ludlow-taylor

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My money is on SWS getting dumped at Amidon after they close it next year. Solves the SWS problem for DCPS, solves the IB school issue for the waterfront (sort of, but that's about what one expects from DCPS) and they don't have to reopen Van Ness, which they continue to fight tooth and nail. I bet we see a list of planned closures around October and Amidon will be high on the list.

Tommy Wells has floated this idea before.

And it went nowhere. He quickly backed off saying it would never happen.

[Anonymous]

Sws is not going anywhere that it won't BE the entire school, bringing along its own principal and its own teachers. This is why Van Ness is the most logical and practical ( although city officials don't necessarily use those standards ) place to put SWS permanently. It would start from scratch with an enthusiastic and welcoming inboundary population AND a largely intact student body and patent group to start off strong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Well everyone gets that. But if it was going to be SWS then it would have been SWS don't you think?

Not really. By adding a grade per year SWS gets to grow organically and show that it can build a specialized curriculum in ES beyod K and succeed with it. The two year window allows it reach a halfway point of being a full early childhood and ES (PS-5th). The Annex can be configured for more space if it's required for a 2nd year., but if the moves takes two years then by SY14-15 SWS will go up to 3rd grade in a new location.

There's absolutely no chance of SWS moving to Amidon for the same reason the CQ families are rejecting it.

[Anonymous]

Amidon leaves a lot to be desired, and in the near-term middle class families will leery about the school improving. Agreed. Not trying to sell or boosterize Amidon. But . . .longer-term Near Southeast and Southwest are where the smart money is being put. There is more development, more (affluent) population growth, and more services coming there than any part of the city. It looks like DC United is moving to Buzzard Point and building a stadium in the neighborhood with an entertainment district surrounding it (the city may pony up infrastructure $). Several large upscale residential buildings are in various stages of development right now, with more planned. The housing stock near South Capitol Street is rapidly gentrifying and housing prices are up with the neighborhood real estate market strong. The neighborhood is within a mile of the National Mall. Again, not saying Amidon is going to be a rock star school in a couple of years (there's a lot of public housing with its attendant issues), but Amidon could emerge in perhaps five years.

Specifically, Amidon Bowen has this going on:

Amidon-Bowen Elementary School has received $260,000 for the 2012-2013 Academic School year from the Proving What's Possible (PWP) grant fund administered by DCPS.

In the past year, Amidon-Bowen has received a number of other grants and funding for projects.
$5 Million for Phase I interior renovation (in progress)
$750,000 from Target Foundation for Literacy Improvement (SY 2012-2014)
$260,000 from DCPS for PWP grant (2012-2013)
$200,000(est)from Target for School Library renovation (completed)
$150,000 from DPR to remove the adult basketball courts at Amidon and replace at Lansburgh Park (by Sept. 30, 2012).
$20,000-$50,000 (promised) from Mandarin Oriental for in-classroom reading libraries with age appropriate books and materials.
$10,000 (est) for landscaping and painting of playground from Generation Hope Project
$500,000 from the City Council for playground renovation this summer

[Anonymous]

It's going to take a lot to turn around Amidon, and will have more to do with what happens long-term with the housing complexes in sw (which is anybody's guess). I've lived a block away from it for almost 10 years, and while their are lots of new babies and toddlers popping up in the neighborhood, all of the older children who still live in the neighborhood (outside of the housing complexes, which are what entirely feed amidon) have done oob lottery to capitol hill or georgetown.

While I don't disagree with you about the changing demographics and growth that is happening to both the navy yard area and sw, the housing stock being generated isn't that great for families, and if you can afford one of the larger townhomes in the area (which aren't many), than you can probably also afford to move to an area with much better school options. The few active parents that are in the neighborhood have not organized to make any forseeable change to amidon happen in the near future, and seem to care more about trying to create a new playground than the school. Amidon might have had a chance if they didn't send all the Bowen school kids their as well when they closed that school as it made the social economics of Amidon even worse than it already was, and no amount of money will fix that.

[Anonymous]

I would love if LT was closed and SWS opened in its place. The upper grades are entirely OOB and could be given options to transfer to other OOB schools. The lower grades could be given the option to transfer to SWS or other schools. Sounds like a great solution to me!

[Anonymous]

I'll throw something into the mix regarding a permanent space for SWS. Prospect Learning Center on the 900 block of F St., NE currently has 86 students. Yes those are 86 students with special needs and probably very small class sizes, but I'd think that those 86 students could be redistributed somewhere (LT is not full with its 226 students), and SWS could remain on CH, very close to its current location. I also thought I read somewhere that the Prospect principal was one that was not getting her contract renewed for next school year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would love if LT was closed and SWS opened in its place. The upper grades are entirely OOB and could be given options to transfer to other OOB schools. The lower grades could be given the option to transfer to SWS or other schools. Sounds like a great solution to me!

I, too, would love it, but no chance. The upper LT grades aren't in fact entirely OOB, they're simply almost entirely black and low-income in a district that's more than half white. No shortage of "IB" kids in the upper grades who're PG County address cheaters, or simply low to moderate-income kids whose families have hung on in the face of rising rents and gentrification, often by moving in with elderly relatives with homes in the school district. I don't know of a precedent for DCPS demanding that kids, IB or OOB, to leave a Hill ES, before they age out.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, that's a bit of an ugly solution, pp.

[Anonymous]

^^
There's a lot of that going on in these posts. I say let out there so we know with whom we are dealing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, the summer before last.

[Anonymous]

You can find the scores broken down by race, gender, and disability in the school report card available on the DCPS website

Perhaps the fact that white and middle class students seem to be performing better is an indicator that DCPS needs to address the challenges that students in lower socio-economic groups are facing. Perhaps DCPS can also look at factors affecting the achievement gap due to race.

I would love to hear thoughts on how to better the system vice discussing what races do better. All of our students deserve a excellent education. The observations about students by race goes to show that we, as District residents, are not demanding enough from the school system. And if you truly believe the test scores are reflective of academic ability - you are obviously not a teacher.

[Anonymous]

The Triple Crown of school choices.

[Anonymous]

Do LT kids actually go to SH, or do they scatter to the wind?

[Anonymous]

heard at a cluster meeting that LT students go to Ron Browne, not SH