Maury Capitol Hill

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Anonymous wrote:Doesn't the Peabody/Watkins cluster actually prove that pairing the schools is not a viable solution to the identified problem? I can't find socioeconomic data, but looking at the racial demographic data on My School DC, Peabody's demographics are very similar to Maury's, and very different from Watkins'. And I believe Peabody and Watkins started closer together than Maury and Miner would.

Maybe they're hoping that people will be okay with Miner for pre-K and the Maury name will keep people in for the upper grades. But again, my understanding of when the cluster began is that Watkins was considered a pretty desirable school.

The Peabody/Watkins cluster historically had many, many issues that caused all kinds of problems (many based on historical racism), and so it's hard to extrapolate a lot from that particular cluster because of that. I'd say the most relevant problem today is the lack of bus transportation between the 2 buildings. When there were buses, many families did actually go through Peabody and then through Watkins; I know because I was one of those families. Many did peel off, but again, that was largely due to all the other problems that already existed within the Cluster for decades.

The need for busses is caused by the cluster!!! It is moronic to argue that the cluster is not a failed experiment and instead pin the blame on an externality caused by the cluster. You must work for DCPS.

Part of the reason people felt like they need those buses was because the schools in the cluster school are significantly further apart and the boundary is very long and skinny. If this Maury Miner cluster happened, those schools are only three blocks apart so parents could easily drop kids off at both locations during the 8: 15 to 845 drop off window. Also parking by Peabody to do drop off his horrible which also was an incentive for the bus,

I don't know what the Miner schedule is, but drop off at Maury is between 8:30 and 8:40 for kids not eating breakfast. And the three blocks translates to an extra 20 minutes (conservatively) for me, which would be another 40 minutes a day. I get that it's closer than Peabody/Watkins (and it is absolutely outrageous that DCPS doesn't offer transportation there), but it would be a pretty huge inconvenience nevertheless.

Interesting, can kids not play on the playground if they are not eating breakfast? I do imagine that if this actually happened they would make drop off schedules that would accommodate both schools/parents.

LOL nope.

NP. Why nope? It seems like there would be lots of ways to do drop off and pick up to accommodate parents at both schools, given their proximity. Especially because of the age split between campuses. A staggered drop off schedule with greater flexibility for the upper school campus, where you can have higher child to teacher ratios (and thus have a larger group of kids on the playground or in the cafeteria with fewer minders until school starts). Also for families that live nearby, by 4th grade your kids can be walking on their own.

As for the time, I personally wouldn't mind that extra walk, but lots of families get cargo bikes for this reason. I know a bunch of families with kids in daycare and and elementary schools that are a lot further apart than Maury and Miner, do it by cargo bike, and can throw in a couple errands and still make their commute to work or make it back home in a reasonable length of time.

I don't know if the cluster makes sense or not -- I would have to think more critically about whether combining those two school populations would really result in a "rising tide lifts all boats" situation, or just result in shedding UMC families altogether in a way that undermines Maury's success. I am not sure, though I understand why they are looking for ways to help the school population at Miner, because it has a very decent ECE program but dismal test scores in 3-5, and clearly loses most of its high-resource kids by 2nd or 3rd, which makes it a lot harder because when every kid is high-risk, no one gets what they need.

But the idea that the main objection is drop-off logistics seems silly on its face. Maury students spent two years in a swing space while the school was renovated, and that posed drop-off issues too. But the renovations was of course worth it and was well worth those adjustments. If a cluster could be beneficial in the long run, adjusting start times or having a slightly less convenient school commute for a few years just seems like such a minor complaint to me.

Let me guess— you still have kids in strollers, right? If you think Maury parents are going to feel safe letting their 4th grader walk to Miner, you need to understand your neighborhood better.

Nope, two elementary age kids.

The proposal is, I think, for Miner to be the ECE center because ECE at Miner is already pretty decent (and a not insignificant number of Maury parents send their kids there for PK3 and/or PK4 because there are not enough IB spots for the demand at Maury). So no 4th grader would walk to Miner. The idea is that if you are currently IB for Maury, your older elementary kids could walk to Maury (or you could drop them off early since it's the closer school) and you could walk the 3 blocks to Miner for ECE drop off of younger kids.

Also, given that these schools are 3 block apart, the argument that the neighborhood around Miner is simply too dangerous to send kids to school there makes no sense. If there is a shooting 2 blocks from Miner, then there was a shooting (at most) 5 blocks from Maury. These schools are very close to each other.

I wish y'all would just admit: you like that your kids got to school with UMC, mostly white kids, and you don't want your kids to go to school with poor black kids. Because you and I both know that's the issue.

Miner is a much more dangerous location than most parts of the Maury zone. This is just a fact. It is basically right on the Starburst which is one of the most dangerous and zombified corners of the entire city.

Maury parents already send their kids to school with “poor black kids.” Thanks for playing the inevitable race card, which is exactly what the nameless DC bureaucrat who thought this up intended. “Hmm, what can I do to deflect from the fact that DCPS is failing poor black kids? I know - create a fake race controversy and mess up two schools, then blame it all on white parents!”

Kids don't go to school in "most parts of the Maury zone." They go to Maury. Which is 3 blocks from Miner. That is the relevant issue -- how close together are these schools, does it make sense to cluster them.

