Maury Capitol Hill

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Hey all. Billy Lynch here, your local fair housing attorney who specializes in housing and school integration. Thought I’d drop some evidenced-based research into this riveting anonymous discussion. TLDR- integrated schools help all students and do not affect white student performance.

http://school-diversity.org/pdf/DiversityResearchBriefNo10.pdf

Integrationists in this thread: I see you and applaud you.

Ok Billy: #1. Maury IS integrated
#2. There will never be enough white students in DCPS to integrate it
#3. There is no evidence that this particular change will help at-risk kids
#4. Integration could happen if DCPS adopted a voluntary approached that considered the IB parents preferences, but for some reason this is considered verboten
#5. Where do your kids go to school?

#6. Gonzaga (where Billy went to high school) is private and 75% white
#7. Loyola Chicago (where Billy went to undergrad) is private and 7% AA
#8. Catholic (where Billy went to law school) is private, 70% white and 6% AA
#9. Harvard Kennedy School (where Billy was a Fellow)...well, you know

By all means, Billy. Lecture us some more from your glass house and pristine throne.

No matter how this school decision shakes out you will still be the loser who took the time to pull this personal information.

Also, my take away from that is that the person in question might recognize that his education was severely lacking specifically because of how not diverse his experience was, and might be looking to rectify that for his kids. I attended very diverse K-12 schools and a diverse state flagship university, but then attended an "elite" law school where for the first time in my life I encountered a large population of people who had never attended public schools and had very little experience with people from less privileged backgrounds than their own. My perception is that these folks were/are very myopic and lacked some basic understanding about how the world works. So if one such person might choose to give his kids a different experience, I am personally very supportive of that.

I also think punishing a PP who chose to drop anonymity specifically to have a more open discussion in this way is incredibly counterproductive. Notice that not a single person has taken him up on his offer to discuss his family's experience at Miner -- they don't care. Instead all questions have been personal questions about his kid and his background. And most haven't been questions at all, just attacks lobbed from behind the safety of anonymity.

Some of you should be ashamed of yourselves. You won't be, I know, you don't have to tell me. But you should be.

Your confusing the two non-anonymous posters.

Billy supposedly lotteried his kids to LT.
Chris had kids at Miner but moved.

It matters because neither has any skin in the game.

To be fair, LT is far more diverse than Miner and one of the most diverse schools in DCPS by most metrics.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I think there is a subset of current families at Maury who very specifically and intentionally moved into the boundary in order to attend one of the “best” public elementary schools in DC. It's maybe contributing to the NIMBYism.

Yes, that's what parents do all over the country. Move to a specific neighborhood for the schools.

Yes but there's a difference between moving somewhere for a specific school district, or even a specific school triangle, and moving somewhere for a specific elementary. Especially in DC where elementary schools are small and boundaries often cut through neighborhoods, as is the case with Maury and Miner.

The NIMBYism in this situation is extra strange to me because these two elementaries feed to the same MS, which families at Maury are currently actively trying to improve. Moving into the Maury boundary while KNOWING that there is an elementary school a half mile away with essentially the opposite demographics and outcomes, and then being surprised when the suggested solutions for this problem impact the school you bought in-boundary for, reflects some ignorance about how school districts work. Districts are always seeking to balance populations, whether it's moving kids around to address overcrowding, balancing demographics, or trying to create feeder patterns that make sense.

In any case, there is a version of this cluster idea that could actually be an opportunity for Maury and Miner IB families to join forces and create two great schools that then feed to the same middle school. But it sounds like the vision for greatness at Maury is as much about who they keep out (poor kids, SpEd kids, at risk kids) as what they actually do at the school, so they do not feel up to that taks with a much more racially and socioeconomically diverse population.

Can you in any way demonstrate or provide anything other than vibes a feels that the Maury and Miner could "join forces and create two great schools"?

Maury parents would be for it! Spoiler: There's nothing but vibes and feels.

Premise #1: If Miner could get it's at risk percentage under 40%, it could more easily gear programming and resources towards a socioeconomically diverse student body.

Premise #2: If Miner could get its at risk percentage under 40%, it could more easily attract IB families who currently avoid the school because of the belief that most resources and programming at the school will be geared towards its large at risk population.

Premise #3: If Miner and Maury combined and Maury retained its current family composition, even before increasing IB buy-in for Miner, the at risk percentage for the combined school would be 33%.

Premise #4: The willingness of Maury families to stay at the combined school would attract IB Miner families the school, further dropping the at risk percentage and increasing programming and resources that could be aimed at non-at-risk students at both schools.

Permise #5: As the largest feeder to EH, families from the Miner-Maury cluster would have more influence over the culture and programming at EH, and be able to more effectively advocate for tracking that would further better serve students by meeting them where they were at.

Conclusion: A Miner-Maury cluster with buy in from both school's boundaries could not only produce two elementary schools with a favorable demographic balance, but could also help produce a MS with the same. While the cluster would initially change demographics at Maury in a way that would present challenges, the majority of students would still be high SES, and if the schools could retain existing families and build IB buy-n a the Miner zone, the benefits to both school communities in the form of a larger community of committed, IB, high SES families supporting multiple strong elementary schools and a strong neighborhood, by-right middle school would ultimately benefit Maury families more than the present situation, in which they have a very strong elementary that feeds to a struggling MS and HS, forcing many Maury families to turn to charters and other non-neighborhood options for MS and HS.

But the whole thing would hinge on Maury families being on board and Miner IB families being willing to buy in. I think the latter is likely if you get the former, but the former is unlikely based on what we've heard from the Maury community thus far.

the problem with your analysis is that #1 and #2 are completely theoretical and yes “vibes” based, with the exception of a handful of shaky studies with a million confounders. There’s no good evidence that merely reducing the concentration of low-SES students improves their education, and that a single classroom with such big gaps can be taught to the needs of all students. Meanwhile DCPS discourages or forbids methods that would allow for tracking and fails to examine what the lower SES kids actually need in terms of instruction. The theory is literally ALL VIBES.

#1 and #2 are not theoretical.

Look at test scores in DCPS schools based on percent of at risk students. It's a direct correlation.

Look at the test scores of the at-risk students in those schools - is there really a difference? If so, how do you demonstrate the difference is due to reducing the concentration of at-risk kids, and how much is other factors like more engaged parents lotterying in and figuring out transport? Or is the difference due to something instructional the schools are doing that has nothing to do with the concentration of at-risk students? Even if reducing the concentration has some impact it’s likely to be FAR less than direct supports, like doubling up on math classes and high-dose tutoring. Pretending that reducing the numbers fixes everything is just a fairy tale as far as I can tell.

So your argument is that lowering at risk percents doesn't help at risk kids, but also even if it turns out it does, that must be due to some other factor. You don't know what factor but you just know that reducing the percent of at risk kids at a school dies not improve test scores or educational experience for at risk students. You have no data to back this up, you just know.

Meanwhile, you are sure that a school with 65% at risk students, like Miner, would improve if they just doubled up on math classes and I creased tutoring. Can you provide an example of a school with greater than 50% at risk students that was able to boost test scores with this approach? The answer is no, but do go look.

We'll wait.

Langdon Elementary School has the same at-risk numbers as Miner. Their median student is scoring a 3 on ELA and math, relative to a 2 in math and 1 in ELA at Miner, and they have significant numbers of at-grade-level students. I don't know that it's extra math and tutoring, but they're doing something other schools could learn from.

PP who started this argument. Good find. But tbh we actually do not know if the kids at Langdon are the same as the kids at Miner, but certainly seems like a good example to look at.

What on earth does this mean?

It means that just because they are labeled “at risk” does not mean they are identical to the “at risk” kids at Miner. There could be other factors differentiating them resulting in better PARCC scores. This is a pretty basic research methods observation. Not that anyone cares about actual research.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is research that socioeconomic integration even at lower funding levels is lots more effective for disadvantaged students than increasing/high funding levels at schools with concentrated poverty. You can Google it.

The current cluster partly just has this problem: Some people zoned for it live closer to another school that is as good (or arguably better). If you are zoned for school X, but you live closer to Y, why would you not prefer school Y? It is not clear that this problem would be as pronounced at Maury-Miner. One option no one is pursuing is maybe get on-board with the combined school but advocated for it to be sufficiently size restricted so its (almost) fully IB.

DCPS lets current students stay at a school through the terminal grade. Elementary schools span 8 years. Any demographic changes associated w simply reworking boundaries will be slow and probably short term leave Miner worse off (if some families rezoned move to Maury while rezoned current or sibling priority Maury families largely stay at Maury).

I’m sure you can cite a handful of crappy social science studies saying what you want.

Meanwhile if you look at the actual data at Maury, you can see that despite being high SES, it doesn’t do any better on math than the district average for low-income students, and barely any better for math. Even worse, if you look at the longitudinal data, the results over time for the economically disadvantaged kids has plummeted sharply. So if Maury the “rich” school is not serving the low-income students it has now, how on earth do you believe that it will help add more? Clearly more is needed.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I want to address the suggestion that that the boundary between Maury and Miner be redrawn to balance populations between the schools, as opposed to a cluster. I am curious as to whether there is genuinely support for that plan from Maury families.

The DME has said that they can't find a way to redraw the boundary to do this, but that simply cannot be correct. I'm guessing what they really mean is the the only way to do it is to create two severely gerrymandered boundaries. I think what they looked at was drawing the boundary vertically instead of horizontally, as it is now, and the reason this probably didn't work is because Maury is to the west of Miner and the demographics of this neighborhood get whiter and wealthier as you go west and south, and blacker and poorer as you go north and east. Due to the position of the schools, this means that if you draw fairly straight, logical boundaries, you wind up with lopsided demographics whether you draw them N-S or E-W.

