Maury Capitol Hill

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Doesn't the Peabody/Watkins cluster actually prove that pairing the schools is not a viable solution to the identified problem? I can't find socioeconomic data, but looking at the racial demographic data on My School DC, Peabody's demographics are very similar to Maury's, and very different from Watkins'. And I believe Peabody and Watkins started closer together than Maury and Miner would.

Maybe they're hoping that people will be okay with Miner for pre-K and the Maury name will keep people in for the upper grades. But again, my understanding of when the cluster began is that Watkins was considered a pretty desirable school.

The Peabody/Watkins cluster historically had many, many issues that caused all kinds of problems (many based on historical racism), and so it's hard to extrapolate a lot from that particular cluster because of that. I'd say the most relevant problem today is the lack of bus transportation between the 2 buildings. When there were buses, many families did actually go through Peabody and then through Watkins; I know because I was one of those families. Many did peel off, but again, that was largely due to all the other problems that already existed within the Cluster for decades.

The need for busses is caused by the cluster!!! It is moronic to argue that the cluster is not a failed experiment and instead pin the blame on an externality caused by the cluster. You must work for DCPS.

Part of the reason people felt like they need those buses was because the schools in the cluster school are significantly further apart and the boundary is very long and skinny. If this Maury Miner cluster happened, those schools are only three blocks apart so parents could easily drop kids off at both locations during the 8: 15 to 845 drop off window. Also parking by Peabody to do drop off his horrible which also was an incentive for the bus,

I don't know what the Miner schedule is, but drop off at Maury is between 8:30 and 8:40 for kids not eating breakfast. And the three blocks translates to an extra 20 minutes (conservatively) for me, which would be another 40 minutes a day. I get that it's closer than Peabody/Watkins (and it is absolutely outrageous that DCPS doesn't offer transportation there), but it would be a pretty huge inconvenience nevertheless.

Interesting, can kids not play on the playground if they are not eating breakfast? I do imagine that if this actually happened they would make drop off schedules that would accommodate both schools/parents.

LOL nope.

NP. Why nope? It seems like there would be lots of ways to do drop off and pick up to accommodate parents at both schools, given their proximity. Especially because of the age split between campuses. A staggered drop off schedule with greater flexibility for the upper school campus, where you can have higher child to teacher ratios (and thus have a larger group of kids on the playground or in the cafeteria with fewer minders until school starts). Also for families that live nearby, by 4th grade your kids can be walking on their own.

As for the time, I personally wouldn't mind that extra walk, but lots of families get cargo bikes for this reason. I know a bunch of families with kids in daycare and and elementary schools that are a lot further apart than Maury and Miner, do it by cargo bike, and can throw in a couple errands and still make their commute to work or make it back home in a reasonable length of time.

I don't know if the cluster makes sense or not -- I would have to think more critically about whether combining those two school populations would really result in a "rising tide lifts all boats" situation, or just result in shedding UMC families altogether in a way that undermines Maury's success. I am not sure, though I understand why they are looking for ways to help the school population at Miner, because it has a very decent ECE program but dismal test scores in 3-5, and clearly loses most of its high-resource kids by 2nd or 3rd, which makes it a lot harder because when every kid is high-risk, no one gets what they need.

But the idea that the main objection is drop-off logistics seems silly on its face. Maury students spent two years in a swing space while the school was renovated, and that posed drop-off issues too. But the renovations was of course worth it and was well worth those adjustments. If a cluster could be beneficial in the long run, adjusting start times or having a slightly less convenient school commute for a few years just seems like such a minor complaint to me.

Let me guess— you still have kids in strollers, right? If you think Maury parents are going to feel safe letting their 4th grader walk to Miner, you need to understand your neighborhood better.

Nope, two elementary age kids.

The proposal is, I think, for Miner to be the ECE center because ECE at Miner is already pretty decent (and a not insignificant number of Maury parents send their kids there for PK3 and/or PK4 because there are not enough IB spots for the demand at Maury). So no 4th grader would walk to Miner. The idea is that if you are currently IB for Maury, your older elementary kids could walk to Maury (or you could drop them off early since it's the closer school) and you could walk the 3 blocks to Miner for ECE drop off of younger kids.

Also, given that these schools are 3 block apart, the argument that the neighborhood around Miner is simply too dangerous to send kids to school there makes no sense. If there is a shooting 2 blocks from Miner, then there was a shooting (at most) 5 blocks from Maury. These schools are very close to each other.

I wish y'all would just admit: you like that your kids got to school with UMC, mostly white kids, and you don't want your kids to go to school with poor black kids. Because you and I both know that's the issue.

Miner is a much more dangerous location than most parts of the Maury zone. This is just a fact. It is basically right on the Starburst which is one of the most dangerous and zombified corners of the entire city.

Maury parents already send their kids to school with “poor black kids.” Thanks for playing the inevitable race card, which is exactly what the nameless DC bureaucrat who thought this up intended. “Hmm, what can I do to deflect from the fact that DCPS is failing poor black kids? I know - create a fake race controversy and mess up two schools, then blame it all on white parents!”

Kids don't go to school in "most parts of the Maury zone." They go to Maury. Which is 3 blocks from Miner. That is the relevant issue -- how close together are these schools, does it make sense to cluster them.

Many Maury parents send their kids to Miner for PK already, because it's so hard to get into Maury PK without sibling AND boundary preference. It's very common. So it's established that parents in the Maury zone are fine sending their kids to Miner, and are fine with the PK classes there. If Miner is already the default ECE backup for Maury kids, why not formalize that? It would solve the problem of insufficient PK spots for Maury parents while also allowing Miner to focus on the thing they already do pretty well. With the 0-3s center being built as well, Miner essentially becomes an early childhood center that can focus on the specific needs of younger children, can focus outdoor areas and school programming around that group.

For upper grades, nothing would change for Maury parents EXCEPT the addition of kids currently IB for Miner, who currently skew poorer and less white than those now at Maury. Everything else stays the same -- facility, teachers, admin. The only difference is using the capacity gained from moving PK3-K or PK3-1 to Miner to expand upper grades to include kids living in the Miner boundary.

This is what people who are upset about this proposal are actually upset about. It's not the distance between the schools -- they are very close and may parents already send kids to Miner for PK. It's not neighborhood crime, these schools are in the same neighborhood. It's the composition of the classes and discomfort with a poorer, blacker school population.

The proposal is not only ECE. It’s through 2nd grade, to start in 25-26 school year. So no, I do not want to move my child who has been at Maury since PK3 to Miner for one year, and then turn around and move him back to Maury again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Doesn't the Peabody/Watkins cluster actually prove that pairing the schools is not a viable solution to the identified problem? I can't find socioeconomic data, but looking at the racial demographic data on My School DC, Peabody's demographics are very similar to Maury's, and very different from Watkins'. And I believe Peabody and Watkins started closer together than Maury and Miner would.

Maybe they're hoping that people will be okay with Miner for pre-K and the Maury name will keep people in for the upper grades. But again, my understanding of when the cluster began is that Watkins was considered a pretty desirable school.

The Peabody/Watkins cluster historically had many, many issues that caused all kinds of problems (many based on historical racism), and so it's hard to extrapolate a lot from that particular cluster because of that. I'd say the most relevant problem today is the lack of bus transportation between the 2 buildings. When there were buses, many families did actually go through Peabody and then through Watkins; I know because I was one of those families. Many did peel off, but again, that was largely due to all the other problems that already existed within the Cluster for decades.

The need for busses is caused by the cluster!!! It is moronic to argue that the cluster is not a failed experiment and instead pin the blame on an externality caused by the cluster. You must work for DCPS.

Part of the reason people felt like they need those buses was because the schools in the cluster school are significantly further apart and the boundary is very long and skinny. If this Maury Miner cluster happened, those schools are only three blocks apart so parents could easily drop kids off at both locations during the 8: 15 to 845 drop off window. Also parking by Peabody to do drop off his horrible which also was an incentive for the bus,

I don't know what the Miner schedule is, but drop off at Maury is between 8:30 and 8:40 for kids not eating breakfast. And the three blocks translates to an extra 20 minutes (conservatively) for me, which would be another 40 minutes a day. I get that it's closer than Peabody/Watkins (and it is absolutely outrageous that DCPS doesn't offer transportation there), but it would be a pretty huge inconvenience nevertheless.

Interesting, can kids not play on the playground if they are not eating breakfast? I do imagine that if this actually happened they would make drop off schedules that would accommodate both schools/parents.

LOL nope.

NP. Why nope? It seems like there would be lots of ways to do drop off and pick up to accommodate parents at both schools, given their proximity. Especially because of the age split between campuses. A staggered drop off schedule with greater flexibility for the upper school campus, where you can have higher child to teacher ratios (and thus have a larger group of kids on the playground or in the cafeteria with fewer minders until school starts). Also for families that live nearby, by 4th grade your kids can be walking on their own.

As for the time, I personally wouldn't mind that extra walk, but lots of families get cargo bikes for this reason. I know a bunch of families with kids in daycare and and elementary schools that are a lot further apart than Maury and Miner, do it by cargo bike, and can throw in a couple errands and still make their commute to work or make it back home in a reasonable length of time.

I don't know if the cluster makes sense or not -- I would have to think more critically about whether combining those two school populations would really result in a "rising tide lifts all boats" situation, or just result in shedding UMC families altogether in a way that undermines Maury's success. I am not sure, though I understand why they are looking for ways to help the school population at Miner, because it has a very decent ECE program but dismal test scores in 3-5, and clearly loses most of its high-resource kids by 2nd or 3rd, which makes it a lot harder because when every kid is high-risk, no one gets what they need.

But the idea that the main objection is drop-off logistics seems silly on its face. Maury students spent two years in a swing space while the school was renovated, and that posed drop-off issues too. But the renovations was of course worth it and was well worth those adjustments. If a cluster could be beneficial in the long run, adjusting start times or having a slightly less convenient school commute for a few years just seems like such a minor complaint to me.

Let me guess— you still have kids in strollers, right? If you think Maury parents are going to feel safe letting their 4th grader walk to Miner, you need to understand your neighborhood better.

Nope, two elementary age kids.

The proposal is, I think, for Miner to be the ECE center because ECE at Miner is already pretty decent (and a not insignificant number of Maury parents send their kids there for PK3 and/or PK4 because there are not enough IB spots for the demand at Maury). So no 4th grader would walk to Miner. The idea is that if you are currently IB for Maury, your older elementary kids could walk to Maury (or you could drop them off early since it's the closer school) and you could walk the 3 blocks to Miner for ECE drop off of younger kids.

