Revised Boundary Recommendations to be released on or about June 13

[Anonymous]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/dc-to-release-refined-set-of-school-boundary-recommendations/2014/05/30/80dce4d2-e804-11e3-afc6-a1dd9407abcf_story.html

"officials in the Office of the Deputy Mayor of Education say they are set to release a refined set of draft recommendations late during the week of June 9. They will be available online and announced to families through their schools as well as on Twitter and via e-mail to those who attended the previous round of community meetings in April."

As someone wrote in another thread, controversial matters are often released late on Fridays. That puts the release date/time somewhere around 5 pm on June 13.

[jsteele]

Very interesting. Based on what's in that article, it appears that the DME has given up hope that the Advisory Committee will agree on a single proposal. Instead, we will again get multiple proposals. I doubt that the Advisory Committee will have much of a role -- if any -- in developing the final recommendations. Or, perhaps there are a few outlier members who will basically be ignored over the Summer so that the others can get something done. At any rate, this puts a lot more of the process into the hands of the DME.

[Anonymous]

In order to get to this next set of recommendations, I assume/hope the Advisory Committee and DME compiled and looked at the feedback from the second round of meetings. So that data is hopefully already compiled. Wish they would release it now so that we could have some time to take it all in.

[Anonymous]

I am so confused. Given that the executive office of the city is about to turn over, does it make sense to still continue this? Doesn't this feel like wheel spinning at some point?

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:In order to get to this next set of recommendations, I assume/hope the Advisory Committee and DME compiled and looked at the feedback from the second round of meetings. So that data is hopefully already compiled. Wish they would release it now so that we could have some time to take it all in.

If the feedback was consistent, the Advisory Committee could fairly easily come up with a proposal that reflects that feedback. However, since the committee apparently can't come up with a single proposal, I think we can assume that either the feedback was mixed enough to support multiple, incompatible proposals or that at least some members of the committee aren't paying attention to the feedback.

Unless the multiple proposals that will be presented are all variations on a theme with relatively minor differences (in which case I don't see why they couldn't be reconciled), I'm not sure what use another round of feedback will be. If we are presented with a proposal for neighborhood schools and strict feeder patterns and another for elementary choice sets and lotteries for middle and high schools, what are we going to discuss? They should already know where most people stand in regard to those two options. Everyone will just repeat themselves.

I'm a bit baffled by this.

[Anonymous]

The article specifically mentions "feeder patterns" for high schools Does this mean high school lotteries are dead?

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:Very interesting. Based on what's in that article, it appears that the DME has given up hope that the Advisory Committee will agree on a single proposal. Instead, we will again get multiple proposals. I doubt that the Advisory Committee will have much of a role -- if any -- in developing the final recommendations. Or, perhaps there are a few outlier members who will basically be ignored over the Summer so that the others can get something done. At any rate, this puts a lot more of the process into the hands of the DME.

Jeff, where are you getting that vibe from? I think the word "set" refers to the collection of individual recommendations within the proposal, not the collection of proposals. I could be wrong, way wrong.

The article does suggest different policies for different areas of the city. My guess is that Roosevelt, Coolidge (who's IB for Coolidge, by the way?) and Wilson will be treated similarly. Same with the other groupings (Dunbar, Cardozo and Eastern, for example).

[Anonymous]

It also only mentions "boundaries" not "school assignment policies." Perhaps this is significant as well... Or just wishful thinking on my part.

[Anonymous]

Well, I know we're all just guessing at this point, but I notice that Emma's article mentions a "refined set of draft recommendations." So it's feasible that we're not going to see three seperate proposals again, but rather one proposal document that includes several recommendations/provisions. Although, I'm with you Jeff...it does seem to read in such a way that we could anticipate multiple, seperate proposals the second week of June.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:Very interesting. Based on what's in that article, it appears that the DME has given up hope that the Advisory Committee will agree on a single proposal. Instead, we will again get multiple proposals. I doubt that the Advisory Committee will have much of a role -- if any -- in developing the final recommendations. Or, perhaps there are a few outlier members who will basically be ignored over the Summer so that the others can get something done. At any rate, this puts a lot more of the process into the hands of the DME.

Jeff, where are you getting that vibe from? I think the word "set" refers to the collection of individual recommendations within the proposal, not the collection of proposals. I could be wrong, way wrong.

The article does suggest different policies for different areas of the city. My guess is that Roosevelt, Coolidge (who's IB for Coolidge, by the way?) and Wilson will be treated similarly. Same with the other groupings (Dunbar, Cardozo and Eastern, for example).

I think you are correct and I misread the article (or didn't read carefully enough). I just read the flyer and it only talks about "recommendations" rather than "proposals". So, now, I think it is more likely that we will see a list of recommendations rather than separate proposals. We will simply react to the individual recommendations. This actually makes more sense and gives me a bit more hope for this round (actually, a lot more hope).

[Anonymous]

The breakout groups are by high school feeder patterns, so can we at least assume that the feeder system will be maintained?

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:Well, I know we're all just guessing at this point, but I notice that Emma's article mentions a "refined set of draft recommendations." So it's feasible that we're not going to see three seperate proposals again, but rather one proposal document that includes several recommendations/provisions. Although, I'm with you Jeff...it does seem to read in such a way that we could anticipate multiple, seperate proposals the second week of June.

Yes, I think your first interpretation is correct.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It also only mentions "boundaries" not "school assignment policies." Perhaps this is significant as well... Or just wishful thinking on my part.

I wouldn't read too much into the exact language of the article. It was likely written very quickly to report on the significant news of the proposals being available in 2 weeks and the meetings being scheduled by the end of June. I would think that most words like "boundaries" and "policies" in an article like this are general and not specific.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It also only mentions "boundaries" not "school assignment policies." Perhaps this is significant as well... Or just wishful thinking on my part.

I wouldn't read too much into the exact language of the article. It was likely written very quickly to report on the significant news of the proposals being available in 2 weeks and the meetings being scheduled by the end of June. I would think that most words like "boundaries" and "policies" in an article like this are general and not specific.

Agreed. The flyer that the article links to mentions everything.

[Anonymous]

From the article:

Parents and community members will have a chance to react at three public meetings scheduled the following week. Unlike previously, parents at these meetings will not only hear about citywide policy proposals but also will break out into groups to discuss the effects of the recommendations on specific schools and neighborhoods, according to a flier slated to go out to parents starting today.

Sounds to me like they do have different proposals for different areas of the city (what I always assumed would happen) and now they need feedback from those most affected by the changes. Makes sense - the early boundary proposals were ridiculous, but what's happening in Cleveland Park is different from Petworth and Capitol Hill. There have to be variations on what happens in all these places and I wouldn't want to waste time sitting at a table with parents who aren't facing the same or similar dilemma.

That said, the timing of the community sessions couldn't be worse. It's the week after school lets out but before summer camp starts. Having no childcare, we've got long-held plans to be out of town.