So what if instead, they created gerrymandered zones, where they specifically carved out some of the low-income housing now zoned for Miner and assigned it to Maury (this might even require creating a zone that is not contiguous, I'm not sure), and then carved out some of the high-income housing now zoned for Maury and assigned it to Miner.

My question is: how would Maury families feel about this proposal, and does their opinion changed depending on whether their home would be assigned to Miner (and if it wouldn't change, please state whether you have children who would be zoned to Miner as a result of this change, as I know some people on this thread had kids at Maury but no longer have elementary kids).

Follow up question: If they did this, wouldn't this essentially be busing? It was argued up thread that the cluster idea is "essential" busing, but wouldn't gerrymandered zones designed to assign low-SES kids to Maury and high-SES kids to Miner be actual busing?

I am asking this question because I don't think at risk set asides will meaningfully increase the number of at risk kids at Maury, so I am looking for a way to actually increase that percentage without a cluster.

Say more about what you mean by this -- I think this plan can be accomplished if you tighten the Maury boundary by expanding Miner's boundary to capture some of the Maury border houses (assuming that you don't capture Maury's current at-risk kids), but not sure if what you are suggesting is finding Maury's highest SES housing and adding that to Miner even if non-contiguous. When it comes down to it, MC kids you reallocate from Maury to Miner are unlikely to attend if they can lottery anywhere else (just the same as MC kids currently in the Miner boundary). But would need to change the border to make room for low-income housing kids at Maury.

It would certainly do something to change the numbers, but strikes me as having a similar effect as the high-risk set aside. Which I think is fine—I think the only responsible way to do something like this is to do it gradually, to avoid overwhelming Maury and making two schools that are considered undesirable instead of one. Your thesis seems to be that the only acceptable solution is one that creates even numbers of at-risk kids at Maury and Miner instantly -- which I think is neither realistic/possible nor at all desirable.

PP here and I want to clarify that this is not my thesis at all. Rather, people on this thread have stated that they are not opposed to increasing Maury's at risk percentage from 12%, but opposed using the cluster as the means. I very much understand the concerns about the proposed cluster and share many of them, but I'm interested in how else we might increase Maury's at risk percentage.

Some have suggested at risk set asides for Maury, but I have a lot of experience looking at how the EA preferences have worked at other schools and the truth is -- they haven't really. And most of those are charter schools where everyone is littering in, so you'd expect the EA preference to be more effective. What you see over and over is that EA spots go unfilled, and this actually causes problems for the schools because it becomes difficult to asses how many EA and regular lottery slots to offer in subsequent years, and also raises questions as to whether those unfilled EA slots maybe given over to people on the non-EA waitlist, and if so at what point. At risk set asides in the lottery sound like an easy fix, but like a lot of things that sound great and easy, they have not shown to be particularly effective.

Also, my goal is not to make the at risk numbers between Maury and Miner equal. I don't really care what the specific numbers are. I just think it's valid in a district with 46% at risk kids to say that Maury needs to take on more at risk students, and I'm wondering how we might achieve that given Maury's current boundary has few at risk families and the school has very high IB buy in. So I'm curious what people would think of a gerrymandered boundary between Maury and Miner, as that looks like the most likely way to increase Maury's at-risk percentage.

I agree that you likely would not see a lot of the Maury families re-zoned to Miner going to Miner. I view that as a separate question. It's obvious that Miner needs to fix some things if they ever hope to attract more non-at-risk families, whether IB or OOB. I'm focused on Maury at the moment.

I'm PP, and I really appreciate you clarifying (and apologize for putting words in your mouth!). I see what you are saying. I think essentially tacking on some of the public housing to Maury and tightening the Maury boundary along Miner's borders (assuming again that it wouldn't re-zone Maury's current at-risk kids) would make sense. The big challenge I see would be that it would be pretty clear, if not to the kids then at least to the parents, that the kids coming into Maury from non-contiguous areas are coming from low-income housing. I like to think that wouldn't affect how anyone treats them or their own perception of their experience at Maury (alienation etc.), but potentially there could be impacts there. The other big challenge is if the commute or some other logistical issue puts a larger burden on the families re-zoned into Maury that makes their lives more difficult, or potentially leads to increased truancy for the kids. I'd be fine with a shuttle or something, but I guess there we are edging into busing?

Comparing the merits of the at-risk set aside to the proposed cluster, my question would be that if an at-risk set aside at Maury would go unfilled with so many at-risk students in the next boundary over, doesn't that indicate that a cluster wouldn't work for those families either? They would have to go to Maury in that case, but they won't volunteer to go right now? If it's a matter of families of at-risk students not necessarily being aware of at-risk set asides, I would think that information could be targeted toward the Miner boundary pretty easily.

The only proposal DME says it looked at is a vertical line, which I'm assuming went up 15th, but they didn't specify. A line that follows 16th street up to F and then jogs over would capture Azeeze-Bates, and likely increase the at-risk percentage at Maury. It wouldn't be too gerrymandered and the zones would be walkable for all IB students. Unfortunately, it would zone out many of the lower and middle-class families currently attending Maury from the eastern end of the boundary. That section was also just re-zoned in the last boundary study, so it doesn't create much continuity for these families. (Although the cluster is probably more disruptive) It would also likely still leave Miner with a significant at-risk IB population. This is an option DME should model and discuss with the community. It is a good question for the Town Halls this week.

The at-risk proposal is I think different than the ones in place at various charters, but I'm not sure. It would essentially fill all OOB slots at any school with less than 30% at-risk students until the at-risk population reaches 30%. I've heard many parents say they would support this at Maury, even if it meant reducing Maury's boundary to accommodate more at-risk students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I want to address the suggestion that that the boundary between Maury and Miner be redrawn to balance populations between the schools, as opposed to a cluster. I am curious as to whether there is genuinely support for that plan from Maury families.

The DME has said that they can't find a way to redraw the boundary to do this, but that simply cannot be correct. I'm guessing what they really mean is the the only way to do it is to create two severely gerrymandered boundaries. I think what they looked at was drawing the boundary vertically instead of horizontally, as it is now, and the reason this probably didn't work is because Maury is to the west of Miner and the demographics of this neighborhood get whiter and wealthier as you go west and south, and blacker and poorer as you go north and east. Due to the position of the schools, this means that if you draw fairly straight, logical boundaries, you wind up with lopsided demographics whether you draw them N-S or E-W.

So what if instead, they created gerrymandered zones, where they specifically carved out some of the low-income housing now zoned for Miner and assigned it to Maury (this might even require creating a zone that is not contiguous, I'm not sure), and then carved out some of the high-income housing now zoned for Maury and assigned it to Miner.

My question is: how would Maury families feel about this proposal, and does their opinion changed depending on whether their home would be assigned to Miner (and if it wouldn't change, please state whether you have children who would be zoned to Miner as a result of this change, as I know some people on this thread had kids at Maury but no longer have elementary kids).

Follow up question: If they did this, wouldn't this essentially be busing? It was argued up thread that the cluster idea is "essential" busing, but wouldn't gerrymandered zones designed to assign low-SES kids to Maury and high-SES kids to Miner be actual busing?

I am asking this question because I don't think at risk set asides will meaningfully increase the number of at risk kids at Maury, so I am looking for a way to actually increase that percentage without a cluster.

Say more about what you mean by this -- I think this plan can be accomplished if you tighten the Maury boundary by expanding Miner's boundary to capture some of the Maury border houses (assuming that you don't capture Maury's current at-risk kids), but not sure if what you are suggesting is finding Maury's highest SES housing and adding that to Miner even if non-contiguous. When it comes down to it, MC kids you reallocate from Maury to Miner are unlikely to attend if they can lottery anywhere else (just the same as MC kids currently in the Miner boundary). But would need to change the border to make room for low-income housing kids at Maury.

It would certainly do something to change the numbers, but strikes me as having a similar effect as the high-risk set aside. Which I think is fine—I think the only responsible way to do something like this is to do it gradually, to avoid overwhelming Maury and making two schools that are considered undesirable instead of one. Your thesis seems to be that the only acceptable solution is one that creates even numbers of at-risk kids at Maury and Miner instantly -- which I think is neither realistic/possible nor at all desirable.

PP here and I want to clarify that this is not my thesis at all. Rather, people on this thread have stated that they are not opposed to increasing Maury's at risk percentage from 12%, but opposed using the cluster as the means. I very much understand the concerns about the proposed cluster and share many of them, but I'm interested in how else we might increase Maury's at risk percentage.

Some have suggested at risk set asides for Maury, but I have a lot of experience looking at how the EA preferences have worked at other schools and the truth is -- they haven't really. And most of those are charter schools where everyone is littering in, so you'd expect the EA preference to be more effective. What you see over and over is that EA spots go unfilled, and this actually causes problems for the schools because it becomes difficult to asses how many EA and regular lottery slots to offer in subsequent years, and also raises questions as to whether those unfilled EA slots maybe given over to people on the non-EA waitlist, and if so at what point. At risk set asides in the lottery sound like an easy fix, but like a lot of things that sound great and easy, they have not shown to be particularly effective.

Also, my goal is not to make the at risk numbers between Maury and Miner equal. I don't really care what the specific numbers are. I just think it's valid in a district with 46% at risk kids to say that Maury needs to take on more at risk students, and I'm wondering how we might achieve that given Maury's current boundary has few at risk families and the school has very high IB buy in. So I'm curious what people would think of a gerrymandered boundary between Maury and Miner, as that looks like the most likely way to increase Maury's at-risk percentage.

