Middle and high school on Capitol Hill

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why should Allen do anything to advance MS development? He'll get voted out if he continues to do little? Almost certainly not - longtime Hill realtors will tell you that only around 1/4 of Hill residents and potential buyers, give a hoot about Ward 6 MS quality at any given time. Even if Allen wanted to take bold steps to bolster stakeholder confidence in SH, EH and Jefferson, what could he possibly do from Ward 6, even if Grosso supported him?

The sad fact is that DCPS elected to lavish 40 million on renovating Stuart Hobson, a medium-sized school that isn't very popular with most neighborhood residents, although it serves only 3 of the 9 Hill ES communities. The decision has virtually emptied Ward 6 ed money coffers. The three strongest local elementary programs--Brent, Maury and SWS--were not permitted to feed into one MS as a result of the 2014 boundary and feeder review, despite strong support for this solution across Cap Hill. Moreover, the strongest students in the 3 schools feeding into SH, concentrated at Watkins, tend to end up at BASIS and/or Latin, not SH. As a result, a Deal caliber program can't emerge at any of the schools, at least without a new test-in program, for a good 20 years.

This gerrymandering fever-dream never fails to enrage me. Other than de facto segregation, and hence almost exclusively high SES, these schools share nothing that would warrant them feeding into a single MS by themselves. They aren't large enough to fill one MS by themselves. As it is, Brent has a choice of E-H as well as Jefferson, and both SWS and Maury were intended to feed to E-H too. So what was the problem there? Oh that's right, other Hill schools like Payne and Miner were also supposed to feed to E-H, so that was a non-starter.

FWIW, I have one kid who went through SH, and on to Walls and one who will follow. And we are definitely in the high SES bracket, maybe in one of the highest. We were fine with the kids coming from JOW and LT at SH.

[Anonymous]

Meh. It doesn't bother me. I'm not inbounds for Brent or Maury and my kids aren't at SWS. But grouping together strong schools and creating a strong middle school would at least give us one good middle school on the Hill. Doing nothing just gives us 3 bad middle schools.

[Anonymous]

PP: Nobody that I am aware of is asking for elementary schools to be excluded. They are asking for schools with strong academic cohorts to be concentrated in one place along with elementary schools that are working with more difficult populations and/or having less success. For the life of me, I can't figure out why that is so objectionable to cause rage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why should Allen do anything to advance MS development? He'll get voted out if he continues to do little? Almost certainly not - longtime Hill realtors will tell you that only around 1/4 of Hill residents and potential buyers, give a hoot about Ward 6 MS quality at any given time. Even if Allen wanted to take bold steps to bolster stakeholder confidence in SH, EH and Jefferson, what could he possibly do from Ward 6, even if Grosso supported him?

The sad fact is that DCPS elected to lavish 40 million on renovating Stuart Hobson, a medium-sized school that isn't very popular with most neighborhood residents, although it serves only 3 of the 9 Hill ES communities. The decision has virtually emptied Ward 6 ed money coffers. The three strongest local elementary programs--Brent, Maury and SWS--were not permitted to feed into one MS as a result of the 2014 boundary and feeder review, despite strong support for this solution across Cap Hill. Moreover, the strongest students in the 3 schools feeding into SH, concentrated at Watkins, tend to end up at BASIS and/or Latin, not SH. As a result, a Deal caliber program can't emerge at any of the schools, at least without a new test-in program, for a good 20 years.

This gerrymandering fever-dream never fails to enrage me. Other than de facto segregation, and hence almost exclusively high SES, these schools share nothing that would warrant them feeding into a single MS by themselves. They aren't large enough to fill one MS by themselves. As it is, Brent has a choice of E-H as well as Jefferson, and both SWS and Maury were intended to feed to E-H too. So what was the problem there? Oh that's right, other Hill schools like Payne and Miner were also supposed to feed to E-H, so that was a non-starter.

FWIW, I have one kid who went through SH, and on to Walls and one who will follow. And we are definitely in the high SES bracket, maybe in one of the highest. We were fine with the kids coming from JOW and LT at SH.

Sincere question: why not Eastern HS for your Capitol Hill, Stuart Hobson Middle School graduates?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why should Allen do anything to advance MS development? He'll get voted out if he continues to do little? Almost certainly not - longtime Hill realtors will tell you that only around 1/4 of Hill residents and potential buyers, give a hoot about Ward 6 MS quality at any given time. Even if Allen wanted to take bold steps to bolster stakeholder confidence in SH, EH and Jefferson, what could he possibly do from Ward 6, even if Grosso supported him?

