Brent parents: Give me the lowdown on the school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ross holds steady not sure about Brent. Both feed fifth graders to BASIS and Laitin.

??? What does Ross have to do with anything? Brent is better, from everything I've heard, but both are good.

[Anonymous]

Brent is hands down the best DCPS elementary school EotP (with SWS and Maury as rising rivals). But this is like saying Kenya is the best country in the neighborhood because it's not Southern Sudan (Van Ness, a new entity), Sudan (Tyler Traditional), Ethiopia (Watkins) or Tanzania (Amidon). We're not talking about a JKLM+Stoddert, Mann/South Africa option, much as parents wish we were...

[Anonymous]

I don't know. The Brent families I know are as satisfied or more satisfied as those I know at Lafayette.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Brent is hands down the best DCPS elementary school EotP (with SWS and Maury as rising rivals). But this is like saying Kenya is the best country in the neighborhood because it's not Southern Sudan (Van Ness, a new entity), Sudan (Tyler Traditional), Ethiopia (Watkins) or Tanzania (Amidon). We're not talking about a JKLM+Stoddert, Mann/South Africa option, much as parents wish we were...

This may be the weirdest post I've ever read on DCUM

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Brent is hands down the best DCPS elementary school EotP (with SWS and Maury as rising rivals). But this is like saying Kenya is the best country in the neighborhood because it's not Southern Sudan (Van Ness, a new entity), Sudan (Tyler Traditional), Ethiopia (Watkins) or Tanzania (Amidon). We're not talking about a JKLM+Stoddert, Mann/South Africa option, much as parents wish we were...

This may be the weirdest post I've ever read on DCUM

I think their point has something to do with Apartheid and unicorns.

[Anonymous]

I think someome's been playing the choking game again.

[Anonymous]

Creatively weird is a whole lot more fun than most of the grim palaver that gets posted here.

[Anonymous]

Actually, this thread has given me a boost. No, Brent isn't a terribly well run school, but yes, parents are increasingly motivated to challenge constructively, identifiying gaps, raising concerns, getting involved in strategic planning etc. I'd like to see Brent reach out to the Upper NW public schools to learn from their management experience. Brent is clearly on the up and up, even if some of the neighboring schools aren't.

All things considered, Brent parents appear to be coping well with the sad fact that our politicians won't work with the Hill community to create at least one strong neighborhood middle school.

[Anonymous]

You are quite correct, Brent isn't well run. It's a middling experience for children, but it's better than the other DCPS choices on Capitol Hill and most of the charter offerings.

The principal refuses to admit there might be problems though and most parents give up trying to bring about change by the upper grades. Headed to greener pastures and all.

It's sad but not nearly as sad as the overall public school situation on Capitol Hill.

[Anonymous]

Granted, my child is only in K, but I just don't understand this ^^ statement. "Middling experience"? I'm having a hard time keeping up with all the extras my child is involved in already this year; choir, piano, art. The K teacher has them writing several page stories every day, child's reading has improved tremendously in six weeks, and school has a plethora of interesting activities scheduled in the next couple of months for the community/parents & kids (Fall Festival, international night, museum night . . .). What more do people want?

[Anonymous]

+100. If the Brent parents of little kids have their eyes opened early enough, more are likely to stand their ground long-term. I'm going to get involved in the upper grades challenges-promoting committees from K. What else can we do without disrupting our lives, or letting shoddy management practices slide? Head to GDS or CHD in the upper grades? Sure, just 30-40K per kid, per year.

Moreover, the guy may surprise us by moving onto greener pastures himself. In June, the LT principal suddenly resigned without having been pushed, ending a tone-deaf reign lasting 6 long years for the Stanton Park gentrifiers.

Take heart, the Smithsonians don't offer our children middling experiences, and they're just a mile or two away.

[Anonymous]

My take is that the principal is just biding his time for a couple more years. Test scores are respectable and the school generally is held in high regard by parents with kids in K and below. No point in rocking the boat with a major overhaul like IB/PYP when he's not in it for the long run. In the meantime, he can hide behind the parent group who stepped up for the strategic planning initiative.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Granted, my child is only in K, but I just don't understand this ^^ statement. "Middling experience"? I'm having a hard time keeping up with all the extras my child is involved in already this year; choir, piano, art. The K teacher has them writing several page stories every day, child's reading has improved tremendously in six weeks, and school has a plethora of interesting activities scheduled in the next couple of months for the community/parents & kids (Fall Festival, international night, museum night . . .). What more do people want?

With the passage of a few more years you may begin realize that while extras and interesting activities are cool, most kids are being being pushed all that hard academically once they hit First Grade. I get it, our kids probably will be fine in the end but shouldn't the school be setting sights much higher? Brent is quite fortunate to have snared an exceptional and enthusiastic music teacher (watch the PBS documentary about Met HS), but art instruction remains lackluster and uninspired at best beyond PS and PK projects. There are lots of engaging enrichment activities after school, including Chess Team, Girls on the Run and Capitol Kicks. I have also heard that Brent is looking at the Odyssey of the Mind program and Spelling Bee.

[Anonymous]

Believe it or not, I hear similar complaints from the parents of gifted kids in independent schools, including "top" ones. The challenge deficit seems endemic in our society, no reason to give up on pushing for challenge.

Parents who crave more challenge need to step up to push to expand academic support, not just for advanced learners at Brent, but all the elementary grade kids, including on the library resources and extra-curricular fronts.

What ever happened to the National Geographic Bee competitions (4th-5th grade) Principal Young was talking about last year?

Parents can share notes on applying to Johns Hopkins CTY, and carpool kids over to St. Stephen and St. Agnes (in Alexandria) to participate. I know that PTAs at some MoCo schools help FARMs kids participate in CTY. They work with schools to identify suitable kids, prep them for the Praxis admissions tests, raise tuition money, and transport kids to the camps. The 3-week camps, which start after 2nd grade, cost around $2,500, with big fee reductions offered for FARMs participants. It would be fun to get more publicity for DCPS' shameful GT programming deficit by doing this at Brent.

[Anonymous]

Sorry I am not a Brent parent but the test scores are remarkably good coming from an East of the park school. They have 50% inboundary, which is a pretty good sign - a lot of the schools west of the park with similar or even better performance cannot claim as high a percentage of neighborhood enrollment. That will be good when as another poster said, you want to do afterschool playdates, help at pickup time, birthdays etc. Diversity is skewed really Caucasian for a DC public school, reflecting the Capitol Hill workforce and probably families coming in from out of boundary attracted by the higher scores.