Hill Middle Schools

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:One big problem for the Hill middle schools is that 5th is the only significant entry year for Latin and Basis. You can always “try” Latin or Basis for a year or two and then switch back to your in-bound middle school. But you cannot do the reverse. This results in a lot of people with some inclination to attend the nearby school gradually deciding to at least participate in the 5th grade charter school lottery and then further deciding to try Latin/Basis for 5th grade. Repeat.

100%. The biggest change I’d like to see to DC schools is ending DCPS & charter ESes in the same year. The current model is absurd and terrible for DCPS, which should frankly be the priority.

That said, this is exactly us. Our IB is SH and we’re actually not sure if we’d prefer it or BASIS, but will send our kid to BASIS if we lottery in, because if she hates it, she could still not only go to SH but start on time.

Yes, and? It is called school choice, not design your own school. You have an option to match at BASIS or Latin in 5th. You also have an option to return to SH if you are unhappy. What is laughable is the ignorance of your unbridled privilege in having SH as a fall back and objecting to BASIS and Latin having the audacity to cater to all kids in DC, and not just those privileged enough to be IB for SH.

The point is that it's a bad design for school choice for what's best for DC overall. It creates an added incentive for kids to leave their IB schools that is bad for DC overall. My whole point is that I will take advantage of it and it is, in fact, good for me personally (i.e., despite what you say, it *does* cater for SH families with good lottery luck). But it is not good for DC. In any case, I don't fault BASIS or Latin at all for starting in 5th when it's an available option. I fault the city for setting it up that way. (And FWIW I would also be fine with all DCPS / DCPCS middle schools starting in 5th instead, I just think the two different entry years is a bad model. DC *has* moved towards standardizing entry and exit years at DCPSes, they should just do it for DCPCSes as well.)

Your self-centeredness astounds. You view the world through the prism of your own experience and opportunity. BASIS and Latin do NOT exist for the benefit and pleasure of SH. You want kids to remain in 5th at their ES because your ES is good (for you). There are a lot of ES in DC that kids cannot escape fast enough. You can't see that with your "me" blinders on. You see only your path, your ES, your SH path.

You are also ignorant of actual enrollment data. Yes, there are a lot of SH catchment kids at BASIS and Latin. But, notwithstanding what your neighbors tell you, it isn't remotely comprised of all those kids. Not remotely. I find it amusing that you and the Deal/JR/W3 fool both have impressions of BASIS and Latin that don't reflect reality. Yet you both speak with certainty formed from your own experience and and hubris and ignorance that simply won't let you for a moment consider that not everyone is you or your similalry situated neighbors.

You don't seem great at reading comprehension. The part you bolded and what you replied with have almost nothing to do with each other. I said that the current approach *was* good for families w/ passable DCPS MS options (including, FWIW, Deal) & good lottery luck, but not for others. You appear to think I said the opposite. Schools having 50% turnover in the final year of ES are good for no one, least of all the students left behind. I also noted that I'd be equally happy with DCPSes ending in 4th, so I'm not looking to necessarily keep kids in DCPS ES longer. That said, you don't even once think about the kids who want to "escape" to charter MSes and can't, so if anyone has blinders it's you. There is literally not a single word in what you wrote that explains why it benefits they system to have different starting years for MSes.

Nope. Yet again you chime in to prove to us that you understand only your own experience and ES school options. There are a LOT of kids in ES in DC who benefit greatly from getting out ASAP. This is what you seem unable to comprehend. We get it; YOUR school is harmed by kids leaving in 5th. YOUR school would be filled with kids at or above grade level if those kids remained. That it not how it is for everyone and BASIS and Latin are not designed merely for people with your options and privilege.

This has now been explained to you several times, yet you cannot see it or anything beyond your world view and experience. It is sad and funny. But mostly sad.

I don’t understand how changing the starting year for BASIS and Latin prevents kids from getting out of bad elementary schools in fifth grade. You could still lottery to a different school in 5th grade if you want, just not those two.

I thought turnover at 5th grade was bad for EVERYONE.

Awww, you beat me to it! Funny how they went from "bad for everyone" to "they can just leave for 5th somewhere else". The reason, as we all can see, that they are ok with kids leaving for 5th grade from other schools but not their own is that they like their 5th grade option, so they want to leave the option to get the benefit of BASIS/Latin without having to forego their 5th grade ES. Also, would they care to tell us which excellent 5th grade options are available to people in failing ES if BASIS/Latin are not available? I'll wait.

The majority of kids at BASIS and Latin came from schools with solid 5th grades, FWIW. This fantasy that people are coming from Ward 8 IBs is… fantasy.

[Anonymous]

Basis and Latin both definitely draw kids from all over the city but they do not attract/enroll a lot of at-risk kids. Latin now has 20 equitable access lottery seats which is great but it barely fills them (think the waitlist at 2nd Street is 0 for those seats).

