DME Kicks Off DCPS Boundary Review; Changes Expected for 2015-16 School Year

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The word is that Eaton will be be dropped from the Deal cluster. The political thinking is that it's substantial OOB population won't protest too much if it gets assigned to Hardy. The Cleveland Park parents will squawk (and some are world class activists) but there are fewer of them than the many Lafayette parents who would be energized as mad hornets if their school were dropped from the Deal cluster.

Whose word is that?

The Eaton community will not allow our children's education to be at the mercy of "political thinking". Our children are far more valuable than that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The word is that Eaton will be be dropped from the Deal cluster. The political thinking is that it's substantial OOB population won't protest too much if it gets assigned to Hardy. The Cleveland Park parents will squawk (and some are world class activists) but there are fewer of them than the many Lafayette parents who would be energized as mad hornets if their school were dropped from the Deal cluster.

Whose word is that?

The Eaton community will not allow our children's education to be at the mercy of "political thinking". Our children are far more valuable than that.

Some Ward 3 parents don't view OOB children as having value.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The word is that Eaton will be be dropped from the Deal cluster. The political thinking is that it's substantial OOB population won't protest too much if it gets assigned to Hardy. The Cleveland Park parents will squawk (and some are world class activists) but there are fewer of them than the many Lafayette parents who would be energized as mad hornets if their school were dropped from the Deal cluster.

Whose word is that?

The Eaton community will not allow our children's education to be at the mercy of "political thinking". Our children are far more valuable than that.

There's going to be a chopping block. Whose kids should be on it? Somebody's will.

[Anonymous]

Of course there will be changes but they need to be for consistent reasoning (geography? specific programs? ses balance?) throughout the city. Not because of "political thinking" or which group of parents will complain the loudest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The word is that Eaton will be be dropped from the Deal cluster. The political thinking is that it's substantial OOB population won't protest too much if it gets assigned to Hardy. The Cleveland Park parents will squawk (and some are world class activists) but there are fewer of them than the many Lafayette parents who would be energized as mad hornets if their school were dropped from the Deal cluster.

Whose word is that?

The Eaton community will not allow our children's education to be at the mercy of "political thinking". Our children are far more valuable than that.

There's going to be a chopping block. Whose kids should be on it? Somebody's will.

Indeed. But Eaton, Hearst, and other schools have a stake and may rally, and to imply that only the richest schools matter seems insulting to me. And I'm not in a wotp school.

[Anonymous]

I think everyone will rally and others have a stake as well. Bottomline, some kids will get booted. Whose should? Help us out here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The word is that Eaton will be be dropped from the Deal cluster. The political thinking is that it's substantial OOB population won't protest too much if it gets assigned to Hardy. The Cleveland Park parents will squawk (and some are world class activists) but there are fewer of them than the many Lafayette parents who would be energized as mad hornets if their school were dropped from the Deal cluster.

Whose word is that?

The Eaton community will not allow our children's education to be at the mercy of "political thinking". Our children are far more valuable than that.

There's going to be a chopping block. Whose kids should be on it? Somebody's will.

Indeed. But Eaton, Hearst, and other schools have a stake and may rally, and to imply that only the richest schools matter seems insulting to me. And I'm not in a wotp school.

Hearst is 5 minutes from Deal (the closest behind Janney & Murch,) and has less than 40 kids entering the school at any one time. There would be no reason to drop Hearst from the feeder pattern.

And don't post OOBs percentages. It's irrelevant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The word is that Eaton will be be dropped from the Deal cluster. The political thinking is that it's substantial OOB population won't protest too much if it gets assigned to Hardy. The Cleveland Park parents will squawk (and some are world class activists) but there are fewer of them than the many Lafayette parents who would be energized as mad hornets if their school were dropped from the Deal cluster.

Whose word is that?

The Eaton community will not allow our children's education to be at the mercy of "political thinking". Our children are far more valuable than that.

There's going to be a chopping block. Whose kids should be on it? Somebody's will.

This really is what it boils down to. The naive PP from Eaton may not like it, but political considerations will play into the decision a great deal. I think it will be less political dynamite to shift Eaton to Hardy (still a WotP school, and actually closer to Eaton than is Deal), than to cut off access to Deal for the the few EotP neighborhoods than have it now (Mt. Pleasant, Crestwood). I'm not saying that is the right answer, but it seems to be the less politically problematic one.

