How is your child liking their new public school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To 14:41: Lafayette is a solid school but not quite at the level of Eaton and Key in terms of diversity, small class size, and the facility itself. It also has a few "open classrooms" and a trailer classroom, which isn't ideal. If you want to be in D.C., you're probably better off looking for houses in Palisades or Cleveland Park (south of Quebec Street). I would put Eaton, Key, and Mann (expensive area to live) at the top of the D.C. elementary school hierarchy followed by the group of Lafayette, Janney, Oyster, and Hyde.

If you look at test scores, the grouping would be far different -- Mann, Janney, Murch & Lafayette and Key far above Eaton and others. I leave Oyster out because of its bilingual program which I think kind of puts it in a class of its own.

Janney offers some special programs for kids who have already mastered grade level skills. Mann used to have a special writing program, don't know if that's still the case. Murch won a blue-ribbon award for schools recently (which Janney and Mann have also won in years past, and Eaton never has). Eaton is the most equally diverse of any public schools probably, but the academics have been weak over the years (test scores declining, although some improvement last year, but still a lot of kids scoring basic and below proficiency and fewer scoring advanced proficiency compared to other schools like Janney, Mann, etc.).

Also, Janney offers a lot of great afterschool activities --yearbook, band, strings, notebusters, math counts, etc. We didn't end up sending our child there, but I was impressed with that aspect of the school.

I wouldn't call Eaton's class size particularly small unless you are counting their "co-teachers" (one per grade, except in prek/k which have 2, I think) which some parents feel positively about and other parents feel are under-utilized.

Just goes to show that depending on what one's looking for, a parent may rate these schools quite differently.

[Anonymous]

I agree with 15:59 re the hierarchy though would add Stoddert and Murch to Group B. The way the pp compares test scores is like comparing apples to oranges. If you are going to use test scores as a marker, you have to compare the test scores along racial groupings, as minorities tend to perform worse on standardized tests. In this regard, Eaton comes out slightly ahead - the scores for its white/non-hispanic students are higher than the scores at Janney for the same racial group (95 v. 94 in reading and 93 v. 92 in math). Eaton's overall scores are lower because it has more minority students (which, if you ask me, is a positive in terms of diversity). I have friends with children in pre-K at both Eaton and Lafayette; Eaton has 19 students in the classes while Lafayette has 24.

[Anonymous]

To 14:41: Lafayette is a solid school but not quite at the level of Eaton and Key in terms of diversity, small class size, and the facility itself. It also has a few "open classrooms" and a trailer classroom, which isn't ideal. If you want to be in D.C., you're probably better off looking for houses in Palisades or Cleveland Park (south of Quebec Street). I would put Eaton, Key, and Mann (expensive area to live) at the top of the D.C. elementary school hierarchy followed by the group of Lafayette, Janney, Oyster, and Hyde.

And Murch is where in all of this? Hearst? How do you know the inner workings of 7 schools well enough to compare, are you a professional who travels among the schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree with 15:59 re the hierarchy though would add Stoddert and Murch to Group B. The way the pp compares test scores is like comparing apples to oranges. If you are going to use test scores as a marker, you have to compare the test scores along racial groupings, as minorities tend to perform worse on standardized tests. In this regard, Eaton comes out slightly ahead - the scores for its white/non-hispanic students are higher than the scores at Janney for the same racial group (95 v. 94 in reading and 93 v. 92 in math). Eaton's overall scores are lower because it has more minority students (which, if you ask me, is a positive in terms of diversity). I have friends with children in pre-K at both Eaton and Lafayette; Eaton has 19 students in the classes while Lafayette has 24.

We have been at Eaton for a long time and class numbers in K and early primary grades have usually been more like 23-24. Some years there are quirks where the school either has to choose between 2 larger classes in a grade or 3 smaller ones and you do get unusually small numbers every once in a while for that reason, but overall school class numbers we have seen are usually more like 23/24. Upper grades 4/5/6 can be smaller than that because kids tend to leave upper grades at Eaton -- for other private or public schools. PreK does tend to be smaller, but that tends to be the only early year that size.