How to tell a child they must leave a school that they love?

[Anonymous]

OP, I do agree that in less than a month, you won’t even remember how you’re feeling about the change. In less than a few days, your DD won’t likely remember. FWIW we are in middle school at ITS and made the switch at same age shortly after school began 7 years ago. Best choice we’ve made for our kid so far. We are IB for Deal but opt for ITS because it really is such a special place. The middle school is perfect size for us. It’s a lot larger that I though it’d be and the teachers are out of this world. Middle is about 150 kids and will be 200 in two years.

[Anonymous]

"Larla, we think it is more important for you to go to school with kids like you than stay at the school you love."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here, it's K at ITS. That list has moved sooo fast, I was not mentally prepared for it.

The reason for the move is that DC is not being academically challenged right now. It's not because of too many black kids in the upper grades, it's because of hardly any high-performing kids in any grade and because I know her friends are leaving anyway. They are working on some pull-outs or whatever, but I know it's nowhere near the challenge that DC needs. I like the teacher but the group work is far below DC's level.

I'm not sure that we'll be thrilled with ITS as a middle school because it's such a small program, but I know it's a recently created program so we'll see how it grows. I would choose it over our IB middle school in a heartbeat.

I'm in a similar situation but chose IB over moving.

K was not an easy place for academic challenges because the school was not set up for it. K was just not that academically focused.

We're a few years into early elementary now and it keeps getting better. The school and teachers continue to get better at providing individualized work. There are also classmates who have stepped up their game. Not all kids develop at the same rate. Some who didn't do anything amazing academically in K are doing great now. Our IB also has really small class sizes, so that helps.

Thanks. Do you mind saying the school? I feel like our K is overly academically focused, but at a lower academic level than DC is at. DC has a reading pull-out but still, most of the morning is spent on Fundations type stuff that is age- and level-appropriate for most of the class but not for her.

fundations at our DCPS was right on target for my smart, white high SES K boy EOTP. And ITS is a FULL YEAR behind DCPS - I know because I compared notes with an ITS parent. this is 100% about you wanting your child in a more homogeneous class, and 0% about the actual curriculum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here, it's K at ITS. That list has moved sooo fast, I was not mentally prepared for it.

The reason for the move is that DC is not being academically challenged right now. It's not because of too many black kids in the upper grades, it's because of hardly any high-performing kids in any grade and because I know her friends are leaving anyway. They are working on some pull-outs or whatever, but I know it's nowhere near the challenge that DC needs. I like the teacher but the group work is far below DC's level.

I'm not sure that we'll be thrilled with ITS as a middle school because it's such a small program, but I know it's a recently created program so we'll see how it grows. I would choose it over our IB middle school in a heartbeat.

I'm in a similar situation but chose IB over moving.

K was not an easy place for academic challenges because the school was not set up for it. K was just not that academically focused.

We're a few years into early elementary now and it keeps getting better. The school and teachers continue to get better at providing individualized work. There are also classmates who have stepped up their game. Not all kids develop at the same rate. Some who didn't do anything amazing academically in K are doing great now. Our IB also has really small class sizes, so that helps.

Thanks. Do you mind saying the school? I feel like our K is overly academically focused, but at a lower academic level than DC is at. DC has a reading pull-out but still, most of the morning is spent on Fundations type stuff that is age- and level-appropriate for most of the class but not for her.

fundations at our DCPS was right on target for my smart, white high SES K boy EOTP. And ITS is a FULL YEAR behind DCPS - I know because I compared notes with an ITS parent. this is 100% about you wanting your child in a more homogeneous class, and 0% about the actual curriculum.

Sorry but the current ITS parents I know say differently.

[Anonymous]

We moved our kid in February of Kindergarten from her beloved HRCS to MCPS when we bought a house. I was anxious about the transition mid year but it was absolutely no problem for DD, who is very shy. Sure she missed her friends but we did lots of play dates. She still sees some of them six years later. Switching in K is way easier than you think.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here, it's K at ITS. That list has moved sooo fast, I was not mentally prepared for it.

The reason for the move is that DC is not being academically challenged right now. It's not because of too many black kids in the upper grades, it's because of hardly any high-performing kids in any grade and because I know her friends are leaving anyway. They are working on some pull-outs or whatever, but I know it's nowhere near the challenge that DC needs. I like the teacher but the group work is far below DC's level.

I'm not sure that we'll be thrilled with ITS as a middle school because it's such a small program, but I know it's a recently created program so we'll see how it grows. I would choose it over our IB middle school in a heartbeat.

