Diversity in DC public schools

[Anonymous]

Charters tend to attract involved parents, besides being diverse. As a result your kid generally gets a more motivated peer group.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am not leaving DC, but I feel uncomfortable putting my son in a situation where he is the only African American kid in the room all the time and even worse about putting him in a low performing environment. Am I way off base in my perception? Obviously I appreciate any thoughts.

OP, good news is since we're in DC it is nearly impossible that a school would have no kids of color. (I'm AA and went to nearly all white good schools up North, so I understand your concern.) But you don't need to trek to upper NW or shell out $30K for a good school at kindergarten level. Have you checked out some of the 90%+ AA charters like KIPP or DC Prep? Doesn't hurt to look. HTH

DC Prep is highly regarded - especially among administrators of other charter schools, and they ought to know what it takes to be such a model program. If it were pursuing a more mixed-demographic strategy, it would have been Haynes - a few years before Haynes made it out of the gate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oyster is not that diverse from an AA perspective. Mostly white and Hispanic students.

Asian/Pacific - 3%
Black - 12%
Hispanic - 56%
Native American - 0%
White - 29%


12% African American is low for DC but high for the sought-after upper northwest schools. Besides, being in a school that is 29% white with 70% students of color is a different experience than being in a school like Mann that is overwhelmingly white, even if there isn't a huge difference in AA enrollment.

From my perspective as an Oyster parent, there is a very multicultural "feel" to the place because it is both bilingual and bicultural. The focus on Latin American culture means that what you might call dominant, white norms are not what kids see. Our family is white but we are about as far from cookie cutter as you can get-- divorced and blended family including four parents, one deaf parent, interfaith. I feel comfortable there, which I never did at our preschool and really didn't on our tour of Mann. A couple of months back, I told my husband that Oyster is so "Free to be You and Me" that it's almost gross. Well, wouldn't you know that they did "Free to be You and Me" for the holiday assembly. Go figure. It has flaws, for sure. But a diverse student body and more importantly a welcoming spirit are some of its strengths.

It's also very hard to get OOB. I would strongly consider E.L. Haynes and Capitol City charter schools. They are very difficult to get into but well worth it. Also, Hyde has an international feel, and as mentioned, Murch is more diverse than many people would think.

[Anonymous]

Reading this made me doubly glad I live in the suburbs where the schools are incredibly diverse based simply on the assigned school boundaries and limited transfers among schools. The notion that parents would spend so much time ranking elementary schools or finding ways to transfer their kids to an "out of boundary" school is completely foreign to me and my neighbors. I wish you all good luck, but it's awfully sad to read.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Reading this made me doubly glad I live in the suburbs where the schools are incredibly diverse based simply on the assigned school boundaries and limited transfers among schools. The notion that parents would spend so much time ranking elementary schools or finding ways to transfer their kids to an "out of boundary" school is completely foreign to me and my neighbors. I wish you all good luck, but it's awfully sad to read.

Reading this made me glad that you are not in DC. Did you get on the DC schools board just to restate your conclusion that DC isn't any good?

Enjoy Applebee's.

[Anonymous]

Aw come on 20:47, let's play nice. (The Ruby Tuesday in Columbia Heights kind of bumps down our hipster/urban cred ) DC parent of color here. PP has a point . It IS sad that in the nation's capital it takes so much effort to find public school options. Sometimes I forget that in many other parts of the country it's taken for granted your kid can grow up close to a good public school. (I did)

That said, the more parents look at schools across DC for things like diversity or curriculum specialty (language, arts, math, etc), local schools will have to compete for attendance and funding.

OP, and the rest of us, time to shop around!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reading this made me doubly glad I live in the suburbs where the schools are incredibly diverse based simply on the assigned school boundaries and limited transfers among schools. The notion that parents would spend so much time ranking elementary schools or finding ways to transfer their kids to an "out of boundary" school is completely foreign to me and my neighbors. I wish you all good luck, but it's awfully sad to read.

Reading this made me glad that you are not in DC. Did you get on the DC schools board just to restate your conclusion that DC isn't any good?

Enjoy Applebee's.

PP here - I didn't say that "DC isn't any good" and you're seriously deluding yourself if you think the suburbs are all Applebee's. It's simply a fact that many suburbs in Montgomery and Fairfax have the type of diversity that DC parents search much harder to find. And, after all that effort, it seems from the posts here that most of those parents still pull their kids from DCPS after elementary school.

[Anonymous]

I've seen the suburbs. The vast majority of the suburbs are cookie-cutter developments and strip-mall style shopping centers. Even the wealthy ones with "diversity."

No thank you!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reading this made me doubly glad I live in the suburbs where the schools are incredibly diverse based simply on the assigned school boundaries and limited transfers among schools. The notion that parents would spend so much time ranking elementary schools or finding ways to transfer their kids to an "out of boundary" school is completely foreign to me and my neighbors. I wish you all good luck, but it's awfully sad to read.

Reading this made me glad that you are not in DC. Did you get on the DC schools board just to restate your conclusion that DC isn't any good?

Enjoy Applebee's.

This may be the funniest send off to the "flee to the suburb's" mentality that I have ever read on DCUM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The chancellor's daughters father live in-boundary. Stop spreading misinformation. As for many appointees at Oyster OOB, who besides Reinoso?

Let's just say that two individuals who are excepted services employees residing in Ward 6 have children in the K class. Oh and they are not spanish speaking, so that did not get in on that exception. And I am not spreading misinformation, just because you do not personally know about information does not mean it is not accurate information. It is simply information in which you have no knowledge.

Anonymous claims of impropriety that fail to identify the perpetrators have no credibility at all. Either come out and say what you know, or just keep your trap shut. You sound like a Republican railing against the liberal media - all bluster and no facts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reading this made me doubly glad I live in the suburbs where the schools are incredibly diverse based simply on the assigned school boundaries and limited transfers among schools. The notion that parents would spend so much time ranking elementary schools or finding ways to transfer their kids to an "out of boundary" school is completely foreign to me and my neighbors. I wish you all good luck, but it's awfully sad to read.

Reading this made me glad that you are not in DC. Did you get on the DC schools board just to restate your conclusion that DC isn't any good?

Enjoy Applebee's.

This may be the funniest send off to the "flee to the suburb's" mentality that I have ever read on DCUM.

Or anywhere else. Classic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The chancellor's daughters father live in-boundary. Stop spreading misinformation. As for many appointees at Oyster OOB, who besides Reinoso?

Let's just say that two individuals who are excepted services employees residing in Ward 6 have children in the K class. Oh and they are not spanish speaking, so that did not get in on that exception. And I am not spreading misinformation, just because you do not personally know about information does not mean it is not accurate information. It is simply information in which you have no knowledge.

Anonymous claims of impropriety that fail to identify the perpetrators have no credibility at all. Either come out and say what you know, or just keep your trap shut. You sound like a Republican railing against the liberal media - all bluster and no facts.

I was with you until you made it a political rant. If you're so incapable of seeing the world as anything other than black and white then your intellect is juvenile at best and it damages your credibility. A discussion with you is a waste of time.