What are the thoughts on Maury Elementary??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a parent with children in Maury's upper grades. There are a couple of things that both questions and answers aren't getting entirely right. My comments in no particular order...

Thanks for this informative post. Whenever I get to an open house for a home for sale in the Maury District, young families, mostly white or Asian, are mobbing the event. The district may be very small, but demand is obviously growing as the school improves, no matter what the real estate market is doing.

It looks like diversity will steadily dimish over time, not necesarily a bad thing for gentrifiers determined to stay through 5th (is it so horrible if a school population looks more and more like a neighborhood population?).

It's not terribly relevant to most high-SES families that Maury 5th graders often head to EH and SH when few well-educated parents, the majority of lower grades kids, will touch either. It is relevant that an elementary school could take them to 5th, long enough for many to have saved for private middle school, particularly relatively affordable St. Peter's, or St. Anselm's for boys.

You're going to see more and more Maury families trying to lottery into charters, because more and more parents are going to think like their Brent counterparts when their kids hit 4th grade. Hint, these are not multi-generational families.

[Anonymous]

You will see lots more Maury families try for Latin and BASIS as of next school year.

Nobody wants to say it, but the bad news Eliot-Hine feeder is only half the retention problem in the upper grades! The rest of the story is race and poverty. Many white/high-SES parents aren't going to let their children sit in classes where most of the other kids are black and poor. So they leave even before 4th, keeping their reasons to themselves. I'd give it another 5 years before this changes!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You will see lots more Maury families try for Latin and BASIS as of next school year.

Nobody wants to say it, but the bad news Eliot-Hine feeder is only half the retention problem in the upper grades! The rest of the story is race and poverty. Many white/high-SES parents aren't going to let their children sit in classes where most of the other kids are black and poor. So they leave even before 4th, keeping their reasons to themselves. I'd give it another 5 years before this changes!

That's not what I'm seeing with two children in those relevant grades. But I'm fully aware that any school is not a monolith of parents and we all enjoy partial insights. So maybe I'm just wholly oblivious to some exodus that I'm not seeing. What I do know is that total enrollment numbers don't support your claim.

[Anonymous]

OK, they don't support my claim. So why are so many high-SES (mostly white) families still hitting the road between 2nd and 3rd grades? Between 3rd and 4th grades? You tell us. You can't get DCPS to cough up FARMs data by grade, but it's obvious when you look at the kids that well-heeled parent are, for the most part, still leaving, that attrition remains high, unlike at Brent. What data are you working off?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OK, they don't support my claim. So why are so many high-SES (mostly white) families still hitting the road between 2nd and 3rd grades? Between 3rd and 4th grades? You tell us. You can't get DCPS to cough up FARMs data by grade, but it's obvious when you look at the kids that well-heeled parent are, for the most part, still leaving, that attrition remains high, unlike at Brent. What data are you working off?

Easy: There are demographic differences between grade levels, yes, but not because many leave. The differences are the result of shifting demographics in the neighborhood, which translate into shifting demographics in school, one year at a time. Is that so hard to understand?
Can't speak for Brent, but I imagine that those shifts have moved through Brent a little earlier because of Capitol Hill's gentrification pattern.

Just a note of caution against your "it's obvious when you look" to not prematurely equate looks with HH income. I happen to have a white child in a predominantly black classroom and I can tell you a thing or two about how HH income differs from "looks"; not to mention that, despite our six digit HH income, on most days, I don't exactly look it walking my kids to school...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Easy: There are demographic differences between grade levels, yes, but not because many leave. The differences are the result of shifting demographics in the neighborhood, which translate into shifting demographics in school, one year at a time. Is that so hard to understand?
Can't speak for Brent, but I imagine that those shifts have moved through Brent a little earlier because of Capitol Hill's gentrification pattern.

Just a note of caution against your "it's obvious when you look" to not prematurely equate looks with HH income. I happen to have a white child in a predominantly black classroom and I can tell you a thing or two about how HH income differs from "looks"; not to mention that, despite our six digit HH income, on most days, I don't exactly look it walking my kids to school...

^NP. Your heart is probably in the right place, but you're sugar coating problems Maury's demographics lag several years behind shifting demographics in the neighborhood. High-SES families (mostly white, a few black and other) still leave for a plethora of reasons. White looks upper-middle-class and well-educated on CH because it almost always is.

