Brent is a high poverty school?!

[Anonymous]

I was on the Donor's Choose website because it's one of my favorite charities and I love to give help teachers get the supplies they need! On a whim I did a zip code search to pull up the schools closest to my neighborhood. One of the school projects that popped up was Brent Elementary. I was a little surprised to see Brent described as "high poverty" when in fact only 11% of the students qualify for Free or Reduced Meals.

I don't begrudge DC teachers for wanting to get much needed supplies especially ones that can't be purchases at an office supply store but it did seem unfair to portray Brent as something it's not in order to get supplies.

[Anonymous]

I think any school in DC can technically be lables as high poverty. Our charter that is near 20% is also listed as high poverty.

[Anonymous]

I wasn't sure how donor's choose does it. I thought maybe it was done by the teacher?

[Anonymous]

It has to do with the zip code, I believe.

[Anonymous]

Tge website info is put in by the teacher. It is not automatically classified as high proverty by the website/zip code.

[Anonymous]

Unreal. That is my child's school and to classify that cohort classroom as "high-poverty" is shameful. I can only hope she made an error when she filled out the form.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unreal. That is my child's school and to classify that cohort classroom as "high-poverty" is shameful. I can only hope she made an error when she filled out the form.

Before you call the teacher shameful, make sure you do some research. The teachers don't describe the school's poverty level when they create a project. I did a Google search on "donors choose how do they decide if a school is high poverty". I found the information below. The website actually describes it and they must have out of date information or as someone else said may be looking at stats for the zipcode. As I said I did a specific search for this so it is very likely that updating a school's information is not easily found.

Also my child is in the teacher's class and she had sent around an email letting us know that this was a way we could give. She liked this option because it allowed us to share information with grandparents who might want to give and the website took care of buying and shipping the items.



How is a school's poverty level defined by DonorsChoose.org?

Poverty level refers to the percentage of students at a given school who qualify for free and reduced lunch, which is considered a measure of economic need.

To be deemed eligible for free/reduced lunch, a student must submit a form showing family income at or below 130% of the poverty line (a maximum income of $23,920 for a family of four).

Schools with 10%-39% of students receiving free/reduced lunch are denoted as "moderate poverty" while schools with more than 40% of students receiving free/reduced lunch are denoted as "high poverty".

For projects submitted from a school where free lunch rate data is unavailable or unreliable, "Poverty Data Unavailable" will appear.

Teachers: If your school's poverty level is unavailable or incorrect you can help us update it.

[Anonymous]

Also note that with 11% poverty Brent would still be described moderate poverty by the website. I think this is an exaggeration as well, but it is not the teacher's fault.

[Anonymous]

This happened with the IT Donors Choose site, as well. With such a low FARMS, it was absurd to think it was high poverty. Turns out, the latest FARMS rate at IT puts it at moderate poverty but because of the zip code, it was listed at high poverty.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unreal. That is my child's school and to classify that cohort classroom as "high-poverty" is shameful. I can only hope she made an error when she filled out the form.

Sweetie, you live in DC. Get over yourself. Do you even know how many FARMS are in your school?

[Anonymous]

9:19, I know the FARM rate at my school boo-boo. I also know it's less than a third of the FARM rate of three other schools on Capitol Hill.

Get over yourself. You are full of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was on the Donor's Choose website because it's one of my favorite charities and I love to give help teachers get the supplies they need! On a whim I did a zip code search to pull up the schools closest to my neighborhood. One of the school projects that popped up was Brent Elementary. I was a little surprised to see Brent described as "high poverty" when in fact only 11% of the students qualify for Free or Reduced Meals.

I don't begrudge DC teachers for wanting to get much needed supplies especially ones that can't be purchases at an office supply store but it did seem unfair to portray Brent as something it's not in order to get supplies.

Students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch program 27%

[Anonymous]

^Out of date figure, probably from SY 2010-2011. It's dipped below 20%. Wait til August or so to see SY 2012-2013 NSLP stats on the DCPS Brent web page.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:9:19, I know the FARM rate at my school boo-boo. I also know it's less than a third of the FARM rate of three other schools on Capitol Hill.

Get over yourself. You are full of it.

I think the point is, there is more to America then just Capitol Hill. Shocking, I know.

[Anonymous]

Brent's FARM rate is 11% on the DCPS website. Granted the second grade classrooms probably have one child who qualifies. Maybe.

So I was wrong when I said Brent had 1/3 of the FARM rate of at least 3 other schools on Capitol Hill.

Brent: 11% FARM
Miner: 99% FARM
Tyler: 99% FARM
Payne: 99% FARM
Ludlow-Taylor: 99% FARM

Data from DCPS school profiles.