Cap City?

[Anonymous]

The folks I know who have their kids at Cap City are very happy and not playing the lottery for what it is worth.

[Anonymous]

We are at Cap City and have been for three years. We are staying for middle school. Happy to answer questions if I can.

They don't teach to the test but preparing kids to take tests is part of the teaching - different ways to solve problems, using the computer, how to decipher what is being asked. The tests are a mess. I do think some of the scores are related to influx of new students - they doubled three years ago and in 5th they add 30 students and in 9th add 80.

EL is very well thiught out at both elementary and middle. the middle school principal is very impressive and we like what the school has to offer.

[Anonymous]

Cap city is a hell hole. They don't teach (see dccas) and focus on brain washing kids.

They refuse to expel kids ever. Personally I know of a kid who brought a knife into class, was caught, and they did jack shit about it. Safety wise I would place it at around anacostia levels, academically around below anacostia levels.

Their focus on "expeditions" means your kid will know everything about bees, but couldn't tell you if MLK was a revolutionary war hero or civil rights leader, even if you gave him/her hints.

The leadership is full of themselves. The leader was a teacher at Hearst before getting FIRED and convincing a group of parents to create a school just for her. That makes power go straight to her head. Those parents are still the real powers here. All wealthy WOTP families with close ties to the administration. I would list them, but I don't want to be banned.

It's just an awful school.

[Anonymous]

My daughter has been there since PK, and we love it. She's now in third grade. Unlike the previous poster, I don't need her to spit out facts--I need her to be able to think and solve problems and communicate both orally and in writing. THAT is what CCPCS has done really well for her. It's not perfect, but no school is. It's perfectly fine for us.

[Anonymous]

We’re in our third year at Cap City, and feel unbelievably fortunate. Our oldest is in first grade, and our youngest is in PK3. We love it – wonderfully caring and talented teachers, a motivated leadership and staff, a gorgeous building and grounds, and great families.

The lower school is an incredibly sweet and caring place. Ninety percent of its families donated money to the school’s annual fundraising campaign. I was unfamiliar with the expeditionary learning method but have been thoroughly convinced. The kids spend extended time using a theme (like tadpoles or birds or inspects) that helps interest students as they develop traditional academic skills. Our first grader just finished a semester on healthy bodies where I lost count of all their field trips, and in the same period has already advanced to a second grade reading level. Our youngest has blossomed from a shy 3-year-old to now saying things like “I’m everybody’s friend” and showing off new skills at writing letters, recognizing shapes, and more.

As far as test scores at the lower school, as noted by others, the school doubled in size in 2013 and lost families who had difficult leaving its old neighborhood, so the school’s testing population included a lot of new third and fourth graders who hadn’t benefitted from prior time at the school. The lower school already appears to be making progress on this – their 2014 scores increased 7 points, in the top 10 among DC charters.

For the upper grades, again, again I think a lot relates to the school’s expansion, which was going to be an unavoidable challenge as new students and staff adapted. I also think it’s only fair to remember that the middle and high schools are still fairly young and coming into their own. That said, the upper schools have already rated first or second tier by the DC charter board in the last couple of years. The high school has a 100 percent college admission rate – a distinction featured in Michelle Obama’s recent surprise visit.

We can’t say enough good things about the school. From what I've seen, is management and staff are qualified and motivated to make it work. Whenever I’ve raised any concern with leadership, it has been quickly and professionally addressed. We have no plans to reenter the lottery. Hope this helps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Cap city is a hell hole. They don't teach (see dccas) and focus on brain washing kids.

They refuse to expel kids ever. Personally I know of a kid who brought a knife into class, was caught, and they did jack shit about it. Safety wise I would place it at around anacostia levels, academically around below anacostia levels.

Their focus on "expeditions" means your kid will know everything about bees, but couldn't tell you if MLK was a revolutionary war hero or civil rights leader, even if you gave him/her hints.

The leadership is full of themselves. The leader was a teacher at Hearst before getting FIRED and convincing a group of parents to create a school just for her. That makes power go straight to her head. Those parents are still the real powers here. All wealthy WOTP families with close ties to the administration. I would list them, but I don't want to be banned.

It's just an awful school.

So wealthy WOTP parents have an agenda to brainwash kids about...bees?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Cap city is a hell hole. They don't teach (see dccas) and focus on brain washing kids.

They refuse to expel kids ever. Personally I know of a kid who brought a knife into class, was caught, and they did jack shit about it. Safety wise I would place it at around anacostia levels, academically around below anacostia levels.

Their focus on "expeditions" means your kid will know everything about bees, but couldn't tell you if MLK was a revolutionary war hero or civil rights leader, even if you gave him/her hints.

The leadership is full of themselves. The leader was a teacher at Hearst before getting FIRED and convincing a group of parents to create a school just for her. That makes power go straight to her head. Those parents are still the real powers here. All wealthy WOTP families with close ties to the administration. I would list them, but I don't want to be banned.

It's just an awful school.

I pretty much immediately dismiss anyone who uses "Anacostia" as a euphemism for "scary! bad! danger!" That's simple, sheltered, and a little bit racist, PP.

[Anonymous]

Another happy Cap City family here that will not be playing the lottery. We're in our third year at the school and our second grader is thriving. We love the EL model and have been consistently pleased with the teaching quality.

