Maury Capitol Hill

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone should dig into the data on Miner in the OSSE report card. The performance is absolutely abysmal for at-risk students compared to city averages. Something is deeply failing at Miner. I honestly think the school needs to be closed and students rezoned in balance to all the surrounding schools (Maury, LT, Payne). Or fire everyone there and replace it with a turnaround admin and staff.

This is actually a much better idea, but it would need to be (at least) Browne as well, and likely one of Wheatley or JOW. If you utilized all 5/6 schools, you could absorb the kids and everyone could have reasonable commutes. The issue is that for contiguous boundaries to remain (which, despite other ideas on this thread, is clearly a baseline requirement), you'd rezone a small chunk to LT, a tiny chunk to JOW or Wheatley, a reasonable chunk to Maury, a small chunk to Payne and then a sizeable chunk to Browne, which I doubt anyone would perceive as an upgrade. You could reasonably split the 2 housing projects between Maury and Browne, which might help lighten the load on any one school.

I see the argument for closing Miner and re-zoning, but there is no way to make part of the Miner zone belong to JOW or Wheatley and have their zones be contiguous, especially Wheatley. They are not only on the other side of H/Benning, they are also across Bladensberg/Starburst. I also assume there would be issues with Browne because while technically they could have a contiguous zone that incorporated Miner, it would be divided not only by Benning but by the large commercial center on Benning that lacks walkable through streets. I don't know how kids IB for Miner get to Browne on foot, which I think is pretty much required for neighborhood schools.

In any case, even if you assigned any part of Miner boundaries to LT/JOW/Wheatley/Browne, everyone in the Miner zone would get proximity preference for Maury or Payne. So if you object to a Miner-Maury cluster, consider that closing and re-zoning Miner would essentially get you that outcome anyway.

It would me more akin to the at-risk set aside or boundary re-drawing than to a cluster, no? Proximity preference only gets you anything to the extent there are OOB spots available, and it comes after sibling preferences. Plus it doesn't disrupt everyone else who currently attends Maury.

Regardless, no way are the rezoning Miner kids for JOW, Wheatley, or Browne (it simply isn't happening, they will not zone kids to a school that is that far away across major commuting arteries and intersections when they could instead zone them to neighborhood schools), so if you close Miner and rezone it, assume a significant percentage of Miner IB kids would not have Maury as their by-right school.

They have drawn boundaries to end at H and Benning over here, but all across the city there are tons and tons of school boundaries that cross very busy roads and dangerous intersections. I don't know why you think that's such an obstacle here.

They won't zone Ward 6 residents to Ward 5 schools.

You also have to look at feeds. Closing Miner, there would a focus on keeping students within their existing feeds, which would mean shifting most kids to Maury and Payne. I think they'd have no choice but to assign at least part of the west end of the zone to LT because it's simply not possible for Maury and Payne to absorb all those students (I expect Maury would need an expansion to do it, and it would likely mean trailers in the interim). But LT at least feeds to Eastern. Wheatley and Browne both contain middle schools and feed to Dunbar, which is in NW -- it's actually kind of insane that Wheatley and Browne feed there already but at least you have the Ward excuse. With Miner kids it would make no sense at all.

Ward boundaries are not school boundaries. Maury zone includes Ward 6 and 7.

Read the thread, this has been addressed -- Maury only got partially zoned to Ward 7 in 2021 and this is a very unusual development. This boundary study is the first one contending with the effects of the new ward boundaries that shifted parts of Ward 6 into Wards 7 and 8, so this is uncharted territory.

Not accurate. Part of Maury was in Ward 7 as of the 2015 boundary change.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let Basis take over Miner and run it as an IB elementary. I am dead serious.

You can be as serious as you want, a charter LEA cannot run a neighborhood DCPS. Next suggestion.

sure it can. if they can close two schools and combine them into an US/LS cluster, they can appoint a turnaround operator to take over a failed school.

I know you are just being trollish but no, those aren't the same thing. Miner and Maury are both DCPS schools and DCPS is in charge of them and can do what it likes with them (or the mayor can, through DCPS). Legally, a charter company could not be brought in to run a DCPS. It would violate agreements with both the teachers and principals unions, as well as rules about how schools are governed and what curriculum they use.

It would be great if we could stick to good faith, plausible solutions to this problem instead of just engaging in nihilistic sarcasm.

