Best Elementary School in Each Ward
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Anonymous
I'd potentially switch that order around. Maybe not for most people, but there are a subset who want a smaller and/or more diverse school (Shepherd is pretty diverse in the lower grades). Shepherd has somewhere between 325-350 students, vs. like 700 kids at Lafayette, right? Of course, I know families at Lafayette who have no interest in Shepherd. I guess it's sort of like the Deal vs. Hardy comparison. |
Anonymous
You said people are only excited about Deal and that's just not true. Stop generalizing. |
Anonymous
You say Shepherd is diverse in the lower grades. What about the upper grades? OP's kid is in second grade. |
Anonymous
PP here. I don't know about second grade in particular, but overall the school is listed as being 78% AA. The upper grades are less diverse, and the early grades (esp. PK3/4) are extremely diverse, so I'd guess 2nd grade is somewhere in the middle of that distribution. |
Anonymous
Get real for a moment. There is no comparison. They are both equally un-diverse, though Shepherd is LESS diverse than Lafayette: Shepherd is 78% black Lafayette is 70% white However, Lafayette's 2016 average passing PARCC score was 75% while Shepherd's is 47%. If you want a smaller school, Shepherd holds appeal. But let's not presume that the school is "best" by any stretch of the imagination. |
Anonymous
PP that posted my original rankings. I happened to be a Shepherd family. I just want to point out that it's hard to compare test scores on face value as Shepherd is 1/3 poverty. You can't even compare subset scores of the group (to my knowledge) because Shepherd doesn't have enough in the subgroups to see. They are both lovely schools. Reality is, OP couldn't find housing in either neighborhood at that budget so it is a moot debate. Shepherd has virtually zero apartments and I believe the same for Lafayette. There will be apartments soon with the new Harris Teeter building which will be a great housing option for those looking for good DC schools and metro accessible. But I believe that is another 1-2 years out. |
Anonymous
| *happen |
Anonymous
There are actually a bunch of apartments on Conn. that feed to Lafayette, though not as many as further south in the Murch area. But I get your point. It's fine to qualify a school's profile, but I assume anyone looking for "the best" school is probably looking for the one with the highest number. |
Anonymous
Respectfully, I would disagree with this. It could mean different things to different people. Again, I'm not looking for a debate (I am the one that ranked it Lafayette, Shepherd). I'm just playing devil's advocate that some people can appreciate that Shepherd's scores aren't as high as L's due to economic diversity. They both feed to the same middle and high, Shepherd is an IB school, half the size, and has more overall diversity (racial and economic). I wouldn't go so far as to say "there is no comparison" because the qualifier is an important one when assessing "comparison". |
Anonymous
PP here. It really depends on what metric you're using to define "best." If looking only at test scores, yes, Lafayette "wins" by all means. However, as another poster said, 1/3 of Shepherd's population is FARMs, vs. 4% FARMs at Lafayette. So it's not really an apples to apples comparison when considering test scores. Also, there are a subset of families who look beyond test scores and prefer a smaller, more diverse school. Again, not a majority by any stretch, but some families. One of my neighbors interviewed principals at several different schools, including WOTP, and settled on buying in-boundary for Shepherd. So it's sort of a niche school for people who want specific things that Shepherd offers, whether re: the curriculum or the demographics. Lots of black middle class families, multiracial families, families with adopted kids of a different race, etc. Finally, while Shepherd is definitely a majority black school, there is a significant amount of international diversity. My kid's class is majority black, but at least 1/3 of the class speaks another language at home. Among them, francophone families, a few that speak African languages, and a couple that speak European languages. Shepherd has sometimes advertised school events in Spanish, French, and Amharic. So simply focusing on the 78% statistic belies the level of diversity actually present. |
Anonymous
Also true at Lafayette and many DCPS schools. My point about "the best" is that anyone who is asking to be told "the best" schools is most likely someone for whom numbers and easy labels are paramount. I wouldn't talk about schools in that way- I'd be looking for the right fit for my family and that would include a smaller school and other qualities. But I suspect OP is looking for a school that tops a list of one sort or another. |
Anonymous
Someone should tell that to all the folks that say Janney is the best. There are 3-4 schools that outperform them by every measure. Maybe 5, can't remember. |
Anonymous
JO Wilson or Miner? |
Anonymous
| DC. Where a half-million dollar home gets you gunshots outside your dining room window and mostly crappy schools. |
Anonymous
NP: Yes, but everyone knows that, so when someone posts Janney, everyone assumes they are being sarcastic. |