I agree that you likely would not see a lot of the Maury families re-zoned to Miner going to Miner. I view that as a separate question. It's obvious that Miner needs to fix some things if they ever hope to attract more non-at-risk families, whether IB or OOB. I'm focused on Maury at the moment.

I'm PP, and I really appreciate you clarifying (and apologize for putting words in your mouth!). I see what you are saying. I think essentially tacking on some of the public housing to Maury and tightening the Maury boundary along Miner's borders (assuming again that it wouldn't re-zone Maury's current at-risk kids) would make sense. The big challenge I see would be that it would be pretty clear, if not to the kids then at least to the parents, that the kids coming into Maury from non-contiguous areas are coming from low-income housing. I like to think that wouldn't affect how anyone treats them or their own perception of their experience at Maury (alienation etc.), but potentially there could be impacts there. The other big challenge is if the commute or some other logistical issue puts a larger burden on the families re-zoned into Maury that makes their lives more difficult, or potentially leads to increased truancy for the kids. I'd be fine with a shuttle or something, but I guess there we are edging into busing?

Comparing the merits of the at-risk set aside to the proposed cluster, my question would be that if an at-risk set aside at Maury would go unfilled with so many at-risk students in the next boundary over, doesn't that indicate that a cluster wouldn't work for those families either? They would have to go to Maury in that case, but they won't volunteer to go right now? If it's a matter of families of at-risk students not necessarily being aware of at-risk set asides, I would think that information could be targeted toward the Miner boundary pretty easily.

PP again and thanks for the good faith conversation. I definitely agree with your assessment and I do see this as some of the obstacles as well. Perhaps there would be a way to draw the boundary that mitigates some of the potential worst effects (specifically addressing the issue of transportation which I agree could be a major concern).

I do think there should be a way to ensure that any low-income kids re-zoned for Maury are welcomed by the community. I tend to think some of the voices on this thread that are most opposed to more at-risk kids at Maury are outliers at the school (and also the people most likely to leave before the terminal grade and obviously unlikely to send their kids to EH).

The question about why an at risk set aside wouldn't work for low-income families now zones for Miner I think can be answered if you really put yourself in that position. Which is more appealing to you if you are a black, low-income parent living IB for Miner and want the best for your children and your family:

1) You can apply for a lottery spot at a nearby elementary with great test scores and an involved community of families, but the schools has only 12% at risk students and just 20% black students. If you receive a lottery spot, you have no idea what other families like yours might also receive a spot there, where they might live, whether you will have anything in common with them, or even whether that spot will get filled. So you have to decide whether or not to send your child to a school where they will be an outlier with no guarantee of many kids like them at the school.

or

2) You and all the families who live in your housing complex is suddenly zoned out of Miner and into Maury. Yes, Maury currently has a very low at risk percentage and is only 20% black, BUT you get to enroll your kids in Maury alongside all the other families in your housing complex. You can talk to your neighbors and find out what they plan to do, you can make arrangements to share the burden of commuting to the new school, you will have friendly faces at drop off and pick up, and when your kids come home, they will be able to play with school classmates without having to commute to another part of the neighborhood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Hey all. Billy Lynch here, your local fair housing attorney who specializes in housing and school integration. Thought I’d drop some evidenced-based research into this riveting anonymous discussion. TLDR- integrated schools help all students and do not affect white student performance.

http://school-diversity.org/pdf/DiversityResearchBriefNo10.pdf

Integrationists in this thread: I see you and applaud you.

Ok Billy: #1. Maury IS integrated
#2. There will never be enough white students in DCPS to integrate it
#3. There is no evidence that this particular change will help at-risk kids
#4. Integration could happen if DCPS adopted a voluntary approached that considered the IB parents preferences, but for some reason this is considered verboten
#5. Where do your kids go to school?

#6. Gonzaga (where Billy went to high school) is private and 75% white
#7. Loyola Chicago (where Billy went to undergrad) is private and 7% AA
#8. Catholic (where Billy went to law school) is private, 70% white and 6% AA
#9. Harvard Kennedy School (where Billy was a Fellow)...well, you know

By all means, Billy. Lecture us some more from your glass house and pristine throne.

No matter how this school decision shakes out you will still be the loser who took the time to pull this personal information.

Also, my take away from that is that the person in question might recognize that his education was severely lacking specifically because of how not diverse his experience was, and might be looking to rectify that for his kids. I attended very diverse K-12 schools and a diverse state flagship university, but then attended an "elite" law school where for the first time in my life I encountered a large population of people who had never attended public schools and had very little experience with people from less privileged backgrounds than their own. My perception is that these folks were/are very myopic and lacked some basic understanding about how the world works. So if one such person might choose to give his kids a different experience, I am personally very supportive of that.

I also think punishing a PP who chose to drop anonymity specifically to have a more open discussion in this way is incredibly counterproductive. Notice that not a single person has taken him up on his offer to discuss his family's experience at Miner -- they don't care. Instead all questions have been personal questions about his kid and his background. And most haven't been questions at all, just attacks lobbed from behind the safety of anonymity.

Some of you should be ashamed of yourselves. You won't be, I know, you don't have to tell me. But you should be.

Your confusing the two non-anonymous posters.

Billy supposedly lotteried his kids to LT.
Chris had kids at Miner but moved.

It matters because neither has any skin in the game.

To be fair, LT is far more diverse than Miner and one of the most diverse schools in DCPS by most metrics.

Yes, that's fine and well. Maury is 40% POC.

But if you argue for "integration" of Miner but don't do it personally, it's hypocritical to do so.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Love the people who believe the status quo, in which we have three high performing elementary schools and a host of low performing elementary schools on the hill, three middle schools with weak IB buy in as many families choose to lottery for charters or move, and a high school with 75% of students at risk and 0% of students scoring at or above grade level in math (not a typo, you read that right).

There are such a weird number of parents on here who are like "Yes that is fine as long as my kids attend one of the three high performing elementaries, I will just lottery for Latin and Basis and if that doesn't work, pay for private or move. All good, this is normal and it should stay this way."

Bananas.

I don't agree with this summary. It's not "a host of low performing elementary schools" -- there are several elementaries that are on a clear trajectory toward emerging as new high performing schools. Because these things do take time; even if everything went as well as possible in the proposed cluster, it would be years before it was a high performing elementary.

I also fundamentally disagree with you on what will help improve EH and eventually Eastern. I think families from a high performing elementary where they've seen how well their solid cohort of above–grade level kids can perform, and where they can organize with other families to band together to give EH a try are much more likely to give EH a try, which would then spread to other ES boundaries, than families whose kids have struggled in class with resources focused on the 30%-50%+ of higher needs students. Those families are much more likely to have left the school by 5th grade, and they're not coming back. Maury isn't even there yet -- there's a lot of attrition going into 5th -- but it's on an upward trajectory that has a chance to make a real difference at EH. The proposed cluster would set EH back many years.

But how do families zoned for EH work together to commit to attend EH when Miner has such low IB buy-in to begin with.

I question whether EH can ever truly improve without addressing issues at Miner. And so long as Miner has such low test scores and continues to send so many kids below grade level on to EH, we will see the problem of families at Maury ditching the triangle at 5th to go to Latin/BASIS, or otherwise making other plans for MS.

Improving Miner is essential for making EH a viable option for the majority of current Maury families, but the way many on here talk about it, the attitude is that Miner's problems don't personally concern them and whatever, we'll just lottery for a charter anyway. It was that attitude specifically that I was responding to (I am aware there are EH families on the thread, but it's clear there are also many Maury families who have no intention of sending kids to EH and are already planning to leave by 5th if they get a charter option they like).

EH has increased buy-in from Maury and Payne over the past couple of years. I can't find the link, but I believe for the last year there was available data Miner sent 13 and Maury sent 13 students. I believe Payne sent more. I think there is a path forward in which a strong Maury (with an increased at-risk population) and Payne help EH continue its upward trajectory and potentially create a draw at Miner leading more families to stay through the upper grades for the EH feed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I want to address the suggestion that that the boundary between Maury and Miner be redrawn to balance populations between the schools, as opposed to a cluster. I am curious as to whether there is genuinely support for that plan from Maury families.

The DME has said that they can't find a way to redraw the boundary to do this, but that simply cannot be correct. I'm guessing what they really mean is the the only way to do it is to create two severely gerrymandered boundaries. I think what they looked at was drawing the boundary vertically instead of horizontally, as it is now, and the reason this probably didn't work is because Maury is to the west of Miner and the demographics of this neighborhood get whiter and wealthier as you go west and south, and blacker and poorer as you go north and east. Due to the position of the schools, this means that if you draw fairly straight, logical boundaries, you wind up with lopsided demographics whether you draw them N-S or E-W.

So what if instead, they created gerrymandered zones, where they specifically carved out some of the low-income housing now zoned for Miner and assigned it to Maury (this might even require creating a zone that is not contiguous, I'm not sure), and then carved out some of the high-income housing now zoned for Maury and assigned it to Miner.

My question is: how would Maury families feel about this proposal, and does their opinion changed depending on whether their home would be assigned to Miner (and if it wouldn't change, please state whether you have children who would be zoned to Miner as a result of this change, as I know some people on this thread had kids at Maury but no longer have elementary kids).