I'm in a similar situation but chose IB over moving.

K was not an easy place for academic challenges because the school was not set up for it. K was just not that academically focused.

We're a few years into early elementary now and it keeps getting better. The school and teachers continue to get better at providing individualized work. There are also classmates who have stepped up their game. Not all kids develop at the same rate. Some who didn't do anything amazing academically in K are doing great now. Our IB also has really small class sizes, so that helps.

Thanks. Do you mind saying the school? I feel like our K is overly academically focused, but at a lower academic level than DC is at. DC has a reading pull-out but still, most of the morning is spent on Fundations type stuff that is age- and level-appropriate for most of the class but not for her.

fundations at our DCPS was right on target for my smart, white high SES K boy EOTP. And ITS is a FULL YEAR behind DCPS - I know because I compared notes with an ITS parent. this is 100% about you wanting your child in a more homogeneous class, and 0% about the actual curriculum.

Funny how ITS has way better test scores than Ward 5 IBs, then.

Sorry, but our IB pushes phonic so hard because a lot of the kids in K are behind where they should be. At a HRCS the kids may learn to read a little later because they have them doing other stuff instead of drilling on letters of the alphabet. But if the OP's child is advanced, I understand why Fundations would be unappealing. A child who already knows the sounds for each letter and basic phonetic combinations would be bored in Fundations.

[Anonymous]

ITS' and your Ward 5 IB's test scores are due to their respective demographics.

14% of at-risk students at ITS were proficient or advanced on ELA and 8% were proficient or advanced at math.

How did the at-risk students do at your IB Ward 5?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:ITS' and your Ward 5 IB's test scores are due to their respective demographics.

14% of at-risk students at ITS were proficient or advanced on ELA and 8% were proficient or advanced at math.

How did the at-risk students do at your IB Ward 5?

They did much worse than that, thanks for asking. Also, the non-at-risk students at our IB did way worse than the non-at-risk students at ITS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ITS' and your Ward 5 IB's test scores are due to their respective demographics.

14% of at-risk students at ITS were proficient or advanced on ELA and 8% were proficient or advanced at math.

How did the at-risk students do at your IB Ward 5?

They did much worse than that, thanks for asking. Also, the non-at-risk students at our IB did way worse than the non-at-risk students at ITS.

What this says to me is that there is no magic anywhere. The achievement gap is vast almost everywhere*, even with ITS' vaunted expert teachers.

*KIPP, Ketchum, Thomson and a couple others being the exception.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ITS' and your Ward 5 IB's test scores are due to their respective demographics.

14% of at-risk students at ITS were proficient or advanced on ELA and 8% were proficient or advanced at math.

How did the at-risk students do at your IB Ward 5?

They did much worse than that, thanks for asking. Also, the non-at-risk students at our IB did way worse than the non-at-risk students at ITS.

What this says to me is that there is no magic anywhere. The achievement gap is vast almost everywhere*, even with ITS' vaunted expert teachers.

*KIPP, Ketchum, Thomson and a couple others being the exception.

This. Some schools may do a little better with it, especially if they have really talented or committed teachers and leadership, and extra funding that is raised/donated. But it is very hard, especially when the at-risk students are a large majority of the school and there aren't as many higher-SES families to support fundraising and fill out the 4 and 5 sections of the PARCC. And a lot of the schools doing well (charter and non-charter, I'm not trying to go down that road) achieve their seemingly impressive results by nudging out families who have serious academic or behavior troubles, carefully choosing the at-risk families who are easier and less costly to serve. Schools that get good results while accepting all residents of an area, with high retention even of low-performing students and very few expulsions, are very hard to find.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Larla, we think it is more important for you to go to school with kids like you than stay at the school you love."

I'm pretty sure most high SES parents aren't honest with themselves like that, much less their kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here, it's K at ITS. That list has moved sooo fast, I was not mentally prepared for it.

The reason for the move is that DC is not being academically challenged right now. It's not because of too many black kids in the upper grades, it's because of hardly any high-performing kids in any grade and because I know her friends are leaving anyway. They are working on some pull-outs or whatever, but I know it's nowhere near the challenge that DC needs. I like the teacher but the group work is far below DC's level.

I'm not sure that we'll be thrilled with ITS as a middle school because it's such a small program, but I know it's a recently created program so we'll see how it grows. I would choose it over our IB middle school in a heartbeat.

I'm in a similar situation but chose IB over moving.

K was not an easy place for academic challenges because the school was not set up for it. K was just not that academically focused.

