It is a choice. Parents should make the decision for their kids. On the other hand, I think it is important to speak about these issues openly so that people understand that this is just how mundo verde works. As long as there is no knowledge lost in a year, Mundi Verde is happy. Not the goals I have for my children, but every parent gets to choose. |
Yes, in meetings with families to justify the expansion they pointed to long wait-lists as evidence of demand for high quality education and wanted to make more "desirable" seats open to a diverse population, particularly immigrants and people of color. It was argued that by expanding, the school would have more resources to then hire more staff with some roles split between the two campuses. Roles they were not able to afford with the existing single campus model. They talked about some efficiencies associated with scaling up as well. At some point there was talk of looking for a campus in a more majority black neighborhood but I can't remember the timing on that angle. It may have been abandoned early on. That is not unique to MV; nearly every charter application I can think of talks about potentially locating in Ward 7 or 8 to reach underserved kids but then the school comes back saying they tried but couldn't get real estate there. |
I don’t know of a single parent of a student at the school at the time who believed that they were ready to expand. It was like an entire village screaming at someone not to shoot and they just pulled the trigger anyway. It was fully irresponsible and the people who let it happened should be ashamed and feel personally responsible for the failures since. |
We're a former family and left, and most of the other families we knew well left eventually too. But in the real world -- as opposed to people pontificating on a message board -- it is hard to move schools when you've invested so much in a school since pre-K.
You want it to work, so you excuse the early problems as isolated incidents. Then it gets really bad, but your kid as made a lot of friends and you're worried it would be disruptive to your child, who has already endured so much instability with teacher turnover, etc. Then there's always the risk that a new school will have big problems too. Most families we knew either got out early or let their elder child stay through graduation, but pulled the younger kids. But I didn't know a single family from the founding class through the next 5 years or so who liked the administration. |
I think people are feeling that functionally, they *do* have a DCI guarantee because so many other students have left and MV hasn't been able to reach its target class sizes. |
This is a very good point. They can’t backfill if they can’t fill their seats. Will be interesting to see how big the first matriculating class is by fifth once the guarantee goes away. |
Well, I believe the first non-guaranteed class is current 3rd graders? So we should know soon! |
Well THAT's ironic, no? |
Lol exactly. People will put up with a lot to not have to move to Maryland, but apparently there’s a limit when you’re looking at a last minute scramble for middle school. |
+1000 to the cautionary tale and downward spiral of “Moo Livers” |
May this neologism join Larla, Larlo, Larlat, Bobcat Girl, "HRCS", and other Highly Regarded DCUM Terms in the DCUM Hall of Fame. |
What’s Bobcat Girl?!?! |
Google and find out. Ditto Boat Wife. |
Not everyone speaks English. Not everyone wants to leave a school where they’ll be treated like a second class citizen. Dc generally treats Latinos like garbage. As a Latino person I frankly don’t feel comfortable sending my kids to a dcps school. Your privilege is showing. |
Well, being so mistreated you feel compelled to protest in the streets sounds like a better option, then. I guess. |