New TA here: please don’t send your kids to high poverty schools if you can avoid it

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I used to work in a high poverty, low performing school in Anacostia, in a program that supports parents of elementary students. Those parents were solely focused on getting their kids out of that school, whether it was to a charter school or eventually out of the neighborhood altogether.

They thought that anyone who chose to send their kid to that school, if they had another option, was frankly crazy.

I would love to hear more about why they don't move to VA or MD and solve this problem. Is it the familiarity of the neighborhood? I see tons of hispanic families in Arlington who moved to VA for schools. Tell us your experience.

You can’t understand why a family wouldn’t be able to come up with first and last month rent to move to MD or VA? Or a family who has managed to qualify for Medicaid or Early Headstart or Section 8 or TANF etc . . . All of which are programs that determine eligibility by state, wouldn’t be able to put themselves back on the bottom of the waiting list in a new state?

Honestly, I want my kid to know how the world works. If wherever you went to school led to you being his clueless, then that’s not what I want for my kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It depends on the enrichment programs the district can offer and when. My kids went to private k-elementary. Then to an >80% FARMS middle school. However, the enrichment, starting in middle school is excellent. My kids go to a local university for core classes- paid for my the district. For the highly advanced, it is even better than academics private can offer. If my kids were middle of the road academically, I would have stayed private

I am talking about ES experience only. These kids will actually go to a decent middle since other elementaries are not as bad and some even good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I used to work in a high poverty, low performing school in Anacostia, in a program that supports parents of elementary students. Those parents were solely focused on getting their kids out of that school, whether it was to a charter school or eventually out of the neighborhood altogether.

They thought that anyone who chose to send their kid to that school, if they had another option, was frankly crazy.

I would love to hear more about why they don't move to VA or MD and solve this problem. Is it the familiarity of the neighborhood? I see tons of hispanic families in Arlington who moved to VA for schools. Tell us your experience.

You can’t understand why a family wouldn’t be able to come up with first and last month rent to move to MD or VA? Or a family who has managed to qualify for Medicaid or Early Headstart or Section 8 or TANF etc . . . All of which are programs that determine eligibility by state, wouldn’t be able to put themselves back on the bottom of the waiting list in a new state?

Honestly, I want my kid to know how the world works. If wherever you went to school led to you being his clueless, then that’s not what I want for my kids.

I am not the PP you are responding to, I am OP. Trust me being in this kind of elementary school can only teach the kid that school is a boring place with rigid discipline

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree w you op as someone who went to high poverty public schools from elementary-high school despite being from a UMC family w parents who could’ve easily afforded to move us to a better public school district or send us to private schools. They wanted to support urban public education (much like another PP stated about her parents) and they also had the mindset that my siblings and I would do well in life no matter where we went to school because they knew we were smart and that they could provide us w lots of enrichment outside of school. They also thought it was important for us to go to school w kids who were from different SES/(and also racial) backgrounds than we were so we wouldn’t grow up in a bubble.

While I think my parents had good intentions and now as an adult I do share a lot of their beliefs (we live in a city and our kids attend urban, diverse public schools too), my own school experience was frankly awful. There were so many problems w day to day operation of the school that I didn’t get a good education—academically or socio-emotionally either. School was a depressing, sometimes scary/dangerous (fights all the time in and around the school, events like school dances and pep rallies were always getting cancelled due to student fighting) place to be. I hated school and never felt supported there by teachers, who were mostly too busy dealing w all the challenges of working in a high poverty school to teach well at all and certainly stretched too thin to provide much support to the “good, smart” kids. If you were a quiet, well behaved kid like I was the teachers didn’t pay any attention to you and just let you slide by even if you weren’t that great of a student academically. If my parents had known how bad it was they wouldn’t have made the same choice. But I think at the time they were so wrapped up in the ideology of doing something they believed in that they couldn’t see how it was damaging and not a good environment for us kids.

OP here. I am hoping my post will be able to reach at least one parent like yours.
Why did you send your kids to an urban school too though?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The issue is we need better teachers and school staff. We go where there is affordable housing that is not a stretch...

Op here. The teachers I work for all seem to be juggling so many things and doing a great job at it. They are pretty rigid in terms of discipline but I know where they are coming from. I would say each class needs a couple permanent instructional assistants for these kids to have a semblance of normal educational experience that kids in “normal” schools have