[Anonymous]

Another happy Cap City family here. Our daughter is in second grade and has been going since pre-k4. I seriously feel like the previous poster who said they are brainwashing kids is from a different planet, but who knows, maybe I have been brainwashed as well. And I don't see any administrative staff acting as though "power went straight to their heads." They are quite reasonable and thoughtful and encouraging of community.

I find Cap City to be a very calm, welcoming, safe place to be. The facility is lovely.

And we plan on staying all of the way through 12th grade. I love the idea of my daughter graduating with the same friends she had in pre-k.

[Anonymous]

we are entering the lottery for PK3 this year and haven't been able to get to CapCity for a tour. Can some of the current parents comment on the facilities (revovated classrooms?library? gym? outdoor space?) What are the specials for PK3? (Spanish, other languages?) and also what the after care program is like? Is it run by the CapCity teachers or outside group? what do the PK3 aged kids get to participate in for after care? thanks for any info before lottery deadline!

[Anonymous]

We've been at Cap City for several years--started in PK4 and now in second grade. We haven't played the lottery since we entered, and we only put this school on our list when it was time to try to get our youngest into PK3. He's there now, too. We're very happy and feel lucky.

We've had excellent, caring teachers. The teachers think through their pedagogy. When we visited other schools, sometimes the Montesorri or other approaches seemed more in name only than actual practice. The expeditionary learning approach pulls in different disciplines. To speak back to the above grumpy poster, my daughter studied bees and learned not just about that topic, but about biology, geography, poetry. There's close attention to the literacy of reading and writing and of math, too. It's a rich curriculum. She learned basics of research that some students aren't learning until much later grades. They did a musical performance in which the characters were bees. All of this has paid off in a child who, through this experience of coming to a subject from many different angles, loves learning and is academically curious on her own steam, not just because work is school-assigned. The second grade has been even better, with a rock-star teacher taking them to Rock Creek Park to do field research, complete with field journals, instructing them to work as practicing scientists.

The teachers think work hard to meet each kid at each developmental stage. The elementary school is very diverse--one of the most diverse schools out there, in fact--not just by race but also by class, ethnicity, and nationality.

Will we stay past elementary school? I can't say definitively. We're taking it year by year and will see.

Test scores: They parsed those out when there was a drop after the move, and the kids who had been in the school longer did better than those who joined once the school moved. Take that for what it's worth. But my bigger sense is that this school explicitly isn't teaching to the test--or hasn't been. My bigger worry is that they'll start doing so. The expeditionary learning model doesn't map exactly onto the ways that the former tests assessed, and so I think some of that preparation is about sitting kids down to learn how to fill out bubbles and multiple choice tests that are different from the ways they're being taught to explore, question, and answer. I also can't imagine comparing across the board--the population is so different. Cap City seems very welcoming to English-as-a-second-language students and their families, for example, but that population isn't going to test as well on an English-based test as in a school where almost all students are native speakers. That's not to say I'm not paying attention to those scores, because they are a kind of barometer about literacy and the levels the teachers need to meet, raising questions about what happens when the kids get older and the ability ranges and knowledge are so diverse that it becomes harder to accomplish differentiated learning in the classroom.

Aftercare has been rocky in recent years, but especially for the littles, now, it's quite good. And they've added in meaningful clubs and activities for the elementary school kids that work in tandem with aftercare and offer options after school. Aftercare is run by a long-time Cap City staffer. For the Preschool, preK-ers, it's play-based, and the kids are often playing in centers or doing crafts when I come to pick my youngest up. His aftercare teachers are sweet and caring, and they've clearly started to do some training, as the aftercare teachers echo the methods and language of the daytime school culture.

The facilities are great--playing fields, playgrounds both for the preschool kids and for the elementary. The library is beautiful and thoughtfully run. The gym is also nice (looks pretty much like any good HS gym to me). There's also a stage and performance space that they'll eventually refurbish, but that's going to take lots of money. Facilities are the big win from the move, and to us help make the commute worth it, versus the cramped and not entirely safe play spaces we saw at other schools further in town.

Hope that helps. It's well worth checking into. I can't imagine being serious about seeking out a good education here in DC and not putting it on a lottery list.

[Anonymous]

Thank you to PP. That was a very helpful post!
Do the PK 3/4 receive any spanish classes?

[Anonymous]

Thank you for all of the posts from families who are happy there. Can you say anything about teacher retention and turnover? I'd heard that a lot of middle school teachers had changed and I was wondering whether it's true and if so why.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thank you to PP. That was a very helpful post!
Do the PK 3/4 receive any spanish classes?

Specials for PK are: Drama, Music, Fitness, Art and Library

Art studio is done with small groups from each class so that a few kids go to art each day (maybe 4-5). The studio session is geared to the interests of that group.

[Anonymous]

Weekly Spanish classes start in K. It's not immersion by any means but the kids get exposure to the language and culture (music, etc.). This year the 1st through 4th grades started a new program called Sports for Sharing that started in Mexico City and expanded to the U.S. a couple of years ago. The school's website has a nice overview of it. From my perspective, the school's approach is not to try compete with the many excellent immersion charters but rather to feature Spanish as a key feature of the curriculum and their expeditionary learning model - plus the school has natural strengths for it given their strong cadre of bilingual faculty and a student body that is well balanced in its diversity, as noted in a 2013 survey reported by Greater Greater Washington.