Maury Capitol Hill

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Miner meeting was a little interesting. Obviously Miner parents are more open to the idea, though I thought other than three or four very excited parents support seemed a little muted.

DME continues to say Peabody/Watkins is not a perfect comparison, so they’ve cobbled together from examples from other school districts. I take this as a pretty bad sign, that instead of realizing what a stupid plan this is, they are trying to backfill the huge holes in their plan.

The boundary tool shows average driving distance going up to .7 at both schools. Someone asked about how this was calculated—I think clearly trying to determine whether potentially having to commute to two schools was taken into account—but the DME lady declined to answer.

DME lady is all hot on choice sets now, so she brought those up and said she is taking the idea to the Advisory Committee tomorrow.

DME lady stated pretty clearly that this is solely about demographics, not educational outcomes—so presumably they weren’t able to cobble together any compelling evidence there.

A few comments about Maury parents’ reaction, including a Miner dad who invited Maury families to leave the school if they don’t like it. A Miner mom who was clearly sore to have failed to lottery into Maury (and is therefore against at-risk set asides). DME lady said she was sympathetic to the “heartache” Miner parents must have felt at some of the Maury comments. It is ungood to oppose the cluster and doubleplus ungood to say so.

HAHAHAHA. The DME folks are very stupid people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Miner meeting was a little interesting. Obviously Miner parents are more open to the idea, though I thought other than three or four very excited parents support seemed a little muted.

DME continues to say Peabody/Watkins is not a perfect comparison, so they’ve cobbled together from examples from other school districts. I take this as a pretty bad sign, that instead of realizing what a stupid plan this is, they are trying to backfill the huge holes in their plan.

The boundary tool shows average driving distance going up to .7 at both schools. Someone asked about how this was calculated—I think clearly trying to determine whether potentially having to commute to two schools was taken into account—but the DME lady declined to answer.

DME lady is all hot on choice sets now, so she brought those up and said she is taking the idea to the Advisory Committee tomorrow.

DME lady stated pretty clearly that this is solely about demographics, not educational outcomes—so presumably they weren’t able to cobble together any compelling evidence there.

A few comments about Maury parents’ reaction, including a Miner dad who invited Maury families to leave the school if they don’t like it. A Miner mom who was clearly sore to have failed to lottery into Maury (and is therefore against at-risk set asides). DME lady said she was sympathetic to the “heartache” Miner parents must have felt at some of the Maury comments. It is ungood to oppose the cluster and doubleplus ungood to say so.

HAHAHAHA. The DME folks are very stupid people.

WOW! So they have absolutely no plan on how to better support these kids with the merger and it’s just spreading out the demographics more.

No skin in this game since no kids at either school but the Maury crowd is right. It’s going to destroy a decent school and you will be left with 2 weak schools. People are absolutely going to leave.

My takeaway from this then is get out of DCPS because idiots are running the sh*tshow.

[Anonymous]

Don’t have kids at either school, but agree that this whole process is making me lose faith that DCPS knows what they are doing. It’s concerning as a taxpayer to see this level of poor planning and poor community consultation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Miner meeting was a little interesting. Obviously Miner parents are more open to the idea, though I thought other than three or four very excited parents support seemed a little muted.

DME continues to say Peabody/Watkins is not a perfect comparison, so they’ve cobbled together from examples from other school districts. I take this as a pretty bad sign, that instead of realizing what a stupid plan this is, they are trying to backfill the huge holes in their plan.

The boundary tool shows average driving distance going up to .7 at both schools. Someone asked about how this was calculated—I think clearly trying to determine whether potentially having to commute to two schools was taken into account—but the DME lady declined to answer.

DME lady is all hot on choice sets now, so she brought those up and said she is taking the idea to the Advisory Committee tomorrow.

DME lady stated pretty clearly that this is solely about demographics, not educational outcomes—so presumably they weren’t able to cobble together any compelling evidence there.

A few comments about Maury parents’ reaction, including a Miner dad who invited Maury families to leave the school if they don’t like it. A Miner mom who was clearly sore to have failed to lottery into Maury (and is therefore against at-risk set asides). DME lady said she was sympathetic to the “heartache” Miner parents must have felt at some of the Maury comments. It is ungood to oppose the cluster and doubleplus ungood to say so.

HAHAHAHA. The DME folks are very stupid people.

WOW! So they have absolutely no plan on how to better support these kids with the merger and it’s just spreading out the demographics more.

No skin in this game since no kids at either school but the Maury crowd is right. It’s going to destroy a decent school and you will be left with 2 weak schools. People are absolutely going to leave.

My takeaway from this then is get out of DCPS because idiots are running the sh*tshow.

I don’t know if they’re stupid. I think they just don’t care. They’re true believers. She’s on a mission to mush together a top 10 majority white school with a bottom 10 majority black school, logistics and educational outcomes be damned!