But could they give the building to a charter and require it to apply a "proximity preference" to the lottery or something?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let Basis take over Miner and run it as an IB elementary. I am dead serious.

You can be as serious as you want, a charter LEA cannot run a neighborhood DCPS. Next suggestion.

sure it can. if they can close two schools and combine them into an US/LS cluster, they can appoint a turnaround operator to take over a failed school.

I know you are just being trollish but no, those aren't the same thing. Miner and Maury are both DCPS schools and DCPS is in charge of them and can do what it likes with them (or the mayor can, through DCPS). Legally, a charter company could not be brought in to run a DCPS. It would violate agreements with both the teachers and principals unions, as well as rules about how schools are governed and what curriculum they use.

It would be great if we could stick to good faith, plausible solutions to this problem instead of just engaging in nihilistic sarcasm.

But could they give the building to a charter and require it to apply a "proximity preference" to the lottery or something?

If they did, they'd have to zone the students for another DCPS. There's a reason people refer to their inbound school as their "by-right" school -- the city is required to provide a DCPS education to every student in the city that they can access by right with no lottery necessary, for grades K-12.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I find the suggestion that the solution to what ails Miner is to close it and zone it's students for a school that is currently 73% at risk (Browne) kind of crazy and somehow, given the stated goals of the DME, I doubt that will happen.

Especially since they are discussing making Browne PK-5 and zoning it for EH. Which actually makes sense because (1) PK-8 campuses are bad, they very often fail because schools are not very good at meeting the needs of ECE, elementary, and middle schools a the same time, plus when the school is also largely at-risk, covering so many grades tends to compound the challenges raised by a large at risk population, year over year, and (2) Browne is so far from Dunbar and it makes more sense for those kids to feed to Eastern which is quite close and also, anecdotally, where most of them wind up anyway.

Brown actually has *better* results with economically disadvantaged kids than Miner does … and Maury does *worse* than Browne on math.

It’s pretty clear this idea is really bankrupt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let Basis take over Miner and run it as an IB elementary. I am dead serious.

You can be as serious as you want, a charter LEA cannot run a neighborhood DCPS. Next suggestion.

sure it can. if they can close two schools and combine them into an US/LS cluster, they can appoint a turnaround operator to take over a failed school.

I know you are just being trollish but no, those aren't the same thing. Miner and Maury are both DCPS schools and DCPS is in charge of them and can do what it likes with them (or the mayor can, through DCPS). Legally, a charter company could not be brought in to run a DCPS. It would violate agreements with both the teachers and principals unions, as well as rules about how schools are governed and what curriculum they use.

It would be great if we could stick to good faith, plausible solutions to this problem instead of just engaging in nihilistic sarcasm.

Sure but the point stands that DCPS could fix Miner but instead wants to bury its problems by merging it with Maury.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let Basis take over Miner and run it as an IB elementary. I am dead serious.

You can be as serious as you want, a charter LEA cannot run a neighborhood DCPS. Next suggestion.

sure it can. if they can close two schools and combine them into an US/LS cluster, they can appoint a turnaround operator to take over a failed school.

I know you are just being trollish but no, those aren't the same thing. Miner and Maury are both DCPS schools and DCPS is in charge of them and can do what it likes with them (or the mayor can, through DCPS). Legally, a charter company could not be brought in to run a DCPS. It would violate agreements with both the teachers and principals unions, as well as rules about how schools are governed and what curriculum they use.

It would be great if we could stick to good faith, plausible solutions to this problem instead of just engaging in nihilistic sarcasm.

It’s not “nihilistic sarcasm.” If DME is willing to throw out such disruptive ideas, they can think even further outside the box to make whatever legislative and collective bargaining changes it needs to give it the authority to turn around failed schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let Basis take over Miner and run it as an IB elementary. I am dead serious.

You can be as serious as you want, a charter LEA cannot run a neighborhood DCPS. Next suggestion.

sure it can. if they can close two schools and combine them into an US/LS cluster, they can appoint a turnaround operator to take over a failed school.

I know you are just being trollish but no, those aren't the same thing. Miner and Maury are both DCPS schools and DCPS is in charge of them and can do what it likes with them (or the mayor can, through DCPS). Legally, a charter company could not be brought in to run a DCPS. It would violate agreements with both the teachers and principals unions, as well as rules about how schools are governed and what curriculum they use.

It would be great if we could stick to good faith, plausible solutions to this problem instead of just engaging in nihilistic sarcasm.

