Janney third grade parents--what do you think of the giant class sizes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are all the third grade classes set up this way? Will it be like that for the 4th and fifth grades too then for this cohort?

all the 3rd grade classes are 31/32.
the old principal (who left in May) wouldn't answer this last year when asked about 4th/5th grade sizes. it would seem to be the plan because the school is out of rooms and
some neighborhood covenant prevents them from adding trailers to the yard.
It's concerning because some of the younger grades are even bigger.

It's pretty clear that Janney will have to redo it's boundaries or get rid of PreK

You guys need to think outside the box. Who says the only way to learn is to sit at a desk. There are 32 kids and 2 teachers. If there kids are not not keeping up bc of noise and whatever one teacher can always take a small group to focus on. They may be out of classrooms but there is a library, a cafeteria, lots of offices, a huge gym that is empty most of the school day and lots of hallwalls; weather permitting they also have outdoors!

This. Two teachers should be able to split a class of 32. For example, in a one hour teaching block, Teacher A and B can sort 32 kids into 3 instructional groups -- instruction, practice and out of classroom activity. These 3 groups can work on associated concepts or not as necessary. So, in a math block, teacher is instructing one group in classroom while monitoring the second group which is working on in class practice. The other teacher is taking the third group out of the classroom to work on manipulatives or a math related project. All groups rotate every 20 minutes so all kids get all concepts/experiences.

Any teacher would be happy to work with 10 or 20 children at a time; it should be very manageable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Frankly, and I posted this upthread, but the other obvious temporary solution is for Janney to have trailers. I would be happy to sacrifice garden space for one trailer so my child was not in a 32 person class.

Does anyone know if this was proposed?

I think there is some sort of agreement with the city or ordinance that won't allow trailers.

I thought that was only on the part that has the underground garage on it.

Does anyone have actual knowledge about the legal constraints relating to trailers? What could the rules be? The school is practically on Wisconsin Ave, so it can't be a zoning issue.

Leasing St Ann's for a few years would make more sense than installing trailers on the playground

Once again, it is so adorable to me (a neighbor, a longtime Catholic, and parent) how DCPS parents imagine that all empty property property can simply be assigned to DCPS to fulfill its needs.

Murch needs swing space? Why, we could take over private company Intelsat or better yet, several acres of National Park land that is held in trust for all Americans! Janney uncomfortably crowded? Let's start with St. Ann's, and if that's not enough, lets scoop up Best Buy too! And wait -- What about that cute church behind Best Buy!?! We can have that too! My kids neeeeeeeed space. Mine! Mine! Mine! And then Hearst can be the place where we put science labs and theater ... And we can have basketball games in the Fannie Mae building ....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am not in the Janney boundary and my kids are beyond primary school grades. However I hear that there are several families gaming the system, using addresses for out of boundary friends, etc… The whole Janney/Deal/Wilson area needs to ensure that every single enrolled student actually resides in the address on their forms.

We were actually invited to do this by Janney parents (relatives) who live in boundary and have 2 kids there. Father is a lawyer. I am a lawyer and declined their attempt to be helpful. It's fraud, and I could lose a bar license over it if caught.

I thought it was really weird, but this demonstrates how accepted it was to do this.

We moved to MoCo after preK because our DCPS school was not great.

In MoCo, if you move after the school year starts, you can finish out the year, but after that you have to go to the school for the neighborhood you moved to. So, there's no incentive to move to a neighborhood with better schools thinking you will be able to stay.

There is also no free preK in MoCo unless you qualify on as low income. The fact that DCPS offers free preK and MoCo doesn't shifts the calculus and encourages even reasonably well off parents to stay in DC (usually in upper NW). If you have free preK, you are potentially saving 15k-20K a year per child. That's a significant chunk of change. If the schools are even marginally comparable, most parents will opt to stay in the decent upper NW DCPS to save $60K (3 kids) and consider moving later if necessary.

