Ludlow-Taylor getting a new a new Principal

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: I think for many white families, it's not about SES -- it really is about color. They want a critical mass of white children so their kids won't stick out as the only white ones.

I would have been concerned about my DC being the only non-Polish Catholic kid at a school in Baltimore, even had none of them been low SES Polish kids.

I realize blacks have more experience being "the only one in the room", and may resent white's concern about being the only one in the room. But I'm not sure its fair to consider that concern to be racism.

This is insane. Why wish for a classroom where your child is comfortable and others are not? Why not wish for a truly diverse classroom made up of many different kinds of kids - a classroom that focuses on everyone feeling loved and respected?

We don't need to teach our kids to find friendship, comfort and/or safety in aligning with the same skin color. That's so 1960s, folks. Grow up.

I'm AA and do not usually feel comfortable being "the only AA" in a room because I know other people are looking at my skin color. I agree that we need to stop putting these ideas in our kids' heads.

And we shouldn't be wishing that feeling on anyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread serves as a fine reminder of why we lotteried into Maury, without the stress of wondering how many years we could last at L-T as a high SES, mixed-race, in-boundary family with few kumbaya leanings. L-T seems to serve a small number of granola crunchie high SES neighbors, a dwindling group of low SES neighbors, and a profoundly, and weirdly, entitled OOB population.

this sounds intriguing. Tell me more.

It's a truth universally acknowledged in the L-T District among "old timers" like us (a decade in the neighborhood) that the more hippie/granola/kumbaya you are as a high SES parent, the more likely you are to stick around L-T past K. Few can stand it - the moral and PC demands are too high. At Maury, Brent, SWS, Cap Hill Montessori and Tyler Spanish Immersion, seeking a decent elementary school education is enough. At L-T, you need to turn a blind eye to rampant address cheating and being part of a school community that looks very little like the one on your block in the name of unity. You're either with the PTA parents or against them and it's a drag.

I am an empty nester who currently lives in NoVa, and am interested in buying in DC. I would love to flee boring suburbanites, but hardly want to go to a place in DC filled with equally obnoxious if less auto obsessed bourgeois. Petworth is not well located for my work, and Anacostia is still a bridge too far. I never thought of the Hill as crunch granola, but if there are really folks like that there, I might try to find something there.

There's granola here alright. Just hold off on bringing any kids until the dust settles.

[Anonymous]

Maybe families inbound for Ludlow-Taylor should look at trying to get into the new Van Ness Elementary School in the Capitol Riverfront. They are in the process of choosing a principal a year in advance of their 2015-2016 opening. Also, it will be opening with only PS3, PK4, and the K grades. This will ensure that families inbound for Ludlow-Taylor will have their children attending a school built from the ground up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whatever. The white in-boundary parents I know don't avoid L-T, or bail on it after Prek, because they assume that all black kids in DC public schools are an "obstacle" to their children's academic progress. They interact with black professionals as a matter of course, without making a thing of it.

Kids don't walk around carrying their parents' resumes with an acceptable address in the header.

If there's an assumption made about black kids at the school, a black parent has reason to be concerned that their child will be treated differently. White parents may have gotten that feeling from their interactions with the former principal. That's the slippery slope of assumptions on the treacherous field of race/class issues.

This is a mostly anonymous forum where people express feelings they wouldn't say out loud. I wouldn't assume that every white parent believes every black student is a problem for the school they attend. But it's unsettling, to say the least, to read over and over in this and other threads that it's black kids who are hindering progress and everything will be better if we could replace them with white kids. More than that, it's disturbing to read that parents holding that assumption also believe that a white principal will allow them to "call the shots" and "turn" the school by diminishing the percentage of black kids.

You can cloak it by rolling out your rolodex of black associates, or by saying you're simply concerned about advanced curriculum offerings, or preserving the school for the neighborhood only. But it is what it is, and everyone knows what it is.

I wouldn't even say it's racism, because I don't believe that to be so (in most cases), but it IS poor and lazy reasoning about what makes school quality, it's pernicious, and it's extremely damaging. The fact that so many can't see it as damaging makes it even moreso.

Oh grow up, the poor and lazy reasoning comes from DCPS in pretending that differentiation within the classroom by excellent teachers is all that's needed to market L-T, and dozens of other minimally integrated schools like it around the city, to most in-boundary high SES families. They won't budge from this policy stance, even as DC welcomes hordes of high SES families year after year.

