanted to confirm that you don't have a clue. Confirmed.

No one (to respond to a different PP who agreed with you) is saying founders only start schools if they can have everything exactly as they want it. But most charters start with a model. And for models like immersion or Montessori that require you to build on what's been taught in earlier grades, the fact that you don't understand why a would-be founder might say "Telling me that if I don't accept new students in upper grades every year to account for attrition means I lose control of my model or ability to keep fidelity to the model" might be dissuaded from bothering in the first place says all that needs to be said about your ability to actually come up with solutions to the problems you create with your demands.

As for your cavalier "the model would suffer, but not collapse" and "every school has to take its share of the burden", again, your lack of comprehension of the nuts and bolts is clear. Schools share the burden by having no say in who is admitted and admitting by lottery (which I completely and totally support). Once you have the students in, if your model is not so specific that you compromise the integrity of a set structure by adding new students every grade (as EL Haynes and Cap City and Two Rivers do), great, you can add every year and the schools who can, do. And just for the record, do we know that CMI doesn't add students in upper grades or their charter says they won't?

But for Montessori or bilingual schools, you're basically saying the undermining of the fidelity to the model is less important than filling classes to max up to the graduating class. You'd rather there be no school at all (and therefore thousands of students NOT have the option of LAMB or YY or Stokes) than have the schools be able to say that given the mandate to admit by lottery (which I also fully support), admitting new students with no exposure to the model in say 3rd grade when the bulk of students would have been submerged in it for up to 6 years creates unwieldy challenges for the new student, the teachers, and the classmates in adjusting/absorbing/getting up to speed.

At the end of the day, I'm just glad this is DCUM and you're not in a position (I HOPE you're not!) to make actual decisions about whether schools are forced to admit new students to keep up a certain class size through the upper grades. And if that mandate does get passed, I hope it only applies to schools chartered that year and after, and not to schools already open and functioning with specific structured models. I don't have kids at any of the schools we're talking about, but having worked in a startup school in another district I sure as heck wouldn't want the founders and current staff to be punished for actually creating schools people want access to by being told "You now have to do things you specifically chartered not to do (i.e. admit students after _____ grade), even though you had to justify at the time you applied why that is your proposed policy and we said "OK, you can open with that policy". Don't ask us if we have suggestions for how you maintain the quality of your school while drastically changing the admission dynamic, we have no clue, and we realize this messes with your ability to follow your own model. Oh well, good luck, we don't really care if your graduating students have language capacity all over the map because of this."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So if a school is doing well, your idea is to mess with it so more people can send their kids there, regardless of the fact that it may ruin the good job it's doing?

Thank god you're just a loser on the Internet.

X 1,000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Current LAMB parent here. I do not know the exact number of students in fifth grade (primarily because fourth and fifth are grouped together) but I saw at least 15 girls perform at the last peace ceremony, and around the same number of fifth grade boys perform at the one before. It is not true that the small class sizes are the reason for LAMB's high achievements. If you knew Montessori at all, you would know that class siZes are quite large. There are 29 children in each class (so 29 in a primary class consisting of pk3, pk4, and k). There was significant attrition before DCI, but my understanding is that this has changed. The school is still a small one, with our wonderful principal knowing the name of every student. I believe that there are many, many factors contributing to LAMB's success, not just the fact that our school is a small one.

I am familiar with montessori and I am not talking about the number of kids in a mixed-age classroom, I am talking about the number of kids at a grade level relative to the resources of the school, including admin, teachers, intervention teachers, PTO budget, and so on. It is a clear advantage to have a very small number of students at a given testing grade, no-one who has worked in education would dispute this. Take it to the limit and imagine 1 student per grade level.

I realize DCI is changing things and I acknowledged this in my original post, but LAMB's situation was allowed to continue for over a decade. And I do not intend to single out LAMB. There are a number of charters with small enrollments.

If you don't mean to single LAMB out, don't: what specific examples do you have of other highly-regarded charters with small enrollments in upper grades?