Also, given that these schools are 3 block apart, the argument that the neighborhood around Miner is simply too dangerous to send kids to school there makes no sense. If there is a shooting 2 blocks from Miner, then there was a shooting (at most) 5 blocks from Maury. These schools are very close to each other.

I wish y'all would just admit: you like that your kids got to school with UMC, mostly white kids, and you don't want your kids to go to school with poor black kids. Because you and I both know that's the issue.

Miner is a much more dangerous location than most parts of the Maury zone. This is just a fact. It is basically right on the Starburst which is one of the most dangerous and zombified corners of the entire city.

Maury parents already send their kids to school with “poor black kids.” Thanks for playing the inevitable race card, which is exactly what the nameless DC bureaucrat who thought this up intended. “Hmm, what can I do to deflect from the fact that DCPS is failing poor black kids? I know - create a fake race controversy and mess up two schools, then blame it all on white parents!”

Kids don't go to school in "most parts of the Maury zone." They go to Maury. Which is 3 blocks from Miner. That is the relevant issue -- how close together are these schools, does it make sense to cluster them.

Many Maury parents send their kids to Miner for PK already, because it's so hard to get into Maury PK without sibling AND boundary preference. It's very common. So it's established that parents in the Maury zone are fine sending their kids to Miner, and are fine with the PK classes there. If Miner is already the default ECE backup for Maury kids, why not formalize that? It would solve the problem of insufficient PK spots for Maury parents while also allowing Miner to focus on the thing they already do pretty well. With the 0-3s center being built as well, Miner essentially becomes an early childhood center that can focus on the specific needs of younger children, can focus outdoor areas and school programming around that group.

For upper grades, nothing would change for Maury parents EXCEPT the addition of kids currently IB for Miner, who currently skew poorer and less white than those now at Maury. Everything else stays the same -- facility, teachers, admin. The only difference is using the capacity gained from moving PK3-K or PK3-1 to Miner to expand upper grades to include kids living in the Miner boundary.

This is what people who are upset about this proposal are actually upset about. It's not the distance between the schools -- they are very close and may parents already send kids to Miner for PK. It's not neighborhood crime, these schools are in the same neighborhood. It's the composition of the classes and discomfort with a poorer, blacker school population.

Sounds like you work for the DME. Maury and Miner are much more than “three blocks apart.” The fact that a handful of Maury families send their kids to Miner for PK does nothing to address the actual concern here: causing extreme disruption to two schools for no apparent benefit, and making it much more difficult to get siblings to school. The additional commute time alone should be enough to tank this plan. There are many costs apparent, and no benefits at all that have been concretely advanced. If the DME is concerned about the quality of education at Miner, *fix that.* Don’t go around creating massive disruption to no end.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Doesn't the Peabody/Watkins cluster actually prove that pairing the schools is not a viable solution to the identified problem? I can't find socioeconomic data, but looking at the racial demographic data on My School DC, Peabody's demographics are very similar to Maury's, and very different from Watkins'. And I believe Peabody and Watkins started closer together than Maury and Miner would.

Maybe they're hoping that people will be okay with Miner for pre-K and the Maury name will keep people in for the upper grades. But again, my understanding of when the cluster began is that Watkins was considered a pretty desirable school.

The Peabody/Watkins cluster historically had many, many issues that caused all kinds of problems (many based on historical racism), and so it's hard to extrapolate a lot from that particular cluster because of that. I'd say the most relevant problem today is the lack of bus transportation between the 2 buildings. When there were buses, many families did actually go through Peabody and then through Watkins; I know because I was one of those families. Many did peel off, but again, that was largely due to all the other problems that already existed within the Cluster for decades.

The need for busses is caused by the cluster!!! It is moronic to argue that the cluster is not a failed experiment and instead pin the blame on an externality caused by the cluster. You must work for DCPS.

Part of the reason people felt like they need those buses was because the schools in the cluster school are significantly further apart and the boundary is very long and skinny. If this Maury Miner cluster happened, those schools are only three blocks apart so parents could easily drop kids off at both locations during the 8: 15 to 845 drop off window. Also parking by Peabody to do drop off his horrible which also was an incentive for the bus,

I don't know what the Miner schedule is, but drop off at Maury is between 8:30 and 8:40 for kids not eating breakfast. And the three blocks translates to an extra 20 minutes (conservatively) for me, which would be another 40 minutes a day. I get that it's closer than Peabody/Watkins (and it is absolutely outrageous that DCPS doesn't offer transportation there), but it would be a pretty huge inconvenience nevertheless.

Interesting, can kids not play on the playground if they are not eating breakfast? I do imagine that if this actually happened they would make drop off schedules that would accommodate both schools/parents.

LOL nope.

NP. Why nope? It seems like there would be lots of ways to do drop off and pick up to accommodate parents at both schools, given their proximity. Especially because of the age split between campuses. A staggered drop off schedule with greater flexibility for the upper school campus, where you can have higher child to teacher ratios (and thus have a larger group of kids on the playground or in the cafeteria with fewer minders until school starts). Also for families that live nearby, by 4th grade your kids can be walking on their own.

As for the time, I personally wouldn't mind that extra walk, but lots of families get cargo bikes for this reason. I know a bunch of families with kids in daycare and and elementary schools that are a lot further apart than Maury and Miner, do it by cargo bike, and can throw in a couple errands and still make their commute to work or make it back home in a reasonable length of time.

I don't know if the cluster makes sense or not -- I would have to think more critically about whether combining those two school populations would really result in a "rising tide lifts all boats" situation, or just result in shedding UMC families altogether in a way that undermines Maury's success. I am not sure, though I understand why they are looking for ways to help the school population at Miner, because it has a very decent ECE program but dismal test scores in 3-5, and clearly loses most of its high-resource kids by 2nd or 3rd, which makes it a lot harder because when every kid is high-risk, no one gets what they need.

But the idea that the main objection is drop-off logistics seems silly on its face. Maury students spent two years in a swing space while the school was renovated, and that posed drop-off issues too. But the renovations was of course worth it and was well worth those adjustments. If a cluster could be beneficial in the long run, adjusting start times or having a slightly less convenient school commute for a few years just seems like such a minor complaint to me.

Let me guess— you still have kids in strollers, right? If you think Maury parents are going to feel safe letting their 4th grader walk to Miner, you need to understand your neighborhood better.

Nope, two elementary age kids.

The proposal is, I think, for Miner to be the ECE center because ECE at Miner is already pretty decent (and a not insignificant number of Maury parents send their kids there for PK3 and/or PK4 because there are not enough IB spots for the demand at Maury). So no 4th grader would walk to Miner. The idea is that if you are currently IB for Maury, your older elementary kids could walk to Maury (or you could drop them off early since it's the closer school) and you could walk the 3 blocks to Miner for ECE drop off of younger kids.

Also, given that these schools are 3 block apart, the argument that the neighborhood around Miner is simply too dangerous to send kids to school there makes no sense. If there is a shooting 2 blocks from Miner, then there was a shooting (at most) 5 blocks from Maury. These schools are very close to each other.

I wish y'all would just admit: you like that your kids got to school with UMC, mostly white kids, and you don't want your kids to go to school with poor black kids. Because you and I both know that's the issue.

Miner is a much more dangerous location than most parts of the Maury zone. This is just a fact. It is basically right on the Starburst which is one of the most dangerous and zombified corners of the entire city.

Maury parents already send their kids to school with “poor black kids.” Thanks for playing the inevitable race card, which is exactly what the nameless DC bureaucrat who thought this up intended. “Hmm, what can I do to deflect from the fact that DCPS is failing poor black kids? I know - create a fake race controversy and mess up two schools, then blame it all on white parents!”

Kids don't go to school in "most parts of the Maury zone." They go to Maury. Which is 3 blocks from Miner. That is the relevant issue -- how close together are these schools, does it make sense to cluster them.

Many Maury parents send their kids to Miner for PK already, because it's so hard to get into Maury PK without sibling AND boundary preference. It's very common. So it's established that parents in the Maury zone are fine sending their kids to Miner, and are fine with the PK classes there. If Miner is already the default ECE backup for Maury kids, why not formalize that? It would solve the problem of insufficient PK spots for Maury parents while also allowing Miner to focus on the thing they already do pretty well. With the 0-3s center being built as well, Miner essentially becomes an early childhood center that can focus on the specific needs of younger children, can focus outdoor areas and school programming around that group.

For upper grades, nothing would change for Maury parents EXCEPT the addition of kids currently IB for Miner, who currently skew poorer and less white than those now at Maury. Everything else stays the same -- facility, teachers, admin. The only difference is using the capacity gained from moving PK3-K or PK3-1 to Miner to expand upper grades to include kids living in the Miner boundary.

This is what people who are upset about this proposal are actually upset about. It's not the distance between the schools -- they are very close and may parents already send kids to Miner for PK. It's not neighborhood crime, these schools are in the same neighborhood. It's the composition of the classes and discomfort with a poorer, blacker school population.

Thank you for this - couldn't have said it better myself. Many people are comparing this proposal to the Cluster School. The extremely strange shape of that cluster, the narrow width of the boundary (and subsequent proximity preference to many other schools) make that Cluster a lot less practical than this Maury/Miner proposal being discussed here. Despite people coming on here and saying the Cluster School is not working, there are many families at Peabody/Watkins who still support that model. If this actually happened, I am sure that drop off timing would be addressed - but like the previous poster stated, many families are already doing multiple drop offs for ECE at Miner, Appletree, etc.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard a single positive comment about the Cluster. Instead the decreasing IB enrollment at Watkins and stagnant IB enrollment at SH seem to belie the success of the Cluster. Conversely IB investment in Maury, Payne and EH are growing. If anyone actually cares about Miner (as opposed to wanting to make a name for themselves) then they’d look at what factors could increase IB investment at Miner and how to support Miner directly. Not cockamamie plans for how to dismantle programs that are working.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Doesn't the Peabody/Watkins cluster actually prove that pairing the schools is not a viable solution to the identified problem? I can't find socioeconomic data, but looking at the racial demographic data on My School DC, Peabody's demographics are very similar to Maury's, and very different from Watkins'. And I believe Peabody and Watkins started closer together than Maury and Miner would.

Maybe they're hoping that people will be okay with Miner for pre-K and the Maury name will keep people in for the upper grades. But again, my understanding of when the cluster began is that Watkins was considered a pretty desirable school.

The Peabody/Watkins cluster historically had many, many issues that caused all kinds of problems (many based on historical racism), and so it's hard to extrapolate a lot from that particular cluster because of that. I'd say the most relevant problem today is the lack of bus transportation between the 2 buildings. When there were buses, many families did actually go through Peabody and then through Watkins; I know because I was one of those families. Many did peel off, but again, that was largely due to all the other problems that already existed within the Cluster for decades.

