socially - transition was more gradual than abrupt. MS child is socially very adaptable, moreso than us, child's parents. Finds many ways to engage with many kids.
This kid is super proud of friends and school. Does not want to change schools for anything. Kind of has a chip on shoulder about the big schools like Deal and all they've got; I don't want to encourage that, but if my kid lines up with the underdogs for the rest of their life, I'd probably be pretty proud.
School does not seem to be a big challenge, but there are some accelerated cohorts. The kids are friendly, belying many stereotypes. Trouble of course is that it doesn't show up on objective testing.
Challenges include knowing whether there is better that can be extracted out of our kid educationally and whether that matters. This kid could of course be put in some kind of pressure cooker to get a "better educational experience" but that's kind of counterfactual. What I'd like is for teachers to push everyone to do more.
Other challenges include not having sports program I'd want my kid to have or extracurriculars that seem to be as enriching.
My hope is that going through this MS and its particular program with an integrated student body will make the school better at reaching everybody who's in the school's pattern and pushing them to succeed as well as good for my kid in terms of socializing them into a world that's not Bethesda and the Ivy League. I think that the school-related "rigor" efforts and support come through engagement with school leadership and teachers, so some of that depends on specific individuals rather than the system in my opinion. I think DCPS has a lot of teachers and administrators who care a lot, but it's hard to expect them to give 110% to every student all the time. I can understand why caring about students who could fall from being net positives in society to net negatives first, as a matter of triage, is logical. That said, I think part of how you reach these kids is expecting greater things from them than society has expected to date.
I'd just say as our MS kid goes through MS, it seems like kid is on top of grades and tests very well so is very likely to move to a selective HS instead of neighborhood HS.
So if I was to suggest what things might be like for others joining the so-called underperforming MS: socially, adaptable kids can do fine! Academically, parent engagement seems pretty valuable, and can help all students win against a public service bureaucracy, extracurricularly, it can be a little rough. But, again, I value placing my kids into an integrated cohort across race and class very highly, probably more highly than placing them in an academically rigorous cohort, believing that our children are likely to be academically successful as well as well-suited to a future better than ours.
So - clearly living in a way that's not so congruent with that of the DCUM norm. Optimistic and engaged.
DP, also with MS kid at one of these schools. Above comments are mostly spot-on with our experience, especially the bold parts. Social adjustment was a bit more abrupt--going from an ES where you've known the same kids for 7-8 years and suddenly lots of new kids from other schools who are having their own struggles adapting led to some social stress at the beginning. The school was super helpful--even focusing on cooperative games for the first month of PE to keep kids from different schools from sticking in those groups. All is well--kid loves the school and friends old and new.
We are happy with the sports offered, and the culture, community, and communication at the school. Kid's sense of personal responsibility has grown tremendously, and they are also very on top of grades, so I also expect a selective HS.
It’s easy to be on top of grades when majority is so low performing. It’s all relative to your peer group. If your kid was placed in a high performing group, your kid may just be on the average side and in the middle. Ask the parents who move from poorly performing EOTP schools to WOTP.
Also things get much more real if your kid gets into a selective high school into a higher level playing field. High probability your kid is going to to come in less prepared and likely struggle with the higher academics. This has been shown again and again and why colleges have summer academic programs for kids from low performing schools or offer remedial programs/tutoring support for freshman’s. If you look at the stats, much higher percentage of these kids drop out and never get a degree.
I actually think it's something else. I think parents who *really* excelled in school, like were in the top 1 percent on various tests, national merit scholar finalists etc, and have kids like that, are more comfortable taking a chance on these schools. We are at a title 1 elementary and I see that... The parents who were Rhodes scholars stayed bc they know their kids will be fine. Those who went to big state schools and are UMC and successful but not at the 1 percent level often left.
I’m sure parents of younger kids get tired of hearing this, but people repeat it for a reason: the most important word in your post is “elementary.” The older students get, the more both educational and behavioral differences start to impact the classroom. We were one of countless DC families who were thrilled with our neighborhood school through pre-K, K, and early elementary but faced increasing problems in 3rd and especially 4th. Even if we parents might have thought “it’s fine because our advanced learner will learn no matter what,” our child was not on board with continuing in an environment like her 4th grade classroom. She was desperate for both more challenge and a calmer classroom environment. But ask us in 1st or 2nd grade, and we would have been the biggest boosters around.
Asking as someone whose oldest is in K at a school like you describe -- do you regret not leaving sooner? We have loved being in a neighborhood school for ECE, have loved all our teachers, think the kids are great, school has great administration. So far, the biggest incentive we've had to leave is that the aftercare program is extremely bare bones and we'd love more options. But that's pretty minor.