Many Maury parents send their kids to Miner for PK already, because it's so hard to get into Maury PK without sibling AND boundary preference. It's very common. So it's established that parents in the Maury zone are fine sending their kids to Miner, and are fine with the PK classes there. If Miner is already the default ECE backup for Maury kids, why not formalize that? It would solve the problem of insufficient PK spots for Maury parents while also allowing Miner to focus on the thing they already do pretty well. With the 0-3s center being built as well, Miner essentially becomes an early childhood center that can focus on the specific needs of younger children, can focus outdoor areas and school programming around that group.

For upper grades, nothing would change for Maury parents EXCEPT the addition of kids currently IB for Miner, who currently skew poorer and less white than those now at Maury. Everything else stays the same -- facility, teachers, admin. The only difference is using the capacity gained from moving PK3-K or PK3-1 to Miner to expand upper grades to include kids living in the Miner boundary.

This is what people who are upset about this proposal are actually upset about. It's not the distance between the schools -- they are very close and may parents already send kids to Miner for PK. It's not neighborhood crime, these schools are in the same neighborhood. It's the composition of the classes and discomfort with a poorer, blacker school population.

Is this true? I chose to pay for daycare over sending my kid into Miner, and I don't know anyone my kid's class that sent their kids to Miner. I would guess that of course some parents choose this route, but "many"?

21 to AppleTree and 13 to Miner in 2021-22, if I'm reading the data correctly. (Agree this is not "many" in a meaningful sense.)

13 is "many" to me. That's almost a full PK class. Is that 21 just for Apple Tree Lincoln Park or does it include the Oklahoma Ave. campus? Either way, what that says to me is that not only does Maury not have enough PK seats for IB families, but even a PK-only charter that is very close to Maury doesn't have enough capacity to absorb all the excess.

Maury parents have complained for years about the problem of PK access.

I also think it's interesting that some on this thread are convinced that combining the schools would immediately "infect" Maury with Miner's issues with administration. Why? To me the problems Miner has had getting competent administrators is a point in favor of combining the schools. Maury is a well-run school with a good administration and a great PTO. Usually when you have an example of a terrific school in a district, you want to export what is working to other schools. So why not export what works at Maury to Miner? Why does this automatically mean Maury will suffer and not that Miner will benefit?

Is Maury a strong school because of the effort of teachers, administrators, and community, or is it a strong school because of demographics? It's just not clear to me why this is automatically a bad idea. I get the objections about commute, but to me that is not a compelling reason to throw out the proposal altogether, especially when these schools are already quite close together and already a decent number of Maury families use Miner for ECE.

You sound incredibly naive. Schools are not businesses to merge. If Miner needs better administration, it is beyond irresponsible for DCPS to decide, “hey, how about we just combine it with a school with good administration?” instead of, you know, taking responsibility for the Miner administration directly. I can’t believe I’m going to use this word, but it is almost a kind of belief in colonization of the “poor” school by the enlightened “rich” school.

This is an interesting discussion, and one could argue it be viewed from the opposite perspective as well. Families who choose to enroll in a DCPS school do so knowing the school is part of a bigger school system. Each school does not exist in a vacuum. Decisions about many aspects of the school are made at a citywide level, and as you can see on the Miner thread, leadership shifts between schools when necessary. In this situation, not only is the school part of the same system, but it exists a few blocks away, and feeds into the same middle school. When you are part of a bigger organization or system, sometimes decisions may be made that impact more than one piece/school - and in this situation, clustering the schools may make sense for multiple reasons that have been listed already in this thread, not just the administration piece.

Nobody has given a reason, other than some Pollyannish and frankly somewhat offensive belief that Miner can only improve if combined with Maury.

Some of you need to take a step back and consider how you are approaching opposition to this proposal. I say this as someone who is outside the Maury and Miner boundaries but very familiar with DCPS and with the factors that led to this proposal.

Whining about commuting between campuses, dismissing the existing issue of PK capacity for IB families at Miner, complaining about crime around Miner (even though Miner is incredibly close to Maury so much of that crime is ALSO near Maury) -- none of this is compelling and really does come off as rich white parents getting mad about the idea of their kids going to school with more poor black kids. I'm not saying that's what it is -- I get the commute issues and why that would be irritating, and I understand the difference between Miner's location and Maury's in terms of crime. But I'm just telling you how it sounds to an outsiders ear.

If you want to oppose this cluster, I think you need to back up and focus on two things. (1) are the logical reasons put forth for the cluster sound? and (2) is the cluster achievable from a logistical standpoint.

Regarding #1, I would be asking whether looking at current school demographics makes sense for making predictions for what a combined cluster would look like demographically. Miner gets a large percentage of students from OOB, in part because UMC families in it's boundary (which there are a decent number of due to gentrification in Kingman Park) don't feel good about the school. If suddenly they're part of a Miner-Maury cluster, more might choose IB, which would actually push out many of the black and low SES students the school now serves.

On the other hand, if combining the schools causes UMC families in both boundaries to look at charters, privates, or move, then you don't get the rising tide the DME is suggesting might come from combining the schools.

