Jefferson Academy Kool-Aid

[Anonymous]

I posted about those private schools simply to point out there are several private options with a PPs required 45 ratio.

Their list keeps evolving tho - must be a magnet/test in, high performing, IB, science, advanced math and not require more than a 45 min commute.

No wonder DCPS is throwing up its hands. No pleasing these folks.

[Anonymous]

The obvious problem is that our near neighbors across the Metro area burbs have these very options, and many others. So you move five miles and get most of it. DCPS need not throw up its hands; it could deliver instead to appease voters. The city is doing well and the system has the dough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The obvious problem is that our near neighbors across the Metro area burbs have these very options, and many others. So you move five miles and get most of it. DCPS need not throw up its hands; it could deliver instead to appease voters. The city is doing well and the system has the dough.

Our neighbors in the suburbs are significantly larger with less poverty. Class sizes 25-29 in elementary school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I posted about those private schools simply to point out there are several private options with a PPs required 45 ratio.
Their list keeps evolving tho - must be a magnet/test in, high performing, IB, science, advanced math and not require more than a 45 min commute.
No wonder DCPS is throwing up its hands. No pleasing these folks.

How about we make one middle school for all of the Hill and have advanced classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I posted about those private schools simply to point out there are several private options with a PPs required 45 ratio.
Their list keeps evolving tho - must be a magnet/test in, high performing, IB, science, advanced math and not require more than a 45 min commute.
No wonder DCPS is throwing up its hands. No pleasing these folks.

How about we make one middle school for all of the Hill and have advanced classes.

One middle school for all of the Hill would be the best way to stop the infighting among all the various elementary schools. Then the entire group could go to shiny Eastern.

[Anonymous]

Do any of you saying Jefferson is a viable option for Brent families know where it actually is relative to where people live. It's on the opposite side of the interstate. In another quadrant of the city. Across South Capitol. With no direct bus. And a walk that will soon be across an open trench with freight trains running through it. Totally a neighborhood school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do any of you saying Jefferson is a viable option for Brent families know where it actually is relative to where people live. It's on the opposite side of the interstate. In another quadrant of the city. Across South Capitol. With no direct bus. And a walk that will soon be across an open trench with freight trains running through it. Totally a neighborhood school.

ˆˆˆ^Fair enough. I had the same thought, yet......when we got a spot at Latin ( 5 miles away ) I tossed my kids on the awful Latin bus and/or scary Metro to get there. Parents will do/go anywhere for quality schooling

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not set up a comprehensive middle school on Capitol Hill spread out on two campuses? 6th grade at Stuart-Hobson and 7th and 8th grade at Elliott-Hine. Feeders would be JO Wilson, LT, Watkins, Brent, Maury, Tyler, SWS, Payne, Miner, Van Ness, and Amidon-Bowen. There could be a Spanish immersion track to support students from Tyler Bilingual as well as Hill families from LAMB and Mundo Verde looking for a neighborhood school for the MS years. Turn Jefferson into a test-in STEM MS.

Great question for Henderson, Grosso and Allen.

This idea has merit. Seriously. Something a politician can ( and should ) get behind. And it could be done in the spirit of "uniting ward 6 on the road to Eastern". It would eliminate these funding and feeder squabbles and create incentives for everyone to work together and share resources-- The school would be the size of Deal and have the per-pupiil funding to run robust programs in academics, remediation, sports, arts and drama. I feel like if we can get our neighborhood together in a middle school, amazing things could happen.

I agree that this is the first proposal I have read on one of these threads about the Hill middle school situation that didn't just make me feel more hopeless because it was so obviously not a workable solution. It is a good idea.

I'm IB for SH and I would support this idea. There are many great families on the Hill and this would be a way to get them all together and have a one hugely strong cohort.

Somebody start a coalition to get this idea out in the public for a discussion. Maybe CHPSPO would champion the idea. Capitol Hill Public School Parents Organization seems a good umbrella for a united Hill where all the elementary schools pull in the same direction for middle and high school and share the wealth of fundraising somewhat evenly among schools. It makes sense for so many reasons

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do any of you saying Jefferson is a viable option for Brent families know where it actually is relative to where people live. It's on the opposite side of the interstate. In another quadrant of the city. Across South Capitol. With no direct bus. And a walk that will soon be across an open trench with freight trains running through it. Totally a neighborhood school.

