DC Public Elementary Schools

[Anonymous]

I have to say, I live in Columbia Heights, and I think there are great options there. First, you're close to a lot of the "good" charter schools (DC Bilingual, EL Haynes, LAMB, Cap City, Stokes). Second, I absolutely love the principal at Tubman (the inbounds school in CH). He is well-spoken, a good writer, and very organized. The school is ugly from the outside, but the inside is beautiful, and their test scores are above average for the district (at least, they were last year - I didn't check this year). I made the mistake of not checking out Tubman 'cause I didn't like the outside and I ended up at Cooke. I'm happy with my choice - Cooke has had a great first few days, with parents receiving phone calls from the teachers prior to the first day of class and lots of good energy, but Cooke's actually hard to get into now because of the high influx of inbounds applicants. I think the time is ripe for a neighborhood reinvestment in Tubman. It has a beautiful building with lots of high tech equipment and the principal is fabulous. I'd do it myself if I weren't happy at Cooke.

In northern Col. Hts, consider OOB Shepherd and West. Both are up and coming schools with involved PTAs and rising test scores (at least as of last year). In Western Col hts you can try your luck at Cooke and Bancroft, both schools with increasing diversity and parental invovlement. I just think there are a lot of good options between the charters and local elementaries that are showing progress.

[Anonymous]

The sense on Capitol hill is that young families who have been moving here and enrolling preschoolers in their in boundary public schools do not want to leave this neighborhood ever, if they can help it. You will see these families who have found a large number of friends and neighbors doing the same thing will keep their kids in the local public schools through 5th grade.

If, and only if, middle schools in the area are looking attractive to these families...this trend should continue up through Eastern High School.

There is a real commitment to the public schools here and you will definitely be seeing more and more in boundary kids through the upper grades.