I would also raise questions about logistics. Do not focus on drop-off times -- that's an easy fix that is easy dismiss because you can just stagger drop offs or enable parents to drop off older kids on the playground early. Instead, look at facilities. Do they make sense for a cluster? What about aspects of Maury's renovation that were specifically designed for ECE -- if the cluster happens, all of that will need to be retrofitted for upper grades and its wasted investment. Meanwhile, Miner would need a major overhaul to make it work as an ECE-focused campus. It got a new K-5 playground geared toward older kids just 4 years ago, for instance. Does it have enough classrooms with sinks and bathrooms to accommodate the ECE populations at both schools? How much would it cost to make that happen?

If ya'll come in complaining about how the change would add 20 minutes to your personal commute or pointing fingers at Miner's administrative problems as evidence that Miner is a "bad" school that you don't want to send your kids to, I hope you realize that you will wind up looking like whiny, privileged, mostly white parents who just don't want poor black kids at your school. Instead, make a reasoned argument as to why this proposal is unlikely to accomplish its intended goals, and point out the financial, structural, and logistical barriers to making it happen. Stay calm and reasonable. It's not a great proposal but it's not ENTIRELY without merit -- acknowledge the issues of inequity between schools but then calmly state why a cluster is unlikely to address that inequity. By all means, point out how the CH cluster has failed to meaningfully improve equity in it's boundary and how the cluster approach has in some ways divided the boundary even more aggressively along racial and SES lines.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:People need to remember the Rhee-era history of Maury. Before Rhee, UMC parents did not send their kids to Maury (and, unlike today where the boundary is almost entirely UMC, pre-Rhee the area was just starting to gentrify). Rhee gave a very strong Maury principal the backing to make some very tough and often unpopular choices while at the same time a small contingent of gentrifiers worked tirelessly to turn Maury into a place where they could send their kids when they were school aged. This came at the same time as the advent of free PK, which these gentrifiers were willing to take a risk on at Maury. At the time DCPS policy was to create strong IB schools that the IB population wanted to send their kids to. So two forces were working together at once. Higher SES parents willing to take a risk on a school with committed and brave administrators willing to make unpopular decisions to attract those families. Contrast with Payne, which borders Maury, and had similar demographics at the time, but lacked the strong administration or strong parent group. In fact, the Payne principal at the time was openly hostile to IB families. And we can see the differences between the Maury and Payne trajectories, even though location and housing stock are very similar-- Payne is arguably in an even more attractive location because of better metro access.

Today we are in a completely different place. DCPS no longer prioritizes strong IB schools where attracting the IB population is a priority. They'd rather have the "rich kids" spread out among schools. And that is apparently the Maury/Miner plan. They can try this on the Hill because school quality is such a geographic patchwork so you have strong and weak schools right next to each other (unlike in Ward 3). But I worry that with this new approach, instead of having pockets of strong schools and pockets of weak ones, you have more general mediocrity. Time will tell whether UMC parents tire of the mediocrity and go elsewhere.

As for overcrowding at JR, that was solved by opening MacArthur. And with the covid attrition, I think the only ES that is possibly considered over crowded in Ward 3 is currently Lafayette. Deal is large and busy, but operating at very close to capacity (and is building an addition). And merging these schools with each other Maury/Miner style isn't going to change anything because although they may have different cultures, quality is overall strong across Ward 3.

This is very interesting background. I'm curious about the "unpopular decisions" you reference -- could you elaborate on those?

Removing teachers who were not performing was a start. Also, because a lot of OOB students had family history at the school (eg, parents, grandparents had gone to the school), attracting more IB families, which would decrease the number of OOB spots, was unpopular with the OOB families.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:People need to remember the Rhee-era history of Maury. Before Rhee, UMC parents did not send their kids to Maury (and, unlike today where the boundary is almost entirely UMC, pre-Rhee the area was just starting to gentrify). Rhee gave a very strong Maury principal the backing to make some very tough and often unpopular choices while at the same time a small contingent of gentrifiers worked tirelessly to turn Maury into a place where they could send their kids when they were school aged. This came at the same time as the advent of free PK, which these gentrifiers were willing to take a risk on at Maury. At the time DCPS policy was to create strong IB schools that the IB population wanted to send their kids to. So two forces were working together at once. Higher SES parents willing to take a risk on a school with committed and brave administrators willing to make unpopular decisions to attract those families. Contrast with Payne, which borders Maury, and had similar demographics at the time, but lacked the strong administration or strong parent group. In fact, the Payne principal at the time was openly hostile to IB families. And we can see the differences between the Maury and Payne trajectories, even though location and housing stock are very similar-- Payne is arguably in an even more attractive location because of better metro access.

Today we are in a completely different place. DCPS no longer prioritizes strong IB schools where attracting the IB population is a priority. They'd rather have the "rich kids" spread out among schools. And that is apparently the Maury/Miner plan. They can try this on the Hill because school quality is such a geographic patchwork so you have strong and weak schools right next to each other (unlike in Ward 3). But I worry that with this new approach, instead of having pockets of strong schools and pockets of weak ones, you have more general mediocrity. Time will tell whether UMC parents tire of the mediocrity and go elsewhere.