Also, Miner is 80% black and 13% white. Only white people from Miner spoke tonight. Doesn’t seem particularly representative of the community at large…..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Miner meeting was a little interesting. Obviously Miner parents are more open to the idea, though I thought other than three or four very excited parents support seemed a little muted.

DME continues to say Peabody/Watkins is not a perfect comparison, so they’ve cobbled together from examples from other school districts. I take this as a pretty bad sign, that instead of realizing what a stupid plan this is, they are trying to backfill the huge holes in their plan.

The boundary tool shows average driving distance going up to .7 at both schools. Someone asked about how this was calculated—I think clearly trying to determine whether potentially having to commute to two schools was taken into account—but the DME lady declined to answer.

DME lady is all hot on choice sets now, so she brought those up and said she is taking the idea to the Advisory Committee tomorrow.

DME lady stated pretty clearly that this is solely about demographics, not educational outcomes—so presumably they weren’t able to cobble together any compelling evidence there.

A few comments about Maury parents’ reaction, including a Miner dad who invited Maury families to leave the school if they don’t like it. A Miner mom who was clearly sore to have failed to lottery into Maury (and is therefore against at-risk set asides). DME lady said she was sympathetic to the “heartache” Miner parents must have felt at some of the Maury comments. It is ungood to oppose the cluster and doubleplus ungood to say so.

NP. No kids at Maury or Miner. No skin this game. But holy hell DME seems incompetent. I realize this is Bowser and her appointees, but if Mendelson had kids or any clue about education he'd be calling a hearing Jan 3 and requiring DME to appear to answer questions. If this is really nothing more than spreading demographics without an actual plan this may be as dire to Maury as many first feared.

[Anonymous]

I don’t know if they’re stupid. I think they just don’t care. They’re true believers. She’s on a mission to mush together a top 10 majority white school with a bottom 10 majority black school, logistics and educational outcomes be damned!

Also, Miner is 80% black and 13% white. Only white people from Miner spoke tonight. Doesn’t seem particularly representative of the community at large…..

In the grand scheme of DCPS, is Miner really bottom 10%? I remember seeing one study where they were talking about schools that had like 3% of students at or above grade level. Miner is around 17%? It's sad because I agree that Miner's scores are not as good as we'd all like, but I don't know that Miner is anywhere near the bottom (as further evidenced by the fact that it has a pretty high out of boundary participation rate).

Moreover, it does seem really important to hear from parents of at risk kids about this. I know that's a difficult thing to achieve in community meetings, since those parents are likely to be overburdened as it is, etc. But what do these families want? Would they be excited about their kids being in a more socio-economically diverse community, or does that raise its own concerns? Would the additional commute times to Maury be an even bigger issue for these families? Would they rather have the cluster or the option to attend via lottery spots?

[Anonymous]

I also do not have kids at Maury or Miner but as a Hill resident I am disturbed that DCPS’s response to a solid Hill school getting up and running is to dismantle it. What’s the point in even trying to make your IB better?

[Anonymous]

The materials from the Miner meeting are up. This presentation was the first time I have heard them cite North Carolina's Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district's pairing of two elementary schools in 2018 as a recent paired school effort by which we can be guided.

I am personally very eager to learn more about why DME thinks this example should be considered at all supportive of pairing Maury and Miner. According to a news article, "[i]n their final year as separate schools, Cotswold and Billingsville had a total of just over 1,100 students. Their first combined year, that dropped to about 950 . . . ." According to the school district's data from last year, 2022 enrollment got down to 687.

Before the pairing, district data gave Billingsville a school performance score of 49 (a "D"), while Cotswold had a school performance score of 71 (a "B"). In the 2022-23 school year, the schools got a school performance score of (drum roll, please) 59 (a "C").

The district also helpfully provides performance scores broken down by certain demographic subgroups. At the lower school (K-2), the subgroup performance scores of black students, hispanic students, and economically disadvantaged students were all down in 2022-2023 compared to 2017-2018 (the last year before the pairing). (There was insufficient data to report performance scores for American Indian students, Asian students, and students of two or more races in either year, and there was insufficient data to report performance scores for white students before the pairing.).

At the upper school (3-5), the subgroup performance scores for black students, hispanic students, white students, economically disadvantaged students, and English-learner students were ALL down in 2022-2023 compared to 2017-2018. There was insufficient data to report scores for Asian students in the most recent year (though it was reportable before the pairing).

Finally, Charlotte voters approved $2.5 billion bond referendum last month to fund 30 Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools projects -- including the construction of a new building on the upper school site that will house all of the paired school students on a single campus. (Earlier this month, the district announced that this will be one of the first eight projects to move forward).

I am dying to know what part of this example DME thinks lends support to its Maury/Miner proposal.

[Anonymous]

If this is just demographics, why not start at the root and make the neighborhood more appealing to other demographics. Instead, H St is in decline and people are sick of getting carjacked and wanting to leave the Hill.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If this is just demographics, why not start at the root and make the neighborhood more appealing to other demographics. Instead, H St is in decline and people are sick of getting carjacked and wanting to leave the Hill.