If Janney cut preK it would naturally winnow down the number of families in boundary. Faced with the comparison on the basis of schools offerings alone, many more families would chose MCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Frankly, and I posted this upthread, but the other obvious temporary solution is for Janney to have trailers. I would be happy to sacrifice garden space for one trailer so my child was not in a 32 person class.

Does anyone know if this was proposed?

I think there is some sort of agreement with the city or ordinance that won't allow trailers.

I thought that was only on the part that has the underground garage on it.

Does anyone have actual knowledge about the legal constraints relating to trailers? What could the rules be? The school is practically on Wisconsin Ave, so it can't be a zoning issue.

Leasing St Ann's for a few years would make more sense than installing trailers on the playground

Once again, it is so adorable to me (a neighbor, a longtime Catholic, and parent) how DCPS parents imagine that all empty property property can simply be assigned to DCPS to fulfill its needs.

Murch needs swing space? Why, we could take over private company Intelsat or better yet, several acres of National Park land that is held in trust for all Americans! Janney uncomfortably crowded? Let's start with St. Ann's, and if that's not enough, lets scoop up Best Buy too! And wait -- What about that cute church behind Best Buy!?! We can have that too! My kids neeeeeeeed space. Mine! Mine! Mine! And then Hearst can be the place where we put science labs and theater ... And we can have basketball games in the Fannie Mae building ....

Don't be a jerk. No one is talking about eminent domain. DGS has an RFS out to lease space for Murch. They do need it. They will pay for it, if they can find it and afford it. If no space is available or affordable, these little kids are in of rough couple of years.Nothing cute about it. People are brainstorming ideas because it is a very difficult situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Right, they'd have to go to Hearst, and Janney moms would chew their own arms off before letting their snowflakes go to Hearst.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Re-district part of Janney now. Simple, obvious, reasonable, and right.

Well, not so obvious. First, there's no point in rezoning to other schools that are also overcrowded, like Lafayette or Murch. So that leaves rezoning to Hearst or Mann. What is the current capacity of those buildings and IB %?

Hearst has the most infinitesimally small zone in the District. Look at the map -- it includes campuses for Fannie Mae, UDC, National Presbyterian, Sidwell, Howard Law, Hillwood Estate, not to mention a chunk of Rock Creek Park. It only skews out of boundary because it's too damn small a catchment to fill with the neighborhood kids who don't attend private school, which I'm willing to bet is no greater a percentage than in the Murch boundary. If the boundaries were right sized it would better serve as a neighborhood school and maybe there'd be less howling over a rezone.

DCPS kept Shepard and Bancroft in the Deal feed to rightly maintain diversity. The primary OOB draw to a place like Hearst is the Deal feed. If DCPS plans to open 10% of seats to at risk OOB kids there should be more balance with the needs of the neighborhood schools, some of which are overstuffed and some underutilized by IB. The only other potential space saving measure would may be eliminating all PK in Upper NW and useable outdoor space in favor of pods.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:... Deal: 1312
Wilson: 1788

How many more kids can fit into Deal and Wilson???

Didn't Bowser promise "Alice Deal for all"?

Apparently, we all misunderstood Bowser. We thought she meant to improve other schools to the level of Deal. But what she really meant was that every middle school student in the entire city will attend Deal. Deal enrollment expected to top 10,000. All other middle schools will simply close for lack of enrollment, and will be sold to developers, netting millions for city budgets.

DC got "Bowsered."

It's pretty telling that she used that steaming pile of a line on the campaign and incredulous responses aside, her administration has done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to address middle school quality at DCPS. There is no vision for how this gets better, there's only hope for charters to fill the void.

Except opening a new middle school in Brookland and putting in a very capable principal, formerly of Janney. Now McFarland is being opened earlier -- community meetings underway.

Too late for my Ward 4 kids, who are in middle school/high school charters. But things are happening.