As for overcrowding at JR, that was solved by opening MacArthur. And with the covid attrition, I think the only ES that is possibly considered over crowded in Ward 3 is currently Lafayette. Deal is large and busy, but operating at very close to capacity (and is building an addition). And merging these schools with each other Maury/Miner style isn't going to change anything because although they may have different cultures, quality is overall strong across Ward 3.

This is very interesting background. I'm curious about the "unpopular decisions" you reference -- could you elaborate on those?

Removing teachers who were not performing was a start. Also, because a lot of OOB students had family history at the school (eg, parents, grandparents had gone to the school), attracting more IB families, which would decrease the number of OOB spots, was unpopular with the OOB families.

Ah, that makes sense. Thank you!

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Anonymous wrote:Doesn't the Peabody/Watkins cluster actually prove that pairing the schools is not a viable solution to the identified problem? I can't find socioeconomic data, but looking at the racial demographic data on My School DC, Peabody's demographics are very similar to Maury's, and very different from Watkins'. And I believe Peabody and Watkins started closer together than Maury and Miner would.

Maybe they're hoping that people will be okay with Miner for pre-K and the Maury name will keep people in for the upper grades. But again, my understanding of when the cluster began is that Watkins was considered a pretty desirable school.

The Peabody/Watkins cluster historically had many, many issues that caused all kinds of problems (many based on historical racism), and so it's hard to extrapolate a lot from that particular cluster because of that. I'd say the most relevant problem today is the lack of bus transportation between the 2 buildings. When there were buses, many families did actually go through Peabody and then through Watkins; I know because I was one of those families. Many did peel off, but again, that was largely due to all the other problems that already existed within the Cluster for decades.

The need for busses is caused by the cluster!!! It is moronic to argue that the cluster is not a failed experiment and instead pin the blame on an externality caused by the cluster. You must work for DCPS.

Part of the reason people felt like they need those buses was because the schools in the cluster school are significantly further apart and the boundary is very long and skinny. If this Maury Miner cluster happened, those schools are only three blocks apart so parents could easily drop kids off at both locations during the 8: 15 to 845 drop off window. Also parking by Peabody to do drop off his horrible which also was an incentive for the bus,

I don't know what the Miner schedule is, but drop off at Maury is between 8:30 and 8:40 for kids not eating breakfast. And the three blocks translates to an extra 20 minutes (conservatively) for me, which would be another 40 minutes a day. I get that it's closer than Peabody/Watkins (and it is absolutely outrageous that DCPS doesn't offer transportation there), but it would be a pretty huge inconvenience nevertheless.

Interesting, can kids not play on the playground if they are not eating breakfast? I do imagine that if this actually happened they would make drop off schedules that would accommodate both schools/parents.

LOL nope.

NP. Why nope? It seems like there would be lots of ways to do drop off and pick up to accommodate parents at both schools, given their proximity. Especially because of the age split between campuses. A staggered drop off schedule with greater flexibility for the upper school campus, where you can have higher child to teacher ratios (and thus have a larger group of kids on the playground or in the cafeteria with fewer minders until school starts). Also for families that live nearby, by 4th grade your kids can be walking on their own.

As for the time, I personally wouldn't mind that extra walk, but lots of families get cargo bikes for this reason. I know a bunch of families with kids in daycare and and elementary schools that are a lot further apart than Maury and Miner, do it by cargo bike, and can throw in a couple errands and still make their commute to work or make it back home in a reasonable length of time.

I don't know if the cluster makes sense or not -- I would have to think more critically about whether combining those two school populations would really result in a "rising tide lifts all boats" situation, or just result in shedding UMC families altogether in a way that undermines Maury's success. I am not sure, though I understand why they are looking for ways to help the school population at Miner, because it has a very decent ECE program but dismal test scores in 3-5, and clearly loses most of its high-resource kids by 2nd or 3rd, which makes it a lot harder because when every kid is high-risk, no one gets what they need.

But the idea that the main objection is drop-off logistics seems silly on its face. Maury students spent two years in a swing space while the school was renovated, and that posed drop-off issues too. But the renovations was of course worth it and was well worth those adjustments. If a cluster could be beneficial in the long run, adjusting start times or having a slightly less convenient school commute for a few years just seems like such a minor complaint to me.

Let me guess— you still have kids in strollers, right? If you think Maury parents are going to feel safe letting their 4th grader walk to Miner, you need to understand your neighborhood better.

Nope, two elementary age kids.

The proposal is, I think, for Miner to be the ECE center because ECE at Miner is already pretty decent (and a not insignificant number of Maury parents send their kids there for PK3 and/or PK4 because there are not enough IB spots for the demand at Maury). So no 4th grader would walk to Miner. The idea is that if you are currently IB for Maury, your older elementary kids could walk to Maury (or you could drop them off early since it's the closer school) and you could walk the 3 blocks to Miner for ECE drop off of younger kids.

Also, given that these schools are 3 block apart, the argument that the neighborhood around Miner is simply too dangerous to send kids to school there makes no sense. If there is a shooting 2 blocks from Miner, then there was a shooting (at most) 5 blocks from Maury. These schools are very close to each other.

I wish y'all would just admit: you like that your kids got to school with UMC, mostly white kids, and you don't want your kids to go to school with poor black kids. Because you and I both know that's the issue.