Follow up question: If they did this, wouldn't this essentially be busing? It was argued up thread that the cluster idea is "essential" busing, but wouldn't gerrymandered zones designed to assign low-SES kids to Maury and high-SES kids to Miner be actual busing?

I am asking this question because I don't think at risk set asides will meaningfully increase the number of at risk kids at Maury, so I am looking for a way to actually increase that percentage without a cluster.

Say more about what you mean by this -- I think this plan can be accomplished if you tighten the Maury boundary by expanding Miner's boundary to capture some of the Maury border houses (assuming that you don't capture Maury's current at-risk kids), but not sure if what you are suggesting is finding Maury's highest SES housing and adding that to Miner even if non-contiguous. When it comes down to it, MC kids you reallocate from Maury to Miner are unlikely to attend if they can lottery anywhere else (just the same as MC kids currently in the Miner boundary). But would need to change the border to make room for low-income housing kids at Maury.

It would certainly do something to change the numbers, but strikes me as having a similar effect as the high-risk set aside. Which I think is fine—I think the only responsible way to do something like this is to do it gradually, to avoid overwhelming Maury and making two schools that are considered undesirable instead of one. Your thesis seems to be that the only acceptable solution is one that creates even numbers of at-risk kids at Maury and Miner instantly -- which I think is neither realistic/possible nor at all desirable.

PP here and I want to clarify that this is not my thesis at all. Rather, people on this thread have stated that they are not opposed to increasing Maury's at risk percentage from 12%, but opposed using the cluster as the means. I very much understand the concerns about the proposed cluster and share many of them, but I'm interested in how else we might increase Maury's at risk percentage.

Some have suggested at risk set asides for Maury, but I have a lot of experience looking at how the EA preferences have worked at other schools and the truth is -- they haven't really. And most of those are charter schools where everyone is littering in, so you'd expect the EA preference to be more effective. What you see over and over is that EA spots go unfilled, and this actually causes problems for the schools because it becomes difficult to asses how many EA and regular lottery slots to offer in subsequent years, and also raises questions as to whether those unfilled EA slots maybe given over to people on the non-EA waitlist, and if so at what point. At risk set asides in the lottery sound like an easy fix, but like a lot of things that sound great and easy, they have not shown to be particularly effective.

Also, my goal is not to make the at risk numbers between Maury and Miner equal. I don't really care what the specific numbers are. I just think it's valid in a district with 46% at risk kids to say that Maury needs to take on more at risk students, and I'm wondering how we might achieve that given Maury's current boundary has few at risk families and the school has very high IB buy in. So I'm curious what people would think of a gerrymandered boundary between Maury and Miner, as that looks like the most likely way to increase Maury's at-risk percentage.

I agree that you likely would not see a lot of the Maury families re-zoned to Miner going to Miner. I view that as a separate question. It's obvious that Miner needs to fix some things if they ever hope to attract more non-at-risk families, whether IB or OOB. I'm focused on Maury at the moment.

I'm PP, and I really appreciate you clarifying (and apologize for putting words in your mouth!). I see what you are saying. I think essentially tacking on some of the public housing to Maury and tightening the Maury boundary along Miner's borders (assuming again that it wouldn't re-zone Maury's current at-risk kids) would make sense. The big challenge I see would be that it would be pretty clear, if not to the kids then at least to the parents, that the kids coming into Maury from non-contiguous areas are coming from low-income housing. I like to think that wouldn't affect how anyone treats them or their own perception of their experience at Maury (alienation etc.), but potentially there could be impacts there. The other big challenge is if the commute or some other logistical issue puts a larger burden on the families re-zoned into Maury that makes their lives more difficult, or potentially leads to increased truancy for the kids. I'd be fine with a shuttle or something, but I guess there we are edging into busing?

Comparing the merits of the at-risk set aside to the proposed cluster, my question would be that if an at-risk set aside at Maury would go unfilled with so many at-risk students in the next boundary over, doesn't that indicate that a cluster wouldn't work for those families either? They would have to go to Maury in that case, but they won't volunteer to go right now? If it's a matter of families of at-risk students not necessarily being aware of at-risk set asides, I would think that information could be targeted toward the Miner boundary pretty easily.

The only proposal DME says it looked at is a vertical line, which I'm assuming went up 15th, but they didn't specify. A line that follows 16th street up to F and then jogs over would capture Azeeze-Bates, and likely increase the at-risk percentage at Maury. It wouldn't be too gerrymandered and the zones would be walkable for all IB students. Unfortunately, it would zone out many of the lower and middle-class families currently attending Maury from the eastern end of the boundary. That section was also just re-zoned in the last boundary study, so it doesn't create much continuity for these families. (Although the cluster is probably more disruptive) It would also likely still leave Miner with a significant at-risk IB population. This is an option DME should model and discuss with the community. It is a good question for the Town Halls this week.

The at-risk proposal is I think different than the ones in place at various charters, but I'm not sure. It would essentially fill all OOB slots at any school with less than 30% at-risk students until the at-risk population reaches 30%. I've heard many parents say they would support this at Maury, even if it meant reducing Maury's boundary to accommodate more at-risk students.

Did the DME explain why its goals cannot be accomplished except via vertical continuous boundaries?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I want to address the suggestion that that the boundary between Maury and Miner be redrawn to balance populations between the schools, as opposed to a cluster. I am curious as to whether there is genuinely support for that plan from Maury families.

The DME has said that they can't find a way to redraw the boundary to do this, but that simply cannot be correct. I'm guessing what they really mean is the the only way to do it is to create two severely gerrymandered boundaries. I think what they looked at was drawing the boundary vertically instead of horizontally, as it is now, and the reason this probably didn't work is because Maury is to the west of Miner and the demographics of this neighborhood get whiter and wealthier as you go west and south, and blacker and poorer as you go north and east. Due to the position of the schools, this means that if you draw fairly straight, logical boundaries, you wind up with lopsided demographics whether you draw them N-S or E-W.

So what if instead, they created gerrymandered zones, where they specifically carved out some of the low-income housing now zoned for Miner and assigned it to Maury (this might even require creating a zone that is not contiguous, I'm not sure), and then carved out some of the high-income housing now zoned for Maury and assigned it to Miner.

My question is: how would Maury families feel about this proposal, and does their opinion changed depending on whether their home would be assigned to Miner (and if it wouldn't change, please state whether you have children who would be zoned to Miner as a result of this change, as I know some people on this thread had kids at Maury but no longer have elementary kids).

Follow up question: If they did this, wouldn't this essentially be busing? It was argued up thread that the cluster idea is "essential" busing, but wouldn't gerrymandered zones designed to assign low-SES kids to Maury and high-SES kids to Miner be actual busing?

I am asking this question because I don't think at risk set asides will meaningfully increase the number of at risk kids at Maury, so I am looking for a way to actually increase that percentage without a cluster.

Say more about what you mean by this -- I think this plan can be accomplished if you tighten the Maury boundary by expanding Miner's boundary to capture some of the Maury border houses (assuming that you don't capture Maury's current at-risk kids), but not sure if what you are suggesting is finding Maury's highest SES housing and adding that to Miner even if non-contiguous. When it comes down to it, MC kids you reallocate from Maury to Miner are unlikely to attend if they can lottery anywhere else (just the same as MC kids currently in the Miner boundary). But would need to change the border to make room for low-income housing kids at Maury.

It would certainly do something to change the numbers, but strikes me as having a similar effect as the high-risk set aside. Which I think is fine—I think the only responsible way to do something like this is to do it gradually, to avoid overwhelming Maury and making two schools that are considered undesirable instead of one. Your thesis seems to be that the only acceptable solution is one that creates even numbers of at-risk kids at Maury and Miner instantly -- which I think is neither realistic/possible nor at all desirable.

PP here and I want to clarify that this is not my thesis at all. Rather, people on this thread have stated that they are not opposed to increasing Maury's at risk percentage from 12%, but opposed using the cluster as the means. I very much understand the concerns about the proposed cluster and share many of them, but I'm interested in how else we might increase Maury's at risk percentage.

Some have suggested at risk set asides for Maury, but I have a lot of experience looking at how the EA preferences have worked at other schools and the truth is -- they haven't really. And most of those are charter schools where everyone is littering in, so you'd expect the EA preference to be more effective. What you see over and over is that EA spots go unfilled, and this actually causes problems for the schools because it becomes difficult to asses how many EA and regular lottery slots to offer in subsequent years, and also raises questions as to whether those unfilled EA slots maybe given over to people on the non-EA waitlist, and if so at what point. At risk set asides in the lottery sound like an easy fix, but like a lot of things that sound great and easy, they have not shown to be particularly effective.

Also, my goal is not to make the at risk numbers between Maury and Miner equal. I don't really care what the specific numbers are. I just think it's valid in a district with 46% at risk kids to say that Maury needs to take on more at risk students, and I'm wondering how we might achieve that given Maury's current boundary has few at risk families and the school has very high IB buy in. So I'm curious what people would think of a gerrymandered boundary between Maury and Miner, as that looks like the most likely way to increase Maury's at-risk percentage.

I agree that you likely would not see a lot of the Maury families re-zoned to Miner going to Miner. I view that as a separate question. It's obvious that Miner needs to fix some things if they ever hope to attract more non-at-risk families, whether IB or OOB. I'm focused on Maury at the moment.