People are definitely not going to want to stay if they destroy Maury. It’s like the city is actively trying to go back to the 90s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The materials from the Miner meeting are up. This presentation was the first time I have heard them cite North Carolina's Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district's pairing of two elementary schools in 2018 as a recent paired school effort by which we can be guided.

I am personally very eager to learn more about why DME thinks this example should be considered at all supportive of pairing Maury and Miner. According to a news article, "[i]n their final year as separate schools, Cotswold and Billingsville had a total of just over 1,100 students. Their first combined year, that dropped to about 950 . . . ." According to the school district's data from last year, 2022 enrollment got down to 687.

Before the pairing, district data gave Billingsville a school performance score of 49 (a "D"), while Cotswold had a school performance score of 71 (a "B"). In the 2022-23 school year, the schools got a school performance score of (drum roll, please) 59 (a "C").

The district also helpfully provides performance scores broken down by certain demographic subgroups. At the lower school (K-2), the subgroup performance scores of black students, hispanic students, and economically disadvantaged students were all down in 2022-2023 compared to 2017-2018 (the last year before the pairing). (There was insufficient data to report performance scores for American Indian students, Asian students, and students of two or more races in either year, and there was insufficient data to report performance scores for white students before the pairing.).

At the upper school (3-5), the subgroup performance scores for black students, hispanic students, white students, economically disadvantaged students, and English-learner students were ALL down in 2022-2023 compared to 2017-2018. There was insufficient data to report scores for Asian students in the most recent year (though it was reportable before the pairing).

Finally, Charlotte voters approved $2.5 billion bond referendum last month to fund 30 Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools projects -- including the construction of a new building on the upper school site that will house all of the paired school students on a single campus. (Earlier this month, the district announced that this will be one of the first eight projects to move forward).

I am dying to know what part of this example DME thinks lends support to its Maury/Miner proposal.

Wow! This just keeps getting better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If this is just demographics, why not start at the root and make the neighborhood more appealing to other demographics. Instead, H St is in decline and people are sick of getting carjacked and wanting to leave the Hill.

People are definitely not going to want to stay if they destroy Maury. It’s like the city is actively trying to go back to the 90s.

This is why I despise those who try to guilt neighbors for going to charters or OOB instead of “helping build the up and coming neighborhood school.”

If it goes does improve, DCPS will go out of their way to dismantle it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The materials from the Miner meeting are up. This presentation was the first time I have heard them cite North Carolina's Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district's pairing of two elementary schools in 2018 as a recent paired school effort by which we can be guided.

I am personally very eager to learn more about why DME thinks this example should be considered at all supportive of pairing Maury and Miner. According to a news article, "[i]n their final year as separate schools, Cotswold and Billingsville had a total of just over 1,100 students. Their first combined year, that dropped to about 950 . . . ." According to the school district's data from last year, 2022 enrollment got down to 687.

Before the pairing, district data gave Billingsville a school performance score of 49 (a "D"), while Cotswold had a school performance score of 71 (a "B"). In the 2022-23 school year, the schools got a school performance score of (drum roll, please) 59 (a "C").

The district also helpfully provides performance scores broken down by certain demographic subgroups. At the lower school (K-2), the subgroup performance scores of black students, hispanic students, and economically disadvantaged students were all down in 2022-2023 compared to 2017-2018 (the last year before the pairing). (There was insufficient data to report performance scores for American Indian students, Asian students, and students of two or more races in either year, and there was insufficient data to report performance scores for white students before the pairing.).

At the upper school (3-5), the subgroup performance scores for black students, hispanic students, white students, economically disadvantaged students, and English-learner students were ALL down in 2022-2023 compared to 2017-2018. There was insufficient data to report scores for Asian students in the most recent year (though it was reportable before the pairing).

Finally, Charlotte voters approved $2.5 billion bond referendum last month to fund 30 Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools projects -- including the construction of a new building on the upper school site that will house all of the paired school students on a single campus. (Earlier this month, the district announced that this will be one of the first eight projects to move forward).

I am dying to know what part of this example DME thinks lends support to its Maury/Miner proposal.

wow. that’s sobering. are those stats only by one variable, or can you look at race + economics?

institutional disruption as a way to solve inequality is just a terrible idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If this is just demographics, why not start at the root and make the neighborhood more appealing to other demographics. Instead, H St is in decline and people are sick of getting carjacked and wanting to leave the Hill.

It’s not just that. They could make Miner more appealing and increase high SES enrollment steadily, just like Payne.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If this is just demographics, why not start at the root and make the neighborhood more appealing to other demographics. Instead, H St is in decline and people are sick of getting carjacked and wanting to leave the Hill.

It’s not just that. They could make Miner more appealing and increase high SES enrollment steadily, just like Payne.

They have the IB demographics for it. They are just not pulling them in because the school has been such a shitshow for the past 10 years.