When Maury got a group of in-boundary kids, mostly white and high SES, to a testing grade this past school year, for the first time reading scores jumped 29 points (without allegations of cheating, since the reason for the score hike was as plain as day). If L-T offered a test in GT program or at least paid for serious pullout instruction from grade 1 (with DCPS funding since the L-T PTA can't afford to hire staff yet, unlike at Maury and Brent), school quality wouldn't be the issue. Everybody knows what it is: lack of taking the achievement gap bull by the horns.

How many truly "gifted" students do you think live IB for LT, or any other DCPS elementary for that matter? Just because your high-SES DC is proficient or about doesn't translate to G&T. Should DCPS be doing more to close the achievement gap? Sure, but a test-in program for a few of the highest performing students won't do that will it? Also, as far as I am aware, the Brent PTA isn't paying salaries for core staff. In the past, it did play a role in subsidizing instructors for PhysEd and other specials, and a math specialist for Grades 3-5 for a year or two, but no longer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not being "nosey", just observant since most kids in the neighborhood are more visible on the weekend instead of less. And you can stop the divorce/deceased/whatever trope, because that's not what it is -- it's called young single mothers leaving their children in the city with their parents (to go to the same schools they did when they were young), and then having the child live with them on the weekends.

Maybe the grandparents have official custody, who knows who claims whom on their taxes, etc., but this is what happens on the Hill and bothers the people who buy their homes, live in them with their children, and don't feel like they can really be part of their IB school without being called "gentrifiers" in a derisive way.

Again, I'm not reporting them, but it's hard to ignore.

Exactly, but not just young single mothers. Also the parents of the drugged-out, incarcerated and generally under-employed and dysfunctional if the experience of our block is in any way representative. The in-boundary grandparents and great-grandparents almost never have official custody, or rent or own jointly with the "lost generation" of parents - they don't need to bother to get custody, not with DCPS happy to let them furnish their offspring with in-boundary addresses for schools. Maury has cracked down on the practice and L-T should follow suit.

No point in reporting them when there's no chance in hell that DCPS will tangle with the elderly folk, who vote in droves coming off church buses.

^^^^^^ With people who think like this, DC will have its first elected Republican mayor soon. As a native Washingtonian, it is disheartening to see my hometown being gentrified by self-entitled, high SES, white supremacist interlopers from middle Amerikkka. If you are of the aforementioned group, you should sell your home and return to racially homogenized community of origin.

[Anonymous]

^^^ Ah, what's wrong with enforcing the law and limiting the school population to IB residents? If someone really lives out of state, they should be paying tuition to DC - otherwise it's theft. Get off the Midwest kick.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh grow up, the poor and lazy reasoning comes from DCPS in pretending that differentiation within the classroom by excellent teachers is all that's needed to market L-T, and dozens of other minimally integrated schools like it around the city, to most in-boundary high SES families. They won't budge from this policy stance, even as DC welcomes hordes of high SES families year after year.

When Maury got a group of in-boundary kids, mostly white and high SES, to a testing grade this past school year, for the first time reading scores jumped 29 points (without allegations of cheating, since the reason for the score hike was as plain as day). If L-T offered a test-in GT program or at least paid for serious pullout instruction from grade 1 (with DCPS funding since the L-T PTA can't afford to hire staff yet, unlike at Maury and Brent), school quality wouldn't be the issue. Everybody knows what it is: lack of taking the achievement gap bull by the horns.

I'm sorry, after participating in 8 zillion of these conversations, when people start talking "test-in GT" or "serious pullouts," what I hear is "segregation with the school."

Differentiation by excellent teachers is absolutely enough to provide a strong education to kids at various levels of achievement. If it isn't enough to market LT (or similar schools), that's because some people care less about educational achievement than they do making sure their child is sheltered from the perceived bad influence of low-SES AA kids.

Sorry, I usually try to be more temperate in my responses on this forum, but I am so freakin' tired of racism clothed in self-righteousness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I know that the few children now living on my IB block are all white or mixed race and the 2 children who are AA are "living" with their grandparents and are not around on the weekend because they are picked up by adults with MD plates on Friday night. I do not report them because I figure their grandparents will sell/move and we will still live here. I also am not so super liberal that I did not send my children to LT years ago because I did not trust the school and did not want them to be the only non-AA children in their grade. I think that the population boom on the Hill is going to fill LT with IB children, but don't pretend that it will remain majority AA if it does.