The sad fact is that DCPS elected to lavish 40 million on renovating Stuart Hobson, a medium-sized school that isn't very popular with most neighborhood residents, although it serves only 3 of the 9 Hill ES communities. The decision has virtually emptied Ward 6 ed money coffers. The three strongest local elementary programs--Brent, Maury and SWS--were not permitted to feed into one MS as a result of the 2014 boundary and feeder review, despite strong support for this solution across Cap Hill. Moreover, the strongest students in the 3 schools feeding into SH, concentrated at Watkins, tend to end up at BASIS and/or Latin, not SH. As a result, a Deal caliber program can't emerge at any of the schools, at least without a new test-in program, for a good 20 years.

This gerrymandering fever-dream never fails to enrage me. Other than de facto segregation, and hence almost exclusively high SES, these schools share nothing that would warrant them feeding into a single MS by themselves. They aren't large enough to fill one MS by themselves. As it is, Brent has a choice of E-H as well as Jefferson, and both SWS and Maury were intended to feed to E-H too. So what was the problem there? Oh that's right, other Hill schools like Payne and Miner were also supposed to feed to E-H, so that was a non-starter.

FWIW, I have one kid who went through SH, and on to Walls and one who will follow. And we are definitely in the high SES bracket, maybe in one of the highest. We were fine with the kids coming from JOW and LT at SH.

how does "gerrymandering" apply to SWS? It doesn't even have a boundary

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is Charles Allen doing to this end? I know his platform included a Hill Middle school. Still waiting for that.

He's doing absolutely nothing. Because he is useless.

What should he be doing? He's on the Education Cmte. DME reports to mayor and has far more say in this process than Council

PP, you don't understand DC politics. Councilmembers wield mucho power in this small pond.

[Anonymous]

I think the idea is that feeding sws, Brent and Maury to a common middle school ( along with other elementaries ) is gerrymandering.

However the biggest gerrymander EVER is the weird, diagonal swath across Capitol Hill that formed the Capitol Hill Cluster School SO THAT people like pp could AVOID going to middle school with anyone other than Watkins graduates. J.O. Wilson and LT were added as feeder schools in only the last 5-6 years. This is what PP and his/her kids benefited from and now enrages him/her about others

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why should Allen do anything to advance MS development? He'll get voted out if he continues to do little? Almost certainly not - longtime Hill realtors will tell you that only around 1/4 of Hill residents and potential buyers, give a hoot about Ward 6 MS quality at any given time. Even if Allen wanted to take bold steps to bolster stakeholder confidence in SH, EH and Jefferson, what could he possibly do from Ward 6, even if Grosso supported him?

The sad fact is that DCPS elected to lavish 40 million on renovating Stuart Hobson, a medium-sized school that isn't very popular with most neighborhood residents, although it serves only 3 of the 9 Hill ES communities. The decision has virtually emptied Ward 6 ed money coffers. The three strongest local elementary programs--Brent, Maury and SWS--were not permitted to feed into one MS as a result of the 2014 boundary and feeder review, despite strong support for this solution across Cap Hill. Moreover, the strongest students in the 3 schools feeding into SH, concentrated at Watkins, tend to end up at BASIS and/or Latin, not SH. As a result, a Deal caliber program can't emerge at any of the schools, at least without a new test-in program, for a good 20 years.

This gerrymandering fever-dream never fails to enrage me. Other than de facto segregation, and hence almost exclusively high SES, these schools share nothing that would warrant them feeding into a single MS by themselves. They aren't large enough to fill one MS by themselves. As it is, Brent has a choice of E-H as well as Jefferson, and both SWS and Maury were intended to feed to E-H too. So what was the problem there? Oh that's right, other Hill schools like Payne and Miner were also supposed to feed to E-H, so that was a non-starter.

FWIW, I have one kid who went through SH, and on to Walls and one who will follow. And we are definitely in the high SES bracket, maybe in one of the highest. We were fine with the kids coming from JOW and LT at SH.

This may have been the case but it is no longer true. All of Brent is zoned for Jefferson. When you look at the MS/HS feeder patterns, Brent used to have 4, including one that included Wilson. Hopefully having one feeder pattern for each school will help.