But those don't affect DCUM kids so it doesn't count. /snark

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Frankly, and I posted this upthread, but the other obvious temporary solution is for Janney to have trailers. I would be happy to sacrifice garden space for one trailer so my child was not in a 32 person class.

Does anyone know if this was proposed?

I think there is some sort of agreement with the city or ordinance that won't allow trailers.

I thought that was only on the part that has the underground garage on it.

Does anyone have actual knowledge about the legal constraints relating to trailers? What could the rules be? The school is practically on Wisconsin Ave, so it can't be a zoning issue.

Leasing St Ann's for a few years would make more sense than installing trailers on the playground

Once again, it is so adorable to me (a neighbor, a longtime Catholic, and parent) how DCPS parents imagine that all empty property property can simply be assigned to DCPS to fulfill its needs.

Murch needs swing space? Why, we could take over private company Intelsat or better yet, several acres of National Park land that is held in trust for all Americans! Janney uncomfortably crowded? Let's start with St. Ann's, and if that's not enough, lets scoop up Best Buy too! And wait -- What about that cute church behind Best Buy!?! We can have that too! My kids neeeeeeeed space. Mine! Mine! Mine! And then Hearst can be the place where we put science labs and theater ... And we can have basketball games in the Fannie Mae building ....

LOL. This is funny and pretty true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Frankly, and I posted this upthread, but the other obvious temporary solution is for Janney to have trailers. I would be happy to sacrifice garden space for one trailer so my child was not in a 32 person class.

Does anyone know if this was proposed?

I think there is some sort of agreement with the city or ordinance that won't allow trailers.

I thought that was only on the part that has the underground garage on it.

Does anyone have actual knowledge about the legal constraints relating to trailers? What could the rules be? The school is practically on Wisconsin Ave, so it can't be a zoning issue.

Leasing St Ann's for a few years would make more sense than installing trailers on the playground

Once again, it is so adorable to me (a neighbor, a longtime Catholic, and parent) how DCPS parents imagine that all empty property property can simply be assigned to DCPS to fulfill its needs.

Murch needs swing space? Why, we could take over private company Intelsat or better yet, several acres of National Park land that is held in trust for all Americans! Janney uncomfortably crowded? Let's start with St. Ann's, and if that's not enough, lets scoop up Best Buy too! And wait -- What about that cute church behind Best Buy!?! We can have that too! My kids neeeeeeeed space. Mine! Mine! Mine! And then Hearst can be the place where we put science labs and theater ... And we can have basketball games in the Fannie Mae building ....

LOL. This is funny and pretty true.

+1
People have posted this a million times here, "well, Janney just needs to use the St Ann's space".

huh?

Why don't they just move forward into the senior housing on Albermarle? Or absorb the houses on the other side of 42nd street? I'm sure those families will just hand over the keys.

PEOPLE! The St Ann's building is NOT FOR SALE!

lol

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:... Deal: 1312
Wilson: 1788

How many more kids can fit into Deal and Wilson???

Didn't Bowser promise "Alice Deal for all"?

Apparently, we all misunderstood Bowser. We thought she meant to improve other schools to the level of Deal. But what she really meant was that every middle school student in the entire city will attend Deal. Deal enrollment expected to top 10,000. All other middle schools will simply close for lack of enrollment, and will be sold to developers, netting millions for city budgets.

DC got "Bowsered."

It's pretty telling that she used that steaming pile of a line on the campaign and incredulous responses aside, her administration has done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to address middle school quality at DCPS. There is no vision for how this gets better, there's only hope for charters to fill the void.

Except opening a new middle school in Brookland and putting in a very capable principal, formerly of Janney. Now McFarland is being opened earlier -- community meetings underway.

Too late for my Ward 4 kids, who are in middle school/high school charters. But things are happening.

But those don't affect DCUM kids so it doesn't count. /snark

I hear the early word on enrollment is about the size of my kids old daycare center, so there's that

[Anonymous]

Once again, it is so adorable to me (a neighbor, a longtime Catholic, and parent) how DCPS parents imagine that all empty property property can simply be assigned to DCPS to fulfill its needs.