It’s not “nihilistic sarcasm.” If DME is willing to throw out such disruptive ideas, they can think even further outside the box to make whatever legislative and collective bargaining changes it needs to give it the authority to turn around failed schools.

The bottom line is that you can attend the town hall and raise this to DME. That's the whole point of these things. Have DME explain to you why this is a good or bad idea. Don't just leave the idea here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let Basis take over Miner and run it as an IB elementary. I am dead serious.

You can be as serious as you want, a charter LEA cannot run a neighborhood DCPS. Next suggestion.

sure it can. if they can close two schools and combine them into an US/LS cluster, they can appoint a turnaround operator to take over a failed school.

I know you are just being trollish but no, those aren't the same thing. Miner and Maury are both DCPS schools and DCPS is in charge of them and can do what it likes with them (or the mayor can, through DCPS). Legally, a charter company could not be brought in to run a DCPS. It would violate agreements with both the teachers and principals unions, as well as rules about how schools are governed and what curriculum they use.

It would be great if we could stick to good faith, plausible solutions to this problem instead of just engaging in nihilistic sarcasm.

Sure but the point stands that DCPS could fix Miner but instead wants to bury its problems by merging it with Maury.

Does DME want to fix Miner at all? All I heard is that it wants SES balance. Whether that actually improves educational outcomes for anyone has never been explained or shown in any DME meeting I attended. That's the entire problem here. People are assuming DME wants to improve educational outcomes, when DME has never actually said that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let Basis take over Miner and run it as an IB elementary. I am dead serious.

You can be as serious as you want, a charter LEA cannot run a neighborhood DCPS. Next suggestion.

sure it can. if they can close two schools and combine them into an US/LS cluster, they can appoint a turnaround operator to take over a failed school.

I know you are just being trollish but no, those aren't the same thing. Miner and Maury are both DCPS schools and DCPS is in charge of them and can do what it likes with them (or the mayor can, through DCPS). Legally, a charter company could not be brought in to run a DCPS. It would violate agreements with both the teachers and principals unions, as well as rules about how schools are governed and what curriculum they use.

It would be great if we could stick to good faith, plausible solutions to this problem instead of just engaging in nihilistic sarcasm.

Sure but the point stands that DCPS could fix Miner but instead wants to bury its problems by merging it with Maury.

Does DME want to fix Miner at all? All I heard is that it wants SES balance. Whether that actually improves educational outcomes for anyone has never been explained or shown in any DME meeting I attended. That's the entire problem here. People are assuming DME wants to improve educational outcomes, when DME has never actually said that.

I think I'm just erring on the side of assuming there is some merit at all. If they're trying to make a move that would involve so much disruption for any reason other than improving educational outcomes, I am categorically opposed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let Basis take over Miner and run it as an IB elementary. I am dead serious.

You can be as serious as you want, a charter LEA cannot run a neighborhood DCPS. Next suggestion.

sure it can. if they can close two schools and combine them into an US/LS cluster, they can appoint a turnaround operator to take over a failed school.

I know you are just being trollish but no, those aren't the same thing. Miner and Maury are both DCPS schools and DCPS is in charge of them and can do what it likes with them (or the mayor can, through DCPS). Legally, a charter company could not be brought in to run a DCPS. It would violate agreements with both the teachers and principals unions, as well as rules about how schools are governed and what curriculum they use.

It would be great if we could stick to good faith, plausible solutions to this problem instead of just engaging in nihilistic sarcasm.

It’s not “nihilistic sarcasm.” If DME is willing to throw out such disruptive ideas, they can think even further outside the box to make whatever legislative and collective bargaining changes it needs to give it the authority to turn around failed schools.

The bottom line is that you can attend the town hall and raise this to DME. That's the whole point of these things. Have DME explain to you why this is a good or bad idea. Don't just leave the idea here.

I’m not interested in talking to DME. I’m interested in creating a public record here that the DME is absurd.

I will say one thing though - this has made me realize that Miner is a failed school, and Maury is not doing well by it’s at-risk kids either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let Basis take over Miner and run it as an IB elementary. I am dead serious.

You can be as serious as you want, a charter LEA cannot run a neighborhood DCPS. Next suggestion.

sure it can. if they can close two schools and combine them into an US/LS cluster, they can appoint a turnaround operator to take over a failed school.