The need for busses is caused by the cluster!!! It is moronic to argue that the cluster is not a failed experiment and instead pin the blame on an externality caused by the cluster. You must work for DCPS.

Part of the reason people felt like they need those buses was because the schools in the cluster school are significantly further apart and the boundary is very long and skinny. If this Maury Miner cluster happened, those schools are only three blocks apart so parents could easily drop kids off at both locations during the 8: 15 to 845 drop off window. Also parking by Peabody to do drop off his horrible which also was an incentive for the bus,

I don't know what the Miner schedule is, but drop off at Maury is between 8:30 and 8:40 for kids not eating breakfast. And the three blocks translates to an extra 20 minutes (conservatively) for me, which would be another 40 minutes a day. I get that it's closer than Peabody/Watkins (and it is absolutely outrageous that DCPS doesn't offer transportation there), but it would be a pretty huge inconvenience nevertheless.

Interesting, can kids not play on the playground if they are not eating breakfast? I do imagine that if this actually happened they would make drop off schedules that would accommodate both schools/parents.

LOL nope.

NP. Why nope? It seems like there would be lots of ways to do drop off and pick up to accommodate parents at both schools, given their proximity. Especially because of the age split between campuses. A staggered drop off schedule with greater flexibility for the upper school campus, where you can have higher child to teacher ratios (and thus have a larger group of kids on the playground or in the cafeteria with fewer minders until school starts). Also for families that live nearby, by 4th grade your kids can be walking on their own.

As for the time, I personally wouldn't mind that extra walk, but lots of families get cargo bikes for this reason. I know a bunch of families with kids in daycare and and elementary schools that are a lot further apart than Maury and Miner, do it by cargo bike, and can throw in a couple errands and still make their commute to work or make it back home in a reasonable length of time.

I don't know if the cluster makes sense or not -- I would have to think more critically about whether combining those two school populations would really result in a "rising tide lifts all boats" situation, or just result in shedding UMC families altogether in a way that undermines Maury's success. I am not sure, though I understand why they are looking for ways to help the school population at Miner, because it has a very decent ECE program but dismal test scores in 3-5, and clearly loses most of its high-resource kids by 2nd or 3rd, which makes it a lot harder because when every kid is high-risk, no one gets what they need.

But the idea that the main objection is drop-off logistics seems silly on its face. Maury students spent two years in a swing space while the school was renovated, and that posed drop-off issues too. But the renovations was of course worth it and was well worth those adjustments. If a cluster could be beneficial in the long run, adjusting start times or having a slightly less convenient school commute for a few years just seems like such a minor complaint to me.

Let me guess— you still have kids in strollers, right? If you think Maury parents are going to feel safe letting their 4th grader walk to Miner, you need to understand your neighborhood better.

Nope, two elementary age kids.

The proposal is, I think, for Miner to be the ECE center because ECE at Miner is already pretty decent (and a not insignificant number of Maury parents send their kids there for PK3 and/or PK4 because there are not enough IB spots for the demand at Maury). So no 4th grader would walk to Miner. The idea is that if you are currently IB for Maury, your older elementary kids could walk to Maury (or you could drop them off early since it's the closer school) and you could walk the 3 blocks to Miner for ECE drop off of younger kids.

Also, given that these schools are 3 block apart, the argument that the neighborhood around Miner is simply too dangerous to send kids to school there makes no sense. If there is a shooting 2 blocks from Miner, then there was a shooting (at most) 5 blocks from Maury. These schools are very close to each other.

I wish y'all would just admit: you like that your kids got to school with UMC, mostly white kids, and you don't want your kids to go to school with poor black kids. Because you and I both know that's the issue.

Miner is a much more dangerous location than most parts of the Maury zone. This is just a fact. It is basically right on the Starburst which is one of the most dangerous and zombified corners of the entire city.

Maury parents already send their kids to school with “poor black kids.” Thanks for playing the inevitable race card, which is exactly what the nameless DC bureaucrat who thought this up intended. “Hmm, what can I do to deflect from the fact that DCPS is failing poor black kids? I know - create a fake race controversy and mess up two schools, then blame it all on white parents!”

Kids don't go to school in "most parts of the Maury zone." They go to Maury. Which is 3 blocks from Miner. That is the relevant issue -- how close together are these schools, does it make sense to cluster them.

Many Maury parents send their kids to Miner for PK already, because it's so hard to get into Maury PK without sibling AND boundary preference. It's very common. So it's established that parents in the Maury zone are fine sending their kids to Miner, and are fine with the PK classes there. If Miner is already the default ECE backup for Maury kids, why not formalize that? It would solve the problem of insufficient PK spots for Maury parents while also allowing Miner to focus on the thing they already do pretty well. With the 0-3s center being built as well, Miner essentially becomes an early childhood center that can focus on the specific needs of younger children, can focus outdoor areas and school programming around that group.

For upper grades, nothing would change for Maury parents EXCEPT the addition of kids currently IB for Miner, who currently skew poorer and less white than those now at Maury. Everything else stays the same -- facility, teachers, admin. The only difference is using the capacity gained from moving PK3-K or PK3-1 to Miner to expand upper grades to include kids living in the Miner boundary.

This is what people who are upset about this proposal are actually upset about. It's not the distance between the schools -- they are very close and may parents already send kids to Miner for PK. It's not neighborhood crime, these schools are in the same neighborhood. It's the composition of the classes and discomfort with a poorer, blacker school population.

Thank you for this - couldn't have said it better myself. Many people are comparing this proposal to the Cluster School. The extremely strange shape of that cluster, the narrow width of the boundary (and subsequent proximity preference to many other schools) make that Cluster a lot less practical than this Maury/Miner proposal being discussed here. Despite people coming on here and saying the Cluster School is not working, there are many families at Peabody/Watkins who still support that model. If this actually happened, I am sure that drop off timing would be addressed - but like the previous poster stated, many families are already doing multiple drop offs for ECE at Miner, Appletree, etc.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard a single positive comment about the Cluster. Instead the decreasing IB enrollment at Watkins and stagnant IB enrollment at SH seem to belie the success of the Cluster. Conversely IB investment in Maury, Payne and EH are growing. If anyone actually cares about Miner (as opposed to wanting to make a name for themselves) then they’d look at what factors could increase IB investment at Miner and how to support Miner directly. Not cockamamie plans for how to dismantle programs that are working.

There are a good number of parents who are not happy with the cluster but they're also are parents that are happy. I feel like in general on this site and elsewhere people are more interested in complaining about things that don't work. If they are positive they are labeled as boosters etc.
Either way, besides the fact that both schools would be called a cluster, there would be a lot of differences. As has been said many times on this forum, much of what is hurting Watkins IB participation is the strange shape of the boundary/proximity preference elsewhere, the discontinuation of the bus, and different middle school options that parents feel comfortable with for their kids that weren't considered by families as good options 15 or 20 years ago.(or didn't exist yet). For this Maury/Miner proposed cluster, the boundary shape would be much more logical and parents would not need to travel as far, so there wouldn't be the need for a 1-2 mile drive or a shuttle, and very few people in that boundary would get proximity preference to other schools.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Doesn't the Peabody/Watkins cluster actually prove that pairing the schools is not a viable solution to the identified problem? I can't find socioeconomic data, but looking at the racial demographic data on My School DC, Peabody's demographics are very similar to Maury's, and very different from Watkins'. And I believe Peabody and Watkins started closer together than Maury and Miner would.

Maybe they're hoping that people will be okay with Miner for pre-K and the Maury name will keep people in for the upper grades. But again, my understanding of when the cluster began is that Watkins was considered a pretty desirable school.

The Peabody/Watkins cluster historically had many, many issues that caused all kinds of problems (many based on historical racism), and so it's hard to extrapolate a lot from that particular cluster because of that. I'd say the most relevant problem today is the lack of bus transportation between the 2 buildings. When there were buses, many families did actually go through Peabody and then through Watkins; I know because I was one of those families. Many did peel off, but again, that was largely due to all the other problems that already existed within the Cluster for decades.

The need for busses is caused by the cluster!!! It is moronic to argue that the cluster is not a failed experiment and instead pin the blame on an externality caused by the cluster. You must work for DCPS.

Part of the reason people felt like they need those buses was because the schools in the cluster school are significantly further apart and the boundary is very long and skinny. If this Maury Miner cluster happened, those schools are only three blocks apart so parents could easily drop kids off at both locations during the 8: 15 to 845 drop off window. Also parking by Peabody to do drop off his horrible which also was an incentive for the bus,

I don't know what the Miner schedule is, but drop off at Maury is between 8:30 and 8:40 for kids not eating breakfast. And the three blocks translates to an extra 20 minutes (conservatively) for me, which would be another 40 minutes a day. I get that it's closer than Peabody/Watkins (and it is absolutely outrageous that DCPS doesn't offer transportation there), but it would be a pretty huge inconvenience nevertheless.

Interesting, can kids not play on the playground if they are not eating breakfast? I do imagine that if this actually happened they would make drop off schedules that would accommodate both schools/parents.

LOL nope.

NP. Why nope? It seems like there would be lots of ways to do drop off and pick up to accommodate parents at both schools, given their proximity. Especially because of the age split between campuses. A staggered drop off schedule with greater flexibility for the upper school campus, where you can have higher child to teacher ratios (and thus have a larger group of kids on the playground or in the cafeteria with fewer minders until school starts). Also for families that live nearby, by 4th grade your kids can be walking on their own.

As for the time, I personally wouldn't mind that extra walk, but lots of families get cargo bikes for this reason. I know a bunch of families with kids in daycare and and elementary schools that are a lot further apart than Maury and Miner, do it by cargo bike, and can throw in a couple errands and still make their commute to work or make it back home in a reasonable length of time.

I don't know if the cluster makes sense or not -- I would have to think more critically about whether combining those two school populations would really result in a "rising tide lifts all boats" situation, or just result in shedding UMC families altogether in a way that undermines Maury's success. I am not sure, though I understand why they are looking for ways to help the school population at Miner, because it has a very decent ECE program but dismal test scores in 3-5, and clearly loses most of its high-resource kids by 2nd or 3rd, which makes it a lot harder because when every kid is high-risk, no one gets what they need.

But the idea that the main objection is drop-off logistics seems silly on its face. Maury students spent two years in a swing space while the school was renovated, and that posed drop-off issues too. But the renovations was of course worth it and was well worth those adjustments. If a cluster could be beneficial in the long run, adjusting start times or having a slightly less convenient school commute for a few years just seems like such a minor complaint to me.