And, naive PP - your "children are far more valuable than that" - but other children aren't? Your children are valuable, so they are entitled to go to Deal, but other kids aren't quite as valuable, so they are the ones that should be shifted out? If you want to influence this process at all, you'd better come up with a better approach - that one is just going to piss everyone off.

[Anonymous]

I listened to Dep. Mayor Smith yesterday on Kojo. It did not sound like geography was a particularly important boundary criteria for her (ironic, yes). Diversity, on the other hand, seems to be what the majority of parents are crying out for so that our kids will be able to compete in the 21st Century. Also, Kojo could not get a straight answer about grandfather provision. It sounded like younger siblings could be out of luck though. There was another education expert guest on the show who kept referring to Greek philosophers who advocated for a society where parents did not know the identities of their true children so that all kids would be loved equally. Scary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The boundary issue is interesting. Yet, the more critical issue is that people are clamoring for Deal boundary because of the quality option that it provides for our children. We would not be fighting to get into Deal if the academic and social programming wasn't revamped. Deal is now doing incredibly well and attracting a lot of families because it made this change. I would suggest that if it were not for the overcrowding that has been caused by the success of Deal, we probably would not be even in this discussion of redrawing boundaries because people would have continued the flight out of DC after ES. What is the plan to improve other such schools? We are lacking a comprehensive strategy to turn other schools around.

When Deal was still a "junior high" five years ago, it had a good reputation. The school had some pretty advanced courses courtesy of the PTA like robotics, and a few longtime teachers had been there since the 60s. It may not have been as wildly popular as today however.

My guess is that DC will eventually do away with high school boundaries like other large cities, San Fransisco for example. It is a successful model that has been proven to work, but only if parents are willing to separate the high schools from any notions of "neighborhood identity."

San Francisco has one of the worst urban school systems.

+1. It is a disaster there, regardless of SES. Let's make sure to protect one of the few things that makes DC more attractive than SF and other cities, a rational and pretty well functioning public and charter system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I listened to Dep. Mayor Smith yesterday on Kojo. It did not sound like geography was a particularly important boundary criteria for her (ironic, yes). Diversity, on the other hand, seems to be what the majority of parents are crying out for so that our kids will be able to compete in the 21st Century. Also, Kojo could not get a straight answer about grandfather provision. It sounded like younger siblings could be out of luck though. There was another education expert guest on the show who kept referring to Greek philosophers who advocated for a society where parents did not know the identities of their true children so that all kids would be loved equally. Scary.

OMG, this is hilarious! Can you imagine how that would go over in DC?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Without any knowledge of Milloy, I find the argument pertaining to the "urban pioneers" amusing and, somewhat on-point.

There is a whole lot of "Boring. Boring. Boring. I could never live in upper NW. B-O-R-I-N-G." But then kids come along and all of the sudden we see why forward-looking parents moved to upper NW. So now the chant becomes Unfair. Unfair. Unfair.

What these people don't realize, among countless other things, is that, perhaps, many of the parents in upper NW have a similar outlook to the parents in Bloomy and Petworth and Columbia Heights. Maybe they'd have liked to stay in a more urban setting (may not, to be fair), but they chose to look further down the line than "what's on tap this week" and chose the Boring area for exactly the reasons the urban pioneers are not decreeing Unfair.

Real-estate prices and a desire for a more diverse community were among my reasons for not buying a home in upper NW. I didn't really prioritize "what's on tap this week."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I listened to Dep. Mayor Smith yesterday on Kojo. It did not sound like geography was a particularly important boundary criteria for her (ironic, yes). Diversity, on the other hand, seems to be what the majority of parents are crying out for so that our kids will be able to compete in the 21st Century. Also, Kojo could not get a straight answer about grandfather provision. It sounded like younger siblings could be out of luck though. There was another education expert guest on the show who kept referring to Greek philosophers who advocated for a society where parents did not know the identities of their true children so that all kids would be loved equally. Scary.

That's probably because they haven't figured out the details yet.

[Anonymous]

And what's you child and school status? Are all of your eggs in the charter basket, or are you clamoring for the Upper NW schools to be opened up to your precious?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And what's you child and school status? Are all of your eggs in the charter basket, or are you clamoring for the Upper NW schools to be opened up to your precious?

What the ...? It's a little early to start drinking. Even on a Friday.