I'm PP, and I really appreciate you clarifying (and apologize for putting words in your mouth!). I see what you are saying. I think essentially tacking on some of the public housing to Maury and tightening the Maury boundary along Miner's borders (assuming again that it wouldn't re-zone Maury's current at-risk kids) would make sense. The big challenge I see would be that it would be pretty clear, if not to the kids then at least to the parents, that the kids coming into Maury from non-contiguous areas are coming from low-income housing. I like to think that wouldn't affect how anyone treats them or their own perception of their experience at Maury (alienation etc.), but potentially there could be impacts there. The other big challenge is if the commute or some other logistical issue puts a larger burden on the families re-zoned into Maury that makes their lives more difficult, or potentially leads to increased truancy for the kids. I'd be fine with a shuttle or something, but I guess there we are edging into busing?

Comparing the merits of the at-risk set aside to the proposed cluster, my question would be that if an at-risk set aside at Maury would go unfilled with so many at-risk students in the next boundary over, doesn't that indicate that a cluster wouldn't work for those families either? They would have to go to Maury in that case, but they won't volunteer to go right now? If it's a matter of families of at-risk students not necessarily being aware of at-risk set asides, I would think that information could be targeted toward the Miner boundary pretty easily.

PP again and thanks for the good faith conversation. I definitely agree with your assessment and I do see this as some of the obstacles as well. Perhaps there would be a way to draw the boundary that mitigates some of the potential worst effects (specifically addressing the issue of transportation which I agree could be a major concern).

I do think there should be a way to ensure that any low-income kids re-zoned for Maury are welcomed by the community. I tend to think some of the voices on this thread that are most opposed to more at-risk kids at Maury are outliers at the school (and also the people most likely to leave before the terminal grade and obviously unlikely to send their kids to EH).

The question about why an at risk set aside wouldn't work for low-income families now zones for Miner I think can be answered if you really put yourself in that position. Which is more appealing to you if you are a black, low-income parent living IB for Miner and want the best for your children and your family:

1) You can apply for a lottery spot at a nearby elementary with great test scores and an involved community of families, but the schools has only 12% at risk students and just 20% black students. If you receive a lottery spot, you have no idea what other families like yours might also receive a spot there, where they might live, whether you will have anything in common with them, or even whether that spot will get filled. So you have to decide whether or not to send your child to a school where they will be an outlier with no guarantee of many kids like them at the school.

or

2) You and all the families who live in your housing complex is suddenly zoned out of Miner and into Maury. Yes, Maury currently has a very low at risk percentage and is only 20% black, BUT you get to enroll your kids in Maury alongside all the other families in your housing complex. You can talk to your neighbors and find out what they plan to do, you can make arrangements to share the burden of commuting to the new school, you will have friendly faces at drop off and pick up, and when your kids come home, they will be able to play with school classmates without having to commute to another part of the neighborhood.

PP again! This was a really helpful way of putting it, and I think you've done a great job here of illustrating the strengths of the boundary re-draw over the at-risk set aside in a way that's helped me look at in a new light.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I want to address the suggestion that that the boundary between Maury and Miner be redrawn to balance populations between the schools, as opposed to a cluster. I am curious as to whether there is genuinely support for that plan from Maury families.

The DME has said that they can't find a way to redraw the boundary to do this, but that simply cannot be correct. I'm guessing what they really mean is the the only way to do it is to create two severely gerrymandered boundaries. I think what they looked at was drawing the boundary vertically instead of horizontally, as it is now, and the reason this probably didn't work is because Maury is to the west of Miner and the demographics of this neighborhood get whiter and wealthier as you go west and south, and blacker and poorer as you go north and east. Due to the position of the schools, this means that if you draw fairly straight, logical boundaries, you wind up with lopsided demographics whether you draw them N-S or E-W.

So what if instead, they created gerrymandered zones, where they specifically carved out some of the low-income housing now zoned for Miner and assigned it to Maury (this might even require creating a zone that is not contiguous, I'm not sure), and then carved out some of the high-income housing now zoned for Maury and assigned it to Miner.

My question is: how would Maury families feel about this proposal, and does their opinion changed depending on whether their home would be assigned to Miner (and if it wouldn't change, please state whether you have children who would be zoned to Miner as a result of this change, as I know some people on this thread had kids at Maury but no longer have elementary kids).

Follow up question: If they did this, wouldn't this essentially be busing? It was argued up thread that the cluster idea is "essential" busing, but wouldn't gerrymandered zones designed to assign low-SES kids to Maury and high-SES kids to Miner be actual busing?

I am asking this question because I don't think at risk set asides will meaningfully increase the number of at risk kids at Maury, so I am looking for a way to actually increase that percentage without a cluster.

Say more about what you mean by this -- I think this plan can be accomplished if you tighten the Maury boundary by expanding Miner's boundary to capture some of the Maury border houses (assuming that you don't capture Maury's current at-risk kids), but not sure if what you are suggesting is finding Maury's highest SES housing and adding that to Miner even if non-contiguous. When it comes down to it, MC kids you reallocate from Maury to Miner are unlikely to attend if they can lottery anywhere else (just the same as MC kids currently in the Miner boundary). But would need to change the border to make room for low-income housing kids at Maury.

It would certainly do something to change the numbers, but strikes me as having a similar effect as the high-risk set aside. Which I think is fine—I think the only responsible way to do something like this is to do it gradually, to avoid overwhelming Maury and making two schools that are considered undesirable instead of one. Your thesis seems to be that the only acceptable solution is one that creates even numbers of at-risk kids at Maury and Miner instantly -- which I think is neither realistic/possible nor at all desirable.

PP here and I want to clarify that this is not my thesis at all. Rather, people on this thread have stated that they are not opposed to increasing Maury's at risk percentage from 12%, but opposed using the cluster as the means. I very much understand the concerns about the proposed cluster and share many of them, but I'm interested in how else we might increase Maury's at risk percentage.

Some have suggested at risk set asides for Maury, but I have a lot of experience looking at how the EA preferences have worked at other schools and the truth is -- they haven't really. And most of those are charter schools where everyone is littering in, so you'd expect the EA preference to be more effective. What you see over and over is that EA spots go unfilled, and this actually causes problems for the schools because it becomes difficult to asses how many EA and regular lottery slots to offer in subsequent years, and also raises questions as to whether those unfilled EA slots maybe given over to people on the non-EA waitlist, and if so at what point. At risk set asides in the lottery sound like an easy fix, but like a lot of things that sound great and easy, they have not shown to be particularly effective.

Also, my goal is not to make the at risk numbers between Maury and Miner equal. I don't really care what the specific numbers are. I just think it's valid in a district with 46% at risk kids to say that Maury needs to take on more at risk students, and I'm wondering how we might achieve that given Maury's current boundary has few at risk families and the school has very high IB buy in. So I'm curious what people would think of a gerrymandered boundary between Maury and Miner, as that looks like the most likely way to increase Maury's at-risk percentage.

I agree that you likely would not see a lot of the Maury families re-zoned to Miner going to Miner. I view that as a separate question. It's obvious that Miner needs to fix some things if they ever hope to attract more non-at-risk families, whether IB or OOB. I'm focused on Maury at the moment.

I'm PP, and I really appreciate you clarifying (and apologize for putting words in your mouth!). I see what you are saying. I think essentially tacking on some of the public housing to Maury and tightening the Maury boundary along Miner's borders (assuming again that it wouldn't re-zone Maury's current at-risk kids) would make sense. The big challenge I see would be that it would be pretty clear, if not to the kids then at least to the parents, that the kids coming into Maury from non-contiguous areas are coming from low-income housing. I like to think that wouldn't affect how anyone treats them or their own perception of their experience at Maury (alienation etc.), but potentially there could be impacts there. The other big challenge is if the commute or some other logistical issue puts a larger burden on the families re-zoned into Maury that makes their lives more difficult, or potentially leads to increased truancy for the kids. I'd be fine with a shuttle or something, but I guess there we are edging into busing?

Comparing the merits of the at-risk set aside to the proposed cluster, my question would be that if an at-risk set aside at Maury would go unfilled with so many at-risk students in the next boundary over, doesn't that indicate that a cluster wouldn't work for those families either? They would have to go to Maury in that case, but they won't volunteer to go right now? If it's a matter of families of at-risk students not necessarily being aware of at-risk set asides, I would think that information could be targeted toward the Miner boundary pretty easily.

PP again and thanks for the good faith conversation. I definitely agree with your assessment and I do see this as some of the obstacles as well. Perhaps there would be a way to draw the boundary that mitigates some of the potential worst effects (specifically addressing the issue of transportation which I agree could be a major concern).

I do think there should be a way to ensure that any low-income kids re-zoned for Maury are welcomed by the community. I tend to think some of the voices on this thread that are most opposed to more at-risk kids at Maury are outliers at the school (and also the people most likely to leave before the terminal grade and obviously unlikely to send their kids to EH).

The question about why an at risk set aside wouldn't work for low-income families now zones for Miner I think can be answered if you really put yourself in that position. Which is more appealing to you if you are a black, low-income parent living IB for Miner and want the best for your children and your family:

1) You can apply for a lottery spot at a nearby elementary with great test scores and an involved community of families, but the schools has only 12% at risk students and just 20% black students. If you receive a lottery spot, you have no idea what other families like yours might also receive a spot there, where they might live, whether you will have anything in common with them, or even whether that spot will get filled. So you have to decide whether or not to send your child to a school where they will be an outlier with no guarantee of many kids like them at the school.

or

2) You and all the families who live in your housing complex is suddenly zoned out of Miner and into Maury. Yes, Maury currently has a very low at risk percentage and is only 20% black, BUT you get to enroll your kids in Maury alongside all the other families in your housing complex. You can talk to your neighbors and find out what they plan to do, you can make arrangements to share the burden of commuting to the new school, you will have friendly faces at drop off and pick up, and when your kids come home, they will be able to play with school classmates without having to commute to another part of the neighborhood.