Let me guess— you still have kids in strollers, right? If you think Maury parents are going to feel safe letting their 4th grader walk to Miner, you need to understand your neighborhood better.

Nope, two elementary age kids.

The proposal is, I think, for Miner to be the ECE center because ECE at Miner is already pretty decent (and a not insignificant number of Maury parents send their kids there for PK3 and/or PK4 because there are not enough IB spots for the demand at Maury). So no 4th grader would walk to Miner. The idea is that if you are currently IB for Maury, your older elementary kids could walk to Maury (or you could drop them off early since it's the closer school) and you could walk the 3 blocks to Miner for ECE drop off of younger kids.

Also, given that these schools are 3 block apart, the argument that the neighborhood around Miner is simply too dangerous to send kids to school there makes no sense. If there is a shooting 2 blocks from Miner, then there was a shooting (at most) 5 blocks from Maury. These schools are very close to each other.

I wish y'all would just admit: you like that your kids got to school with UMC, mostly white kids, and you don't want your kids to go to school with poor black kids. Because you and I both know that's the issue.

Miner is a much more dangerous location than most parts of the Maury zone. This is just a fact. It is basically right on the Starburst which is one of the most dangerous and zombified corners of the entire city.

Maury parents already send their kids to school with “poor black kids.” Thanks for playing the inevitable race card, which is exactly what the nameless DC bureaucrat who thought this up intended. “Hmm, what can I do to deflect from the fact that DCPS is failing poor black kids? I know - create a fake race controversy and mess up two schools, then blame it all on white parents!”

Kids don't go to school in "most parts of the Maury zone." They go to Maury. Which is 3 blocks from Miner. That is the relevant issue -- how close together are these schools, does it make sense to cluster them.

Many Maury parents send their kids to Miner for PK already, because it's so hard to get into Maury PK without sibling AND boundary preference. It's very common. So it's established that parents in the Maury zone are fine sending their kids to Miner, and are fine with the PK classes there. If Miner is already the default ECE backup for Maury kids, why not formalize that? It would solve the problem of insufficient PK spots for Maury parents while also allowing Miner to focus on the thing they already do pretty well. With the 0-3s center being built as well, Miner essentially becomes an early childhood center that can focus on the specific needs of younger children, can focus outdoor areas and school programming around that group.

For upper grades, nothing would change for Maury parents EXCEPT the addition of kids currently IB for Miner, who currently skew poorer and less white than those now at Maury. Everything else stays the same -- facility, teachers, admin. The only difference is using the capacity gained from moving PK3-K or PK3-1 to Miner to expand upper grades to include kids living in the Miner boundary.

This is what people who are upset about this proposal are actually upset about. It's not the distance between the schools -- they are very close and may parents already send kids to Miner for PK. It's not neighborhood crime, these schools are in the same neighborhood. It's the composition of the classes and discomfort with a poorer, blacker school population.

Thank you for this - couldn't have said it better myself. Many people are comparing this proposal to the Cluster School. The extremely strange shape of that cluster, the narrow width of the boundary (and subsequent proximity preference to many other schools) make that Cluster a lot less practical than this Maury/Miner proposal being discussed here. Despite people coming on here and saying the Cluster School is not working, there are many families at Peabody/Watkins who still support that model. If this actually happened, I am sure that drop off timing would be addressed - but like the previous poster stated, many families are already doing multiple drop offs for ECE at Miner, Appletree, etc.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard a single positive comment about the Cluster. Instead the decreasing IB enrollment at Watkins and stagnant IB enrollment at SH seem to belie the success of the Cluster. Conversely IB investment in Maury, Payne and EH are growing. If anyone actually cares about Miner (as opposed to wanting to make a name for themselves) then they’d look at what factors could increase IB investment at Miner and how to support Miner directly. Not cockamamie plans for how to dismantle programs that are working.

There are a good number of parents who are not happy with the cluster but they're also are parents that are happy. I feel like in general on this site and elsewhere people are more interested in complaining about things that don't work. If they are positive they are labeled as boosters etc.
Either way, besides the fact that both schools would be called a cluster, there would be a lot of differences. As has been said many times on this forum, much of what is hurting Watkins IB participation is the strange shape of the boundary/proximity preference elsewhere, the discontinuation of the bus, and different middle school options that parents feel comfortable with for their kids that weren't considered by families as good options 15 or 20 years ago.(or didn't exist yet). For this Maury/Miner proposed cluster, the boundary shape would be much more logical and parents would not need to travel as far, so there wouldn't be the need for a 1-2 mile drive or a shuttle, and very few people in that boundary would get proximity preference to other schools.

I can believe there are parents who are fine with the Cluster but I’ve never heard anyone specifically attribute that to the Cluster model.

As for inconvenience - Clustering Maury and Miner absolutely creates logistical headaches for many families, particularly with siblings. Many more would start driving for drop offs, which nobody wants. If you live on the Western side of Maury then the walk to Miner is considerably longer and unfeasibly far from metro, whereas you can get to the metro after Maury drop off in about 15 minutes. The cluster model would have added at least an hour/day to my commute time.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Doesn't the Peabody/Watkins cluster actually prove that pairing the schools is not a viable solution to the identified problem? I can't find socioeconomic data, but looking at the racial demographic data on My School DC, Peabody's demographics are very similar to Maury's, and very different from Watkins'. And I believe Peabody and Watkins started closer together than Maury and Miner would.

Maybe they're hoping that people will be okay with Miner for pre-K and the Maury name will keep people in for the upper grades. But again, my understanding of when the cluster began is that Watkins was considered a pretty desirable school.

The Peabody/Watkins cluster historically had many, many issues that caused all kinds of problems (many based on historical racism), and so it's hard to extrapolate a lot from that particular cluster because of that. I'd say the most relevant problem today is the lack of bus transportation between the 2 buildings. When there were buses, many families did actually go through Peabody and then through Watkins; I know because I was one of those families. Many did peel off, but again, that was largely due to all the other problems that already existed within the Cluster for decades.

The need for busses is caused by the cluster!!! It is moronic to argue that the cluster is not a failed experiment and instead pin the blame on an externality caused by the cluster. You must work for DCPS.

Part of the reason people felt like they need those buses was because the schools in the cluster school are significantly further apart and the boundary is very long and skinny. If this Maury Miner cluster happened, those schools are only three blocks apart so parents could easily drop kids off at both locations during the 8: 15 to 845 drop off window. Also parking by Peabody to do drop off his horrible which also was an incentive for the bus,

I don't know what the Miner schedule is, but drop off at Maury is between 8:30 and 8:40 for kids not eating breakfast. And the three blocks translates to an extra 20 minutes (conservatively) for me, which would be another 40 minutes a day. I get that it's closer than Peabody/Watkins (and it is absolutely outrageous that DCPS doesn't offer transportation there), but it would be a pretty huge inconvenience nevertheless.

Interesting, can kids not play on the playground if they are not eating breakfast? I do imagine that if this actually happened they would make drop off schedules that would accommodate both schools/parents.

LOL nope.

NP. Why nope? It seems like there would be lots of ways to do drop off and pick up to accommodate parents at both schools, given their proximity. Especially because of the age split between campuses. A staggered drop off schedule with greater flexibility for the upper school campus, where you can have higher child to teacher ratios (and thus have a larger group of kids on the playground or in the cafeteria with fewer minders until school starts). Also for families that live nearby, by 4th grade your kids can be walking on their own.

As for the time, I personally wouldn't mind that extra walk, but lots of families get cargo bikes for this reason. I know a bunch of families with kids in daycare and and elementary schools that are a lot further apart than Maury and Miner, do it by cargo bike, and can throw in a couple errands and still make their commute to work or make it back home in a reasonable length of time.

I don't know if the cluster makes sense or not -- I would have to think more critically about whether combining those two school populations would really result in a "rising tide lifts all boats" situation, or just result in shedding UMC families altogether in a way that undermines Maury's success. I am not sure, though I understand why they are looking for ways to help the school population at Miner, because it has a very decent ECE program but dismal test scores in 3-5, and clearly loses most of its high-resource kids by 2nd or 3rd, which makes it a lot harder because when every kid is high-risk, no one gets what they need.

But the idea that the main objection is drop-off logistics seems silly on its face. Maury students spent two years in a swing space while the school was renovated, and that posed drop-off issues too. But the renovations was of course worth it and was well worth those adjustments. If a cluster could be beneficial in the long run, adjusting start times or having a slightly less convenient school commute for a few years just seems like such a minor complaint to me.

Let me guess— you still have kids in strollers, right? If you think Maury parents are going to feel safe letting their 4th grader walk to Miner, you need to understand your neighborhood better.

Nope, two elementary age kids.

The proposal is, I think, for Miner to be the ECE center because ECE at Miner is already pretty decent (and a not insignificant number of Maury parents send their kids there for PK3 and/or PK4 because there are not enough IB spots for the demand at Maury). So no 4th grader would walk to Miner. The idea is that if you are currently IB for Maury, your older elementary kids could walk to Maury (or you could drop them off early since it's the closer school) and you could walk the 3 blocks to Miner for ECE drop off of younger kids.

Also, given that these schools are 3 block apart, the argument that the neighborhood around Miner is simply too dangerous to send kids to school there makes no sense. If there is a shooting 2 blocks from Miner, then there was a shooting (at most) 5 blocks from Maury. These schools are very close to each other.

I wish y'all would just admit: you like that your kids got to school with UMC, mostly white kids, and you don't want your kids to go to school with poor black kids. Because you and I both know that's the issue.

Miner is a much more dangerous location than most parts of the Maury zone. This is just a fact. It is basically right on the Starburst which is one of the most dangerous and zombified corners of the entire city.

Maury parents already send their kids to school with “poor black kids.” Thanks for playing the inevitable race card, which is exactly what the nameless DC bureaucrat who thought this up intended. “Hmm, what can I do to deflect from the fact that DCPS is failing poor black kids? I know - create a fake race controversy and mess up two schools, then blame it all on white parents!”

Kids don't go to school in "most parts of the Maury zone." They go to Maury. Which is 3 blocks from Miner. That is the relevant issue -- how close together are these schools, does it make sense to cluster them.

Many Maury parents send their kids to Miner for PK already, because it's so hard to get into Maury PK without sibling AND boundary preference. It's very common. So it's established that parents in the Maury zone are fine sending their kids to Miner, and are fine with the PK classes there. If Miner is already the default ECE backup for Maury kids, why not formalize that? It would solve the problem of insufficient PK spots for Maury parents while also allowing Miner to focus on the thing they already do pretty well. With the 0-3s center being built as well, Miner essentially becomes an early childhood center that can focus on the specific needs of younger children, can focus outdoor areas and school programming around that group.