I think the charters originally started in 5th so people would try the school no risk. It is probably water under the bridge because they are not changing the entry year now. But I think the complaint is a little more how it feels for a 5th grader to stay behind if many of their friends are leaving (and saying its to avoid the in-bound they were all talking about attending together back in 3rd grade etc.)

[Anonymous]

That's right, no compelling need for BASIS and Latin to start in 5th, given how their demographics skew strongly high SES, but the charter middle school entry year won't change nonetheless. DC public schools are too dysfunctional for the city council or Bowser to give DCPS elementary and middle schools on CH a boost by enabling them to keep most of the high SES SWS, Maury, Brent, Ludlow and even Watkins 5th graders in-boundary. CH stakeholders don't have a voice in the discussion because we're essentially irrelevant politically. We're not going to vote out Charles Allen over ed issues and, even if we did, the rest of the council wouldn't give a hoot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Basis and Latin both definitely draw kids from all over the city but they do not attract/enroll a lot of at-risk kids. Latin now has 20 equitable access lottery seats which is great but it barely fills them (think the waitlist at 2nd Street is 0 for those seats).

I think the charters originally started in 5th so people would try the school no risk. It is probably water under the bridge because they are not changing the entry year now. But I think the complaint is a little more how it feels for a 5th grader to stay behind if many of their friends are leaving (and saying its to avoid the in-bound they were all talking about attending together back in 3rd grade etc.)

You are naive, Families will say they are planning on attending their IB middle school while secretly playing the lottery AND having an exit plan if that doesn’t work out all along.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Basis and Latin both definitely draw kids from all over the city but they do not attract/enroll a lot of at-risk kids. Latin now has 20 equitable access lottery seats which is great but it barely fills them (think the waitlist at 2nd Street is 0 for those seats).

I think the charters originally started in 5th so people would try the school no risk. It is probably water under the bridge because they are not changing the entry year now. But I think the complaint is a little more how it feels for a 5th grader to stay behind if many of their friends are leaving (and saying its to avoid the in-bound they were all talking about attending together back in 3rd grade etc.)

You are naive, Families will say they are planning on attending their IB middle school while secretly playing the lottery AND having an exit plan if that doesn’t work out all along.

Agree. The same % will leave for charters in 6th as they do now for 5th. The only impact is really on the 5th grades getting hollowed out. This became a problem in our ES when the school decided to admit a lot of OOB at 5th and those kids had a lot of behavioral issues. Previously there was just a really small 5th.

[Anonymous]

Not buying the story about the pack of OOB kids with behavioral issues who rocked in just for 5th at your DCPS Hill ES (come on, code for Black and poor).

Did you stay for 5th at Maury, Brent, SWS or Ludlow? Let me guess, no, you were off to BASIS or Latin Cooper. We stayed, this past school year.

The OOB kids weren't all that numerous and they were well-behaved almost to a kid. Some had come because they'd experienced bullying or lousy DCPS upper grades academics and discipline elsewhere. Others turned up in 5th because they're from military families who move a lot. Welcome, OOB 5th grade kids and their families. You enhanced our experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not buying the story about the pack of OOB kids with behavioral issues who rocked in just for 5th at your DCPS Hill ES (come on, code for Black and poor).

Did you stay for 5th at Maury, Brent, SWS or Ludlow? Let me guess, no, you were off to BASIS or Latin Cooper. We stayed, this past school year.

The OOB kids weren't all that numerous and they were well-behaved almost to a kid. Some had come because they'd experienced bullying or lousy DCPS upper grades academics and discipline elsewhere. Others turned up in 5th because they're from military families who move a lot. Welcome, OOB 5th grade kids and their families. You enhanced our experience.

lol you defininitely don’t know the story. but thanks for providing a perfect in vivo example of the condescening holier-than-thou Hill parent

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not buying the story about the pack of OOB kids with behavioral issues who rocked in just for 5th at your DCPS Hill ES (come on, code for Black and poor).

Did you stay for 5th at Maury, Brent, SWS or Ludlow? Let me guess, no, you were off to BASIS or Latin Cooper. We stayed, this past school year.

The OOB kids weren't all that numerous and they were well-behaved almost to a kid. Some had come because they'd experienced bullying or lousy DCPS upper grades academics and discipline elsewhere. Others turned up in 5th because they're from military families who move a lot. Welcome, OOB 5th grade kids and their families. You enhanced our experience.

+1. Similar experience for us. Not LOL hilarious or holier than thou either. Reasonable and open-minded.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not buying the story about the pack of OOB kids with behavioral issues who rocked in just for 5th at your DCPS Hill ES (come on, code for Black and poor).

Did you stay for 5th at Maury, Brent, SWS or Ludlow? Let me guess, no, you were off to BASIS or Latin Cooper. We stayed, this past school year.

