Maury Capitol Hill

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d be interested in others’ takes on the meeting, but here’s a TLDR of how it felt.

DME: This is a listening session to get your feedback on possible changes to address challenges.
Parents: Ok, so what are the possible changes?
DME: We want to cluster you with Miner.
Parents: I don’t think we like that.
DME: We would encourage you to think about it differently.
Parents: Ok. What are the challenges this is supposed to address?
DME: Socioeconomic disparities between neighboring schools.
Parents: Are we the only school with this challenge?
DME: Goodness, no, you’re not even close to the worst one. You’re just the only one we are considering clustering.
Parents: Can you reconsider?
DME: We hear you. But no.

they clearly have targeted Maury as a pilot for this.

Do they have any specifics on logistics? Have they thought at all what it takes to combine two separate institutions?

I thought any changes were supposed to be a slow roll out, so students enrolled in a school as of the 2025-2026 school year may choose to stay or attend their new school. How would that work at all with this cluster proposal?

Their presentation didn't even commit to which school would be for the upper years and which for the lower. It just said, could be Miner for the younger kids! They have thought about this zero.

The DME rep said this is the "idea" stage where they are just trying to figure out if this can work. But the timeline she outlined means a very quick path from the idea stage to the final recommendation in Jan/Feb (I can't remember exactly).

It took Tyler three years to go through the process just of re-naming the school.

This is what really concerns me. This sounds like a “throw things at the wall and see what sticks” idea. It’s not a bad thing to entertain lots of different proposals when you’re trying to tackle extremely difficult issues.

But it seems like they haven’t gotten past that first “clever” big picture idea. Nor can they clearly explain how this idea (which will be hugely disruptive to two school communities, no matter its merits) is supposed to achieve their goals. This will not only affect hundreds of families, it will also impact the teachers and staff from two different schools. How do they feel about this?!

They also haven’t given any thought to practicalities— let alone specifics. Should Miner or Maury have all the lower grades? How will this roll out?

Combining two different schools is a big deal. The onus should be on them to explain how this idea achieves their goals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d be interested in others’ takes on the meeting, but here’s a TLDR of how it felt.

DME: This is a listening session to get your feedback on possible changes to address challenges.
Parents: Ok, so what are the possible changes?
DME: We want to cluster you with Miner.
Parents: I don’t think we like that.
DME: We would encourage you to think about it differently.
Parents: Ok. What are the challenges this is supposed to address?
DME: Socioeconomic disparities between neighboring schools.
Parents: Are we the only school with this challenge?
DME: Goodness, no, you’re not even close to the worst one. You’re just the only one we are considering clustering.
Parents: Can you reconsider?
DME: We hear you. But no.

they clearly have targeted Maury as a pilot for this.

Do they have any specifics on logistics? Have they thought at all what it takes to combine two separate institutions?

I thought any changes were supposed to be a slow roll out, so students enrolled in a school as of the 2025-2026 school year may choose to stay or attend their new school. How would that work at all with this cluster proposal?

Their presentation didn't even commit to which school would be for the upper years and which for the lower. It just said, could be Miner for the younger kids! They have thought about this zero.

The DME rep said this is the "idea" stage where they are just trying to figure out if this can work. But the timeline she outlined means a very quick path from the idea stage to the final recommendation in Jan/Feb (I can't remember exactly).

It took Tyler three years to go through the process just of re-naming the school.

I feel like we are being almost gaslit on the “idea stage” thing. The DME rep at one point claimed that this was an “idea stage” concept but separately said that the whole process is almost done with final recommendations in the next month.

Let’s be honest, there is a reason they saved school-specific meetings for the very end. They don’t view it as their role to be responsive to individual school communities’ desires. They haven’t even planned a meeting for Miner families. They want their recommendations to be a fait accompli, with just enough of an ability to claim that they “listened.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d be interested in others’ takes on the meeting, but here’s a TLDR of how it felt.

DME: This is a listening session to get your feedback on possible changes to address challenges.
Parents: Ok, so what are the possible changes?
DME: We want to cluster you with Miner.
Parents: I don’t think we like that.
DME: We would encourage you to think about it differently.
Parents: Ok. What are the challenges this is supposed to address?
DME: Socioeconomic disparities between neighboring schools.
Parents: Are we the only school with this challenge?
DME: Goodness, no, you’re not even close to the worst one. You’re just the only one we are considering clustering.
Parents: Can you reconsider?
DME: We hear you. But no.

they clearly have targeted Maury as a pilot for this.