Someone earlier in the thread said that we shouldn't act like we are in Ward 3 with only IB populated schools -- why not?!? I think Ward 6 and non-NW DC in general should have higher expectations. Doesn't mean that we need to be lily-white or only the 1%, but we need to stopped being pushed around by people from outside our Ward that want to use us as their experiment.

You know, I can think of all sorts of reasons why grandparents would legitimately be taking care of their grandkids on a regular basis. Maybe they're keeping that kid out of foster care. Maybe the kid has a single parent who can't afford a babysitter. Maybe the parent works odd hours or has a long commute.

You have no idea what's going on with other families, except that they decided that L-T is the best option for their kid. Not having a six-figure salary in a two-parent household doesn't preclude whatever means necessary to ensure their well-being, which may center on the simple continuity of a safe, familiar and predictable school day.

I'm baffled at this discussion. You seem completely unaware. Don't you realize that grandparents in the African American community are part of the immediate family? That's the way many African Americans live and city officials understand it as well. It has deep roots in history, but became a necessity due to blacks being lured into drugs/prisons/etc. while employment opportunities were scarce. President Obama's grandmother lives in the White House. It's very common.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe families inbound for Ludlow-Taylor should look at trying to get into the new Van Ness Elementary School in the Capitol Riverfront. They are in the process of choosing a principal a year in advance of their 2015-2016 opening. Also, it will be opening with only PS3, PK4, and the K grades. This will ensure that families inbound for Ludlow-Taylor will have their children attending a school built from the ground up.

This is so strange. By just about every account on DCUM, L-T has a fantastic preschool and K program. So families should schlep their kids across the Hill to an unproven program rather than just stay at their own IB school thereby turning it into a predominantly IB school?

Why is this so hard, people? Why the residual nastiness? So lots of people didn't like the principal and "school culture". Voila, new principal, new opportunity. Make your concerns know tactfully. Send your kids. Write grants and fundraise for the programs you want to see. Skip the commutes across town.

Or just post nasty racial rhetoric on an anonymous forum and scare away potential allies.

[Anonymous]

Time for a group hug. Let's put all this nastiness behind us and follow the lead of these adorable kids. See video.

Maybe this is symbolic of LT's future? I can only hope!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/04/viral-video-kids-welcome-tyler_n_5552602.html?utm_hp_ref=education&ir=Education

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I'm sorry, after participating in 8 zillion of these conversations, when people start talking "test-in GT" or "serious pullouts," what I hear is "segregation with the school."

Differentiation by excellent teachers is absolutely enough to provide a strong education to kids at various levels of achievement. If it isn't enough to market LT (or similar schools), that's because some people care less about educational achievement than they do making sure their child is sheltered from the perceived bad influence of low-SES AA kids.
Sorry, I usually try to be more temperate in my responses on this forum, but I am so freakin' tired of racism clothed in self-righteousness.

Differentiation maybe indeed be enough in the lower grades with good enough discipline, small enough class sizes, and strong enough instruction; the upper grades are another story.

Perceived bad influence of low-SES AA kids? Try telling that to the parents, friends of ours, whose 4 year old was punched so hard (in the mouth) on the L-T playground 18 months ago that he ended up at the ER. The good-natured family didn't make a fuss after the angry perpetrator (who we can all feel sorry for) was quietly expelled. Also tell it to the many in-boundary parents who use L-T as an early childhood program placeholder, chipping away at OOB and charter lotteries because they're not thrilled by playground language, race baiting at PTA meetings and so forth.

What's wrong with a bit of sheltering of little kids? They already live in a city, with all sorts of lunacy paraded before them. Parents seeking a tough school have no shortage of options in DC. Feel free to take your righteous indignation, and your kids, to school across the river.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

You know, I can think of all sorts of reasons why grandparents would legitimately be taking care of their grandkids on a regular basis. Maybe they're keeping that kid out of foster care. Maybe the kid has a single parent who can't afford a babysitter. Maybe the parent works odd hours or has a long commute.

You have no idea what's going on with other families, except that they decided that L-T is the best option for their kid. Not having a six-figure salary in a two-parent household doesn't preclude whatever means necessary to ensure their well-being, which may center on the simple continuity of a safe, familiar and predictable school day.

I'm baffled at this discussion. You seem completely unaware. Don't you realize that grandparents in the African American community are part of the immediate family? That's the way many African Americans live and city officials understand it as well. It has deep roots in history, but became a necessity due to blacks being lured into drugs/prisons/etc. while employment opportunities were scarce. President Obama's grandmother lives in the White House. It's very common.