Murch needs swing space? Why, we could take over private company Intelsat or better yet, several acres of National Park land that is held in trust for all Americans! Janney uncomfortably crowded? Let's start with St. Ann's, and if that's not enough, lets scoop up Best Buy too! And wait -- What about that cute church behind Best Buy!?! We can have that too! My kids neeeeeeeed space. Mine! Mine! Mine! And then Hearst can be the place where we put science labs and theater ... And we can have basketball games in the Fannie Mae building ....


Great synopsis of this thread. Bravo.

[Anonymous]

I thought the St. Ann's space was being advertised for lease. That's why it's being discussed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Right, they'd have to go to Hearst, and Janney moms would chew their own arms off before letting their snowflakes go to Hearst.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Re-district part of Janney now. Simple, obvious, reasonable, and right.

Well, not so obvious. First, there's no point in rezoning to other schools that are also overcrowded, like Lafayette or Murch. So that leaves rezoning to Hearst or Mann. What is the current capacity of those buildings and IB %?

Hearst has the most infinitesimally small zone in the District. Look at the map -- it includes campuses for Fannie Mae, UDC, National Presbyterian, Sidwell, Howard Law, Hillwood Estate, not to mention a chunk of Rock Creek Park. It only skews out of boundary because it's too damn small a catchment to fill with the neighborhood kids who don't attend private school, which I'm willing to bet is no greater a percentage than in the Murch boundary. If the boundaries were right sized it would better serve as a neighborhood school and maybe there'd be less howling over a rezone.

DCPS kept Shepard and Bancroft in the Deal feed to rightly maintain diversity. The primary OOB draw to a place like Hearst is the Deal feed. If DCPS plans to open 10% of seats to at risk OOB kids there should be more balance with the needs of the neighborhood schools, some of which are overstuffed and some underutilized by IB. The only other potential space saving measure would may be eliminating all PK in Upper NW and useable outdoor space in favor of pods.

They kept Shepard and Bancroft in Deal for politics. Taking Eaton out of Deal removes a very diverse pipeline because of the large Percentage of out of boundary students at that school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I thought the St. Ann's space was being advertised for lease. That's why it's being discussed.

Exactly, and Janney could simply remove a section of the fence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Once again, it is so adorable to me (a neighbor, a longtime Catholic, and parent) how DCPS parents imagine that all empty property property can simply be assigned to DCPS to fulfill its needs.

Murch needs swing space? Why, we could take over private company Intelsat or better yet, several acres of National Park land that is held in trust for all Americans! Janney uncomfortably crowded? Let's start with St. Ann's, and if that's not enough, lets scoop up Best Buy too! And wait -- What about that cute church behind Best Buy!?! We can have that too! My kids neeeeeeeed space. Mine! Mine! Mine! And then Hearst can be the place where we put science labs and theater ... And we can have basketball games in the Fannie Mae building ....


Great synopsis of this thread. Bravo.

There's a lot of space at the vacant former Intelsat building. Intelsat moved out over a year ago and went to Tysons.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Once again, it is so adorable to me (a neighbor, a longtime Catholic, and parent) how DCPS parents imagine that all empty property property can simply be assigned to DCPS to fulfill its needs.

Murch needs swing space? Why, we could take over private company Intelsat or better yet, several acres of National Park land that is held in trust for all Americans! Janney uncomfortably crowded? Let's start with St. Ann's, and if that's not enough, lets scoop up Best Buy too! And wait -- What about that cute church behind Best Buy!?! We can have that too! My kids neeeeeeeed space. Mine! Mine! Mine! And then Hearst can be the place where we put science labs and theater ... And we can have basketball games in the Fannie Mae building ....


Great synopsis of this thread. Bravo.

There's a lot of space at the vacant former Intelsat building. Intelsat moved out over a year ago and went to Tysons.

I know who is considering the space - and it is not DCPS