And another question, even if you can name a few other popular charters with significantly small upper grades, what exactly is the solution you are proposing? The posts you responded to were pointing out that just because a formula for curriculum and school culture and school size works well for a current size does not mean it's manageable for that school to expand numbers of classes or build a satellite school. If you can identify specific schools with very small upper grade class sizes (and you haven't yet other than LAMB, which several current LAMB parents are disputing), what exactly is the solution you are suggesting that doesn't compromise the model that made the school successful?

No, there are no LAMB parents in this thread disputing that this persisted in the past. I learned about this issue from LAMB parents in the first place, how else? Posters in this thread are saying that it will change now with DCI, and I myself said this before they did.

I mentioned SS as well but no parents have chimed in, and I mentioned CMI for small size overall. As you are likely aware, several of the "HRCS" are very new and don't even have a grade 5 or in some cases a grade 3.

What I would propose is that when a school gets its charter it commits to a minimum number of students served, or a range, and if due to its own restrictive policies it is falling below that range then it is required to adjust the policies or lose the charter. And the government when setting this range should aim for schools that have roughly the same number of students per grade as a typical DCPS. For example, for the last decade LAMB should have been required to admit students in the upper grades. Yes, this would have been a "disruption", but DCPS schools are forced to deal with this all the time. And CMI should have, in its charter, a commitment to X classes per grade, probably X=3 or 4 at minimum.

I have a problem with charter schools getting taxpayer money and then acting like private schools, even if it is not their intent but rather is an unintended function of well-meaning policies.

All charter schools have to propose a minimum and a maximum number they will serve. It's in their charters. If they want to change it, to expand- they need to go before the board.

For someone to expound so forcefully on charters you don't seem to even know the basics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Current LAMB parent here. I do not know the exact number of students in fifth grade (primarily because fourth and fifth are grouped together) but I saw at least 15 girls perform at the last peace ceremony, and around the same number of fifth grade boys perform at the one before. It is not true that the small class sizes are the reason for LAMB's high achievements. If you knew Montessori at all, you would know that class siZes are quite large. There are 29 children in each class (so 29 in a primary class consisting of pk3, pk4, and k). There was significant attrition before DCI, but my understanding is that this has changed. The school is still a small one, with our wonderful principal knowing the name of every student. I believe that there are many, many factors contributing to LAMB's success, not just the fact that our school is a small one.

I am familiar with montessori and I am not talking about the number of kids in a mixed-age classroom, I am talking about the number of kids at a grade level relative to the resources of the school, including admin, teachers, intervention teachers, PTO budget, and so on. It is a clear advantage to have a very small number of students at a given testing grade, no-one who has worked in education would dispute this. Take it to the limit and imagine 1 student per grade level.

I realize DCI is changing things and I acknowledged this in my original post, but LAMB's situation was allowed to continue for over a decade. And I do not intend to single out LAMB. There are a number of charters with small enrollments.

If you don't mean to single LAMB out, don't: what specific examples do you have of other highly-regarded charters with small enrollments in upper grades?

And another question, even if you can name a few other popular charters with significantly small upper grades, what exactly is the solution you are proposing? The posts you responded to were pointing out that just because a formula for curriculum and school culture and school size works well for a current size does not mean it's manageable for that school to expand numbers of classes or build a satellite school. If you can identify specific schools with very small upper grade class sizes (and you haven't yet other than LAMB, which several current LAMB parents are disputing), what exactly is the solution you are suggesting that doesn't compromise the model that made the school successful?

No, there are no LAMB parents in this thread disputing that this persisted in the past. I learned about this issue from LAMB parents in the first place, how else? Posters in this thread are saying that it will change now with DCI, and I myself said this before they did.

I mentioned SS as well but no parents have chimed in, and I mentioned CMI for small size overall. As you are likely aware, several of the "HRCS" are very new and don't even have a grade 5 or in some cases a grade 3.