PP again! This was a really helpful way of putting it, and I think you've done a great job here of illustrating the strengths of the boundary re-draw over the at-risk set aside in a way that's helped me look at in a new light.

Also makes me wonder how choice sets would play out if implemented.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I want to address the suggestion that that the boundary between Maury and Miner be redrawn to balance populations between the schools, as opposed to a cluster. I am curious as to whether there is genuinely support for that plan from Maury families.

The DME has said that they can't find a way to redraw the boundary to do this, but that simply cannot be correct. I'm guessing what they really mean is the the only way to do it is to create two severely gerrymandered boundaries. I think what they looked at was drawing the boundary vertically instead of horizontally, as it is now, and the reason this probably didn't work is because Maury is to the west of Miner and the demographics of this neighborhood get whiter and wealthier as you go west and south, and blacker and poorer as you go north and east. Due to the position of the schools, this means that if you draw fairly straight, logical boundaries, you wind up with lopsided demographics whether you draw them N-S or E-W.

So what if instead, they created gerrymandered zones, where they specifically carved out some of the low-income housing now zoned for Miner and assigned it to Maury (this might even require creating a zone that is not contiguous, I'm not sure), and then carved out some of the high-income housing now zoned for Maury and assigned it to Miner.

My question is: how would Maury families feel about this proposal, and does their opinion changed depending on whether their home would be assigned to Miner (and if it wouldn't change, please state whether you have children who would be zoned to Miner as a result of this change, as I know some people on this thread had kids at Maury but no longer have elementary kids).

Follow up question: If they did this, wouldn't this essentially be busing? It was argued up thread that the cluster idea is "essential" busing, but wouldn't gerrymandered zones designed to assign low-SES kids to Maury and high-SES kids to Miner be actual busing?

I am asking this question because I don't think at risk set asides will meaningfully increase the number of at risk kids at Maury, so I am looking for a way to actually increase that percentage without a cluster.

Say more about what you mean by this -- I think this plan can be accomplished if you tighten the Maury boundary by expanding Miner's boundary to capture some of the Maury border houses (assuming that you don't capture Maury's current at-risk kids), but not sure if what you are suggesting is finding Maury's highest SES housing and adding that to Miner even if non-contiguous. When it comes down to it, MC kids you reallocate from Maury to Miner are unlikely to attend if they can lottery anywhere else (just the same as MC kids currently in the Miner boundary). But would need to change the border to make room for low-income housing kids at Maury.

It would certainly do something to change the numbers, but strikes me as having a similar effect as the high-risk set aside. Which I think is fine—I think the only responsible way to do something like this is to do it gradually, to avoid overwhelming Maury and making two schools that are considered undesirable instead of one. Your thesis seems to be that the only acceptable solution is one that creates even numbers of at-risk kids at Maury and Miner instantly -- which I think is neither realistic/possible nor at all desirable.

PP here and I want to clarify that this is not my thesis at all. Rather, people on this thread have stated that they are not opposed to increasing Maury's at risk percentage from 12%, but opposed using the cluster as the means. I very much understand the concerns about the proposed cluster and share many of them, but I'm interested in how else we might increase Maury's at risk percentage.

Some have suggested at risk set asides for Maury, but I have a lot of experience looking at how the EA preferences have worked at other schools and the truth is -- they haven't really. And most of those are charter schools where everyone is littering in, so you'd expect the EA preference to be more effective. What you see over and over is that EA spots go unfilled, and this actually causes problems for the schools because it becomes difficult to asses how many EA and regular lottery slots to offer in subsequent years, and also raises questions as to whether those unfilled EA slots maybe given over to people on the non-EA waitlist, and if so at what point. At risk set asides in the lottery sound like an easy fix, but like a lot of things that sound great and easy, they have not shown to be particularly effective.

Also, my goal is not to make the at risk numbers between Maury and Miner equal. I don't really care what the specific numbers are. I just think it's valid in a district with 46% at risk kids to say that Maury needs to take on more at risk students, and I'm wondering how we might achieve that given Maury's current boundary has few at risk families and the school has very high IB buy in. So I'm curious what people would think of a gerrymandered boundary between Maury and Miner, as that looks like the most likely way to increase Maury's at-risk percentage.

I agree that you likely would not see a lot of the Maury families re-zoned to Miner going to Miner. I view that as a separate question. It's obvious that Miner needs to fix some things if they ever hope to attract more non-at-risk families, whether IB or OOB. I'm focused on Maury at the moment.

I'm PP, and I really appreciate you clarifying (and apologize for putting words in your mouth!). I see what you are saying. I think essentially tacking on some of the public housing to Maury and tightening the Maury boundary along Miner's borders (assuming again that it wouldn't re-zone Maury's current at-risk kids) would make sense. The big challenge I see would be that it would be pretty clear, if not to the kids then at least to the parents, that the kids coming into Maury from non-contiguous areas are coming from low-income housing. I like to think that wouldn't affect how anyone treats them or their own perception of their experience at Maury (alienation etc.), but potentially there could be impacts there. The other big challenge is if the commute or some other logistical issue puts a larger burden on the families re-zoned into Maury that makes their lives more difficult, or potentially leads to increased truancy for the kids. I'd be fine with a shuttle or something, but I guess there we are edging into busing?

Comparing the merits of the at-risk set aside to the proposed cluster, my question would be that if an at-risk set aside at Maury would go unfilled with so many at-risk students in the next boundary over, doesn't that indicate that a cluster wouldn't work for those families either? They would have to go to Maury in that case, but they won't volunteer to go right now? If it's a matter of families of at-risk students not necessarily being aware of at-risk set asides, I would think that information could be targeted toward the Miner boundary pretty easily.

PP again and thanks for the good faith conversation. I definitely agree with your assessment and I do see this as some of the obstacles as well. Perhaps there would be a way to draw the boundary that mitigates some of the potential worst effects (specifically addressing the issue of transportation which I agree could be a major concern).

<b>I do think there should be a way to ensure that any low-income kids re-zoned for Maury are welcomed by the community. I tend to think some of the voices on this thread that are most opposed to more at-risk kids at Maury are outliers at the school (and also the people most likely to leave before the terminal grade and obviously unlikely to send their kids to EH).<\b>

The question about why an at risk set aside wouldn't work for low-income families now zones for Miner I think can be answered if you really put yourself in that position. Which is more appealing to you if you are a black, low-income parent living IB for Miner and want the best for your children and your family:

1) You can apply for a lottery spot at a nearby elementary with great test scores and an involved community of families, but the schools has only 12% at risk students and just 20% black students. If you receive a lottery spot, you have no idea what other families like yours might also receive a spot there, where they might live, whether you will have anything in common with them, or even whether that spot will get filled. So you have to decide whether or not to send your child to a school where they will be an outlier with no guarantee of many kids like them at the school.

or

2) You and all the families who live in your housing complex is suddenly zoned out of Miner and into Maury. Yes, Maury currently has a very low at risk percentage and is only 20% black, BUT you get to enroll your kids in Maury alongside all the other families in your housing complex. You can talk to your neighbors and find out what they plan to do, you can make arrangements to share the burden of commuting to the new school, you will have friendly faces at drop off and pick up, and when your kids come home, they will be able to play with school classmates without having to commute to another part of the neighborhood.

You’re wrong about the bolded. Parents with older kids at EH understand the best the vast differences in academic needs between at-risk and grade-level kids. And it’s also wrong to assume that parents who are invested in appropriate instruction are going to be “unwelcoming” as if this all rests on having big smiles and saying all the right things. My experience is that the parents who appear the most “welcoming” are often the ones behind the scenes making complaints & trouble.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I want to address the suggestion that that the boundary between Maury and Miner be redrawn to balance populations between the schools, as opposed to a cluster. I am curious as to whether there is genuinely support for that plan from Maury families.

The DME has said that they can't find a way to redraw the boundary to do this, but that simply cannot be correct. I'm guessing what they really mean is the the only way to do it is to create two severely gerrymandered boundaries. I think what they looked at was drawing the boundary vertically instead of horizontally, as it is now, and the reason this probably didn't work is because Maury is to the west of Miner and the demographics of this neighborhood get whiter and wealthier as you go west and south, and blacker and poorer as you go north and east. Due to the position of the schools, this means that if you draw fairly straight, logical boundaries, you wind up with lopsided demographics whether you draw them N-S or E-W.

So what if instead, they created gerrymandered zones, where they specifically carved out some of the low-income housing now zoned for Miner and assigned it to Maury (this might even require creating a zone that is not contiguous, I'm not sure), and then carved out some of the high-income housing now zoned for Maury and assigned it to Miner.

My question is: how would Maury families feel about this proposal, and does their opinion changed depending on whether their home would be assigned to Miner (and if it wouldn't change, please state whether you have children who would be zoned to Miner as a result of this change, as I know some people on this thread had kids at Maury but no longer have elementary kids).

Follow up question: If they did this, wouldn't this essentially be busing? It was argued up thread that the cluster idea is "essential" busing, but wouldn't gerrymandered zones designed to assign low-SES kids to Maury and high-SES kids to Miner be actual busing?

I am asking this question because I don't think at risk set asides will meaningfully increase the number of at risk kids at Maury, so I am looking for a way to actually increase that percentage without a cluster.