Miner is a much more dangerous location than most parts of the Maury zone. This is just a fact. It is basically right on the Starburst which is one of the most dangerous and zombified corners of the entire city.

Maury parents already send their kids to school with “poor black kids.” Thanks for playing the inevitable race card, which is exactly what the nameless DC bureaucrat who thought this up intended. “Hmm, what can I do to deflect from the fact that DCPS is failing poor black kids? I know - create a fake race controversy and mess up two schools, then blame it all on white parents!”

Kids don't go to school in "most parts of the Maury zone." They go to Maury. Which is 3 blocks from Miner. That is the relevant issue -- how close together are these schools, does it make sense to cluster them.

Many Maury parents send their kids to Miner for PK already, because it's so hard to get into Maury PK without sibling AND boundary preference. It's very common. So it's established that parents in the Maury zone are fine sending their kids to Miner, and are fine with the PK classes there. If Miner is already the default ECE backup for Maury kids, why not formalize that? It would solve the problem of insufficient PK spots for Maury parents while also allowing Miner to focus on the thing they already do pretty well. With the 0-3s center being built as well, Miner essentially becomes an early childhood center that can focus on the specific needs of younger children, can focus outdoor areas and school programming around that group.

For upper grades, nothing would change for Maury parents EXCEPT the addition of kids currently IB for Miner, who currently skew poorer and less white than those now at Maury. Everything else stays the same -- facility, teachers, admin. The only difference is using the capacity gained from moving PK3-K or PK3-1 to Miner to expand upper grades to include kids living in the Miner boundary.

This is what people who are upset about this proposal are actually upset about. It's not the distance between the schools -- they are very close and may parents already send kids to Miner for PK. It's not neighborhood crime, these schools are in the same neighborhood. It's the composition of the classes and discomfort with a poorer, blacker school population.

Is this true? I chose to pay for daycare over sending my kid into Miner, and I don't know anyone my kid's class that sent their kids to Miner. I would guess that of course some parents choose this route, but "many"?

21 to AppleTree and 13 to Miner in 2021-22, if I'm reading the data correctly. (Agree this is not "many" in a meaningful sense.)

13 is "many" to me. That's almost a full PK class. Is that 21 just for Apple Tree Lincoln Park or does it include the Oklahoma Ave. campus? Either way, what that says to me is that not only does Maury not have enough PK seats for IB families, but even a PK-only charter that is very close to Maury doesn't have enough capacity to absorb all the excess.

Maury parents have complained for years about the problem of PK access.

I also think it's interesting that some on this thread are convinced that combining the schools would immediately "infect" Maury with Miner's issues with administration. Why? To me the problems Miner has had getting competent administrators is a point in favor of combining the schools. Maury is a well-run school with a good administration and a great PTO. Usually when you have an example of a terrific school in a district, you want to export what is working to other schools. So why not export what works at Maury to Miner? Why does this automatically mean Maury will suffer and not that Miner will benefit?

Is Maury a strong school because of the effort of teachers, administrators, and community, or is it a strong school because of demographics? It's just not clear to me why this is automatically a bad idea. I get the objections about commute, but to me that is not a compelling reason to throw out the proposal altogether, especially when these schools are already quite close together and already a decent number of Maury families use Miner for ECE.

You sound incredibly naive. Schools are not businesses to merge. If Miner needs better administration, it is beyond irresponsible for DCPS to decide, “hey, how about we just combine it with a school with good administration?” instead of, you know, taking responsibility for the Miner administration directly. I can’t believe I’m going to use this word, but it is almost a kind of belief in colonization of the “poor” school by the enlightened “rich” school.

This is an interesting discussion, and one could argue it be viewed from the opposite perspective as well. Families who choose to enroll in a DCPS school do so knowing the school is part of a bigger school system. Each school does not exist in a vacuum. Decisions about many aspects of the school are made at a citywide level, and as you can see on the Miner thread, leadership shifts between schools when necessary. In this situation, not only is the school part of the same system, but it exists a few blocks away, and feeds into the same middle school. When you are part of a bigger organization or system, sometimes decisions may be made that impact more than one piece/school - and in this situation, clustering the schools may make sense for multiple reasons that have been listed already in this thread, not just the administration piece.

Nobody has given a reason, other than some Pollyannish and frankly somewhat offensive belief that Miner can only improve if combined with Maury.

Some of you need to take a step back and consider how you are approaching opposition to this proposal. I say this as someone who is outside the Maury and Miner boundaries but very familiar with DCPS and with the factors that led to this proposal.

Whining about commuting between campuses, dismissing the existing issue of PK capacity for IB families at Miner, complaining about crime around Miner (even though Miner is incredibly close to Maury so much of that crime is ALSO near Maury) -- none of this is compelling and really does come off as rich white parents getting mad about the idea of their kids going to school with more poor black kids. I'm not saying that's what it is -- I get the commute issues and why that would be irritating, and I understand the difference between Miner's location and Maury's in terms of crime. But I'm just telling you how it sounds to an outsiders ear.

If you want to oppose this cluster, I think you need to back up and focus on two things. (1) are the logical reasons put forth for the cluster sound? and (2) is the cluster achievable from a logistical standpoint.