I know you are just being trollish but no, those aren't the same thing. Miner and Maury are both DCPS schools and DCPS is in charge of them and can do what it likes with them (or the mayor can, through DCPS). Legally, a charter company could not be brought in to run a DCPS. It would violate agreements with both the teachers and principals unions, as well as rules about how schools are governed and what curriculum they use.

It would be great if we could stick to good faith, plausible solutions to this problem instead of just engaging in nihilistic sarcasm.

Sure but the point stands that DCPS could fix Miner but instead wants to bury its problems by merging it with Maury.

Does DME want to fix Miner at all? All I heard is that it wants SES balance. Whether that actually improves educational outcomes for anyone has never been explained or shown in any DME meeting I attended. That's the entire problem here. People are assuming DME wants to improve educational outcomes, when DME has never actually said that.

good question

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone should dig into the data on Miner in the OSSE report card. The performance is absolutely abysmal for at-risk students compared to city averages. Something is deeply failing at Miner. I honestly think the school needs to be closed and students rezoned in balance to all the surrounding schools (Maury, LT, Payne). Or fire everyone there and replace it with a turnaround admin and staff.

This is actually a much better idea, but it would need to be (at least) Browne as well, and likely one of Wheatley or JOW. If you utilized all 5/6 schools, you could absorb the kids and everyone could have reasonable commutes. The issue is that for contiguous boundaries to remain (which, despite other ideas on this thread, is clearly a baseline requirement), you'd rezone a small chunk to LT, a tiny chunk to JOW or Wheatley, a reasonable chunk to Maury, a small chunk to Payne and then a sizeable chunk to Browne, which I doubt anyone would perceive as an upgrade. You could reasonably split the 2 housing projects between Maury and Browne, which might help lighten the load on any one school.

I see the argument for closing Miner and re-zoning, but there is no way to make part of the Miner zone belong to JOW or Wheatley and have their zones be contiguous, especially Wheatley. They are not only on the other side of H/Benning, they are also across Bladensberg/Starburst. I also assume there would be issues with Browne because while technically they could have a contiguous zone that incorporated Miner, it would be divided not only by Benning but by the large commercial center on Benning that lacks walkable through streets. I don't know how kids IB for Miner get to Browne on foot, which I think is pretty much required for neighborhood schools.

In any case, even if you assigned any part of Miner boundaries to LT/JOW/Wheatley/Browne, everyone in the Miner zone would get proximity preference for Maury or Payne. So if you object to a Miner-Maury cluster, consider that closing and re-zoning Miner would essentially get you that outcome anyway.

It would me more akin to the at-risk set aside or boundary re-drawing than to a cluster, no? Proximity preference only gets you anything to the extent there are OOB spots available, and it comes after sibling preferences. Plus it doesn't disrupt everyone else who currently attends Maury.

Regardless, no way are the rezoning Miner kids for JOW, Wheatley, or Browne (it simply isn't happening, they will not zone kids to a school that is that far away across major commuting arteries and intersections when they could instead zone them to neighborhood schools), so if you close Miner and rezone it, assume a significant percentage of Miner IB kids would not have Maury as their by-right school.

They have drawn boundaries to end at H and Benning over here, but all across the city there are tons and tons of school boundaries that cross very busy roads and dangerous intersections. I don't know why you think that's such an obstacle here.

They won't zone Ward 6 residents to Ward 5 schools.

You also have to look at feeds. Closing Miner, there would a focus on keeping students within their existing feeds, which would mean shifting most kids to Maury and Payne. I think they'd have no choice but to assign at least part of the west end of the zone to LT because it's simply not possible for Maury and Payne to absorb all those students (I expect Maury would need an expansion to do it, and it would likely mean trailers in the interim). But LT at least feeds to Eastern. Wheatley and Browne both contain middle schools and feed to Dunbar, which is in NW -- it's actually kind of insane that Wheatley and Browne feed there already but at least you have the Ward excuse. With Miner kids it would make no sense at all.

Ward boundaries are not school boundaries. Maury zone includes Ward 6 and 7.

Read the thread, this has been addressed -- Maury only got partially zoned to Ward 7 in 2021 and this is a very unusual development. This boundary study is the first one contending with the effects of the new ward boundaries that shifted parts of Ward 6 into Wards 7 and 8, so this is uncharted territory.