[Anonymous]

What never fails to enrage me are Hillites accepting what Upper NW parents never would collectively - several "neighborhood" middle schools that 3/4 OOB and/or 2/3 empty. What would warrant having the Hill strongest elementary schools feed into a single MS is simple common sense, and a preoccupation with practical social justice. The poor kids in our community do not benefit from the phenomenon of the great majority of highly educated families fleeing undesirable, low-performing (or at best, mediocre) neighborhood schools not just year after year, but decade after decade. Let a critical mass of strong students build at a single Ward 6 by-right middle school and all boats rise with the tide, and fast.

When most local affluent parents would much rather move, go private, or go charter rather than enroll their children in a by-right school in which they lack confidence, the system is at fault, not the parents. Yes, the odd high SES parent/good liberal like you can and will make SH work, but most can't and won't. We are in-boundary for SH but my Asian better half (senior with a federal agency) won't touch a school that's 0% Asian for our children, period. His bitter memories of being taunted by peers as one of the only Asians in his public MS remain strong.

Calling fellow Hill parents names for our failure to line up to enroll their kids at middle schools with proficiency pass rates in the teens (EH and Jefferson Academy) without grade level offerings, let alone classes and programs supporting advanced learners, is churlish and childish. Cut the crap, friend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is Charles Allen doing to this end? I know his platform included a Hill Middle school. Still waiting for that.

He's doing absolutely nothing. Because he is useless.

He's good for sending out useless neighborhood updates where he conveniently leaves out the fact that he has done nothing for ward 6 other than a few photo ops.

He's worse than useless since the mayor clearly has it out for us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those 5 mile away Deal families might be out of luck soon. Deal and Wilson are reaching a breaking point in attendance. Something has to give soon.

Not really -- their population projections don't show further increases. You'll never see DCPS pull Shepherd out of the Deal/Wilson feed. Will never happen.

Are you sure about that?

"According to new data from D.C. Public Schools, projected enrollment will exceed building capacity this fall in all of the ward’s public elementary, middle
and high schools"

http://www.currentnewspapers.com/admin/uploadfiles/NW%2003-01-2017.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why should Allen do anything to advance MS development? He'll get voted out if he continues to do little? Almost certainly not - longtime Hill realtors will tell you that only around 1/4 of Hill residents and potential buyers, give a hoot about Ward 6 MS quality at any given time. Even if Allen wanted to take bold steps to bolster stakeholder confidence in SH, EH and Jefferson, what could he possibly do from Ward 6, even if Grosso supported him?

The sad fact is that DCPS elected to lavish 40 million on renovating Stuart Hobson, a medium-sized school that isn't very popular with most neighborhood residents, although it serves only 3 of the 9 Hill ES communities. The decision has virtually emptied Ward 6 ed money coffers. The three strongest local elementary programs--Brent, Maury and SWS--were not permitted to feed into one MS as a result of the 2014 boundary and feeder review, despite strong support for this solution across Cap Hill. Moreover, the strongest students in the 3 schools feeding into SH, concentrated at Watkins, tend to end up at BASIS and/or Latin, not SH. As a result, a Deal caliber program can't emerge at any of the schools, at least without a new test-in program, for a good 20 years.

This gerrymandering fever-dream never fails to enrage me. Other than de facto segregation, and hence almost exclusively high SES, these schools share nothing that would warrant them feeding into a single MS by themselves. They aren't large enough to fill one MS by themselves. As it is, Brent has a choice of E-H as well as Jefferson, and both SWS and Maury were intended to feed to E-H too. So what was the problem there? Oh that's right, other Hill schools like Payne and Miner were also supposed to feed to E-H, so that was a non-starter.

FWIW, I have one kid who went through SH, and on to Walls and one who will follow. And we are definitely in the high SES bracket, maybe in one of the highest. We were fine with the kids coming from JOW and LT at SH.

Good for you that your wealth (which you pointed out twice) shielded your kid from the terrible schools that you sent them.

What about less fortunate kids? Are they just supposed to deal with it and struggle on to Eastern?

You're worse than a hypocrite because I think you sincerely think you're some sort of martyr for sending your kids to lousy schools. It is the height of White Privilege to swan in here and act astounded that you're high SES kids were fine in a bad school. Good for you. Your kids will do fine anywhere. What about the rest of us?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What never fails to enrage me are Hillites accepting what Upper NW parents never would collectively - several "neighborhood" middle schools that 3/4 OOB and/or 2/3 empty. What would warrant having the Hill strongest elementary schools feed into a single MS is simple common sense, and a preoccupation with practical social justice. The poor kids in our community do not benefit from the phenomenon of the great majority of highly educated families fleeing undesirable, low-performing (or at best, mediocre) neighborhood schools not just year after year, but decade after decade. Let a critical mass of strong students build at a single Ward 6 by-right middle school and all boats rise with the tide, and fast.