What I would propose is that when a school gets its charter it commits to a minimum number of students served, or a range, and if due to its own restrictive policies it is falling below that range then it is required to adjust the policies or lose the charter. And the government when setting this range should aim for schools that have roughly the same number of students per grade as a typical DCPS. For example, for the last decade LAMB should have been required to admit students in the upper grades. Yes, this would have been a "disruption", but DCPS schools are forced to deal with this all the time. And CMI should have, in its charter, a commitment to X classes per grade, probably X=3 or 4 at minimum.

I have a problem with charter schools getting taxpayer money and then acting like private schools, even if it is not their intent but rather is an unintended function of well-meaning policies.

All charter schools have to propose a minimum and a maximum number they will serve. It's in their charters. If they want to change it, to expand- they need to go before the board.

For someone to expound so forcefully on charters you don't seem to even know the basics.

Also, several DCPS schools have smaller class sizes. Should we be rooting to improve the class sizes and quality at DCPS not making larger classes in charters?

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately what all your logic boils down to is, "I don't want poor children who might be disruptive coming to my child's public charter school, and anything I can do to stop this I will."

Coming from a public charter school that has kids coming in at all grades and seeing how great they all are, I find your continued whining about poor children attending your precious charter to be depressing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately what all your logic boils down to is, "I don't want poor children who might be disruptive coming to my child's public charter school, and anything I can do to stop this I will."

Coming from a public charter school that has kids coming in at all grades and seeing how great they all are, I find your continued whining about poor children attending your precious charter to be depressing.

Riiight. Because somehow all the "poor children" are weeded out during the random lottery and you're alleging we want to keep it that way makes perfect sense. I also hope the kids at your public charter are learning better reading comprehension than you, since none of the above posts are generalized to all charters and only talk about charters where kids joining in later grades would have seriously challenging levels of catch up to do (mainly with bi-lingual schools). One post even says that charters that already do accept kids at later grades and still succeed should keep doing it. I've spent time at E.L. Haynes and Two Rivers and they are fantastic schools.

Or maybe you like setting up the very kids you're unconvincingly concerned about to fail by having them enter these bi-lingual schools in 4th grade and get lost immediately? Which, by the way applies to all kids entering in later grades, not just the "poor children" as you like to say.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately what all your logic boils down to is, "I don't want poor children who might be disruptive coming to my child's public charter school, and anything I can do to stop this I will."

Coming from a public charter school that has kids coming in at all grades and seeing how great they all are, I find your continued whining about poor children attending your precious charter to be depressing.

Riiight. Because somehow all the "poor children" are weeded out during the random lottery and you're alleging we want to keep it that way makes perfect sense. I also hope the kids at your public charter are learning better reading comprehension than you, since none of the above posts are generalized to all charters and only talk about charters where kids joining in later grades would have seriously challenging levels of catch up to do (mainly with bi-lingual schools). One post even says that charters that already do accept kids at later grades and still succeed should keep doing it. I've spent time at E.L. Haynes and Two Rivers and they are fantastic schools.

Or maybe you like setting up the very kids you're unconvincingly concerned about to fail by having them enter these bi-lingual schools in 4th grade and get lost immediately? Which, by the way applies to all kids entering in later grades, not just the "poor children" as you like to say.

DCPS bilingual schools have to take children at all grades regardless of language ability. Why should charters be exempted from this? You have never explained why this double standard should be allowed to continue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately what all your logic boils down to is, "I don't want poor children who might be disruptive coming to my child's public charter school, and anything I can do to stop this I will."

Coming from a public charter school that has kids coming in at all grades and seeing how great they all are, I find your continued whining about poor children attending your precious charter to be depressing.

Riiight. Because somehow all the "poor children" are weeded out during the random lottery and you're alleging we want to keep it that way makes perfect sense. I also hope the kids at your public charter are learning better reading comprehension than you, since none of the above posts are generalized to all charters and only talk about charters where kids joining in later grades would have seriously challenging levels of catch up to do (mainly with bi-lingual schools). One post even says that charters that already do accept kids at later grades and still succeed should keep doing it. I've spent time at E.L. Haynes and Two Rivers and they are fantastic schools.