We are debating moving next year for 1st, though, because we can see that a lot of families start peeling off by 2nd or 3rd grade and that the environment for middle elementary is not as good as what we've had in ECE. But it's hard to have a crystal ball and know if it will be not ideal but tolerable (and worth staying in the school with people we know and the short commute and the neighborhood friends, at least insofar as some people stay) or will we hit a year that is really bad and wish we'd moved sooner?
We'd be looking at maybe seeing if we can get a spot at ITS, since then we'd potentially stay there through middle school and there'd be less jumping around. Though if we got into Latin or BASIS, we'd probably move again? I'm not sure.
As the PP you were quoting, no, we don’t regret it at all. (Though to be fair, I probably would have said something different when we were in the thick of it. I remember spendings hours and hours reading homeschool information sites that year.) My strong preference is to attend our neighborhood school, for logistical reasons, for social ones, and for idealistic ones. I’m glad that we had it for a few years, and I really wish we still had it now.
Given the current DC system, though, it felt too risky to give our neighborhood middle school a try. Most of the charters require commitment in 5th and don’t offer later entry points, so we couldn’t try out the local middle and see how things went. Plus, with everyone ELSE peeling off at 5th for charters and the neighborhood school filling in by lottery, the school lost much of its “neighborhood” character after that point anyway. And the local high school isn’t an option, so we would have taken on the risk of not getting into an application or lottery high school when the time came. We can’t afford private, so there’s no safety net there.
For what it’s worth, I think there are many other parents in our same position who would have loved to stick with neighborhood schools even despite a few drawbacks, but the MS/HS/charter system seems set up to push people systematically in the other direction. Not intentionally on the part of DCPS, though I don’t know about the charter end. But systematically away all the same.
As the PP you were quoting, no, we don’t regret it at all. (Though to be fair, I probably would have said something different when we were in the thick of it. I remember spendings hours and hours reading homeschool information sites that year.) My strong preference is to attend our neighborhood school, for logistical reasons, for social ones, and for idealistic ones. I’m glad that we had it for a few years, and I really wish we still had it now.
Given the current DC system, though, it felt too risky to give our neighborhood middle school a try. Most of the charters require commitment in 5th and don’t offer later entry points, so we couldn’t try out the local middle and see how things went. Plus, with everyone ELSE peeling off at 5th for charters and the neighborhood school filling in by lottery, the school lost much of its “neighborhood” character after that point anyway. And the local high school isn’t an option, so we would have taken on the risk of not getting into an application or lottery high school when the time came. We can’t afford private, so there’s no safety net there.
For what it’s worth, I think there are many other parents in our same position who would have loved to stick with neighborhood schools even despite a few drawbacks, but the MS/HS/charter system seems set up to push people systematically in the other direction. Not intentionally on the part of DCPS, though I don’t know about the charter end. But systematically away all the same.
The MS/US charter system is currently the only reason that middle class and UMC families use the public school system at all, since DCPS has failed to create another MS/HS pyramid of comparable quality to Hardy/Deal/Wilson. It is absolutely intentional on the part of DCPS. One pyramid of demanding, highly educated parents is apparently all that DCPS wants to tolerate.
As the PP you were quoting, no, we don’t regret it at all. (Though to be fair, I probably would have said something different when we were in the thick of it. I remember spendings hours and hours reading homeschool information sites that year.) My strong preference is to attend our neighborhood school, for logistical reasons, for social ones, and for idealistic ones. I’m glad that we had it for a few years, and I really wish we still had it now.
Given the current DC system, though, it felt too risky to give our neighborhood middle school a try. Most of the charters require commitment in 5th and don’t offer later entry points, so we couldn’t try out the local middle and see how things went. Plus, with everyone ELSE peeling off at 5th for charters and the neighborhood school filling in by lottery, the school lost much of its “neighborhood” character after that point anyway. And the local high school isn’t an option, so we would have taken on the risk of not getting into an application or lottery high school when the time came. We can’t afford private, so there’s no safety net there.
For what it’s worth, I think there are many other parents in our same position who would have loved to stick with neighborhood schools even despite a few drawbacks, but the MS/HS/charter system seems set up to push people systematically in the other direction. Not intentionally on the part of DCPS, though I don’t know about the charter end. But systematically away all the same.
The MS/US charter system is currently the only reason that middle class and UMC families use the public school system at all, since DCPS has failed to create another MS/HS pyramid of comparable quality to Hardy/Deal/Wilson. It is absolutely intentional on the part of DCPS. One pyramid of demanding, highly educated parents is apparently all that DCPS wants to tolerate.
And Hardy regressed last year, to the point where we weren't willing to send our rising 6th grader there, after his older brother's experience in 8th grade last year.
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