Regarding #1, I would be asking whether looking at current school demographics makes sense for making predictions for what a combined cluster would look like demographically. Miner gets a large percentage of students from OOB, in part because UMC families in it's boundary (which there are a decent number of due to gentrification in Kingman Park) don't feel good about the school. If suddenly they're part of a Miner-Maury cluster, more might choose IB, which would actually push out many of the black and low SES students the school now serves.

On the other hand, if combining the schools causes UMC families in both boundaries to look at charters, privates, or move, then you don't get the rising tide the DME is suggesting might come from combining the schools.

I would also raise questions about logistics. Do not focus on drop-off times -- that's an easy fix that is easy dismiss because you can just stagger drop offs or enable parents to drop off older kids on the playground early. Instead, look at facilities. Do they make sense for a cluster? What about aspects of Maury's renovation that were specifically designed for ECE -- if the cluster happens, all of that will need to be retrofitted for upper grades and its wasted investment. Meanwhile, Miner would need a major overhaul to make it work as an ECE-focused campus. It got a new K-5 playground geared toward older kids just 4 years ago, for instance. Does it have enough classrooms with sinks and bathrooms to accommodate the ECE populations at both schools? How much would it cost to make that happen?

If ya'll come in complaining about how the change would add 20 minutes to your personal commute or pointing fingers at Miner's administrative problems as evidence that Miner is a "bad" school that you don't want to send your kids to, I hope you realize that you will wind up looking like whiny, privileged, mostly white parents who just don't want poor black kids at your school. Instead, make a reasoned argument as to why this proposal is unlikely to accomplish its intended goals, and point out the financial, structural, and logistical barriers to making it happen. Stay calm and reasonable. It's not a great proposal but it's not ENTIRELY without merit -- acknowledge the issues of inequity between schools but then calmly state why a cluster is unlikely to address that inequity. By all means, point out how the CH cluster has failed to meaningfully improve equity in it's boundary and how the cluster approach has in some ways divided the boundary even more aggressively along racial and SES lines.

So there actually is no good reason to do it other than some absolutely unsubstantiated notion of “equity.” I note that you not only are not part of the community but you also have your facts wrong about crime etc. And miss me with the racial shaming. There’s zero evidence this will help Miner, or that Miner families actually want this, and it seems to be *entirely* based on the offensive notion that the mere addition of white kids “improves” a school. What in the world?

I’ll say it again - if the DME thinks Miner needs more support then *give Miner more support.* Directly. The notion that an injection of whiteness is the only way Miner can be “improved” by DCPS is bizarre and wrong on so many levels.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People need to remember the Rhee-era history of Maury. Before Rhee, UMC parents did not send their kids to Maury (and, unlike today where the boundary is almost entirely UMC, pre-Rhee the area was just starting to gentrify). Rhee gave a very strong Maury principal the backing to make some very tough and often unpopular choices while at the same time a small contingent of gentrifiers worked tirelessly to turn Maury into a place where they could send their kids when they were school aged. This came at the same time as the advent of free PK, which these gentrifiers were willing to take a risk on at Maury. At the time DCPS policy was to create strong IB schools that the IB population wanted to send their kids to. So two forces were working together at once. Higher SES parents willing to take a risk on a school with committed and brave administrators willing to make unpopular decisions to attract those families. Contrast with Payne, which borders Maury, and had similar demographics at the time, but lacked the strong administration or strong parent group. In fact, the Payne principal at the time was openly hostile to IB families. And we can see the differences between the Maury and Payne trajectories, even though location and housing stock are very similar-- Payne is arguably in an even more attractive location because of better metro access.

Today we are in a completely different place. DCPS no longer prioritizes strong IB schools where attracting the IB population is a priority. They'd rather have the "rich kids" spread out among schools. And that is apparently the Maury/Miner plan. They can try this on the Hill because school quality is such a geographic patchwork so you have strong and weak schools right next to each other (unlike in Ward 3). But I worry that with this new approach, instead of having pockets of strong schools and pockets of weak ones, you have more general mediocrity. Time will tell whether UMC parents tire of the mediocrity and go elsewhere.

As for overcrowding at JR, that was solved by opening MacArthur. And with the covid attrition, I think the only ES that is possibly considered over crowded in Ward 3 is currently Lafayette. Deal is large and busy, but operating at very close to capacity (and is building an addition). And merging these schools with each other Maury/Miner style isn't going to change anything because although they may have different cultures, quality is overall strong across Ward 3.

This is very interesting background. I'm curious about the "unpopular decisions" you reference -- could you elaborate on those?

Removing teachers who were not performing was a start. Also, because a lot of OOB students had family history at the school (eg, parents, grandparents had gone to the school), attracting more IB families, which would decrease the number of OOB spots, was unpopular with the OOB families.