My problem is that I'm all too aware. I hang out with the longtime elderly neighbors on their porches, where they explain their extended family childcare arrangements to me.

Yea, yea, very common; my parents are part of the immediate family, too. When L-T parents have not relinquished custody rights to in-boundary relatives, don't file state or federal taxes in DC, don't rent or own real property in the L-T school district, or live with relatives or friends who do, and don't carry official DC ID, they aren't legal residents and shouldn't be sending their children to the school. The fact that DCPS makes it ridiculously easy to fudge residency is not germane to the discussion. The rules on residency are clear.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I'm sorry, after participating in 8 zillion of these conversations, when people start talking "test-in GT" or "serious pullouts," what I hear is "segregation with the school."

Differentiation by excellent teachers is absolutely enough to provide a strong education to kids at various levels of achievement. If it isn't enough to market LT (or similar schools), that's because some people care less about educational achievement than they do making sure their child is sheltered from the perceived bad influence of low-SES AA kids.
Sorry, I usually try to be more temperate in my responses on this forum, but I am so freakin' tired of racism clothed in self-righteousness.

Differentiation maybe indeed be enough in the lower grades with good enough discipline, small enough class sizes, and strong enough instruction; the upper grades are another story.

Perceived bad influence of low-SES AA kids? Try telling that to the parents, friends of ours, whose 4 year old was punched so hard (in the mouth) on the L-T playground 18 months ago that he ended up at the ER. The good-natured family didn't make a fuss after the angry perpetrator (who we can all feel sorry for) was quietly expelled. Also tell it to the many in-boundary parents who use L-T as an early childhood program placeholder, chipping away at OOB and charter lotteries because they're not thrilled by playground language, race baiting at PTA meetings and so forth.

What's wrong with a bit of sheltering of little kids? They already live in a city, with all sorts of lunacy paraded before them. Parents seeking a tough school have no shortage of options in DC. Feel free to take your righteous indignation, and your kids, to school across the river.

I was going to ask about the race-baiting at PTA meetings.

And then I read your last paragraph.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

You know, I can think of all sorts of reasons why grandparents would legitimately be taking care of their grandkids on a regular basis. Maybe they're keeping that kid out of foster care. Maybe the kid has a single parent who can't afford a babysitter. Maybe the parent works odd hours or has a long commute.

You have no idea what's going on with other families, except that they decided that L-T is the best option for their kid. Not having a six-figure salary in a two-parent household doesn't preclude whatever means necessary to ensure their well-being, which may center on the simple continuity of a safe, familiar and predictable school day.

I'm baffled at this discussion. You seem completely unaware. Don't you realize that grandparents in the African American community are part of the immediate family? That's the way many African Americans live and city officials understand it as well. It has deep roots in history, but became a necessity due to blacks being lured into drugs/prisons/etc. while employment opportunities were scarce. President Obama's grandmother lives in the White House. It's very common.

My problem is that I'm all too aware. I hang out with the longtime elderly neighbors on their porches, where they explain their extended family childcare arrangements to me.

Yea, yea, very common; my parents are part of the immediate family, too. When L-T parents have not relinquished custody rights to in-boundary relatives, don't file state or federal taxes in DC, don't rent or own real property in the L-T school district, or live with relatives or friends who do, and don't carry official DC ID, they aren't legal residents and shouldn't be sending their children to the school. The fact that DCPS makes it ridiculously easy to fudge residency is not germane to the discussion. The rules on residency are clear.

So, for example, if the parents are temporarily homeless the kids should transfer schools? Or if they can only afford rent in a place where walking to school is dangerous, they should just suck it up and teach the kid to be brave?

These are kids, people, not vermin.

[Anonymous]

People are not talking about temporarily homeless. I went to DCPS and there were TONS of kids in my school who lived in PG. I didn't think anything of it because I was a kid, but it was a not insubstantial number. And I'm sure their parents weren't paying tuition because these kids had no money. I went to their houses/apartments and saw their bedrooms so I know where they lived.

My neighbors' grandchildren both attend DC schools (1 charter, 1 public) that they got into years ago when they were iving with the grandparents. They now live in MD with their Mom (no fathers in picture) who drives a car with MD plates. They absolutely do not live in DC. They are great kids, but technically they are cheating.

I'm sure there are many exceptions, but let's not assume that no one is cheating because that would simply not be the case. Look at Miner and the reason the principal left.