Boundary review can’t come soon enough

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s the benefit of living where I live in Ward 4. You treat your nice schools in Ward 3 like property and never expect that to change. Nice when the asymmetry always changes to better favor the privileged. Now I see why some on the Council are proposing language immersion schools for each Ward. Because it’s more equitable than citywide schools that become a power grab for people who want access who already have, not a way for have nots to get better access.

Placing an immersion school in every ward, and not making them open to all students won't be more equitable.

Making those immersion schools open to anyone via the lottery, and not just to those who happen to live in the boundary zone for them, is the more equitable solution.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s the benefit of living where I live in Ward 4. You treat your nice schools in Ward 3 like property and never expect that to change. Nice when the asymmetry always changes to better favor the privileged. Now I see why some on the Council are proposing language immersion schools for each Ward. Because it’s more equitable than citywide schools that become a power grab for people who want access who already have, not a way for have nots to get better access.

Placing an immersion school in every ward, and not making them open to all students won't be more equitable.

Making those immersion schools open to anyone via the lottery, and not just to those who happen to live in the boundary zone for them, is the more equitable solution.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If a specialty program near my house is open to anyone by lottery without boundaries will the JKLMs too? Ward 1 and 4 have them due to their Hispanic ELL populations they are serving.

Why would they? DCPS could rezone neighborhood schools and take the immersion schools out of it. Those are lottery only. This is how it works in other places.

+1 I don’t get the comparison. JKLM schools don’t offer specialized programs. It’s not an apples to apples comparison.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s the benefit of living where I live in Ward 4. You treat your nice schools in Ward 3 like property and never expect that to change. Nice when the asymmetry always changes to better favor the privileged. Now I see why some on the Council are proposing language immersion schools for each Ward. Because it’s more equitable than citywide schools that become a power grab for people who want access who already have, not a way for have nots to get better access.

Placing an immersion school in every ward, and not making them open to all students won't be more equitable.

Making those immersion schools open to anyone via the lottery, and not just to those who happen to live in the boundary zone for them, is the more equitable solution.

+1

It’s more equitable if ELL have trumping preferred access.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s the benefit of living where I live in Ward 4. You treat your nice schools in Ward 3 like property and never expect that to change. Nice when the asymmetry always changes to better favor the privileged. Now I see why some on the Council are proposing language immersion schools for each Ward. Because it’s more equitable than citywide schools that become a power grab for people who want access who already have, not a way for have nots to get better access.

Placing an immersion school in every ward, and not making them open to all students won't be more equitable.

Making those immersion schools open to anyone via the lottery, and not just to those who happen to live in the boundary zone for them, is the more equitable solution.

+1

It’s more equitable if ELL have trumping preferred access.

What kind of ELL? Beyond Spanish, DCPS has significant numbers of students whose native languages are Amharic, French, Chinese, and Vietnamese. https://dcps.dc.gov/service/supports-english-learners-els

[Anonymous]

Yes they are real but your “significant numbers” aren’t. ELL for the target language, Spanish, is what I’m talking about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes they are real but your “significant numbers” aren’t. ELL for the target language, Spanish, is what I’m talking about.

20% of students in DCPS are Latino. I'm fine with them getting a preference for half the seats in any immersion school as determined by the city-wide lottery. And I think the non-target language seats should be similarly determined by the city-wide lottery -- not by one's address.

[Anonymous]

But why wouldn’t we do lottery for good schools that are now neighborhood schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But why wouldn’t we do lottery for good schools that are now neighborhood schools?

Because the only thing that makes them " good" is that kids from the neighborhood fill the seats.

Kick the neighborhood kids out and you would have just another school filled with kids performing below grade level.

Dont we have enough of those?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But why wouldn’t we do lottery for good schools that are now neighborhood schools?

Because the only thing that makes them " good" is that kids from the neighborhood fill the seats.

Kick the neighborhood kids out and you would have just another school filled with kids performing below grade level.

Dont we have enough of those?

There would need to be new neighborhood schools - around Oyster for example, or redrawn boundaries.

But access to Spanish dual language or immersions programs shouldn’t only be determined by one’s address. Or if they are, the programs’ location should be re-determined every ten years or so to make sure they are capturing IB native Spanish speakers.

[Anonymous]

you keep circling back to saying YOU get to keep Janney AND get access to my dual language school, which is the only good part of a neighborhood school with no students on grade level. Fix that equitably and you're getting somewhere. Otherwise you're just taking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:you keep circling back to saying YOU get to keep Janney AND get access to my dual language school, which is the only good part of a neighborhood school with no students on grade level. Fix that equitably and you're getting somewhere. Otherwise you're just taking.

I'm the person you are responding to. I do not have access to Janney -- and the only dual-language school in my ward is Powell, which I am not IB for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But why wouldn’t we do lottery for good schools that are now neighborhood schools?

Seriously, what do you think accounts for “good” schools being good?! Are you so envious of Janney access if it is filled with a random selection of students from across DC? Is the building magic?

[Anonymous]

I didn't mean that I know you have Janney. It's that we have to make sure the access to these programs, if expanded, isn't unilaterally in favor of the kind of people who comment on DCUM, with nothing given the other direction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. By the time of the boundary review it will be clear that all of the WITP schools are full. That will be a key fact.

We get to make choices about that. Fundamentally I see three choices, maybe four.

First, we can decide to go along with the residential segregation and transportation patterns and say they’re full and out-of-boundary students are basically excluded. Sounds bad, but it might have the most impact for neighborhoods from which students travel west for elementary and feed upward in terms of keeping their best students in those schools.

Second, we could keep everything the same and start construction WOTP to meet demand. Build out bigger elementary schools, build more middle and high schools.

Third, we could make a rule that reserves some spots in each of these schools for OOB students. Maybe based on at-risk status and maybe not. Would have good effects but could create stigma. Could exclude or include people who don’t need access to schools like this.

Fourth, we could equalize further by establishing a lottery not tied to residence of applicant, i.e., no inboundary preference. I see this as the best choice functionally but politically unachievable. This forum’s reaction to that choice is always that every person with a better than 9th grade education and a tent will move to some suburb and leave DC to the zombies if that’s even mentioned and while that’s handwringing bullshit it’s politically reflective of something for sure. That’s why I only say it’s 3 choices really.

Other choices like choice grouped pyramids were run up the flagpole and failed during the last go round. I doubt we’re more likely to turn those choices into reality than last time.

What do you all think?

I think the reason #4 is politically unfeasible is because I don’t want to drive across town (potentially) to drop my kids off a school (possibly two different schools) and then drive across town again to get to work. This could be 90+ minutes. This is why I want neighborhood schools.

+1
We don't even own a car. We chose a neighborhood school for several reasons, one of which is convenience (for both daily dropoff and pickup and for BTSN and other special events)/commute. A school that is not conveniently located is substantially less attractive. There is also value in living close to classmates, in terms of ease of playdates, sense of community, etc. Even when kids are old enough to get themselves to school, a school being farther away makes it less appealing, period.