Say more about what you mean by this -- I think this plan can be accomplished if you tighten the Maury boundary by expanding Miner's boundary to capture some of the Maury border houses (assuming that you don't capture Maury's current at-risk kids), but not sure if what you are suggesting is finding Maury's highest SES housing and adding that to Miner even if non-contiguous. When it comes down to it, MC kids you reallocate from Maury to Miner are unlikely to attend if they can lottery anywhere else (just the same as MC kids currently in the Miner boundary). But would need to change the border to make room for low-income housing kids at Maury.

It would certainly do something to change the numbers, but strikes me as having a similar effect as the high-risk set aside. Which I think is fine—I think the only responsible way to do something like this is to do it gradually, to avoid overwhelming Maury and making two schools that are considered undesirable instead of one. Your thesis seems to be that the only acceptable solution is one that creates even numbers of at-risk kids at Maury and Miner instantly -- which I think is neither realistic/possible nor at all desirable.

PP here and I want to clarify that this is not my thesis at all. Rather, people on this thread have stated that they are not opposed to increasing Maury's at risk percentage from 12%, but opposed using the cluster as the means. I very much understand the concerns about the proposed cluster and share many of them, but I'm interested in how else we might increase Maury's at risk percentage.

Some have suggested at risk set asides for Maury, but I have a lot of experience looking at how the EA preferences have worked at other schools and the truth is -- they haven't really. And most of those are charter schools where everyone is littering in, so you'd expect the EA preference to be more effective. What you see over and over is that EA spots go unfilled, and this actually causes problems for the schools because it becomes difficult to asses how many EA and regular lottery slots to offer in subsequent years, and also raises questions as to whether those unfilled EA slots maybe given over to people on the non-EA waitlist, and if so at what point. At risk set asides in the lottery sound like an easy fix, but like a lot of things that sound great and easy, they have not shown to be particularly effective.

Also, my goal is not to make the at risk numbers between Maury and Miner equal. I don't really care what the specific numbers are. I just think it's valid in a district with 46% at risk kids to say that Maury needs to take on more at risk students, and I'm wondering how we might achieve that given Maury's current boundary has few at risk families and the school has very high IB buy in. So I'm curious what people would think of a gerrymandered boundary between Maury and Miner, as that looks like the most likely way to increase Maury's at-risk percentage.

I agree that you likely would not see a lot of the Maury families re-zoned to Miner going to Miner. I view that as a separate question. It's obvious that Miner needs to fix some things if they ever hope to attract more non-at-risk families, whether IB or OOB. I'm focused on Maury at the moment.

I'm PP, and I really appreciate you clarifying (and apologize for putting words in your mouth!). I see what you are saying. I think essentially tacking on some of the public housing to Maury and tightening the Maury boundary along Miner's borders (assuming again that it wouldn't re-zone Maury's current at-risk kids) would make sense. The big challenge I see would be that it would be pretty clear, if not to the kids then at least to the parents, that the kids coming into Maury from non-contiguous areas are coming from low-income housing. I like to think that wouldn't affect how anyone treats them or their own perception of their experience at Maury (alienation etc.), but potentially there could be impacts there. The other big challenge is if the commute or some other logistical issue puts a larger burden on the families re-zoned into Maury that makes their lives more difficult, or potentially leads to increased truancy for the kids. I'd be fine with a shuttle or something, but I guess there we are edging into busing?

Comparing the merits of the at-risk set aside to the proposed cluster, my question would be that if an at-risk set aside at Maury would go unfilled with so many at-risk students in the next boundary over, doesn't that indicate that a cluster wouldn't work for those families either? They would have to go to Maury in that case, but they won't volunteer to go right now? If it's a matter of families of at-risk students not necessarily being aware of at-risk set asides, I would think that information could be targeted toward the Miner boundary pretty easily.

PP again and thanks for the good faith conversation. I definitely agree with your assessment and I do see this as some of the obstacles as well. Perhaps there would be a way to draw the boundary that mitigates some of the potential worst effects (specifically addressing the issue of transportation which I agree could be a major concern).

I do think there should be a way to ensure that any low-income kids re-zoned for Maury are welcomed by the community. I tend to think some of the voices on this thread that are most opposed to more at-risk kids at Maury are outliers at the school (and also the people most likely to leave before the terminal grade and obviously unlikely to send their kids to EH).

The question about why an at risk set aside wouldn't work for low-income families now zones for Miner I think can be answered if you really put yourself in that position. Which is more appealing to you if you are a black, low-income parent living IB for Miner and want the best for your children and your family:

1) You can apply for a lottery spot at a nearby elementary with great test scores and an involved community of families, but the schools has only 12% at risk students and just 20% black students. If you receive a lottery spot, you have no idea what other families like yours might also receive a spot there, where they might live, whether you will have anything in common with them, or even whether that spot will get filled. So you have to decide whether or not to send your child to a school where they will be an outlier with no guarantee of many kids like them at the school.

or

2) You and all the families who live in your housing complex is suddenly zoned out of Miner and into Maury. Yes, Maury currently has a very low at risk percentage and is only 20% black, BUT you get to enroll your kids in Maury alongside all the other families in your housing complex. You can talk to your neighbors and find out what they plan to do, you can make arrangements to share the burden of commuting to the new school, you will have friendly faces at drop off and pick up, and when your kids come home, they will be able to play with school classmates without having to commute to another part of the neighborhood.

PP again! This was a really helpful way of putting it, and I think you've done a great job here of illustrating the strengths of the boundary re-draw over the at-risk set aside in a way that's helped me look at in a new light.

Except this ignores that Miner is heavily OOB right now so these explanations don’t really hold water. The “failure” of at-risk set asides really just shows the preferences of lower income parents to stay put. Just because DCUM imagines that Maury is “the best” or Latin is universally desirable doesn’t make it true for all families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I want to address the suggestion that that the boundary between Maury and Miner be redrawn to balance populations between the schools, as opposed to a cluster. I am curious as to whether there is genuinely support for that plan from Maury families.

The DME has said that they can't find a way to redraw the boundary to do this, but that simply cannot be correct. I'm guessing what they really mean is the the only way to do it is to create two severely gerrymandered boundaries. I think what they looked at was drawing the boundary vertically instead of horizontally, as it is now, and the reason this probably didn't work is because Maury is to the west of Miner and the demographics of this neighborhood get whiter and wealthier as you go west and south, and blacker and poorer as you go north and east. Due to the position of the schools, this means that if you draw fairly straight, logical boundaries, you wind up with lopsided demographics whether you draw them N-S or E-W.

So what if instead, they created gerrymandered zones, where they specifically carved out some of the low-income housing now zoned for Miner and assigned it to Maury (this might even require creating a zone that is not contiguous, I'm not sure), and then carved out some of the high-income housing now zoned for Maury and assigned it to Miner.

My question is: how would Maury families feel about this proposal, and does their opinion changed depending on whether their home would be assigned to Miner (and if it wouldn't change, please state whether you have children who would be zoned to Miner as a result of this change, as I know some people on this thread had kids at Maury but no longer have elementary kids).

Follow up question: If they did this, wouldn't this essentially be busing? It was argued up thread that the cluster idea is "essential" busing, but wouldn't gerrymandered zones designed to assign low-SES kids to Maury and high-SES kids to Miner be actual busing?

I am asking this question because I don't think at risk set asides will meaningfully increase the number of at risk kids at Maury, so I am looking for a way to actually increase that percentage without a cluster.

Say more about what you mean by this -- I think this plan can be accomplished if you tighten the Maury boundary by expanding Miner's boundary to capture some of the Maury border houses (assuming that you don't capture Maury's current at-risk kids), but not sure if what you are suggesting is finding Maury's highest SES housing and adding that to Miner even if non-contiguous. When it comes down to it, MC kids you reallocate from Maury to Miner are unlikely to attend if they can lottery anywhere else (just the same as MC kids currently in the Miner boundary). But would need to change the border to make room for low-income housing kids at Maury.

It would certainly do something to change the numbers, but strikes me as having a similar effect as the high-risk set aside. Which I think is fine—I think the only responsible way to do something like this is to do it gradually, to avoid overwhelming Maury and making two schools that are considered undesirable instead of one. Your thesis seems to be that the only acceptable solution is one that creates even numbers of at-risk kids at Maury and Miner instantly -- which I think is neither realistic/possible nor at all desirable.

PP here and I want to clarify that this is not my thesis at all. Rather, people on this thread have stated that they are not opposed to increasing Maury's at risk percentage from 12%, but opposed using the cluster as the means. I very much understand the concerns about the proposed cluster and share many of them, but I'm interested in how else we might increase Maury's at risk percentage.

Some have suggested at risk set asides for Maury, but I have a lot of experience looking at how the EA preferences have worked at other schools and the truth is -- they haven't really. And most of those are charter schools where everyone is littering in, so you'd expect the EA preference to be more effective. What you see over and over is that EA spots go unfilled, and this actually causes problems for the schools because it becomes difficult to asses how many EA and regular lottery slots to offer in subsequent years, and also raises questions as to whether those unfilled EA slots maybe given over to people on the non-EA waitlist, and if so at what point. At risk set asides in the lottery sound like an easy fix, but like a lot of things that sound great and easy, they have not shown to be particularly effective.

Also, my goal is not to make the at risk numbers between Maury and Miner equal. I don't really care what the specific numbers are. I just think it's valid in a district with 46% at risk kids to say that Maury needs to take on more at risk students, and I'm wondering how we might achieve that given Maury's current boundary has few at risk families and the school has very high IB buy in. So I'm curious what people would think of a gerrymandered boundary between Maury and Miner, as that looks like the most likely way to increase Maury's at-risk percentage.