Or maybe you like setting up the very kids you're unconvincingly concerned about to fail by having them enter these bi-lingual schools in 4th grade and get lost immediately? Which, by the way applies to all kids entering in later grades, not just the "poor children" as you like to say.

DCPS bilingual schools have to take children at all grades regardless of language ability. Why should charters be exempted from this? You have never explained why this double standard should be allowed to continue.

DCPS gets more money per student than charter schools, you have never explained why this double standard should be allowed to continue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately what all your logic boils down to is, "I don't want poor children who might be disruptive coming to my child's public charter school, and anything I can do to stop this I will."

Coming from a public charter school that has kids coming in at all grades and seeing how great they all are, I find your continued whining about poor children attending your precious charter to be depressing.

Riiight. Because somehow all the "poor children" are weeded out during the random lottery and you're alleging we want to keep it that way makes perfect sense. I also hope the kids at your public charter are learning better reading comprehension than you, since none of the above posts are generalized to all charters and only talk about charters where kids joining in later grades would have seriously challenging levels of catch up to do (mainly with bi-lingual schools). One post even says that charters that already do accept kids at later grades and still succeed should keep doing it. I've spent time at E.L. Haynes and Two Rivers and they are fantastic schools.

Or maybe you like setting up the very kids you're unconvincingly concerned about to fail by having them enter these bi-lingual schools in 4th grade and get lost immediately? Which, by the way applies to all kids entering in later grades, not just the "poor children" as you like to say.

DCPS bilingual schools have to take children at all grades regardless of language ability. Why should charters be exempted from this? You have never explained why this double standard should be allowed to continue.

DCPS gets more money per student than charter schools, you have never explained why this double standard should be allowed to continue.

NP here, but that has been explained thousands of times on this forum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately what all your logic boils down to is, "I don't want poor children who might be disruptive coming to my child's public charter school, and anything I can do to stop this I will."

Coming from a public charter school that has kids coming in at all grades and seeing how great they all are, I find your continued whining about poor children attending your precious charter to be depressing.

Riiight. Because somehow all the "poor children" are weeded out during the random lottery and you're alleging we want to keep it that way makes perfect sense. I also hope the kids at your public charter are learning better reading comprehension than you, since none of the above posts are generalized to all charters and only talk about charters where kids joining in later grades would have seriously challenging levels of catch up to do (mainly with bi-lingual schools). One post even says that charters that already do accept kids at later grades and still succeed should keep doing it. I've spent time at E.L. Haynes and Two Rivers and they are fantastic schools.

Or maybe you like setting up the very kids you're unconvincingly concerned about to fail by having them enter these bi-lingual schools in 4th grade and get lost immediately? Which, by the way applies to all kids entering in later grades, not just the "poor children" as you like to say.

DCPS bilingual schools have to take children at all grades regardless of language ability. Why should charters be exempted from this? You have never explained why this double standard should be allowed to continue.

Only Lamb and YY do not take students at every grade: Lamb bc of their Montessori model and YY due to the Mandarin. YY a few yrs ago asked the charter board if they can test in students into the higher grades but was denied so YY will only take new students up to second grade.

Every other immersion language charter takes new students at every grade if there is room.

[Anonymous]

There are other DC Charter schools that do not admit at every grade - BASIS, some KIPP schools, DC Prep, etc. I'd like to see an analysis of admission entry years correlated with test scores/ charter school tiers. My guess is that it's a lot easier to get Tier 1 status/better test scores if you have some degree of control over your testing population...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are other DC Charter schools that do not admit at every grade - BASIS, some KIPP schools, DC Prep, etc. I'd like to see an analysis of admission entry years correlated with test scores/ charter school tiers. My guess is that it's a lot easier to get Tier 1 status/better test scores if you have some degree of control over your testing population...

True. And at some point it becomes a matter of ensuring that students can actually meet graduation requirements.

Banneker, McKinley, Ellington and SWW don't accept at every grade either -- which would seem to prove your thesis.

[Anonymous]

Is there any way we can get this back to topic? Please start your own thread if you want to talk about DCPS/DCCS comparisons.