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have recently started working as a TA at an 85% low income and ESL school. This is not in the DMV area but I think there are very similar schools in FCPS for example. I can never say this to parents in my district because I am bound by all the privacy stuff but I want to say it here: please please don’t send your child to a school like that, even for K.
I don’t know why the kids from middle class families are there. Many of them seem at least 3rd Gen American so it’s not like their parents have no clue about the school system. Heck, many first Gen parents have a good idea! But apparently not them?
Each class has a group of very disruptive kids who ideally need their own aide, either as a group or even individually. They don’t seem to be getting much education simply because they are so distracted they can’t possibly learn much.
The rest of the kids are very very different from each other in terms of their levels. Ideally each class should have at least 3 level groups (not counting the separate one for distractable kids).
But since they only have one teacher… most of the time most of the kids are left to their own devices. The teacher works with one group at a time, doing an awesome job juggling them. The rest are doing activities mostly on their chromebooks. If your child is highly driven, disciplined, is able to ask for help, and has a good attention span - this kid will be fine. But even in that case… there won’t be much fun or enthusiasm in learning. Most of the energy is spent keeping discipline, and helping those who clearly struggle.
Your child’s presence doesn’t seem to benefit anyone either. I mean, maybe it benefits another child like that who now has a friend who is “good, smart” kid. But it definitely doesn’t have any influence on the overall class dynamic, I mean, yeah, it’s better than the class being 100% disruptive but maybe in the latter case help would arrive a little faster?
At the same time, it’s hurting the kids who are capable of learning and being excited to learn, but who instead spend their days almost forgotten (unless they get in trouble) and on their chromebooks.
Anyway, sorry if I am being too direct, but I really wanted to help the kids who can do so much better than this.

We have a HHI of over 600K and our DC2 was disruptive like these kids. He has severe ADHD. We've always been in 10 rated schools. However, we had the money and time for meds and behavioral therapy and consultants.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sometimes people don’t have a choice. My BIL grew up in the South and went to a school like this. He was one of a few people who went to a four year college. He’s done just fine for himself. He said they separated out into basically haves and have nots.

Well our district has 6 elementary schools and this one is the worst. There are also 2 lottery schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have recently started working as a TA at an 85% low income and ESL school. This is not in the DMV area but I think there are very similar schools in FCPS for example. I can never say this to parents in my district because I am bound by all the privacy stuff but I want to say it here: please please don’t send your child to a school like that, even for K.
I don’t know why the kids from middle class families are there. Many of them seem at least 3rd Gen American so it’s not like their parents have no clue about the school system. Heck, many first Gen parents have a good idea! But apparently not them?
Each class has a group of very disruptive kids who ideally need their own aide, either as a group or even individually. They don’t seem to be getting much education simply because they are so distracted they can’t possibly learn much.
The rest of the kids are very very different from each other in terms of their levels. Ideally each class should have at least 3 level groups (not counting the separate one for distractable kids).
But since they only have one teacher… most of the time most of the kids are left to their own devices. The teacher works with one group at a time, doing an awesome job juggling them. The rest are doing activities mostly on their chromebooks. If your child is highly driven, disciplined, is able to ask for help, and has a good attention span - this kid will be fine. But even in that case… there won’t be much fun or enthusiasm in learning. Most of the energy is spent keeping discipline, and helping those who clearly struggle.
Your child’s presence doesn’t seem to benefit anyone either. I mean, maybe it benefits another child like that who now has a friend who is “good, smart” kid. But it definitely doesn’t have any influence on the overall class dynamic, I mean, yeah, it’s better than the class being 100% disruptive but maybe in the latter case help would arrive a little faster?
At the same time, it’s hurting the kids who are capable of learning and being excited to learn, but who instead spend their days almost forgotten (unless they get in trouble) and on their chromebooks.
Anyway, sorry if I am being too direct, but I really wanted to help the kids who can do so much better than this.

We have a HHI of over 600K and our DC2 was disruptive like these kids. He has severe ADHD. We've always been in 10 rated schools. However, we had the money and time for meds and behavioral therapy and consultants.

Does your DC have an aide?
These kids don’t. And there are several of them in each class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went a school district with approximately 80% FARMs (one of the poorest and lowest-performing school districts in my state) and it took me a long time to grapple with this and come to terms with it.

Why do you think there are kids there who seem out of place? Middle class, on grade level or higher, well behaved? What are their parents thinking?!

They are thinking that they cannot afford a better school cluster. Have you seen the housing costs?

I am a single mom who rents a 1bd near a slightly better school and then I was able to put my kid in charter. It can be done!

I am also a single mom (and a public school teacher) and I rent a basement apartment in Potomac. The rent is reduced (because I couldn't afford more than about $1500/month) since I dog/house sit for the family who lives upstairs. They go out of town a lot.

I was a single mom and made a different, equally valid choice. My child attended a charter school with a high poverty rate and I bought a cheap house EOTR to build equity. I needed the security of a stable house payment - rent kept going up and I could see myself getting in financial trouble later if I didn’t buy (in 2015 - it was cheaper to buy than it was to rent).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The issue is we need better teachers and school staff. We go where there is affordable housing that is not a stretch...

Op here. The teachers I work for all seem to be juggling so many things and doing a great job at it. They are pretty rigid in terms of discipline but I know where they are coming from. I would say each class needs a couple permanent instructional assistants for these kids to have a semblance of normal educational experience that kids in “normal” schools have

The educational system needs to adjust to the reality that if you want kids in high poverty/high mobility/high EL schools to succeed you need at least one adult for every 8 kids and you need to lower that ratio if you have a class that is exceptionally high need. In my city the highest income public school has 40% non-low-income students and that school is an outlier because in most of our schools over 80% of students come from families with low income. Every single public school and public charter in the city has a majority of low-income students.