Do they have any specifics on logistics? Have they thought at all what it takes to combine two separate institutions?

I thought any changes were supposed to be a slow roll out, so students enrolled in a school as of the 2025-2026 school year may choose to stay or attend their new school. How would that work at all with this cluster proposal?

Their presentation didn't even commit to which school would be for the upper years and which for the lower. It just said, could be Miner for the younger kids! They have thought about this zero.

The DME rep said this is the "idea" stage where they are just trying to figure out if this can work. But the timeline she outlined means a very quick path from the idea stage to the final recommendation in Jan/Feb (I can't remember exactly).

It took Tyler three years to go through the process just of re-naming the school.

I feel like we are being almost gaslit on the “idea stage” thing. The DME rep at one point claimed that this was an “idea stage” concept but separately said that the whole process is almost done with final recommendations in the next month.

Let’s be honest, there is a reason they saved school-specific meetings for the very end. They don’t view it as their role to be responsive to individual school communities’ desires. They haven’t even planned a meeting for Miner families. They want their recommendations to be a fait accompli, with just enough of an ability to claim that they “listened.”

Given that feedback from the parents last night seemed to be decidedly against (though I understand that people who have strong feelings for or against are the most likely to attend/speak up!), which is consistent with the conversations I've had with other Maury parents, what should we be doing? They said we could provide feedback to [e-mail] -- should we be emailing individually? Is the move to wait until it hits the mayor's desk and lobby from there?

[Anonymous]

As a parent of a Maury kid at EH, I call shenanigans at whatever “neighborhood mom” is claiming people against the cluster are segregationists. I mean really, wtf. Maury parents are increasingly choosing to send their kids to MS with Miner kids. And the reason they are doing this is because it’s the well-established model and because the EH administration actually knows how to handle MS kids from all kids of different backgrounds and provides opportunities for all, and has Title 1 resources to draw in.

The plan to cluster Maury and Miner has ZERO thoughtfulness about how to manage the changing academic and behavioral needs of the students, especially with the potential losw of Title 1 status in the proposed lower school - a disaster if the Miner kids lost resources needed for early literacy instruction!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a parent of a Maury kid at EH, I call shenanigans at whatever “neighborhood mom” is claiming people against the cluster are segregationists. I mean really, wtf. Maury parents are increasingly choosing to send their kids to MS with Miner kids. And the reason they are doing this is because it’s the well-established model and because the EH administration actually knows how to handle MS kids from all kids of different backgrounds and provides opportunities for all, and has Title 1 resources to draw in.

The plan to cluster Maury and Miner has ZERO thoughtfulness about how to manage the changing academic and behavioral needs of the students, especially with the potential losw of Title 1 status in the proposed lower school - a disaster if the Miner kids lost resources needed for early literacy instruction!

You could argue that this would benefit Maury by bringing BACK Title 1 status to the upper grades. TBH Maury as is, is lower income and more racially diverse in the upper grades already, so naturally it would be even more so if combined with Miner. That extra money could go a long way. I know we'd all like free aftercare!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a parent of a Maury kid at EH, I call shenanigans at whatever “neighborhood mom” is claiming people against the cluster are segregationists. I mean really, wtf. Maury parents are increasingly choosing to send their kids to MS with Miner kids. And the reason they are doing this is because it’s the well-established model and because the EH administration actually knows how to handle MS kids from all kids of different backgrounds and provides opportunities for all, and has Title 1 resources to draw in.

The plan to cluster Maury and Miner has ZERO thoughtfulness about how to manage the changing academic and behavioral needs of the students, especially with the potential losw of Title 1 status in the proposed lower school - a disaster if the Miner kids lost resources needed for early literacy instruction!

You could argue that this would benefit Maury by bringing BACK Title 1 status to the upper grades. TBH Maury as is, is lower income and more racially diverse in the upper grades already, so naturally it would be even more so if combined with Miner. That extra money could go a long way. I know we'd all like free aftercare!

It’s not clear that the upper grades would retain Title 1 either. And losing it for PK-2nd would be a disaster.

[Anonymous]

Someone said in the chat last night that the combination school would retain Title I status (though I don't remember DME addressing it).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a parent of a Maury kid at EH, I call shenanigans at whatever “neighborhood mom” is claiming people against the cluster are segregationists. I mean really, wtf. Maury parents are increasingly choosing to send their kids to MS with Miner kids. And the reason they are doing this is because it’s the well-established model and because the EH administration actually knows how to handle MS kids from all kids of different backgrounds and provides opportunities for all, and has Title 1 resources to draw in.

