Incident at Lee??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I still don't get why anyone thought it was a good idea to locate an elementary school alongside a high school in the same building. Seems like a recipe for trouble, and the knife and possible gun incidents would seem to validate that. And WLA will double in size over the next two years. Are the additional building security measures intended to have more physical separation between the two schools?

Posts like this are so dumb, as if the Lee admins were sitting around rejecting other buildings because they were desperate to find one co-located with another school.

Riiiight, like "here's a beautiful convenient space located inside a large fortress with 2 acres of grassy fields that are constantly peppered by gleaming rays of light." And, "here's a nice, but modest space that we would share with a high school."

Lee admin says, "let's go with the last option. seems like a better set-up."

I love you.

[Anonymous]

Wow you are an asshole.

[Anonymous]

I love this back-seat school creation that NONE OF YOU HAVE EVER DONE. FFS you people are an abomination.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I still don't get why anyone thought it was a good idea to locate an elementary school alongside a high school in the same building. Seems like a recipe for trouble, and the knife and possible gun incidents would seem to validate that. And WLA will double in size over the next two years. Are the additional building security measures intended to have more physical separation between the two schools?

I don’t understand the fears people have about multi age places. Isn’t that just life? It is not like the teens are wandering the halls at Lee? So strange. What society in the world is single age?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I still don't get why anyone thought it was a good idea to locate an elementary school alongside a high school in the same building. Seems like a recipe for trouble, and the knife and possible gun incidents would seem to validate that. And WLA will double in size over the next two years. Are the additional building security measures intended to have more physical separation between the two schools?

Lee/WLA aren't the only charter with elementary and high school students in the same building.

Off the top of my head -- Cap City, LAMB / DCI (at Walter Reed), EL Haynes (Pk3-4 and high school share a building; middle school is in a separate space)

Those are all the same school or feeder. Lamb/DCI are not in same building. Being same school like Haynes is different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I still don't get why anyone thought it was a good idea to locate an elementary school alongside a high school in the same building. Seems like a recipe for trouble, and the knife and possible gun incidents would seem to validate that. And WLA will double in size over the next two years. Are the additional building security measures intended to have more physical separation between the two schools?

Lee/WLA aren't the only charter with elementary and high school students in the same building.

Off the top of my head -- Cap City, LAMB / DCI (at Walter Reed), EL Haynes (Pk3-4 and high school share a building; middle school is in a separate space)

Those are all the same school or feeder. Lamb/DCI are not in same building. Being same school like Haynes is different.

LAMB has a wing of DCI’s Walter Reed building.

The issue is supposedly the age disparity of the children being in close proximity.

Or is t really that the WLA students are poor and 98% black and Latino?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I still don't get why anyone thought it was a good idea to locate an elementary school alongside a high school in the same building. Seems like a recipe for trouble, and the knife and possible gun incidents would seem to validate that. And WLA will double in size over the next two years. Are the additional building security measures intended to have more physical separation between the two schools?

Lee/WLA aren't the only charter with elementary and high school students in the same building.

Off the top of my head -- Cap City, LAMB / DCI (at Walter Reed), EL Haynes (Pk3-4 and high school share a building; middle school is in a separate space)

Those are all the same school or feeder. Lamb/DCI are not in same building. Being same school like Haynes is different.

LAMB has a wing of DCI’s Walter Reed building.

The issue is supposedly the age disparity of the children being in close proximity.

Or is t really that the WLA students are poor and 98% black and Latino?

It's neither.
Schools are not supposed to blend into each other with shared hallways, doors, elevators. Schools and unrelated offices are not supposed to blend into each other either. The hallways should be deemed safe enough that a second-grader should be able to walk over to the bathroom whenever he wants. Lee admin was aware it was a problem, but fixing it was on the schedule a few months down the road. They were not receiving sufficient pressure to fix it sooner until the gun sighting incident.

To lottery-playing prospective families, I guess this thread gives you a snapshot of what our school is like. The reality is that all schools are the same especially DC charter schools.
Administration is great on the one hand, on the other, snow jobs and compromises that aren't in the best interest of student safety do happen.
FTA is great but on the other hand, they can sound like they're carrying the water for the school administration more than looking out for children. We're in a very political city and parent involvement is going to reflect those qualities.
The families are great and we have lots of volunteers with diverse skills and lots of energy who are offering a lot of amazing things to our school, but there is a lot of blind trust of administration, parents not wanting to engage in any critical way like a good fed who doesn't want a ding on their performance review, and parents systematically bringing up race and suggesting that something or anything or everything is racism or bias.

Security issues, while they took too long to be remediated and should have been addressed before moving into the new space, look like they're going to be reasonably taken care of now and we'll be just like any other Elementary School by September. We haven't been, but by the time new families get here, we will be.

[Anonymous]

It sounds like Lee did everything they could in both the knife incident (which is terrifying, so sorry that happened!) and the alleged gun incident.

But the real question isn’t Lee's response...it's WLA's response. In both cases, the incidents took place when Lee kids were outside (and therefore the beefed up security inside the school doesn’t really help). As others have pointed out, the Lee/WLA co-location was born out of desperation to get a good bldg., not a well-thought and long desired partnership. Lee is clearly - albeit belatedly - doing everything that can to improve security. So I ask again, what has WLA's response been both internally and to Lee?

[Anonymous]

Because some things are racism or bias at play...I'm not sure why people get so offended when it's pointed out. Just read through a few DCUM posts and you'll see that both are alive and well here in the district.

[Anonymous]

If you can't recognize when bias may be a factor, you still have 7 hours to apply to MySchoolDC or to take Lee off your list if you are new. If you are unhappy with the FTA and the administration, same. If you don't want your kids in an elementary school next to a high school and can't see any positives to that, then same. Sometimes there are reasons for backing up the admin who are doing the best they can. They did a good job making sure the kids were safe--the internal doors being more secure would not have prevented this alleged (again, uncorroborated!) gun sighting. They've recognized the shortcomings in communication. They are moving up addressing the security consults, etc. because they want to give reassurance to the parents that the school is safe. If you can't see that, maybe Lee is not the right place for you. We'll keep the rational, supportive, community-minded families.