To be clear, the last ward review completely obliterated any sense that wards and school boundaries were going to match up. It's not just Wards 6 and 7. Part of the Jefferson boundary got rezoned to Ward 8. Whether this is recent or not, it means that the idea that Ward 6 students (who are actually Ward 7 students) couldn't now possibly be rezoned to Ward 5 is obviously laughable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let Basis take over Miner and run it as an IB elementary. I am dead serious.

You can be as serious as you want, a charter LEA cannot run a neighborhood DCPS. Next suggestion.

sure it can. if they can close two schools and combine them into an US/LS cluster, they can appoint a turnaround operator to take over a failed school.

I know you are just being trollish but no, those aren't the same thing. Miner and Maury are both DCPS schools and DCPS is in charge of them and can do what it likes with them (or the mayor can, through DCPS). Legally, a charter company could not be brought in to run a DCPS. It would violate agreements with both the teachers and principals unions, as well as rules about how schools are governed and what curriculum they use.

It would be great if we could stick to good faith, plausible solutions to this problem instead of just engaging in nihilistic sarcasm.

It’s not “nihilistic sarcasm.” If DME is willing to throw out such disruptive ideas, they can think even further outside the box to make whatever legislative and collective bargaining changes it needs to give it the authority to turn around failed schools.

The bottom line is that you can attend the town hall and raise this to DME. That's the whole point of these things. Have DME explain to you why this is a good or bad idea. Don't just leave the idea here.

I’m not interested in talking to DME. I’m interested in creating a public record here that the DME is absurd.

I will say one thing though - this has made me realize that Miner is a failed school, and Maury is not doing well by it’s at-risk kids either.

Nothing about this counts as a "public record" when you are anonymous. You could be a bored teenager in Portland, Oregon. At most, someone with the DME might be aware that this thread exists and will note that it was very negative towards the cluster. But if the people who actually show up to the town hall are less vehemently opposed, or even if there are strong voices in favor, no one will ever care what was said on DCUM and will never be evidence of anything.

If you actually care about this, you have to register these compliant on the ACTUAL record at the town hall or in some other way to the DME. Otherwise this is just a circle jerk (which it probably is anyway).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let Basis take over Miner and run it as an IB elementary. I am dead serious.

You can be as serious as you want, a charter LEA cannot run a neighborhood DCPS. Next suggestion.

sure it can. if they can close two schools and combine them into an US/LS cluster, they can appoint a turnaround operator to take over a failed school.

I know you are just being trollish but no, those aren't the same thing. Miner and Maury are both DCPS schools and DCPS is in charge of them and can do what it likes with them (or the mayor can, through DCPS). Legally, a charter company could not be brought in to run a DCPS. It would violate agreements with both the teachers and principals unions, as well as rules about how schools are governed and what curriculum they use.

It would be great if we could stick to good faith, plausible solutions to this problem instead of just engaging in nihilistic sarcasm.

Sure but the point stands that DCPS could fix Miner but instead wants to bury its problems by merging it with Maury.

Does DME want to fix Miner at all? All I heard is that it wants SES balance. Whether that actually improves educational outcomes for anyone has never been explained or shown in any DME meeting I attended. That's the entire problem here. People are assuming DME wants to improve educational outcomes, when DME has never actually said that.

I think I'm just erring on the side of assuming there is some merit at all. If they're trying to make a move that would involve so much disruption for any reason other than improving educational outcomes, I am categorically opposed.

According to what I heard, the merit is the mixing of SES. That's all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I find the suggestion that the solution to what ails Miner is to close it and zone it's students for a school that is currently 73% at risk (Browne) kind of crazy and somehow, given the stated goals of the DME, I doubt that will happen.

Especially since they are discussing making Browne PK-5 and zoning it for EH. Which actually makes sense because (1) PK-8 campuses are bad, they very often fail because schools are not very good at meeting the needs of ECE, elementary, and middle schools a the same time, plus when the school is also largely at-risk, covering so many grades tends to compound the challenges raised by a large at risk population, year over year, and (2) Browne is so far from Dunbar and it makes more sense for those kids to feed to Eastern which is quite close and also, anecdotally, where most of them wind up anyway.

I want to be clear that I was not suggesting that all or most or even many Miner students should be rezoned to Browne. Rather, if DCPS/DME was actually going to attempt the close Miner and rezone kids approach, then I think it wouldn't be just Maury & Payne, it would be 5 schools involved in absorbing some of the students for both space (two of the schools, Maury and LT are already at capacity, so this idea would likely have to be phased in to begin with) and commute reasons.