For upper grades, nothing would change for Maury parents EXCEPT the addition of kids currently IB for Miner, who currently skew poorer and less white than those now at Maury. Everything else stays the same -- facility, teachers, admin. The only difference is using the capacity gained from moving PK3-K or PK3-1 to Miner to expand upper grades to include kids living in the Miner boundary.

This is what people who are upset about this proposal are actually upset about. It's not the distance between the schools -- they are very close and may parents already send kids to Miner for PK. It's not neighborhood crime, these schools are in the same neighborhood. It's the composition of the classes and discomfort with a poorer, blacker school population.

Sounds like you work for the DME. Maury and Miner are much more than “three blocks apart.” The fact that a handful of Maury families send their kids to Miner for PK does nothing to address the actual concern here: causing extreme disruption to two schools for no apparent benefit, and making it much more difficult to get siblings to school. The additional commute time alone should be enough to tank this plan. There are many costs apparent, and no benefits at all that have been concretely advanced. If the DME is concerned about the quality of education at Miner, *fix that.* Don’t go around creating massive disruption to no end.

Huh? Not really that much more. It's a half mile.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Doesn't the Peabody/Watkins cluster actually prove that pairing the schools is not a viable solution to the identified problem? I can't find socioeconomic data, but looking at the racial demographic data on My School DC, Peabody's demographics are very similar to Maury's, and very different from Watkins'. And I believe Peabody and Watkins started closer together than Maury and Miner would.

Maybe they're hoping that people will be okay with Miner for pre-K and the Maury name will keep people in for the upper grades. But again, my understanding of when the cluster began is that Watkins was considered a pretty desirable school.

The Peabody/Watkins cluster historically had many, many issues that caused all kinds of problems (many based on historical racism), and so it's hard to extrapolate a lot from that particular cluster because of that. I'd say the most relevant problem today is the lack of bus transportation between the 2 buildings. When there were buses, many families did actually go through Peabody and then through Watkins; I know because I was one of those families. Many did peel off, but again, that was largely due to all the other problems that already existed within the Cluster for decades.

The need for busses is caused by the cluster!!! It is moronic to argue that the cluster is not a failed experiment and instead pin the blame on an externality caused by the cluster. You must work for DCPS.

Part of the reason people felt like they need those buses was because the schools in the cluster school are significantly further apart and the boundary is very long and skinny. If this Maury Miner cluster happened, those schools are only three blocks apart so parents could easily drop kids off at both locations during the 8: 15 to 845 drop off window. Also parking by Peabody to do drop off his horrible which also was an incentive for the bus,

I don't know what the Miner schedule is, but drop off at Maury is between 8:30 and 8:40 for kids not eating breakfast. And the three blocks translates to an extra 20 minutes (conservatively) for me, which would be another 40 minutes a day. I get that it's closer than Peabody/Watkins (and it is absolutely outrageous that DCPS doesn't offer transportation there), but it would be a pretty huge inconvenience nevertheless.

Interesting, can kids not play on the playground if they are not eating breakfast? I do imagine that if this actually happened they would make drop off schedules that would accommodate both schools/parents.

LOL nope.

NP. Why nope? It seems like there would be lots of ways to do drop off and pick up to accommodate parents at both schools, given their proximity. Especially because of the age split between campuses. A staggered drop off schedule with greater flexibility for the upper school campus, where you can have higher child to teacher ratios (and thus have a larger group of kids on the playground or in the cafeteria with fewer minders until school starts). Also for families that live nearby, by 4th grade your kids can be walking on their own.

As for the time, I personally wouldn't mind that extra walk, but lots of families get cargo bikes for this reason. I know a bunch of families with kids in daycare and and elementary schools that are a lot further apart than Maury and Miner, do it by cargo bike, and can throw in a couple errands and still make their commute to work or make it back home in a reasonable length of time.

I don't know if the cluster makes sense or not -- I would have to think more critically about whether combining those two school populations would really result in a "rising tide lifts all boats" situation, or just result in shedding UMC families altogether in a way that undermines Maury's success. I am not sure, though I understand why they are looking for ways to help the school population at Miner, because it has a very decent ECE program but dismal test scores in 3-5, and clearly loses most of its high-resource kids by 2nd or 3rd, which makes it a lot harder because when every kid is high-risk, no one gets what they need.

But the idea that the main objection is drop-off logistics seems silly on its face. Maury students spent two years in a swing space while the school was renovated, and that posed drop-off issues too. But the renovations was of course worth it and was well worth those adjustments. If a cluster could be beneficial in the long run, adjusting start times or having a slightly less convenient school commute for a few years just seems like such a minor complaint to me.

Let me guess— you still have kids in strollers, right? If you think Maury parents are going to feel safe letting their 4th grader walk to Miner, you need to understand your neighborhood better.

Nope, two elementary age kids.

The proposal is, I think, for Miner to be the ECE center because ECE at Miner is already pretty decent (and a not insignificant number of Maury parents send their kids there for PK3 and/or PK4 because there are not enough IB spots for the demand at Maury). So no 4th grader would walk to Miner. The idea is that if you are currently IB for Maury, your older elementary kids could walk to Maury (or you could drop them off early since it's the closer school) and you could walk the 3 blocks to Miner for ECE drop off of younger kids.

Also, given that these schools are 3 block apart, the argument that the neighborhood around Miner is simply too dangerous to send kids to school there makes no sense. If there is a shooting 2 blocks from Miner, then there was a shooting (at most) 5 blocks from Maury. These schools are very close to each other.

I wish y'all would just admit: you like that your kids got to school with UMC, mostly white kids, and you don't want your kids to go to school with poor black kids. Because you and I both know that's the issue.

Miner is a much more dangerous location than most parts of the Maury zone. This is just a fact. It is basically right on the Starburst which is one of the most dangerous and zombified corners of the entire city.

Maury parents already send their kids to school with “poor black kids.” Thanks for playing the inevitable race card, which is exactly what the nameless DC bureaucrat who thought this up intended. “Hmm, what can I do to deflect from the fact that DCPS is failing poor black kids? I know - create a fake race controversy and mess up two schools, then blame it all on white parents!”

Kids don't go to school in "most parts of the Maury zone." They go to Maury. Which is 3 blocks from Miner. That is the relevant issue -- how close together are these schools, does it make sense to cluster them.

Many Maury parents send their kids to Miner for PK already, because it's so hard to get into Maury PK without sibling AND boundary preference. It's very common. So it's established that parents in the Maury zone are fine sending their kids to Miner, and are fine with the PK classes there. If Miner is already the default ECE backup for Maury kids, why not formalize that? It would solve the problem of insufficient PK spots for Maury parents while also allowing Miner to focus on the thing they already do pretty well. With the 0-3s center being built as well, Miner essentially becomes an early childhood center that can focus on the specific needs of younger children, can focus outdoor areas and school programming around that group.

For upper grades, nothing would change for Maury parents EXCEPT the addition of kids currently IB for Miner, who currently skew poorer and less white than those now at Maury. Everything else stays the same -- facility, teachers, admin. The only difference is using the capacity gained from moving PK3-K or PK3-1 to Miner to expand upper grades to include kids living in the Miner boundary.

This is what people who are upset about this proposal are actually upset about. It's not the distance between the schools -- they are very close and may parents already send kids to Miner for PK. It's not neighborhood crime, these schools are in the same neighborhood. It's the composition of the classes and discomfort with a poorer, blacker school population.

Miner and Maury are .5 miles apart. It's not 3 blocks. It's 4 described in the most favorable terms, but actually requires crossing 7 streets because of how Tennessee is laid out. Also, the idea would be to move PK-1st or PK-2nd to Miner (this is how it was specifically presented by DME), so not ECE only.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Doesn't the Peabody/Watkins cluster actually prove that pairing the schools is not a viable solution to the identified problem? I can't find socioeconomic data, but looking at the racial demographic data on My School DC, Peabody's demographics are very similar to Maury's, and very different from Watkins'. And I believe Peabody and Watkins started closer together than Maury and Miner would.

Maybe they're hoping that people will be okay with Miner for pre-K and the Maury name will keep people in for the upper grades. But again, my understanding of when the cluster began is that Watkins was considered a pretty desirable school.

The Peabody/Watkins cluster historically had many, many issues that caused all kinds of problems (many based on historical racism), and so it's hard to extrapolate a lot from that particular cluster because of that. I'd say the most relevant problem today is the lack of bus transportation between the 2 buildings. When there were buses, many families did actually go through Peabody and then through Watkins; I know because I was one of those families. Many did peel off, but again, that was largely due to all the other problems that already existed within the Cluster for decades.

The need for busses is caused by the cluster!!! It is moronic to argue that the cluster is not a failed experiment and instead pin the blame on an externality caused by the cluster. You must work for DCPS.

Part of the reason people felt like they need those buses was because the schools in the cluster school are significantly further apart and the boundary is very long and skinny. If this Maury Miner cluster happened, those schools are only three blocks apart so parents could easily drop kids off at both locations during the 8: 15 to 845 drop off window. Also parking by Peabody to do drop off his horrible which also was an incentive for the bus,

I don't know what the Miner schedule is, but drop off at Maury is between 8:30 and 8:40 for kids not eating breakfast. And the three blocks translates to an extra 20 minutes (conservatively) for me, which would be another 40 minutes a day. I get that it's closer than Peabody/Watkins (and it is absolutely outrageous that DCPS doesn't offer transportation there), but it would be a pretty huge inconvenience nevertheless.

Interesting, can kids not play on the playground if they are not eating breakfast? I do imagine that if this actually happened they would make drop off schedules that would accommodate both schools/parents.

LOL nope.

NP. Why nope? It seems like there would be lots of ways to do drop off and pick up to accommodate parents at both schools, given their proximity. Especially because of the age split between campuses. A staggered drop off schedule with greater flexibility for the upper school campus, where you can have higher child to teacher ratios (and thus have a larger group of kids on the playground or in the cafeteria with fewer minders until school starts). Also for families that live nearby, by 4th grade your kids can be walking on their own.

As for the time, I personally wouldn't mind that extra walk, but lots of families get cargo bikes for this reason. I know a bunch of families with kids in daycare and and elementary schools that are a lot further apart than Maury and Miner, do it by cargo bike, and can throw in a couple errands and still make their commute to work or make it back home in a reasonable length of time.