I wasn’t there when this happened but just want to note that some of the very best Maury teachers have/had been there for a very long time, so it’s not like the school had to be remade. I think this account underplays the positives that CAG brought, like attention to curriculum (adopting phonics school-wide) and fostering community.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People need to remember the Rhee-era history of Maury. Before Rhee, UMC parents did not send their kids to Maury (and, unlike today where the boundary is almost entirely UMC, pre-Rhee the area was just starting to gentrify). Rhee gave a very strong Maury principal the backing to make some very tough and often unpopular choices while at the same time a small contingent of gentrifiers worked tirelessly to turn Maury into a place where they could send their kids when they were school aged. This came at the same time as the advent of free PK, which these gentrifiers were willing to take a risk on at Maury. At the time DCPS policy was to create strong IB schools that the IB population wanted to send their kids to. So two forces were working together at once. Higher SES parents willing to take a risk on a school with committed and brave administrators willing to make unpopular decisions to attract those families. Contrast with Payne, which borders Maury, and had similar demographics at the time, but lacked the strong administration or strong parent group. In fact, the Payne principal at the time was openly hostile to IB families. And we can see the differences between the Maury and Payne trajectories, even though location and housing stock are very similar-- Payne is arguably in an even more attractive location because of better metro access.

Today we are in a completely different place. DCPS no longer prioritizes strong IB schools where attracting the IB population is a priority. They'd rather have the "rich kids" spread out among schools. And that is apparently the Maury/Miner plan. They can try this on the Hill because school quality is such a geographic patchwork so you have strong and weak schools right next to each other (unlike in Ward 3). But I worry that with this new approach, instead of having pockets of strong schools and pockets of weak ones, you have more general mediocrity. Time will tell whether UMC parents tire of the mediocrity and go elsewhere.

As for overcrowding at JR, that was solved by opening MacArthur. And with the covid attrition, I think the only ES that is possibly considered over crowded in Ward 3 is currently Lafayette. Deal is large and busy, but operating at very close to capacity (and is building an addition). And merging these schools with each other Maury/Miner style isn't going to change anything because although they may have different cultures, quality is overall strong across Ward 3.

This is very interesting background. I'm curious about the "unpopular decisions" you reference -- could you elaborate on those?

Removing teachers who were not performing was a start. Also, because a lot of OOB students had family history at the school (eg, parents, grandparents had gone to the school), attracting more IB families, which would decrease the number of OOB spots, was unpopular with the OOB families.

I wasn’t there when this happened but just want to note that some of the very best Maury teachers have/had been there for a very long time, so it’s not like the school had to be remade. I think this account underplays the positives that CAG brought, like attention to curriculum (adopting phonics school-wide) and fostering community.

Yes, she did all that and more. And kept the best performing teachers, many of whom are apparently still there!

[Anonymous]

I think Maury needs to fix its own problems first before clustering with someone else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People need to remember the Rhee-era history of Maury. Before Rhee, UMC parents did not send their kids to Maury (and, unlike today where the boundary is almost entirely UMC, pre-Rhee the area was just starting to gentrify). Rhee gave a very strong Maury principal the backing to make some very tough and often unpopular choices while at the same time a small contingent of gentrifiers worked tirelessly to turn Maury into a place where they could send their kids when they were school aged. This came at the same time as the advent of free PK, which these gentrifiers were willing to take a risk on at Maury. At the time DCPS policy was to create strong IB schools that the IB population wanted to send their kids to. So two forces were working together at once. Higher SES parents willing to take a risk on a school with committed and brave administrators willing to make unpopular decisions to attract those families. Contrast with Payne, which borders Maury, and had similar demographics at the time, but lacked the strong administration or strong parent group. In fact, the Payne principal at the time was openly hostile to IB families. And we can see the differences between the Maury and Payne trajectories, even though location and housing stock are very similar-- Payne is arguably in an even more attractive location because of better metro access.

Today we are in a completely different place. DCPS no longer prioritizes strong IB schools where attracting the IB population is a priority. They'd rather have the "rich kids" spread out among schools. And that is apparently the Maury/Miner plan. They can try this on the Hill because school quality is such a geographic patchwork so you have strong and weak schools right next to each other (unlike in Ward 3). But I worry that with this new approach, instead of having pockets of strong schools and pockets of weak ones, you have more general mediocrity. Time will tell whether UMC parents tire of the mediocrity and go elsewhere.

As for overcrowding at JR, that was solved by opening MacArthur. And with the covid attrition, I think the only ES that is possibly considered over crowded in Ward 3 is currently Lafayette. Deal is large and busy, but operating at very close to capacity (and is building an addition). And merging these schools with each other Maury/Miner style isn't going to change anything because although they may have different cultures, quality is overall strong across Ward 3.

This is very interesting background. I'm curious about the "unpopular decisions" you reference -- could you elaborate on those?

Removing teachers who were not performing was a start. Also, because a lot of OOB students had family history at the school (eg, parents, grandparents had gone to the school), attracting more IB families, which would decrease the number of OOB spots, was unpopular with the OOB families.

I wasn’t there when this happened but just want to note that some of the very best Maury teachers have/had been there for a very long time, so it’s not like the school had to be remade. I think this account underplays the positives that CAG brought, like attention to curriculum (adopting phonics school-wide) and fostering community.

