MacArthur

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Honest question: What is actually wrong with MacArthur, other than the expected start-up issues that would affect any new school (not many ECs, etc)?

My son met the principal at an open house event and thought he was really engaging. He likes that the school is on the small side, so he figured teachers and administrators would look out for him. We put it first in the lottery.

He's at a decent charter and also zoned for J-R, so he's lucky to have good options regardless

Short term: most local students are going to different schools with proven track records. So the school is the only ward 3 school that is dominant out of boundary. Half the students who aren't from the neighborhood never show up at school.

Long run: DCPS is incompetent at renovations or commitment. The school should become more in-neighborhood as time goes on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son is at MacArthur. He likes it. He's challenged and loves his teachers and has extra curriculars. The doom and gloom reads like folks who have never been there and never spoken to someone who goes there. If you cite truancy as the major problem, please cite the source and know that you are looking at less than 1 year of data.

I'm getting the sense from my neighbors that the students who show up every day like it and are engaged. Unlike at the ES/MS level, those kids are ignored and not much effort is made to get them to catch up. This is a good thing in their book. Basically those students bring in resources that can be spend on the kids that show up.

[Anonymous]

Anyone want to venture a guess on the chance of getting a 9th grade OOB spot for 2025-2026 school year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But if kids aren’t there, which is awful for the kids, how is that an issue for everyone else? Fewer kids in class…. Or is it that they are further behind?

Do you seriously believe the truancy would not impact other students?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why does truancy even matter?

Because the classes are all general ed. If 1/4 of the class doesn’t bother to show up half the time, they’ll drag the rest of the class down because the teacher will have to “differentiate.” There won’t be as much time for your kid to get, say, thoughtful feedback on a paper because the teacher is trying to deal with the kids who can barely write. And eventually this does mean that expectations are watered down. Teachers aren’t going to give assignments that are appropriately challenging for your kid (say, a 5 page research paper) when 1/4 of the class cannot/will not write one page.

It’s so interesting how none of this is actually happening at all.

Just more speculative trolling nonsense from people with zero knowledge of the school.

I’m waiting for an appearance by the “my kid got jumped at Wilson” troll who thought Wilson was in Georgetown. He’ll fit right in.

Great. Maybe you can give us more details on the types of assignments your kids are doing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A decade ago, if you were OOB and truant, you could lose your spot.

It wasn't punishment, just recognition that the logistics weren't working and change was needed.

Now everyone feels entitled to attend any given school, geography be damned.

The people who complain about the difficulty of accessing MacArthur from across town and the lack of a shuttle bus from Foggy Bottom metro are absurd.

Inaccessibilty for in-bounds is a legitimate complaint. Inaccessibility for some OOB means those OOB need to pick a different school.

Don’t they still do this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anyone want to venture a guess on the chance of getting a 9th grade OOB spot for 2025-2026 school year?

Longer odds than this year or last. Next year's lottery will be the first Hardy graduating class that doesn't have the option to choose JR. Once grandfathering ends, more Hardy grads will wind up at MacArthur.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anyone want to venture a guess on the chance of getting a 9th grade OOB spot for 2025-2026 school year?

80%

[Anonymous]

How did it fair in lottery?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone want to venture a guess on the chance of getting a 9th grade OOB spot for 2025-2026 school year?

80%

No way. It was much lower than that this year. MacArthur is no longer a safety school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son is at MacArthur. He likes it. He's challenged and loves his teachers and has extra curriculars. The doom and gloom reads like folks who have never been there and never spoken to someone who goes there. If you cite truancy as the major problem, please cite the source and know that you are looking at less than 1 year of data.

I'm getting the sense from my neighbors that the students who show up every day like it and are engaged. Unlike at the ES/MS level, those kids are ignored and not much effort is made to get them to catch up. This is a good thing in their book. Basically those students bring in resources that can be spend on the kids that show up.

…and the truant kids do what all day while the neighborhood kids learn with their resources? School of life in my neighborhood, drugs, violence? McArthur should lose the funding to the truant students’ IB HS, which should sic some truancy van onto those kids real quick.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone want to venture a guess on the chance of getting a 9th grade OOB spot for 2025-2026 school year?

80%

No way. It was much lower than that this year. MacArthur is no longer a safety school.

Yes, my Deal student was waitlisted despite the transfer preference.

[Anonymous]

My charter school kid applied out of bounds in the lottery and has a waitlist number in the 90s

[Anonymous]

Has Macarthur done any surveying of Hardy students? If not, I think it will take a couple of months for Macarthur to have a solid estimate of how many spaces it has.

[Anonymous]

Is it possible MacArthur had no/very free lottery seats set aside this year because they don't have a good sense of what IB enrollment will look like yet?

Looking at the historical waitlist data, there are definitely other schools that have used this strategy in previous years. For example, in SY21-22 Stuart-Hobson had zero lottery seats but by August had offered seats to 91 of the 102 students on the waitlist.