Forum Index
»
DC Public and Public Charter Schools
Maury Capitol Hill
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
| Can someone start a letter in opposition? What would be the best forum? Change.org doesn’t let you verify identities. |
Anonymous
Almost the whole first hour of the town hall is a presentation of the Advisory Committee's different proposals. Questions/comments can be added in the chat, which they answer here and there, especially about Advisory Committee processes -- most questions/comments about specific proposals are deferred to the small groups. Shortly before the end of the first hour, they open breakout rooms to form smaller groups for people who want to discuss issues relevant to different feeder patterns. We're in the breakout room for Eastern and another school (maybe Dunbar? I forget). Last night they did a combination of answering written questions/comments submitted via Mentimeter online (though I submitted a ton that were never addressed) and calling on participants to speak (using zoom's hand-raising function). Believe you have to register here for the town hall: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_MDl-rIb_RWKy-XREzNmecA#/registration |
Anonymous
Full disclosure, I'm not a Maury or Miner parent. But I have followed this argument closely because I think it's pretty relevant for the future of schools on the Hill. I see the arguments on both sides. But Maury and Miner families are not in the same position so it doesn't make sense to expect the same thing from them. Maury families are fighting to protect something good they have. Which I get. But Miner families are fighting for access to something better than they have, because no, what they have is not good. I don't think Miner families think Maury families are to blame for Miner being bad. But I do think there are some inequities (I know this is apparently a bad word on DCUM these days) in how boundary lines are drawn. Miner is charged with educating a large population of at risk kids and Maury is not. And then Maury has an easier time improving test scores, building in-bound buy-in, and attracting good administration because it's perceived as a school where it's possible to do great things. But because Miner has a lot of low income families and it's harder to boost test scores, it makes in-bound buy in more difficult, and then they become a school where DCPS sticks principals who might not be that good or effective because there isn't great demand to work there because it's such an uphill battle. And then this cluster idea gets proposed (and the Miner families did NOT propose it and were actually the last to know about it) and before Miner families can do or say anything, they are greeted with Maury families angrily expressing outrage about having their school "destroyed" through this combination. I think it's hard not to take that personally even though I doubt a single Miner family expected Maury families to be enthusiastic about the proposal, and most Miner families are probably still out on whether it would actually help them or not. Miner families are in a bind because what can the advocate for? Maury obviously doesn't want to combine so if they advocate for the cluster, they will be accused of wanting to ruin Maury, wanting to "spread around" at risk kids without educating them, refusing to "do the work" and improve Miner themselves. But obviously the work Miner families have done thus far hasn't worked, and now they've got yet another temporary principal. Sure, they can advocate for a better administration and more investment from DCPS. What does that even mean at this point? The truth is that trying to build a school that meets the needs of the zone's many low-income families while also attracting upper-SES inbound families who will be put off by low test scores and a lot of at risk kids is more than most families have the bandwidth for. Add in a large OOB school population who has their own ideas on what is best for the school, and it's a political minefield as well. I expect that most Miner families aren't really even engaging with this conversation, which I think has little to do with actually helping them get what the need, which is a functional school. They probably put more effort into their lottery applications this week than paying attention to this argument. And that's probably the smart choice, to be perfectly honest. |
Anonymous
| Someone on the town hall last night misquoted the poor dilute lady again. She really didn't say anything like what they keep saying she said. |
Anonymous
ugh |
Anonymous
It’s idea so awful that it has to be propped up by telling lies. |
Anonymous
| Love that all the bureaucrats & consultants pushing this are white … |
Anonymous
| DME is now trying to brandish Oyster Adams as a successful cluster, while cautioning that Peabody/Watkins isn't an "apples to apples" comparison because Maury and Miner are physically closer together than Peabody and Watkins. I can't tell if it's dishonest or incompetent. |
Anonymous
Who in their right mind who admit to visiting this website? |
Anonymous
Hope someone asks them if they have any plans to fix the Peabody/Watkins mess. Sounds like they agree that it sucks. |
Anonymous
I think the "dilute" word came initially from a comment in the Maury community meeting (and it was a much different comment than the way it was presented here). That's the use yesterday's speaker referenced (misleadingly). |
Anonymous
It sounds like they attribute the issues entirely to the distance. I think those logistical issues are serious and and a significant factor, but I had thought there were other issues too. |
Anonymous
How is Oyster-Adams structured? |
Anonymous
Oyster-Adams is the actual apples-oranges. It’s a bilingual school with an inherently different constituency, and is basically an ES and MS, not a cluster. It goes PK-3rd and 4th-8th. Totally completely inapposite. |
Anonymous
To be fair, the distance is the worst thing about the Peabody/Watkins cluster. As evidenced by the fact that for years this was ameliorated by a bus between campuses, and the cluster's failure really accelerated when that bus was eliminated because, it was argued, it inequitably preferenced IB families over OOB families who were not provided bus access (though actually this isn't even true because there are city buses that run from across the river to very close to the Watkins campus and OOB parents were welcome to use the bus between campuses in order to limit their drop off to one campus, but whatever). Though a valid objection to saying that this cluster is different would be: if DCPS and the city were willing to kill the one accommodation that made the Peabody/Watkins cluster workable for many families, what chance is there that they won't do the same with the new cluster? It will no doubt have challenges that require support from the city, and they've set the precedent that those challenges will be ignored and that solution will be abandoned. Hard to have faith in the process when this is the example they have set. |