I know several teachers have been at Maury for a very long time, but were they there pre-Rhee? Because that was a really long time ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People need to remember the Rhee-era history of Maury. Before Rhee, UMC parents did not send their kids to Maury (and, unlike today where the boundary is almost entirely UMC, pre-Rhee the area was just starting to gentrify). Rhee gave a very strong Maury principal the backing to make some very tough and often unpopular choices while at the same time a small contingent of gentrifiers worked tirelessly to turn Maury into a place where they could send their kids when they were school aged. This came at the same time as the advent of free PK, which these gentrifiers were willing to take a risk on at Maury. At the time DCPS policy was to create strong IB schools that the IB population wanted to send their kids to. So two forces were working together at once. Higher SES parents willing to take a risk on a school with committed and brave administrators willing to make unpopular decisions to attract those families. Contrast with Payne, which borders Maury, and had similar demographics at the time, but lacked the strong administration or strong parent group. In fact, the Payne principal at the time was openly hostile to IB families. And we can see the differences between the Maury and Payne trajectories, even though location and housing stock are very similar-- Payne is arguably in an even more attractive location because of better metro access.

Today we are in a completely different place. DCPS no longer prioritizes strong IB schools where attracting the IB population is a priority. They'd rather have the "rich kids" spread out among schools. And that is apparently the Maury/Miner plan. They can try this on the Hill because school quality is such a geographic patchwork so you have strong and weak schools right next to each other (unlike in Ward 3). But I worry that with this new approach, instead of having pockets of strong schools and pockets of weak ones, you have more general mediocrity. Time will tell whether UMC parents tire of the mediocrity and go elsewhere.

As for overcrowding at JR, that was solved by opening MacArthur. And with the covid attrition, I think the only ES that is possibly considered over crowded in Ward 3 is currently Lafayette. Deal is large and busy, but operating at very close to capacity (and is building an addition). And merging these schools with each other Maury/Miner style isn't going to change anything because although they may have different cultures, quality is overall strong across Ward 3.

This is very interesting background. I'm curious about the "unpopular decisions" you reference -- could you elaborate on those?

Removing teachers who were not performing was a start. Also, because a lot of OOB students had family history at the school (eg, parents, grandparents had gone to the school), attracting more IB families, which would decrease the number of OOB spots, was unpopular with the OOB families.

I wasn’t there when this happened but just want to note that some of the very best Maury teachers have/had been there for a very long time, so it’s not like the school had to be remade. I think this account underplays the positives that CAG brought, like attention to curriculum (adopting phonics school-wide) and fostering community.

I know several teachers have been at Maury for a very long time, but were they there pre-Rhee? Because that was a really long time ago.

I wonder if some of the really great teachers at Maury right now were the ones who came in as replacements during the Rhee era.

[Anonymous]

Why is it a bigger problem to have adjacent school boundaries with a big discrepancy, while the cluster of upper NW schools are safely ensconced among other affluent schools?

[Anonymous]

Well, based on that meeting it seems like the community is decidedly against the proposal. Hopefully that puts it to rest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why is it a bigger problem to have adjacent school boundaries with a big discrepancy, while the cluster of upper NW schools are safely ensconced among other affluent schools?

Because all the money that could be used to improve schools has already been spent on the idiots doing this study, like the woman who was presenting tonight. Therefore, the cheapest way to solve the problem is just to combine adjacent schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is it a bigger problem to have adjacent school boundaries with a big discrepancy, while the cluster of upper NW schools are safely ensconced among other affluent schools?

Because all the money that could be used to improve schools has already been spent on the idiots doing this study, like the woman who was presenting tonight. Therefore, the cheapest way to solve the problem is just to combine adjacent schools.

PLEASE tell me they didn’t hire a consultant for this nonsense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why is it a bigger problem to have adjacent school boundaries with a big discrepancy, while the cluster of upper NW schools are safely ensconced among other affluent schools?

Oh, the people behind this proposal would love to get rid of IB schools and school choice altogether and bus kids to perfectly “equitable” schools. (Except this is DC so on top of that, there would not actually be buses.) Maury/Miner is a test case for them or at least one set of schools they think they have the power to overwhelm.

https://ggwash.org/view/86493/how-school-boundaries-and-feeder-patterns-shape-dcs-housing-and-education-inequalities

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is it a bigger problem to have adjacent school boundaries with a big discrepancy, while the cluster of upper NW schools are safely ensconced among other affluent schools?

Oh, the people behind this proposal would love to get rid of IB schools and school choice altogether and bus kids to perfectly “equitable” schools. (Except this is DC so on top of that, there would not actually be buses.) Maury/Miner is a test case for them or at least one set of schools they think they have the power to overwhelm.

https://ggwash.org/view/86493/how-school-boundaries-and-feeder-patterns-shape-dcs-housing-and-education-inequalities

The process is being managed by the Deputy Mayor for Education's office, along with the Master Facility Plan. https://dme.dc.gov/boundaries2023 . There are some consultants helping with parts of the process.

Nowhere in any of the meetings or materials has it been suggested that kids get sent across the city. Every presentation they share the same first few slides about the goals of the process, one of which is to have a strong system of by right schools (https://dme.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dme/publication/attachments/Boundary%20Study%20Townhall%202_FINAL.pdf) If anything, in addition to the boundary conversations, there has been conversation about programmatic opportunities at schools across the city so kids presumably would not need to travel as far to access various programs.

Housing segregation is a real issue in DC, and in my opinion, a reason they aren't addressing the cluster of schools in upper NW in the same way could be because right now the affordable housing options don't exist in that part of the city that would allow for a significant increase of socioeconomic diversity, and nobody wants the solution to be bussing kids across town.