Why Does Van Ness Elementary School Not Have a Boundary

[Anonymous]

Who cares if they're years away as long as the ball is rolling? When the baseball stadium opened, the Navy Yard as we know it was years away. Time moves neighborhoods on, and hope springs eternal when a neighborhood has a high-performing, by-right school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: By the way, contrary to what you may believe, there are not "a lot" of poor kids living in Near SE (Navy Yard). Capper/Carrollsburg has been replaced by Capitol Quarter and nearby high-end condos and apartments, which are out of reach of the working poor and far from optimal for most UMC families with school-aged children. What happens to Greenleaf, Syphax and James Creek now that the HOPE VI program is dead-in-the-water holds the key to the future of Amidon and Jefferson, particularly when the DME cuts the feed to Wilson. Call me pessimistic, but the days when there will be enough high-SES families south of the Eisenhower Freeway to compromise two-thirds of the student bodies at Amidon and Van Ness (about 500 students) are still years away.

Nobody said there were lots of poor kids in Near SE. There are lots of poor kids in the current Amidon boundary, and which portion of that boundary gets sent to Van Ness is the question we're all discussing. DCPS could draw a boundary that keeps all the poor kids at Amidon. A lot of people in Near SE would love that. Some folks in SW would love it too--perhaps because they hope Van Ness will then have OOB seats for their kids, or because Amidon is closer, or because they don't like the VNPG's attitudes, or plenty of other reasons.

I actually don't think SW lacks for non-poor kids. It lacks for non-poor kids who are enrolled in Amidon. In 2010, there were 1,530 kids under age 18 in SW and 471 of them were under age 5, according to http://bit.ly/1ktmkwV (it also shows 758 kids in Navy Yard, with 256 under age 5). Since then, tons more babies and toddlers in the area. There are not nearly that many kids in public housing. If everyone in the neighborhood sent their kid to Amidon, the FARMs rate there would probably be cut at least in half. With that said, there are some low-income families who go to PTA meetings, focus a lot on education, and raise really high-achieving kids. Most of them, like their richer neighbors, are sending their kids to charters, OOB, or private/religious schools (with scholarships and vouchers).

[Anonymous]

Does anyone remember when some in the Amidon community complained about the merger with Bowen and the influx of ill-behaved kids?

[Anonymous]

Question for those who think that poor kids don't benefit from having rich kids in their schools: What, if any, public policy rationale do you see for offering free PS/PK to rich kids?

[Anonymous]

There are plenty of reasons to offer free preschool to non-poor kids, and having them mix with poor kids (to the benefit of both) is only one. Even the richer kids would be learning stuff that can help them academically later on. Also, if the District can get a parent to go back to work when her kid is 3 instead of 5, they get some extra income tax in those years. It doesn't totally make up for the cost of school, but it certainly offsets it--and if it leads to the parent getting onto a higher salary track over the course of a career it could make a real difference.

The biggest factor is probably that free PreK keeps high-earning families in DC. A family that earns $200k a year and lives in a $600k house pays over $10k in income taxes and probably about $4k in property taxes. That more than covers one kid's public schooling; even if they have more than one kid it's kind of a loss leader--rather than moving to the suburbs, these families will spend more money in the District, keep property values high, and make the schools and the neighborhoods look good to other families compared to if they moved to the suburbs. So those families are valuable to DC.

Of course, this supposes DC thought about all this. It's possible they just do it because they want to do it, or because it's too hard to implement a sliding scale.

[Anonymous]

pre K is awesome because it becomes the "gateway" for a lot of high SES parents into an elem school who otherwise would never consider it by K or 1st grade. Everyone is willing to overlook some issues if it means they don't have to pay for another year of child care so they enroll in pre K, realize maybe the school is actually ok, meet other like minded parents. The parents then "band together" and start organizing and stick together for as many years as possible. I see this in a bunch of my friends at schools on the cusp.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How would sending low income AA kids from Amidon to Van Ness serve them better? People keep posting that somehow that will raise their test scores.

If the FARMs rate is below 35% and ideally below 20%, studies have shown the low-income kids will do better. http://www.joannejacobs.com/2010/10/poor-learn-more-in-low-poverty-schools/

The trick is figuring out how to take 2 neighborhoods (SW and Near SE) where there are a lot of kids in poverty and come out with a school that is at least 2/3 not poor. It will take lots of things:

* enrollment by a very high percentage of middle/upper class families in the area
* creating programs that attract richer families from out of bounds (of course those same programs attract *all* families)
* inclusive boundaries--not putting all the poor kids in Amidon and all the rich ones at Van Ness
* building more market-rate housing in SW and Near SE that is attractive to families. Townhouses or 2 and 3 bedroom apartments. Due to inclusionary zoning, there will also be an affordable component to anything that's built. Eventually, if public housing is redeveloped with a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio of market rate to affordable, that would make a difference too. Greater density on the sites and building housing on some of the city-owned sites in the area would allow that to happen without displacement or loss of affordability. But that would take buyin from the mayor, office of planning, DCHA, and lots of others.

Plus, if the VNPG is right, all their teachers will be vetted by the PTA and are guaranteed to be amazing. That can't hurt.

Better start organizing a van ness PTA

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:pre K is awesome because it becomes the "gateway" for a lot of high SES parents into an elem school who otherwise would never consider it by K or 1st grade. Everyone is willing to overlook some issues if it means they don't have to pay for another year of child care so they enroll in pre K, realize maybe the school is actually ok, meet other like minded parents. The parents then "band together" and start organizing and stick together for as many years as possible. I see this in a bunch of my friends at schools on the cusp.

This is the key to making Van Ness Elementary School a great school. Since it will most likely open up with PS3/PK4/K, if neighborhood parents band together and send their kids there, they can be confident that they can keep their kids in Van Ness Elementary until at least 4th grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone remember when some in the Amidon community complained about the merger with Bowen and the influx of ill-behaved kids?

Yup. And when the neighbors in the east part of SW and the Bowen PTA complained about the influx of poor kids to Greenleaf, etc. as they were displaced from the Capper Carolsburg projects and Van Ness ES in SE.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It makes sense for Van Ness Elementary School to have a boundary where South Capitol Street is the boundary to the West, the SE/SW Freeway is the boundary to the north, and the Anacostia River is the boundary to the South and East. There are hardly any kids from the Capitol Riverfront area attending Amidon-Bowen, so it won't hurt the population at Amidon-Bowen at all by giving Van Ness its own boundary. Hopefully this sentiment is being echoed to the DCPS.

I love it when I'm right!

[Anonymous]

Yes, you are right! And DCPS agrees with your classist/racist views. Congrats! Must feel awesome!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It makes sense for Van Ness Elementary School to have a boundary where South Capitol Street is the boundary to the West, the SE/SW Freeway is the boundary to the north, and the Anacostia River is the boundary to the South and East. There are hardly any kids from the Capitol Riverfront area attending Amidon-Bowen, so it won't hurt the population at Amidon-Bowen at all by giving Van Ness its own boundary. Hopefully this sentiment is being echoed to the DCPS.

I love it when I'm right!

This is going to backfire BIG time when there aren't enough kids in the neighborhood to fill the school. Hello, Ward 8!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who cares if they're years away as long as the ball is rolling? When the baseball stadium opened, the Navy Yard as we know it was years away. Time moves neighborhoods on, and hope springs eternal when a neighborhood has a high-performing, by-right school.

Gird yourself for when your hope inevitably turns into bitter disappointment as a result of opportunities lost.

[Anonymous]

Wait 'till they fill it with DC General. Let me know when ya'll schedule high tea.