We're a few years into early elementary now and it keeps getting better. The school and teachers continue to get better at providing individualized work. There are also classmates who have stepped up their game. Not all kids develop at the same rate. Some who didn't do anything amazing academically in K are doing great now. Our IB also has really small class sizes, so that helps.

Thanks. Do you mind saying the school? I feel like our K is overly academically focused, but at a lower academic level than DC is at. DC has a reading pull-out but still, most of the morning is spent on Fundations type stuff that is age- and level-appropriate for most of the class but not for her.

fundations at our DCPS was right on target for my smart, white high SES K boy EOTP. And ITS is a FULL YEAR behind DCPS - I know because I compared notes with an ITS parent. this is 100% about you wanting your child in a more homogeneous class, and 0% about the actual curriculum.

Funny how ITS has way better test scores than Ward 5 IBs, then.

Sorry, but our IB pushes phonic so hard because a lot of the kids in K are behind where they should be. At a HRCS the kids may learn to read a little later because they have them doing other stuff instead of drilling on letters of the alphabet. But if the OP's child is advanced, I understand why Fundations would be unappealing. A child who already knows the sounds for each letter and basic phonetic combinations would be bored in Fundations.

I love how there's no way the DCPS can be more advanced than ITS. The DCPS curriculum is more rigorous because the kids are behind in DCPS; but the kids read later in ITS because they are more advanced.

BTW there was a broad range of reading/writing readiness in our DCPS class that did not correspond to race or SES.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ITS' and your Ward 5 IB's test scores are due to their respective demographics.

14% of at-risk students at ITS were proficient or advanced on ELA and 8% were proficient or advanced at math.

How did the at-risk students do at your IB Ward 5?

They did much worse than that, thanks for asking. Also, the non-at-risk students at our IB did way worse than the non-at-risk students at ITS.

"Larla, we want you to go to a school with higher PARCC scores."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here, it's K at ITS. That list has moved sooo fast, I was not mentally prepared for it.

The reason for the move is that DC is not being academically challenged right now. It's not because of too many black kids in the upper grades, it's because of hardly any high-performing kids in any grade and because I know her friends are leaving anyway. They are working on some pull-outs or whatever, but I know it's nowhere near the challenge that DC needs. I like the teacher but the group work is far below DC's level.

I'm not sure that we'll be thrilled with ITS as a middle school because it's such a small program, but I know it's a recently created program so we'll see how it grows. I would choose it over our IB middle school in a heartbeat.

I'm in a similar situation but chose IB over moving.

K was not an easy place for academic challenges because the school was not set up for it. K was just not that academically focused.

We're a few years into early elementary now and it keeps getting better. The school and teachers continue to get better at providing individualized work. There are also classmates who have stepped up their game. Not all kids develop at the same rate. Some who didn't do anything amazing academically in K are doing great now. Our IB also has really small class sizes, so that helps.

Thanks. Do you mind saying the school? I feel like our K is overly academically focused, but at a lower academic level than DC is at. DC has a reading pull-out but still, most of the morning is spent on Fundations type stuff that is age- and level-appropriate for most of the class but not for her.

fundations at our DCPS was right on target for my smart, white high SES K boy EOTP. And ITS is a FULL YEAR behind DCPS - I know because I compared notes with an ITS parent. this is 100% about you wanting your child in a more homogeneous class, and 0% about the actual curriculum.

Funny how ITS has way better test scores than Ward 5 IBs, then.

Sorry, but our IB pushes phonic so hard because a lot of the kids in K are behind where they should be. At a HRCS the kids may learn to read a little later because they have them doing other stuff instead of drilling on letters of the alphabet. But if the OP's child is advanced, I understand why Fundations would be unappealing. A child who already knows the sounds for each letter and basic phonetic combinations would be bored in Fundations.

I love how there's no way the DCPS can be more advanced than ITS. The DCPS curriculum is more rigorous because the kids are behind in DCPS; but the kids read later in ITS because they are more advanced.

BTW there was a broad range of reading/writing readiness in our DCPS class that did not correspond to race or SES.

The DCPS curriculum is more focused on phonics and reading intervention for kids who struggle. Other curricula may result in later reading, but that doesn't mean it's a less valid or "rigorous" a curriculum. It's just a different approach. If a child already reads, they don't need K to be a year of intense phonics. I don't know why the kids at ITS read later (or if that's even true), but the school has great test scores so whatever they're doing is probably working just fine.

[Anonymous]

What parents wouldn't try to move her kids to a school with less poverty? white or black. Y'all are being really dumb piling on the OP.