I don't know if the cluster makes sense or not -- I would have to think more critically about whether combining those two school populations would really result in a "rising tide lifts all boats" situation, or just result in shedding UMC families altogether in a way that undermines Maury's success. I am not sure, though I understand why they are looking for ways to help the school population at Miner, because it has a very decent ECE program but dismal test scores in 3-5, and clearly loses most of its high-resource kids by 2nd or 3rd, which makes it a lot harder because when every kid is high-risk, no one gets what they need.

But the idea that the main objection is drop-off logistics seems silly on its face. Maury students spent two years in a swing space while the school was renovated, and that posed drop-off issues too. But the renovations was of course worth it and was well worth those adjustments. If a cluster could be beneficial in the long run, adjusting start times or having a slightly less convenient school commute for a few years just seems like such a minor complaint to me.

Let me guess— you still have kids in strollers, right? If you think Maury parents are going to feel safe letting their 4th grader walk to Miner, you need to understand your neighborhood better.

Nope, two elementary age kids.

The proposal is, I think, for Miner to be the ECE center because ECE at Miner is already pretty decent (and a not insignificant number of Maury parents send their kids there for PK3 and/or PK4 because there are not enough IB spots for the demand at Maury). So no 4th grader would walk to Miner. The idea is that if you are currently IB for Maury, your older elementary kids could walk to Maury (or you could drop them off early since it's the closer school) and you could walk the 3 blocks to Miner for ECE drop off of younger kids.

Also, given that these schools are 3 block apart, the argument that the neighborhood around Miner is simply too dangerous to send kids to school there makes no sense. If there is a shooting 2 blocks from Miner, then there was a shooting (at most) 5 blocks from Maury. These schools are very close to each other.

I wish y'all would just admit: you like that your kids got to school with UMC, mostly white kids, and you don't want your kids to go to school with poor black kids. Because you and I both know that's the issue.

Miner is a much more dangerous location than most parts of the Maury zone. This is just a fact. It is basically right on the Starburst which is one of the most dangerous and zombified corners of the entire city.

Maury parents already send their kids to school with “poor black kids.” Thanks for playing the inevitable race card, which is exactly what the nameless DC bureaucrat who thought this up intended. “Hmm, what can I do to deflect from the fact that DCPS is failing poor black kids? I know - create a fake race controversy and mess up two schools, then blame it all on white parents!”

Kids don't go to school in "most parts of the Maury zone." They go to Maury. Which is 3 blocks from Miner. That is the relevant issue -- how close together are these schools, does it make sense to cluster them.

Many Maury parents send their kids to Miner for PK already, because it's so hard to get into Maury PK without sibling AND boundary preference. It's very common. So it's established that parents in the Maury zone are fine sending their kids to Miner, and are fine with the PK classes there. If Miner is already the default ECE backup for Maury kids, why not formalize that? It would solve the problem of insufficient PK spots for Maury parents while also allowing Miner to focus on the thing they already do pretty well. With the 0-3s center being built as well, Miner essentially becomes an early childhood center that can focus on the specific needs of younger children, can focus outdoor areas and school programming around that group.

For upper grades, nothing would change for Maury parents EXCEPT the addition of kids currently IB for Miner, who currently skew poorer and less white than those now at Maury. Everything else stays the same -- facility, teachers, admin. The only difference is using the capacity gained from moving PK3-K or PK3-1 to Miner to expand upper grades to include kids living in the Miner boundary.

This is what people who are upset about this proposal are actually upset about. It's not the distance between the schools -- they are very close and may parents already send kids to Miner for PK. It's not neighborhood crime, these schools are in the same neighborhood. It's the composition of the classes and discomfort with a poorer, blacker school population.

Miner and Maury are .5 miles apart. It's not 3 blocks. It's 4 described in the most favorable terms, but actually requires crossing 7 streets because of how Tennessee is laid out. Also, the idea would be to move PK-1st or PK-2nd to Miner (this is how it was specifically presented by DME), so not ECE only.

Right, half a mile in the opposite direction of the metro. And no, I don’t want to wait for the X2 or streetcar to take me to union station.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Doesn't the Peabody/Watkins cluster actually prove that pairing the schools is not a viable solution to the identified problem? I can't find socioeconomic data, but looking at the racial demographic data on My School DC, Peabody's demographics are very similar to Maury's, and very different from Watkins'. And I believe Peabody and Watkins started closer together than Maury and Miner would.

Maybe they're hoping that people will be okay with Miner for pre-K and the Maury name will keep people in for the upper grades. But again, my understanding of when the cluster began is that Watkins was considered a pretty desirable school.

The Peabody/Watkins cluster historically had many, many issues that caused all kinds of problems (many based on historical racism), and so it's hard to extrapolate a lot from that particular cluster because of that. I'd say the most relevant problem today is the lack of bus transportation between the 2 buildings. When there were buses, many families did actually go through Peabody and then through Watkins; I know because I was one of those families. Many did peel off, but again, that was largely due to all the other problems that already existed within the Cluster for decades.

The need for busses is caused by the cluster!!! It is moronic to argue that the cluster is not a failed experiment and instead pin the blame on an externality caused by the cluster. You must work for DCPS.

Part of the reason people felt like they need those buses was because the schools in the cluster school are significantly further apart and the boundary is very long and skinny. If this Maury Miner cluster happened, those schools are only three blocks apart so parents could easily drop kids off at both locations during the 8: 15 to 845 drop off window. Also parking by Peabody to do drop off his horrible which also was an incentive for the bus,

I don't know what the Miner schedule is, but drop off at Maury is between 8:30 and 8:40 for kids not eating breakfast. And the three blocks translates to an extra 20 minutes (conservatively) for me, which would be another 40 minutes a day. I get that it's closer than Peabody/Watkins (and it is absolutely outrageous that DCPS doesn't offer transportation there), but it would be a pretty huge inconvenience nevertheless.

Interesting, can kids not play on the playground if they are not eating breakfast? I do imagine that if this actually happened they would make drop off schedules that would accommodate both schools/parents.

LOL nope.

NP. Why nope? It seems like there would be lots of ways to do drop off and pick up to accommodate parents at both schools, given their proximity. Especially because of the age split between campuses. A staggered drop off schedule with greater flexibility for the upper school campus, where you can have higher child to teacher ratios (and thus have a larger group of kids on the playground or in the cafeteria with fewer minders until school starts). Also for families that live nearby, by 4th grade your kids can be walking on their own.

As for the time, I personally wouldn't mind that extra walk, but lots of families get cargo bikes for this reason. I know a bunch of families with kids in daycare and and elementary schools that are a lot further apart than Maury and Miner, do it by cargo bike, and can throw in a couple errands and still make their commute to work or make it back home in a reasonable length of time.

I don't know if the cluster makes sense or not -- I would have to think more critically about whether combining those two school populations would really result in a "rising tide lifts all boats" situation, or just result in shedding UMC families altogether in a way that undermines Maury's success. I am not sure, though I understand why they are looking for ways to help the school population at Miner, because it has a very decent ECE program but dismal test scores in 3-5, and clearly loses most of its high-resource kids by 2nd or 3rd, which makes it a lot harder because when every kid is high-risk, no one gets what they need.

But the idea that the main objection is drop-off logistics seems silly on its face. Maury students spent two years in a swing space while the school was renovated, and that posed drop-off issues too. But the renovations was of course worth it and was well worth those adjustments. If a cluster could be beneficial in the long run, adjusting start times or having a slightly less convenient school commute for a few years just seems like such a minor complaint to me.

Let me guess— you still have kids in strollers, right? If you think Maury parents are going to feel safe letting their 4th grader walk to Miner, you need to understand your neighborhood better.

Nope, two elementary age kids.

The proposal is, I think, for Miner to be the ECE center because ECE at Miner is already pretty decent (and a not insignificant number of Maury parents send their kids there for PK3 and/or PK4 because there are not enough IB spots for the demand at Maury). So no 4th grader would walk to Miner. The idea is that if you are currently IB for Maury, your older elementary kids could walk to Maury (or you could drop them off early since it's the closer school) and you could walk the 3 blocks to Miner for ECE drop off of younger kids.

Also, given that these schools are 3 block apart, the argument that the neighborhood around Miner is simply too dangerous to send kids to school there makes no sense. If there is a shooting 2 blocks from Miner, then there was a shooting (at most) 5 blocks from Maury. These schools are very close to each other.

I wish y'all would just admit: you like that your kids got to school with UMC, mostly white kids, and you don't want your kids to go to school with poor black kids. Because you and I both know that's the issue.

Miner is a much more dangerous location than most parts of the Maury zone. This is just a fact. It is basically right on the Starburst which is one of the most dangerous and zombified corners of the entire city.

Maury parents already send their kids to school with “poor black kids.” Thanks for playing the inevitable race card, which is exactly what the nameless DC bureaucrat who thought this up intended. “Hmm, what can I do to deflect from the fact that DCPS is failing poor black kids? I know - create a fake race controversy and mess up two schools, then blame it all on white parents!”

Kids don't go to school in "most parts of the Maury zone." They go to Maury. Which is 3 blocks from Miner. That is the relevant issue -- how close together are these schools, does it make sense to cluster them.

Many Maury parents send their kids to Miner for PK already, because it's so hard to get into Maury PK without sibling AND boundary preference. It's very common. So it's established that parents in the Maury zone are fine sending their kids to Miner, and are fine with the PK classes there. If Miner is already the default ECE backup for Maury kids, why not formalize that? It would solve the problem of insufficient PK spots for Maury parents while also allowing Miner to focus on the thing they already do pretty well. With the 0-3s center being built as well, Miner essentially becomes an early childhood center that can focus on the specific needs of younger children, can focus outdoor areas and school programming around that group.

For upper grades, nothing would change for Maury parents EXCEPT the addition of kids currently IB for Miner, who currently skew poorer and less white than those now at Maury. Everything else stays the same -- facility, teachers, admin. The only difference is using the capacity gained from moving PK3-K or PK3-1 to Miner to expand upper grades to include kids living in the Miner boundary.

This is what people who are upset about this proposal are actually upset about. It's not the distance between the schools -- they are very close and may parents already send kids to Miner for PK. It's not neighborhood crime, these schools are in the same neighborhood. It's the composition of the classes and discomfort with a poorer, blacker school population.

Miner and Maury are .5 miles apart. It's not 3 blocks. It's 4 described in the most favorable terms, but actually requires crossing 7 streets because of how Tennessee is laid out. Also, the idea would be to move PK-1st or PK-2nd to Miner (this is how it was specifically presented by DME), so not ECE only.

Right, half a mile in the opposite direction of the metro. And no, I don’t want to wait for the X2 or streetcar to take me to union station.

