The time has come. Walls versus Jackson Reed
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Anonymous
Supplement how? Can you say more? |
Anonymous
| Jackson Reed is meh. Walls is ok. Honestly, you can’t go right at either. Move to the suburbs is where it’s at. The schools are just mot resourceful. |
Anonymous
This is pretty accurate. To add to this - my kid at Walls loves sports but is not at a level where he can be recruited for any sport. Walls has been great for him because he has been on multiple sports teams at Walls. Unlikely he could do that at JR. He also does not mind commuting by metro/bus/walking and now he knows the city extremely well because of sports practices that are literally all over the city. Also, his friends are spread out all over the city. This has been a plus for him but some kids might hate it. He has taken multiple AP classes since 10th grade and there are more than enough AP classes offered at Walls to make him happy. The smaller selection at Walls compared to JR has not been an issue for him. He really enjoys the more focused environment at Walls. There are no fights and no classroom disruption issues. Most students are at least at grade level or higher so class discussions tend to be reasonably high level and interesting. There is no craziness in the beginning of the year with messed up schedules like JR seems to deal with every year. Good luck with your decision |
Anonymous
It's really unnecessary, but also quite expected that someone would bring other schools (other than the ones on this post) into the discussion. McKinley Tech IS the STEM Magnet in the city, but with 1362 less students, of course they would have less offerings. Jackson Reed does offer the highest number of AP classes, why? Again, they have 2062 students. A smaller school can't just offer a class for 1 kid at a time. Not to mention the fact that if you don't go to a Jackson-Reed feeder, you have 0 chance of getting into Jackson Reed. 0. The times of this ended years ago. So you, can be happy that your kid gets those two choices and let it be. |
Anonymous
Completely disagree. If you consider yourself the STEM Magnet school then....I don't know...you should have the most STEM offerings of any school in DC. Seems fairly obvious. The size of the school should not matter much at all...and at 1362 students that supposedly are focuses on STEM...that is a lot of kids. Go look at what Blair STEM Magnet offers with only 400 kids in that program...incredible offerings in terms of Post-AP college-level math, STEM activities, post-AP CS classes, etc. Don't even bother looking at what TJ offers...that is next level amazing in terms of their STEM stuff. Granted they have 1700 students. |
Anonymous
| You’ve gotten good answers OP. We’re in boundary for JR and kid was admitted to Walls. My kid chose JR 100% for sports, and was on one of the nationally ranked teams that a PP mentioned. My kid ended up quitting the sport to focus on academics (junior year with 5 AP classes was just too much for my kid with 2-3 hours of club or school sports 5 days a week). DC was still glad to have done JR, but the majority of DC’s middle school friends attended Walls and enjoyed it. |
Anonymous
I have looked at it and you might also focus on reading because I said 1362 less students than Jackson Reed, so that means they have about 700. |
Anonymous
+1 You can’t forget that even though McKinley is a STEM school they have to offer all graduation requirements. So no they don’t have the space in staffing for as many STEM APs as JR. And Blair Magnet is a school within the larger school so they have more resources. |
Anonymous
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Weighing in for JR. I would not call it completely a hot mess. Last year - epic hot mess. This year, the new principal while not amazing is solid and is trying to fix things. If your kid is into STEM, the new director is wonderful and will only get better. This is her first year so there has been a lot to organize as well. Teachers on the whole are competent. My kids have never had what I consider a bad teacher there and they have had some amazing ones. Is it as rigorous as Walls? Who knows. A lot of Walls kids complain that they just throw work at you that doesn't teach you. JR can be very rigorous. Especially if your kid takes Biomed.
A lot of my biggest problems come from DCPS Central & the DC Council oversight - and that doesn't go away at Walls either. |
Anonymous
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Students are successful at both schools and students at both schools like their experiences. They each have pluses and minuses. I encourage you to eat your student decide. Students grow and mature quite a bit over the course of 4 years in high school. It’s a difficult thing for a parent to anticipate but your student likely will have a sense of where they feel most comfortable spending the next 4 years.
JR has been good for both my students, one of which did have a choice between Walls and JR and selected JR for the STEM offerings (both academic and extracurricular). That has proven to have been a very good choice for this student and has been the anchor to their high school experience. But I also hear that their peers at Walls have been very happy there as well. |
Anonymous
So your kids didn't attend DCPS shools? Stop trolling. Your opinion is irrelevant. |
Anonymous
I just don't understand why anyone is defending the fact that the DC STEM school doesn't actually offer the most STEM. That makes zero sense. In every other urban school district the STEM application/magnet schools are the tops in the city. Send tons of kids to top schools. Have the most National Merit finalists. You name it. McKinely should be able to compete against Bronx Science or Blair in terms of course offerings and other outcomes...and it is a travesty it does not. |
Anonymous
But McKinley is a STEM focused school but is not a STEM magnet in the sense of trying to select top academic STEM students. You need decent grades in middle school to get in but they do not select mainly on scores. It is intended to be a school where motivated students interested in STEM topics can attend but is not a place like TJ or Bronx science that requires you to be an academic superstar to attend and explore those stem interests. |
Anonymous
| As one who has a child a both Walls and J-R, I would add that the difference is not just Humanities vs STEM and sports. J-R has a ton of top-notch activities (e.g., the Beacon, robotics, model UN, mock trial, amazing theater programs, etc) that Walls can't provide (they have some but not as many and they are not of the same caliber.) Having said that, the calm nature of Walls is 100 percent better for my student who is there (the "chaos" of J-R would not have suited them, but for my J-R student it is a non issue and they love and take advantage of all of the opportunities). Both schools have issues with teacher vacancies and I think overall the quality of teaching is better at J-R, especially in the AP classes. |
Anonymous
Mock trial, model UN, newspaper also exist at Walls and are pretty good. Some of the sports coaches at Walls are good too. Love the athletic director. Theater is not of the same calibre but music is good. My kid has loved or at least liked most of his AP teachers at Walls - AP Physics, AP Calc BC, AP Lit, AP World History, AP US History, AP Chem, AP Human Geo. AP language was not a good experience at Walls unfortunately. Love his counselor but no idea about the other counselors at Walls. |