DCPS Selective HSs: What to know.
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Anonymous
To be fair, one competition doesn’t make a very good data point. If you know anything about robotics, things can go great or things can go wrong with your robot or issues come up. Above is disappointing based on past performance. You need to look at the big picture. I was not there this weekend but season is not over and there are other competitions and wait and see how teams do. But I do know that DCI’s high school team was the only team in all of the DMV that advanced last year to districts. After districts is works competition. They also won a number of awards. Will see how they will ultimately do this year. Also 1 of the 2 DCI middle school team this year advance to regionals. It was the only school team in the DMV to do that. They did not advance to world championships but regionals is a big accomplishment. |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
Some posters clearly just need to boost DCI no matter what data points are presented. |
Anonymous
This is a great accomplishment, and this is a data point? I’m genuinely confused. |
Anonymous
I’m the PP and I am providing facts and context. It’s obvious the PP above is not in the robotics world. These kids are making new robots to new challenges every year. It’s a work in progress, and things can absolutely go wrong in a competition or an issue comes up with your robot. That is why the teams have time to fix, modify, and change things on their robots during the competition. Not doing well in 1 competition does not give you the big picture and why I provided the facts and context. PP is stating that the 2 schools robotics team are similar and that basically if you are interested in robotics/STEM, it’s equivalent. It is not because of the context. Above is not a good showing for DCI and I provide context as to why and maybe the reason. It’s a fact that DCI robotics does better than any public or private school in the city by past performances in competitions. Facts are not boosting. PP was the one that initiated this conversation, and I responded with what I knew being in the robotics world. It’s obvious PP is not. |
Anonymous
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Why are Walls parents so insecure?? It’s a well known fact that Walls is not a STEM school and is a humanities school. And that is OK. Every school has its strengths and weaknesses.
Starting the smug post above is really a poor showing for the Walls crowd. |
Anonymous
No dog in this fight, but I SO disagree. DCI boostering on here is insane. The latest has been "Walls doesn't even have a Robotics team, I don't care if PP claims their kid is on it" and "Walls teams sucks and DCI's is amazing, who would ever send their STEM kids to Walls?" So the Walls parent comes along and is like, look, both teams exist and did comparably -- if not very well -- at the first tournament. The only reason this is even relevant is the crazy and constant DCI boostering. DCI seems like a perfectly good place to send kids, but they NEED it to be better than Walls and they need everyone to agree with them. Most people don't, so they get sad. |
Anonymous
No, I’ve been following this thread from the get go and no one said anything you wrote in quotes above. There was no boosting but a family stated that they were not considering Walls because it did not offer certain STEM courses. Then there were so many pages and pages of Walls families coming on saying this and that about the school and STEM offerings. Questions were then asked about specifics, one of which was about the robotics competition which did not get answered until way later on. I suggest you re-read the thread. It wasn’t about DCI boosting but more about Walls families trying to justify as to why if you have a STEM kid, you can send your kid there. |
Anonymous
Everybody in the thread invested in the DCI boosterism sidetrack should read pages 10-13 of the DCI 24-25 Annual report detailing student performance ( https://dcinternationalschool.org/organizational-transparency/ ) and look at the 8th grade Science CAPE results (19% meets/exceeds, 46 out of 246 students). Setting aside Walls for STEM, the real choice may be between DCI and homeschooling with a few Museum of the Bible field trips to learn about evolution. 
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Anonymous
Ya. Choosing DCI for STEM kids is not a completely rational decision in middle school, though maybe they correct themselves during high school. The robotics team aside, their science scores and science olympiad performance makes it seem like some science education is lacking. It's great that a few kids are doing robotics though. |
Anonymous
If you're on DCUM, your kid will obviously be one of the 46, so who cares? DCI isn't a selective school, so this doesn't really mean anything. |
Anonymous
| If applying to colleges is your main focus, it's much easier to compete against 46 students for the top colleges than it is to compete against 246. |
Anonymous
You can take the same courses offered at walls for the most serious students as a freshman and sophomore at DCI. Rational arguments are hard to stomach when you just hate being black and brown kids succeed. |
Anonymous
Why do Walls families continue to try to put down DCI and present things out of context text? It’s so tiring. I looked at above and the ELA and Math scores for the school for 4 and above is high for a non-selective school. As to the science, that is actually pretty good where many middle schools in DC the percentages are single digits. Also if you look at Deal their number is only 30% considering how much lower wealthier the families and lower at risk kids. DCI is doing a good job educating kids in this town. |
Anonymous
This. Brookland middle, IB for lots of familias, science is only 1.6%. Huge difference and at least the school still has kids take standardized science tests so know where they stand and can place kids appropriately. Also good info for parents. You can’t say same of DCPS which has completely stopped testing in science. I hear the new Amplify science curriculum they have implemented is terrible too. |