(And I also do not want to be crossing the Starburst in the dark to do pickup in the evenings.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Doesn't the Peabody/Watkins cluster actually prove that pairing the schools is not a viable solution to the identified problem? I can't find socioeconomic data, but looking at the racial demographic data on My School DC, Peabody's demographics are very similar to Maury's, and very different from Watkins'. And I believe Peabody and Watkins started closer together than Maury and Miner would.

Maybe they're hoping that people will be okay with Miner for pre-K and the Maury name will keep people in for the upper grades. But again, my understanding of when the cluster began is that Watkins was considered a pretty desirable school.

The Peabody/Watkins cluster historically had many, many issues that caused all kinds of problems (many based on historical racism), and so it's hard to extrapolate a lot from that particular cluster because of that. I'd say the most relevant problem today is the lack of bus transportation between the 2 buildings. When there were buses, many families did actually go through Peabody and then through Watkins; I know because I was one of those families. Many did peel off, but again, that was largely due to all the other problems that already existed within the Cluster for decades.

The need for busses is caused by the cluster!!! It is moronic to argue that the cluster is not a failed experiment and instead pin the blame on an externality caused by the cluster. You must work for DCPS.

Part of the reason people felt like they need those buses was because the schools in the cluster school are significantly further apart and the boundary is very long and skinny. If this Maury Miner cluster happened, those schools are only three blocks apart so parents could easily drop kids off at both locations during the 8: 15 to 845 drop off window. Also parking by Peabody to do drop off his horrible which also was an incentive for the bus,

I don't know what the Miner schedule is, but drop off at Maury is between 8:30 and 8:40 for kids not eating breakfast. And the three blocks translates to an extra 20 minutes (conservatively) for me, which would be another 40 minutes a day. I get that it's closer than Peabody/Watkins (and it is absolutely outrageous that DCPS doesn't offer transportation there), but it would be a pretty huge inconvenience nevertheless.

Interesting, can kids not play on the playground if they are not eating breakfast? I do imagine that if this actually happened they would make drop off schedules that would accommodate both schools/parents.

LOL nope.

NP. Why nope? It seems like there would be lots of ways to do drop off and pick up to accommodate parents at both schools, given their proximity. Especially because of the age split between campuses. A staggered drop off schedule with greater flexibility for the upper school campus, where you can have higher child to teacher ratios (and thus have a larger group of kids on the playground or in the cafeteria with fewer minders until school starts). Also for families that live nearby, by 4th grade your kids can be walking on their own.

As for the time, I personally wouldn't mind that extra walk, but lots of families get cargo bikes for this reason. I know a bunch of families with kids in daycare and and elementary schools that are a lot further apart than Maury and Miner, do it by cargo bike, and can throw in a couple errands and still make their commute to work or make it back home in a reasonable length of time.

I don't know if the cluster makes sense or not -- I would have to think more critically about whether combining those two school populations would really result in a "rising tide lifts all boats" situation, or just result in shedding UMC families altogether in a way that undermines Maury's success. I am not sure, though I understand why they are looking for ways to help the school population at Miner, because it has a very decent ECE program but dismal test scores in 3-5, and clearly loses most of its high-resource kids by 2nd or 3rd, which makes it a lot harder because when every kid is high-risk, no one gets what they need.

But the idea that the main objection is drop-off logistics seems silly on its face. Maury students spent two years in a swing space while the school was renovated, and that posed drop-off issues too. But the renovations was of course worth it and was well worth those adjustments. If a cluster could be beneficial in the long run, adjusting start times or having a slightly less convenient school commute for a few years just seems like such a minor complaint to me.

Let me guess— you still have kids in strollers, right? If you think Maury parents are going to feel safe letting their 4th grader walk to Miner, you need to understand your neighborhood better.

Nope, two elementary age kids.

The proposal is, I think, for Miner to be the ECE center because ECE at Miner is already pretty decent (and a not insignificant number of Maury parents send their kids there for PK3 and/or PK4 because there are not enough IB spots for the demand at Maury). So no 4th grader would walk to Miner. The idea is that if you are currently IB for Maury, your older elementary kids could walk to Maury (or you could drop them off early since it's the closer school) and you could walk the 3 blocks to Miner for ECE drop off of younger kids.

Also, given that these schools are 3 block apart, the argument that the neighborhood around Miner is simply too dangerous to send kids to school there makes no sense. If there is a shooting 2 blocks from Miner, then there was a shooting (at most) 5 blocks from Maury. These schools are very close to each other.

I wish y'all would just admit: you like that your kids got to school with UMC, mostly white kids, and you don't want your kids to go to school with poor black kids. Because you and I both know that's the issue.

Miner is a much more dangerous location than most parts of the Maury zone. This is just a fact. It is basically right on the Starburst which is one of the most dangerous and zombified corners of the entire city.

Maury parents already send their kids to school with “poor black kids.” Thanks for playing the inevitable race card, which is exactly what the nameless DC bureaucrat who thought this up intended. “Hmm, what can I do to deflect from the fact that DCPS is failing poor black kids? I know - create a fake race controversy and mess up two schools, then blame it all on white parents!”

Kids don't go to school in "most parts of the Maury zone." They go to Maury. Which is 3 blocks from Miner. That is the relevant issue -- how close together are these schools, does it make sense to cluster them.

Many Maury parents send their kids to Miner for PK already, because it's so hard to get into Maury PK without sibling AND boundary preference. It's very common. So it's established that parents in the Maury zone are fine sending their kids to Miner, and are fine with the PK classes there. If Miner is already the default ECE backup for Maury kids, why not formalize that? It would solve the problem of insufficient PK spots for Maury parents while also allowing Miner to focus on the thing they already do pretty well. With the 0-3s center being built as well, Miner essentially becomes an early childhood center that can focus on the specific needs of younger children, can focus outdoor areas and school programming around that group.

For upper grades, nothing would change for Maury parents EXCEPT the addition of kids currently IB for Miner, who currently skew poorer and less white than those now at Maury. Everything else stays the same -- facility, teachers, admin. The only difference is using the capacity gained from moving PK3-K or PK3-1 to Miner to expand upper grades to include kids living in the Miner boundary.

This is what people who are upset about this proposal are actually upset about. It's not the distance between the schools -- they are very close and may parents already send kids to Miner for PK. It's not neighborhood crime, these schools are in the same neighborhood. It's the composition of the classes and discomfort with a poorer, blacker school population.

Miner and Maury are .5 miles apart. It's not 3 blocks. It's 4 described in the most favorable terms, but actually requires crossing 7 streets because of how Tennessee is laid out. Also, the idea would be to move PK-1st or PK-2nd to Miner (this is how it was specifically presented by DME), so not ECE only.

Right, half a mile in the opposite direction of the metro. And no, I don’t want to wait for the X2 or streetcar to take me to union station.

(And I also do not want to be crossing the Starburst in the dark to do pickup in the evenings.)

100%. The idea that this isn't a major inconvenience for someone living at 10th & A NE is ridiculous. Yes, it is only .5 additional miles on top of the existing commute. Yes, it is only part of the Maury boundary that is extremely inconvenienced (although the difference in crime at the two locations is very real on top of that). But it's also the richest part of the boundary with the most social & actual capital and the most alternative options (not to mention likely proximity preference for Ludlow). If the result of this proposal is *only* that 50% of people living West of 13th leave Maury immediately, I would predict a mess of a school that is majority OOB within 3 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Doesn't the Peabody/Watkins cluster actually prove that pairing the schools is not a viable solution to the identified problem? I can't find socioeconomic data, but looking at the racial demographic data on My School DC, Peabody's demographics are very similar to Maury's, and very different from Watkins'. And I believe Peabody and Watkins started closer together than Maury and Miner would.

Maybe they're hoping that people will be okay with Miner for pre-K and the Maury name will keep people in for the upper grades. But again, my understanding of when the cluster began is that Watkins was considered a pretty desirable school.

The Peabody/Watkins cluster historically had many, many issues that caused all kinds of problems (many based on historical racism), and so it's hard to extrapolate a lot from that particular cluster because of that. I'd say the most relevant problem today is the lack of bus transportation between the 2 buildings. When there were buses, many families did actually go through Peabody and then through Watkins; I know because I was one of those families. Many did peel off, but again, that was largely due to all the other problems that already existed within the Cluster for decades.

The need for busses is caused by the cluster!!! It is moronic to argue that the cluster is not a failed experiment and instead pin the blame on an externality caused by the cluster. You must work for DCPS.

Part of the reason people felt like they need those buses was because the schools in the cluster school are significantly further apart and the boundary is very long and skinny. If this Maury Miner cluster happened, those schools are only three blocks apart so parents could easily drop kids off at both locations during the 8: 15 to 845 drop off window. Also parking by Peabody to do drop off his horrible which also was an incentive for the bus,

I don't know what the Miner schedule is, but drop off at Maury is between 8:30 and 8:40 for kids not eating breakfast. And the three blocks translates to an extra 20 minutes (conservatively) for me, which would be another 40 minutes a day. I get that it's closer than Peabody/Watkins (and it is absolutely outrageous that DCPS doesn't offer transportation there), but it would be a pretty huge inconvenience nevertheless.

Interesting, can kids not play on the playground if they are not eating breakfast? I do imagine that if this actually happened they would make drop off schedules that would accommodate both schools/parents.

LOL nope.

NP. Why nope? It seems like there would be lots of ways to do drop off and pick up to accommodate parents at both schools, given their proximity. Especially because of the age split between campuses. A staggered drop off schedule with greater flexibility for the upper school campus, where you can have higher child to teacher ratios (and thus have a larger group of kids on the playground or in the cafeteria with fewer minders until school starts). Also for families that live nearby, by 4th grade your kids can be walking on their own.

As for the time, I personally wouldn't mind that extra walk, but lots of families get cargo bikes for this reason. I know a bunch of families with kids in daycare and and elementary schools that are a lot further apart than Maury and Miner, do it by cargo bike, and can throw in a couple errands and still make their commute to work or make it back home in a reasonable length of time.

I don't know if the cluster makes sense or not -- I would have to think more critically about whether combining those two school populations would really result in a "rising tide lifts all boats" situation, or just result in shedding UMC families altogether in a way that undermines Maury's success. I am not sure, though I understand why they are looking for ways to help the school population at Miner, because it has a very decent ECE program but dismal test scores in 3-5, and clearly loses most of its high-resource kids by 2nd or 3rd, which makes it a lot harder because when every kid is high-risk, no one gets what they need.

But the idea that the main objection is drop-off logistics seems silly on its face. Maury students spent two years in a swing space while the school was renovated, and that posed drop-off issues too. But the renovations was of course worth it and was well worth those adjustments. If a cluster could be beneficial in the long run, adjusting start times or having a slightly less convenient school commute for a few years just seems like such a minor complaint to me.