I know grads of every single school who have been successful in college and careers. Kids can succeed academically in the right environment, but the powers that be won't invest in the things that actually make kids successful, instead we have the endless search for the easy fix and that's never going to happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have recently started working as a TA at an 85% low income and ESL school. This is not in the DMV area but I think there are very similar schools in FCPS for example. I can never say this to parents in my district because I am bound by all the privacy stuff but I want to say it here: please please don’t send your child to a school like that, even for K.
I don’t know why the kids from middle class families are there. Many of them seem at least 3rd Gen American so it’s not like their parents have no clue about the school system. Heck, many first Gen parents have a good idea! But apparently not them?
Each class has a group of very disruptive kids who ideally need their own aide, either as a group or even individually. They don’t seem to be getting much education simply because they are so distracted they can’t possibly learn much.
The rest of the kids are very very different from each other in terms of their levels. Ideally each class should have at least 3 level groups (not counting the separate one for distractable kids).
But since they only have one teacher… most of the time most of the kids are left to their own devices. The teacher works with one group at a time, doing an awesome job juggling them. The rest are doing activities mostly on their chromebooks. If your child is highly driven, disciplined, is able to ask for help, and has a good attention span - this kid will be fine. But even in that case… there won’t be much fun or enthusiasm in learning. Most of the energy is spent keeping discipline, and helping those who clearly struggle.
Your child’s presence doesn’t seem to benefit anyone either. I mean, maybe it benefits another child like that who now has a friend who is “good, smart” kid. But it definitely doesn’t have any influence on the overall class dynamic, I mean, yeah, it’s better than the class being 100% disruptive but maybe in the latter case help would arrive a little faster?
At the same time, it’s hurting the kids who are capable of learning and being excited to learn, but who instead spend their days almost forgotten (unless they get in trouble) and on their chromebooks.
Anyway, sorry if I am being too direct, but I really wanted to help the kids who can do so much better than this.

We have a HHI of over 600K and our DC2 was disruptive like these kids. He has severe ADHD. We've always been in 10 rated schools. However, we had the money and time for meds and behavioral therapy and consultants.

Does your DC have an aide?
These kids don’t. And there are several of them in each class.

He's older now but yes, he had one. We had to get a lawyer and educational assistant, it's not like the school offered.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The issue is we need better teachers and school staff. We go where there is affordable housing that is not a stretch...

Yeah it’s not not that. That’s the biggest myth of all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree w you op as someone who went to high poverty public schools from elementary-high school despite being from a UMC family w parents who could’ve easily afforded to move us to a better public school district or send us to private schools. They wanted to support urban public education (much like another PP stated about her parents) and they also had the mindset that my siblings and I would do well in life no matter where we went to school because they knew we were smart and that they could provide us w lots of enrichment outside of school. They also thought it was important for us to go to school w kids who were from different SES/(and also racial) backgrounds than we were so we wouldn’t grow up in a bubble.

While I think my parents had good intentions and now as an adult I do share a lot of their beliefs (we live in a city and our kids attend urban, diverse public schools too), my own school experience was frankly awful. There were so many problems w day to day operation of the school that I didn’t get a good education—academically or socio-emotionally either. School was a depressing, sometimes scary/dangerous (fights all the time in and around the school, events like school dances and pep rallies were always getting cancelled due to student fighting) place to be. I hated school and never felt supported there by teachers, who were mostly too busy dealing w all the challenges of working in a high poverty school to teach well at all and certainly stretched too thin to provide much support to the “good, smart” kids. If you were a quiet, well behaved kid like I was the teachers didn’t pay any attention to you and just let you slide by even if you weren’t that great of a student academically. If my parents had known how bad it was they wouldn’t have made the same choice. But I think at the time they were so wrapped up in the ideology of doing something they believed in that they couldn’t see how it was damaging and not a good environment for us kids.

OP here. I am hoping my post will be able to reach at least one parent like yours.
Why did you send your kids to an urban school too though?

Where did you go to school? You should a little clueless.

-DP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The issue is we need better teachers and school staff. We go where there is affordable housing that is not a stretch...

Op here. The teachers I work for all seem to be juggling so many things and doing a great job at it. They are pretty rigid in terms of discipline but I know where they are coming from. I would say each class needs a couple permanent instructional assistants for these kids to have a semblance of normal educational experience that kids in “normal” schools have

The educational system needs to adjust to the reality that if you want kids in high poverty/high mobility/high EL schools to succeed you need at least one adult for every 8 kids and you need to lower that ratio if you have a class that is exceptionally high need. In my city the highest income public school has 40% non-low-income students and that school is an outlier because in most of our schools over 80% of students come from families with low income. Every single public school and public charter in the city has a majority of low-income students.

I know grads of every single school who have been successful in college and careers. Kids can succeed academically in the right environment, but the powers that be won't invest in the things that actually make kids successful, instead we have the endless search for the easy fix and that's never going to happen.

The high poverty schools can’t work. For most kids, their academic trajectory is set by 2nd grade. What a mess.

[Anonymous]

For several years, I went to a school like OP works in. I learned very little and had to catch up when I transferred. Poverty from lack of education is the product of these schools. I graduated from college only because we moved to a better school district. I would never put my kid in a high FARM school. I agree 100% with OP.