The plan to cluster Maury and Miner has ZERO thoughtfulness about how to manage the changing academic and behavioral needs of the students, especially with the potential losw of Title 1 status in the proposed lower school - a disaster if the Miner kids lost resources needed for early literacy instruction!

You could argue that this would benefit Maury by bringing BACK Title 1 status to the upper grades. TBH Maury as is, is lower income and more racially diverse in the upper grades already, so naturally it would be even more so if combined with Miner. That extra money could go a long way. I know we'd all like free aftercare!

It’s not clear that the upper grades would retain Title 1 either. And losing it for PK-2nd would be a disaster.

Are you joking?? It's clear as day. A school only needs 35% of students in the poverty rate to be considered Title 1. Currently, Miner is at over 65% and Maury is at 12%. Let's say there were 100 kids total, 50 from Miner and 50 from Maury. That would be 33+12= 45/100 kids considered at risk, locking in the title 1 status. This is without taking into account that more Miner kids would remain in the cluster if this were to happen, effectively ensuring the title 1 status.

https://profiles.dcps.dc.gov/scorecard/Miner+Elementary+School

[Anonymous]

Well, I guess Ludlow Taylor will be even more attractive after this...

[Anonymous]

Did they explain last night what specific objectives they think a cluster will achieve? And their reasoning for choosing these schools (other than these schools are geographically close and one has stronger performance)?

Like, is the idea that Maury has somehow “better” teachers or more resources so kids in upper grades from Miner will benefit by attending (aka increasing their proficiency scores)? And that Maury could also have title I status and therefore more resources? I’m just genuinely trying to understand what they’re trying to do. It seems like possibly a lot of chaos for unclear benefits.

[Anonymous]

Seems this idea has been kicking around for a while, since at least 2015. For example, a 2016 Miner PTO meeting presentation discusses it (https://www.minerelementary.org/uploads/1/8/6/1/18615136/2016-12-06_slides.pdf):

"As part of the Maury modernization process, DCPS has developed an option to make Miner and Maury a cluster school. This has been only 'brought up' by DCPS with no details or discussions with anybody in either school community. There are NO plans at this time, just a DCPS idea as a possible option. Nobody is yet advocating for this idea. The PTO will stay involved with this topic and report back to the Miner community."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did they explain last night what specific objectives they think a cluster will achieve? And their reasoning for choosing these schools (other than these schools are geographically close and one has stronger performance)?

Like, is the idea that Maury has somehow “better” teachers or more resources so kids in upper grades from Miner will benefit by attending (aka increasing their proficiency scores)? And that Maury could also have title I status and therefore more resources? I’m just genuinely trying to understand what they’re trying to do. It seems like possibly a lot of chaos for unclear benefits.

The materials from the presentation will be uploaded here, so you can look through them when they are uploaded https://dme.dc.gov/node/1688576

The info will be explained more clearly on the slides, but they explained that they looked at all the elementary school boundaries the city, and examined the 5-6 school pairs that had the biggest socioeconomic disparities that shared a border. Of those schools, some were separated by a river (ex. Payne and Kimball) or by large traffic arteries (ex. Ludlow and Walker-Jones). The only school pair that did not have a large physical barrier between the two was Miner and Maury.

[Anonymous]

Maybe the BASIS DC elementary school will be up and running in the next few years. That could be an option for some Hill families.

[Anonymous]

Past discussion of the Maury/Miner cluster idea, from 2017.

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/616513.page

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did they explain last night what specific objectives they think a cluster will achieve? And their reasoning for choosing these schools (other than these schools are geographically close and one has stronger performance)?

Like, is the idea that Maury has somehow “better” teachers or more resources so kids in upper grades from Miner will benefit by attending (aka increasing their proficiency scores)? And that Maury could also have title I status and therefore more resources? I’m just genuinely trying to understand what they’re trying to do. It seems like possibly a lot of chaos for unclear benefits.

The materials from the presentation will be uploaded here, so you can look through them when they are uploaded https://dme.dc.gov/node/1688576

The info will be explained more clearly on the slides, but they explained that they looked at all the elementary school boundaries the city, and examined the 5-6 school pairs that had the biggest socioeconomic disparities that shared a border. Of those schools, some were separated by a river (ex. Payne and Kimball) or by large traffic arteries (ex. Ludlow and Walker-Jones). The only school pair that did not have a large physical barrier between the two was Miner and Maury.

But why were they looking to combine different schools at all?