Let me guess— you still have kids in strollers, right? If you think Maury parents are going to feel safe letting their 4th grader walk to Miner, you need to understand your neighborhood better.

Nope, two elementary age kids.

The proposal is, I think, for Miner to be the ECE center because ECE at Miner is already pretty decent (and a not insignificant number of Maury parents send their kids there for PK3 and/or PK4 because there are not enough IB spots for the demand at Maury). So no 4th grader would walk to Miner. The idea is that if you are currently IB for Maury, your older elementary kids could walk to Maury (or you could drop them off early since it's the closer school) and you could walk the 3 blocks to Miner for ECE drop off of younger kids.

Also, given that these schools are 3 block apart, the argument that the neighborhood around Miner is simply too dangerous to send kids to school there makes no sense. If there is a shooting 2 blocks from Miner, then there was a shooting (at most) 5 blocks from Maury. These schools are very close to each other.

I wish y'all would just admit: you like that your kids got to school with UMC, mostly white kids, and you don't want your kids to go to school with poor black kids. Because you and I both know that's the issue.

Miner is a much more dangerous location than most parts of the Maury zone. This is just a fact. It is basically right on the Starburst which is one of the most dangerous and zombified corners of the entire city.

Maury parents already send their kids to school with “poor black kids.” Thanks for playing the inevitable race card, which is exactly what the nameless DC bureaucrat who thought this up intended. “Hmm, what can I do to deflect from the fact that DCPS is failing poor black kids? I know - create a fake race controversy and mess up two schools, then blame it all on white parents!”

Kids don't go to school in "most parts of the Maury zone." They go to Maury. Which is 3 blocks from Miner. That is the relevant issue -- how close together are these schools, does it make sense to cluster them.

Many Maury parents send their kids to Miner for PK already, because it's so hard to get into Maury PK without sibling AND boundary preference. It's very common. So it's established that parents in the Maury zone are fine sending their kids to Miner, and are fine with the PK classes there. If Miner is already the default ECE backup for Maury kids, why not formalize that? It would solve the problem of insufficient PK spots for Maury parents while also allowing Miner to focus on the thing they already do pretty well. With the 0-3s center being built as well, Miner essentially becomes an early childhood center that can focus on the specific needs of younger children, can focus outdoor areas and school programming around that group.

For upper grades, nothing would change for Maury parents EXCEPT the addition of kids currently IB for Miner, who currently skew poorer and less white than those now at Maury. Everything else stays the same -- facility, teachers, admin. The only difference is using the capacity gained from moving PK3-K or PK3-1 to Miner to expand upper grades to include kids living in the Miner boundary.

This is what people who are upset about this proposal are actually upset about. It's not the distance between the schools -- they are very close and may parents already send kids to Miner for PK. It's not neighborhood crime, these schools are in the same neighborhood. It's the composition of the classes and discomfort with a poorer, blacker school population.

Is this true? I chose to pay for daycare over sending my kid into Miner, and I don't know anyone my kid's class that sent their kids to Miner. I would guess that of course some parents choose this route, but "many"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Doesn't the Peabody/Watkins cluster actually prove that pairing the schools is not a viable solution to the identified problem? I can't find socioeconomic data, but looking at the racial demographic data on My School DC, Peabody's demographics are very similar to Maury's, and very different from Watkins'. And I believe Peabody and Watkins started closer together than Maury and Miner would.

Maybe they're hoping that people will be okay with Miner for pre-K and the Maury name will keep people in for the upper grades. But again, my understanding of when the cluster began is that Watkins was considered a pretty desirable school.

The Peabody/Watkins cluster historically had many, many issues that caused all kinds of problems (many based on historical racism), and so it's hard to extrapolate a lot from that particular cluster because of that. I'd say the most relevant problem today is the lack of bus transportation between the 2 buildings. When there were buses, many families did actually go through Peabody and then through Watkins; I know because I was one of those families. Many did peel off, but again, that was largely due to all the other problems that already existed within the Cluster for decades.

The need for busses is caused by the cluster!!! It is moronic to argue that the cluster is not a failed experiment and instead pin the blame on an externality caused by the cluster. You must work for DCPS.

Part of the reason people felt like they need those buses was because the schools in the cluster school are significantly further apart and the boundary is very long and skinny. If this Maury Miner cluster happened, those schools are only three blocks apart so parents could easily drop kids off at both locations during the 8: 15 to 845 drop off window. Also parking by Peabody to do drop off his horrible which also was an incentive for the bus,

I don't know what the Miner schedule is, but drop off at Maury is between 8:30 and 8:40 for kids not eating breakfast. And the three blocks translates to an extra 20 minutes (conservatively) for me, which would be another 40 minutes a day. I get that it's closer than Peabody/Watkins (and it is absolutely outrageous that DCPS doesn't offer transportation there), but it would be a pretty huge inconvenience nevertheless.

Interesting, can kids not play on the playground if they are not eating breakfast? I do imagine that if this actually happened they would make drop off schedules that would accommodate both schools/parents.

LOL nope.

NP. Why nope? It seems like there would be lots of ways to do drop off and pick up to accommodate parents at both schools, given their proximity. Especially because of the age split between campuses. A staggered drop off schedule with greater flexibility for the upper school campus, where you can have higher child to teacher ratios (and thus have a larger group of kids on the playground or in the cafeteria with fewer minders until school starts). Also for families that live nearby, by 4th grade your kids can be walking on their own.

As for the time, I personally wouldn't mind that extra walk, but lots of families get cargo bikes for this reason. I know a bunch of families with kids in daycare and and elementary schools that are a lot further apart than Maury and Miner, do it by cargo bike, and can throw in a couple errands and still make their commute to work or make it back home in a reasonable length of time.

I don't know if the cluster makes sense or not -- I would have to think more critically about whether combining those two school populations would really result in a "rising tide lifts all boats" situation, or just result in shedding UMC families altogether in a way that undermines Maury's success. I am not sure, though I understand why they are looking for ways to help the school population at Miner, because it has a very decent ECE program but dismal test scores in 3-5, and clearly loses most of its high-resource kids by 2nd or 3rd, which makes it a lot harder because when every kid is high-risk, no one gets what they need.

But the idea that the main objection is drop-off logistics seems silly on its face. Maury students spent two years in a swing space while the school was renovated, and that posed drop-off issues too. But the renovations was of course worth it and was well worth those adjustments. If a cluster could be beneficial in the long run, adjusting start times or having a slightly less convenient school commute for a few years just seems like such a minor complaint to me.

Let me guess— you still have kids in strollers, right? If you think Maury parents are going to feel safe letting their 4th grader walk to Miner, you need to understand your neighborhood better.

Nope, two elementary age kids.

The proposal is, I think, for Miner to be the ECE center because ECE at Miner is already pretty decent (and a not insignificant number of Maury parents send their kids there for PK3 and/or PK4 because there are not enough IB spots for the demand at Maury). So no 4th grader would walk to Miner. The idea is that if you are currently IB for Maury, your older elementary kids could walk to Maury (or you could drop them off early since it's the closer school) and you could walk the 3 blocks to Miner for ECE drop off of younger kids.

Also, given that these schools are 3 block apart, the argument that the neighborhood around Miner is simply too dangerous to send kids to school there makes no sense. If there is a shooting 2 blocks from Miner, then there was a shooting (at most) 5 blocks from Maury. These schools are very close to each other.

I wish y'all would just admit: you like that your kids got to school with UMC, mostly white kids, and you don't want your kids to go to school with poor black kids. Because you and I both know that's the issue.

Miner is a much more dangerous location than most parts of the Maury zone. This is just a fact. It is basically right on the Starburst which is one of the most dangerous and zombified corners of the entire city.

Maury parents already send their kids to school with “poor black kids.” Thanks for playing the inevitable race card, which is exactly what the nameless DC bureaucrat who thought this up intended. “Hmm, what can I do to deflect from the fact that DCPS is failing poor black kids? I know - create a fake race controversy and mess up two schools, then blame it all on white parents!”

Kids don't go to school in "most parts of the Maury zone." They go to Maury. Which is 3 blocks from Miner. That is the relevant issue -- how close together are these schools, does it make sense to cluster them.

Many Maury parents send their kids to Miner for PK already, because it's so hard to get into Maury PK without sibling AND boundary preference. It's very common. So it's established that parents in the Maury zone are fine sending their kids to Miner, and are fine with the PK classes there. If Miner is already the default ECE backup for Maury kids, why not formalize that? It would solve the problem of insufficient PK spots for Maury parents while also allowing Miner to focus on the thing they already do pretty well. With the 0-3s center being built as well, Miner essentially becomes an early childhood center that can focus on the specific needs of younger children, can focus outdoor areas and school programming around that group.

For upper grades, nothing would change for Maury parents EXCEPT the addition of kids currently IB for Miner, who currently skew poorer and less white than those now at Maury. Everything else stays the same -- facility, teachers, admin. The only difference is using the capacity gained from moving PK3-K or PK3-1 to Miner to expand upper grades to include kids living in the Miner boundary.

This is what people who are upset about this proposal are actually upset about. It's not the distance between the schools -- they are very close and may parents already send kids to Miner for PK. It's not neighborhood crime, these schools are in the same neighborhood. It's the composition of the classes and discomfort with a poorer, blacker school population.

Is this true? I chose to pay for daycare over sending my kid into Miner, and I don't know anyone my kid's class that sent their kids to Miner. I would guess that of course some parents choose this route, but "many"?

21 to AppleTree and 13 to Miner in 2021-22, if I'm reading the data correctly. (Agree this is not "many" in a meaningful sense.)

[Anonymous]

Uhm… https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/90/1153984.page#26288443

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Uhm… https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/90/1153984.page#26288443

Wow—that is great news for Maury.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:can I just say I think it is deranged that there are no Maury OR Miner parents on the boundary committee? Just nuts. This idea comes from nowhere, it’s just some bureaucratic who thinks it makes him/her look good.

Not surprised but I look forward to the big meeting on Tues

Are the Maury families aware of this proposal? I live inbounds but my kid isn't at the school yet (PK at Miner actually). I'm wondering what is actually being discussed within the school community?

Yes, they are now aware, but somewhat late to the party. Most feel like this news came out of the blue over the past couple weeks. I’m a moderately involved Maury parent—go to a handful of PTA meetings etc., but not a ton—and the last I remember being briefed on the DME process was essentially being told at a meeting that it was going on but was “mostly about schools in NW.” So, no inkling that it would impact us until the last couple weeks.