When most local affluent parents would much rather move, go private, or go charter rather than enroll their children in a by-right school in which they lack confidence, the system is at fault, not the parents. Yes, the odd high SES parent/good liberal like you can and will make SH work, but most can't and won't. We are in-boundary for SH but my Asian better half (senior with a federal agency) won't touch a school that's 0% Asian for our children, period. His bitter memories of being taunted by peers as one of the only Asians in his public MS remain strong.

Calling fellow Hill parents names for our failure to line up to enroll their kids at middle schools with proficiency pass rates in the teens (EH and Jefferson Academy) without grade level offerings, let alone classes and programs supporting advanced learners, is churlish and childish. Cut the crap, friend.

I don't disagree in principle, but I think the problem is the barely concealed racial animus of some posters when they talk about the "OOB" kids, plus the air of entitlement and privilege ("I paid $900k for my house, I DESERVE to be catered to by DCPS!"). I don't think this is the kind of attitude that will inspire DCPS to listen to us. People need to face the fact of the city and the ward we live in, and realize that they need to be careful and thoughtful with their words. It's also off-putting to talk about how "terrible" Jefferson is and how one can't "use" the schools -- this minimizes the hard work and dedication that I'm sure is happening in those schools, and makes it sound those schools are beneath our dignity. It's just ugly language.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What never fails to enrage me are Hillites accepting what Upper NW parents never would collectively - several "neighborhood" middle schools that 3/4 OOB and/or 2/3 empty. What would warrant having the Hill strongest elementary schools feed into a single MS is simple common sense, and a preoccupation with practical social justice. The poor kids in our community do not benefit from the phenomenon of the great majority of highly educated families fleeing undesirable, low-performing (or at best, mediocre) neighborhood schools not just year after year, but decade after decade. Let a critical mass of strong students build at a single Ward 6 by-right middle school and all boats rise with the tide, and fast.

When most local affluent parents would much rather move, go private, or go charter rather than enroll their children in a by-right school in which they lack confidence, the system is at fault, not the parents. Yes, the odd high SES parent/good liberal like you can and will make SH work, but most can't and won't. We are in-boundary for SH but my Asian better half (senior with a federal agency) won't touch a school that's 0% Asian for our children, period. His bitter memories of being taunted by peers as one of the only Asians in his public MS remain strong.

Calling fellow Hill parents names for our failure to line up to enroll their kids at middle schools with proficiency pass rates in the teens (EH and Jefferson Academy) without grade level offerings, let alone classes and programs supporting advanced learners, is churlish and childish. Cut the crap, friend.

I don't disagree in principle, but I think the problem is the barely concealed racial animus of some posters when they talk about the "OOB" kids, plus the air of entitlement and privilege ("I paid $900k for my house, I DESERVE to be catered to by DCPS!"). I don't think this is the kind of attitude that will inspire DCPS to listen to us. People need to face the fact of the city and the ward we live in, and realize that they need to be careful and thoughtful with their words. It's also off-putting to talk about how "terrible" Jefferson is and how one can't "use" the schools -- this minimizes the hard work and dedication that I'm sure is happening in those schools, and makes it sound those schools are beneath our dignity. It's just ugly language.

Amen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those 5 mile away Deal families might be out of luck soon. Deal and Wilson are reaching a breaking point in attendance. Something has to give soon.

Not really -- their population projections don't show further increases. You'll never see DCPS pull Shepherd out of the Deal/Wilson feed. Will never happen.

Are you sure about that?

"According to new data from D.C. Public Schools, projected enrollment will exceed building capacity this fall in all of the ward’s public elementary, middle
and high schools"

you're talking about schools which have long been overcrowded. It doesn't necessary translate to a cumulative effect.

http://www.currentnewspapers.com/admin/uploadfiles/NW%2003-01-2017.pdf

OSSE just released enrollment data based on audit -- %3 increase for public ed, and virutally all of it in charter (2600 charter, 100 DCPS)

http://osse.dc.gov/release/public-school-enrollment-district-columbia-increases-eighth-consecutive-year