ˆˆˆ^Fair enough. I had the same thought, yet......when we got a spot at Latin ( 5 miles away ) I tossed my kids on the awful Latin bus and/or scary Metro to get there. Parents will do/go anywhere for quality schooling

While it may feel far because it's not the usual direction those that live on the Hill may normally travel, Jefferson really isn't all that far. Sports on the Hill soccer teams practice there all the time (such as girls u-11 tonight).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do any of you saying Jefferson is a viable option for Brent families know where it actually is relative to where people live. It's on the opposite side of the interstate. In another quadrant of the city. Across South Capitol. With no direct bus. And a walk that will soon be across an open trench with freight trains running through it. Totally a neighborhood school.

ˆˆˆ^Fair enough. I had the same thought, yet......when we got a spot at Latin ( 5 miles away ) I tossed my kids on the awful Latin bus and/or scary Metro to get there. Parents will do/go anywhere for quality schooling

While it may feel far because it's not the usual direction those that live on the Hill may normally travel, Jefferson really isn't all that far. Sports on the Hill soccer teams practice there all the time (such as girls u-11 tonight).

It actually IS that far if you're doing it every day, during rush hour.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do any of you saying Jefferson is a viable option for Brent families know where it actually is relative to where people live. It's on the opposite side of the interstate. In another quadrant of the city. Across South Capitol. With no direct bus. And a walk that will soon be across an open trench with freight trains running through it. Totally a neighborhood school.

ˆˆˆ^Fair enough. I had the same thought, yet......when we got a spot at Latin ( 5 miles away ) I tossed my kids on the awful Latin bus and/or scary Metro to get there. Parents will do/go anywhere for quality schooling

While it may feel far because it's not the usual direction those that live on the Hill may normally travel, Jefferson really isn't all that far. Sports on the Hill soccer teams practice there all the time (such as girls u-11 tonight).

It actually IS that far if you're doing it every day, during rush hour.

Eliot Hine feels farther because although it's about the same distance, you end up in far hill East instead of the more central Southwest. I don't expect my neighborhood middle school to be very close. It would feel more like a neighborhood school if the kids who are my neighbors attended.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do any of you saying Jefferson is a viable option for Brent families know where it actually is relative to where people live. It's on the opposite side of the interstate. In another quadrant of the city. Across South Capitol. With no direct bus. And a walk that will soon be across an open trench with freight trains running through it. Totally a neighborhood school.

ˆˆˆ^Fair enough. I had the same thought, yet......when we got a spot at Latin ( 5 miles away ) I tossed my kids on the awful Latin bus and/or scary Metro to get there. Parents will do/go anywhere for quality schooling

While it may feel far because it's not the usual direction those that live on the Hill may normally travel, Jefferson really isn't all that far. Sports on the Hill soccer teams practice there all the time (such as girls u-11 tonight).

It actually IS that far if you're doing it every day, during rush hour.

You have lost your perspective. Get on the Metro at Eastern Market (three colored lines, three stops, free both ways), hop off L'Enfant Plaza, walk one and a half blocks and voila. My son does this on a regular basis. Easy and fast.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Home schooling co-op.

I totally agree. Middle school sucked ass. All I learned was that I was a goober. That is literally all I remember learning. High school was much much better socially and, not coincidentally, I learned shit too.

[Anonymous]

I got to the open house at Jefferson last night. The school didn't look as bad as I expected, but I'm still having trouble picturing any of the Brent families taking the plunge - there just aren't enough of us. Anybody else who was there want to offer impressions?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I got to the open house at Jefferson last night. The school didn't look as bad as I expected, but I'm still having trouble picturing any of the Brent families taking the plunge - there just aren't enough of us. Anybody else who was there want to offer impressions?

Thank you for at least taking a look. It gets tiresome reading about folks who think their every whim should be handed to them on a silver platter.

Jefferson might not be the solution in the end, but at least talk to them before outright dismissing it.