The OOB kids weren't all that numerous and they were well-behaved almost to a kid. Some had come because they'd experienced bullying or lousy DCPS upper grades academics and discipline elsewhere. Others turned up in 5th because they're from military families who move a lot. Welcome, OOB 5th grade kids and their families. You enhanced our experience.

+1. Similar experience for us. Not LOL hilarious or holier than thou either. Reasonable and open-minded.

My kids are at one of the named schools and we take a hefty dose of new 5th graders (about 25-30% of the class). I would say that they are slightly behind academically upon entry, but otherwise pretty much indistinguishable. Many of them catch up/move past average by the end of the year.

FWIW I heard that a different one of these school’s 5th grade had a really tough time this year and I believe both grade level teachers are leaving as a result (one definitely is, only heard about the other via rumors). I’m sure it’s the school PP is talking about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not buying the story about the pack of OOB kids with behavioral issues who rocked in just for 5th at your DCPS Hill ES (come on, code for Black and poor).

Did you stay for 5th at Maury, Brent, SWS or Ludlow? Let me guess, no, you were off to BASIS or Latin Cooper. We stayed, this past school year.

The OOB kids weren't all that numerous and they were well-behaved almost to a kid. Some had come because they'd experienced bullying or lousy DCPS upper grades academics and discipline elsewhere. Others turned up in 5th because they're from military families who move a lot. Welcome, OOB 5th grade kids and their families. You enhanced our experience.

+1. Similar experience for us. Not LOL hilarious or holier than thou either. Reasonable and open-minded.

I'm glad you had the same experience - you were likely not at our school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Living their values sounds ridiculous and absurdly holier than though. But there were a lot of earlier posts that parents who choose to attend the allegedly terrible Hill DCPS middle schools supposedly just dont care at all about academics or their children. And it sort of devolved from there.

And yet, it all sort of makes sense? People on the Hill who are sending their kids into public schools are doing it because they can’t afford better— and why is that? Why can’t they at least afford to move to better schools? Maybe because they went to poor schools themselves and don’t realize what better schooling looks like?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not buying the story about the pack of OOB kids with behavioral issues who rocked in just for 5th at your DCPS Hill ES (come on, code for Black and poor).

Did you stay for 5th at Maury, Brent, SWS or Ludlow? Let me guess, no, you were off to BASIS or Latin Cooper. We stayed, this past school year.

The OOB kids weren't all that numerous and they were well-behaved almost to a kid. Some had come because they'd experienced bullying or lousy DCPS upper grades academics and discipline elsewhere. Others turned up in 5th because they're from military families who move a lot. Welcome, OOB 5th grade kids and their families. You enhanced our experience.

In our experience, the most poorly behaved students were the white kids. Funny how no one talks about that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not buying the story about the pack of OOB kids with behavioral issues who rocked in just for 5th at your DCPS Hill ES (come on, code for Black and poor).

Did you stay for 5th at Maury, Brent, SWS or Ludlow? Let me guess, no, you were off to BASIS or Latin Cooper. We stayed, this past school year.

The OOB kids weren't all that numerous and they were well-behaved almost to a kid. Some had come because they'd experienced bullying or lousy DCPS upper grades academics and discipline elsewhere. Others turned up in 5th because they're from military families who move a lot. Welcome, OOB 5th grade kids and their families. You enhanced our experience.

As a parent who had a kid in one of these schools, and another at a Hill school not named, I now understand the holier than thou Hill parent. They have no idea what true dysfunction looks like. Good luck dealing with it in MS.

[Anonymous]

I know the conversation is on another issue right now, but I recently had a conversation with another Hill parent about the question of MS consolidation that I think is relevant here.

Basically, they were saying that the argument for consolidating MSs on the Hill seems to be mostly about parents with high achieving kids wanting to consolidate high achievers in order to get more accelerated instruction.

But as a parent of a kid who is academically average, that’s not the goal to me. I want a bigger school because when you consolidate resources, you can offer more programming overall. Yes, more honors math, but also more remedial math. More foreign language. More art and music. With a bigger school, you can hire more specialized teachers full time because you can fill their entire day with classes because you’ll have multiple sections per grade. More and better athletics and clubs. And so on.

Bigger is not always better, but a consolidated Hill MS could offer more of everything to ALL kids. It’s why MSs and HSs in suburbs are often so large. You pool the funds for all those kids and house them in one building, and you just wind up with a bigger, richer, more diverse pie, and everyone gets a slice.

[Anonymous]

Great. Problem is, there are no plans to consolidate the several DCPS Hill middle schools. Does nobody ever tire of this sort of pie in the sky thinking? I've been following the issues for 20 years now and we're clearly no closer to getting a pan Ward 6 middle school than we were in the early 2000s. In fact, we see to be farther way with every passing year.