I agree that you likely would not see a lot of the Maury families re-zoned to Miner going to Miner. I view that as a separate question. It's obvious that Miner needs to fix some things if they ever hope to attract more non-at-risk families, whether IB or OOB. I'm focused on Maury at the moment.

I'm PP, and I really appreciate you clarifying (and apologize for putting words in your mouth!). I see what you are saying. I think essentially tacking on some of the public housing to Maury and tightening the Maury boundary along Miner's borders (assuming again that it wouldn't re-zone Maury's current at-risk kids) would make sense. The big challenge I see would be that it would be pretty clear, if not to the kids then at least to the parents, that the kids coming into Maury from non-contiguous areas are coming from low-income housing. I like to think that wouldn't affect how anyone treats them or their own perception of their experience at Maury (alienation etc.), but potentially there could be impacts there. The other big challenge is if the commute or some other logistical issue puts a larger burden on the families re-zoned into Maury that makes their lives more difficult, or potentially leads to increased truancy for the kids. I'd be fine with a shuttle or something, but I guess there we are edging into busing?

Comparing the merits of the at-risk set aside to the proposed cluster, my question would be that if an at-risk set aside at Maury would go unfilled with so many at-risk students in the next boundary over, doesn't that indicate that a cluster wouldn't work for those families either? They would have to go to Maury in that case, but they won't volunteer to go right now? If it's a matter of families of at-risk students not necessarily being aware of at-risk set asides, I would think that information could be targeted toward the Miner boundary pretty easily.

PP again and thanks for the good faith conversation. I definitely agree with your assessment and I do see this as some of the obstacles as well. Perhaps there would be a way to draw the boundary that mitigates some of the potential worst effects (specifically addressing the issue of transportation which I agree could be a major concern).

I do think there should be a way to ensure that any low-income kids re-zoned for Maury are welcomed by the community. I tend to think some of the voices on this thread that are most opposed to more at-risk kids at Maury are outliers at the school (and also the people most likely to leave before the terminal grade and obviously unlikely to send their kids to EH).

The question about why an at risk set aside wouldn't work for low-income families now zones for Miner I think can be answered if you really put yourself in that position. Which is more appealing to you if you are a black, low-income parent living IB for Miner and want the best for your children and your family:

1) You can apply for a lottery spot at a nearby elementary with great test scores and an involved community of families, but the schools has only 12% at risk students and just 20% black students. If you receive a lottery spot, you have no idea what other families like yours might also receive a spot there, where they might live, whether you will have anything in common with them, or even whether that spot will get filled. So you have to decide whether or not to send your child to a school where they will be an outlier with no guarantee of many kids like them at the school.

or

2) You and all the families who live in your housing complex is suddenly zoned out of Miner and into Maury. Yes, Maury currently has a very low at risk percentage and is only 20% black, BUT you get to enroll your kids in Maury alongside all the other families in your housing complex. You can talk to your neighbors and find out what they plan to do, you can make arrangements to share the burden of commuting to the new school, you will have friendly faces at drop off and pick up, and when your kids come home, they will be able to play with school classmates without having to commute to another part of the neighborhood.

PP again! This was a really helpful way of putting it, and I think you've done a great job here of illustrating the strengths of the boundary re-draw over the at-risk set aside in a way that's helped me look at in a new light.

Except this ignores that Miner is heavily OOB right now so these explanations don’t really hold water. The “failure” of at-risk set asides really just shows the preferences of lower income parents to stay put. Just because DCUM imagines that Maury is “the best” or Latin is universally desirable doesn’t make it true for all families.

No. Miner is 62% IB. It has low IB participation, but a high IB percentage of attendees.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To me it's clear something needs to be done to lower the at risk percentage at Miner. I understand the objections to the cluster, but you can make similar objections to any proposal.

It feels like a lot of people are basically arguing for the status quo, which means Miner remains a school with a lot of at risk kids who it ultimately fails.

It feels like no matter what is proposed, it will be rejected as infeasible, and nothing will change.

How about DC actually figure out how to teach at-risk kids? Moving them from one school to another is NOT an instructional strategy!!! The status quo id terrible but moving kids around does ZERO to fix it.

Are you a Maury parent? Then you are a DCPS parent. If you don't think DC does a good job educating the 46% of DCPS students who are at risk, then why do you live here and send your kid to a DSPS school? Especially one that feeds to a MS and HS that are majority at risk.

Maury parents want it both ways. Please leave us alone to run our school with a 12% at risk percentage and don't you dare interfere in any way, but also the fact that DCPS, the school system we participate in and pay taxes into, is crap at educating at risk kids (heck we can't even handle the 12% at risk kids at our school and are demanding more resources to handle them in upper grades when the non-at-risk families bail for charters or private anyway because, again, our MS/HS feed is majority at risk) is someone else's problem, please deal with it but not in a way that impacts our school at all.

This is the reality of being in DCPS. You don't want to deal with at risk kids, high percentages of SpEd kids, administrative challenges, etc.? MOVE. And before you cry "But Ward 3!!!" at me, guess what -- Ward 3 has problems, too. Go talk to families with kids at Deal, Hardy, and JR about behavior, discipline, drug use, etc. We have friends with kids at Deal and JR who simply do not use the bathroom at school because it feels dangerous to them. These are inner-city schools. They have the problems of inner city schools.

As for Brent and LT, I would absolutely support at risk set asides for them and exploring cluster options. An LT-JOW cluster does have certain synergies, though I understand why Maury-Miner was selected first because of the more dramatic differences in demographics. I don't know that Brent lends itself as well to a cluster. Maybe with Van Ness, though being on either side of the freeway makes that less appealing, IMO. I actually think some kind of program that unites Brent with Amidon-Bowen could be beneficial -- the Jefferson Middle triangle is weirdly disjointed geographically, and finding ways to build community across the triangle could have real benefits for Jefferson as well as the participating elementary schools.

No. Watkins parent here. I am completely against half-baked experiments that will inevitably cause a functioning school - that mere years ago NOBODY WOULD ATTEND - to turn it into another Peabody/Watkins cluster, with its abysmal 30% IB buy-in (propped up almost entirely by Peabody). That is not good for the DCPS educational landscape, as a whole. It is not good for the Hill, as a whole, which people are already increasingly nervous to invest in due to spiking crime. Taking a successful school and blowing it up to make your own stats look good is incredibly short sighted.

How are you a Watkins parent if you don't realize that 30% reflects the IB population Watkins, not Peabody?

No it doesn't. DCPS lumps Peabody and Watkins together when reporting IB percentages, so Watkins is actually lower than 30%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To me it's clear something needs to be done to lower the at risk percentage at Miner. I understand the objections to the cluster, but you can make similar objections to any proposal.

It feels like a lot of people are basically arguing for the status quo, which means Miner remains a school with a lot of at risk kids who it ultimately fails.

It feels like no matter what is proposed, it will be rejected as infeasible, and nothing will change.

How about DC actually figure out how to teach at-risk kids? Moving them from one school to another is NOT an instructional strategy!!! The status quo id terrible but moving kids around does ZERO to fix it.

Are you a Maury parent? Then you are a DCPS parent. If you don't think DC does a good job educating the 46% of DCPS students who are at risk, then why do you live here and send your kid to a DSPS school? Especially one that feeds to a MS and HS that are majority at risk.

Maury parents want it both ways. Please leave us alone to run our school with a 12% at risk percentage and don't you dare interfere in any way, but also the fact that DCPS, the school system we participate in and pay taxes into, is crap at educating at risk kids (heck we can't even handle the 12% at risk kids at our school and are demanding more resources to handle them in upper grades when the non-at-risk families bail for charters or private anyway because, again, our MS/HS feed is majority at risk) is someone else's problem, please deal with it but not in a way that impacts our school at all.

This is the reality of being in DCPS. You don't want to deal with at risk kids, high percentages of SpEd kids, administrative challenges, etc.? MOVE. And before you cry "But Ward 3!!!" at me, guess what -- Ward 3 has problems, too. Go talk to families with kids at Deal, Hardy, and JR about behavior, discipline, drug use, etc. We have friends with kids at Deal and JR who simply do not use the bathroom at school because it feels dangerous to them. These are inner-city schools. They have the problems of inner city schools.

As for Brent and LT, I would absolutely support at risk set asides for them and exploring cluster options. An LT-JOW cluster does have certain synergies, though I understand why Maury-Miner was selected first because of the more dramatic differences in demographics. I don't know that Brent lends itself as well to a cluster. Maybe with Van Ness, though being on either side of the freeway makes that less appealing, IMO. I actually think some kind of program that unites Brent with Amidon-Bowen could be beneficial -- the Jefferson Middle triangle is weirdly disjointed geographically, and finding ways to build community across the triangle could have real benefits for Jefferson as well as the participating elementary schools.

No. Watkins parent here. I am completely against half-baked experiments that will inevitably cause a functioning school - that mere years ago NOBODY WOULD ATTEND - to turn it into another Peabody/Watkins cluster, with its abysmal 30% IB buy-in (propped up almost entirely by Peabody). That is not good for the DCPS educational landscape, as a whole. It is not good for the Hill, as a whole, which people are already increasingly nervous to invest in due to spiking crime. Taking a successful school and blowing it up to make your own stats look good is incredibly short sighted.

How are you a Watkins parent if you don't realize that 30% reflects the IB population Watkins, not Peabody?

No it doesn't. DCPS lumps Peabody and Watkins together when reporting IB percentages, so Watkins is actually lower than 30%.

wow is this true?