Families leave for reasons high-SES parents generally feel comfortable discussing (e.g. too much teaching to the test, crowding, a less than inspiring DCPS/Common Core curriculum, crowding, rundown playground, not enough support for advanced learners), and those they do not (feeling fed up with aspects of low-SES inner city culture and PC thinking by the head).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Easy: There are demographic differences between grade levels, yes, but not because many leave. The differences are the result of shifting demographics in the neighborhood, which translate into shifting demographics in school, one year at a time. Is that so hard to understand?
Can't speak for Brent, but I imagine that those shifts have moved through Brent a little earlier because of Capitol Hill's gentrification pattern.

Just a note of caution against your "it's obvious when you look" to not prematurely equate looks with HH income. I happen to have a white child in a predominantly black classroom and I can tell you a thing or two about how HH income differs from "looks"; not to mention that, despite our six digit HH income, on most days, I don't exactly look it walking my kids to school...

^NP. Your heart is probably in the right place, but you're sugar coating problems Maury's demographics lag several years behind shifting demographics in the neighborhood. High-SES families (mostly white, a few black and other) still leave for a plethora of reasons. White looks upper-middle-class and well-educated on CH because it almost always is.

Families leave for reasons high-SES parents generally feel comfortable discussing (e.g. too much teaching to the test, crowding, a less than inspiring DCPS/Common Core curriculum, crowding, rundown playground, not enough support for advanced learners), and those they do not (feeling fed up with aspects of low-SES inner city culture and PC thinking by the head).

Not sure where you're getting your data (well, okay, you're getting your data from preconceived biases and desires) but it seems that like most anecdote-based posters, you're pretty committed to your (wrongheaded) beliefs. Odd.

[Anonymous]

^Oh come on, calling the concerns expressed "wrong-headed" is politically correct nonsense.

With 2 kids in the school for several years, I can see a kernel of truth in all of em. At least things are steadily improving.

I just hope that classroom trailers don't stay nearly as long as they have at several of the schools in Upper NW (Lafayette going on 10 years, Murch close behind).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^Oh come on, calling the concerns expressed "wrong-headed" is politically correct nonsense.

With 2 kids in the school for several years, I can see a kernel of truth in all of em. At least things are steadily improving.

I just hope that classroom trailers don't stay nearly as long as they have at several of the schools in Upper NW (Lafayette going on 10 years, Murch close behind).

Sorry to confuse you. I meant "wrongheaded" in the sense of "ignorant", not in any sort of moral or ethical sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^Oh come on, calling the concerns expressed "wrong-headed" is politically correct nonsense.

With 2 kids in the school for several years, I can see a kernel of truth in all of em. At least things are steadily improving.

I just hope that classroom trailers don't stay nearly as long as they have at several of the schools in Upper NW (Lafayette going on 10 years, Murch close behind).

Sorry to confuse you. I meant "wrongheaded" in the sense of "ignorant", not in any sort of moral or ethical sense.

Wrong-headed this time, poaching last time . . .

[Anonymous]

Please, we all know it is puppies and rainbows at Maury everyday. It is amazing. The facilities, the leadership, the diversity. How can anyone think anything else?!?!

Come on Maury Booster. You can do better! Throw in a bit of name calling and your work here will be done!

[Anonymous]

+1. Maury is fabulous compared to what is was 10 years ago, but not when compared to the best elementary schools in the Metro area, including JKLM. The boosters need to chill, and keep on plugging.

[Anonymous]

I don't have a kids a Maury. But the Maury booster is right about the demographics.

We looked at Maury six years ago, and there were maybe 3 white kids in the school. There weren't many in the class that started the next fall - currently rising 4th graders.

I don't think Maury has an exodus of white and asian families (or upper middle class families) leaving between 2nd and 3rd and 3rd and 4th. There just weren't that many of them in current grade 4 and 5 to begin with.

As more upper middle class families stay through 4th, they will apply to Basis and Latin just like at Brent.

If Eliot Hine looks good in 5 years I will jump for joy! Because I have a kindergartner and a 4th grader.

[Anonymous]

Pp what are you doing with your 4th grader next year?

[Anonymous]

not when compared to the best elementary schools in the Metro area

Ah, yes, "the best elementary schools in the Metro area"! You are for real, aren't you? LOL.