Jefferson Academy Kool-Aid

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Latin is a good school but it isn't advanced. Grade level in middle school - which is fine.

Middle school grade level in DCPS (outside Deal and possibly Stuart Hobson honors classes) and grade level at Latin are different things....

[Anonymous]

Re 18:06 Hardy

[Anonymous]

Even in its darkest hour, Hardy never got anywhere near the point where 12% of 6th graders tested proficient and the building was 2/3 empty!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This mom of a bright, not-so-rich Brent kid regrets attending a Jefferson open house. Our PTA spin doctors now count me among those seriously interested in the school after learning more, when the opposite is true. I can't see a suitably advanced academic program springing up at Jefferson at all, let alone in the few years we have before middle school. My kid attended a Johns Hopkins CTY camp last summer, finding social studies hard for the first time.

Four fourth graders without siblings are into Latin while two dozen applied. We are an upper grades school community in trouble, folks.

The idea is that the advanced ( read: on normal grade level/not remedial ) academic program will not "spring up" before your kid gets there. The idea is that if your kid enrolls there along with his/her classmates from Brent the class/program would THEN be provided. Why wouldn't you want to trust DCPS and take that gamble? I don't get it. Especially with all the PTA leaders telling you they will make sure it happens. Plus, how entitled if you to think an appropriate educational program should be simply provided for you. You have to work for it. Work it!

Are you seriously asking why a Hill parent wouldn't trust DCPS? I can't tell if your post is sarcastic.

DCPS and PTA board members are asking a hell of a lot in instructing parents to work to build an advanced academic program in a school where more than 80% of 11-15 year olds don't test proficient. Why not just instruct us to end poverty in the city? Eliot-Hine has had an "advanced program," the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program, for a couple years and you don't see high SES families lining up to attend.

Is that how BASIS and Washington Latin got their advanced academic programs, by asking parents to work to build them? I'd settle for enough charters "springing up" to offer advanced middle and high school courses, like many other Brent parents.

Just trust DCPS. It's not like they're letting down families who send kids to Amidon or Tyler (non-SI). Henderson has been given more than sufficient time to show progress and yet more than 80 percent of Jefferson students aren't on grade level. But the rest of us should just trust a few well-intentioned Brent parents to fix what's wrong with Jefferson. Henderson had the opportunity to get the school modernized and implement some semblance of the Middle Schools Plan in an effort to make the school potentially viable but couldn't be bothered. And what happens when Natalie Gordon can't move the needle in test scores with an infusion of higher-SES students and moves on the greener pastures? There's no point in putting all your eggs in a frayed and broken basket.

[Anonymous]

+100, but the bottom fell out of the broken basket in 2013, during the DCPS boundary review and revision process. Without the several highest-performing Hill elementary schools (a group which doesn't include Watkins) feeding to a single by-right middle school, a second viable middle school cannot emerge from this calculus for at least a decade. That's where we are with this, and that's where we're going to stay,good intentions notwithstanding.

[Anonymous]

I learned not to trust DCPS at PTA meetings in 2008/2009, when school leaders were in negotiations with Rhee and her people to change the feed to Jefferson (before it was re-branded as Jefferson Academy). I don't remember seeing anybody from the current "optimists" group at those intense (and well-attended) meetings.

At the outset, the earlier activists didn't understand how slowly DCPS likes to effect change, but woke up to the depressing reality over time. I'm going to bet that the new group does the same thing, ultimately voting with their feet by quietly sending their children to other middle schools, even if Jefferson has undergone a flashy renovation in the interim....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:+100, but the bottom fell out of the broken basket in 2013, during the DCPS boundary review and revision process. Without the several highest-performing Hill elementary schools (a group which doesn't include Watkins) feeding to a single by-right middle school, a second viable middle school cannot emerge from this calculus for at least a decade. That's where we are with this, and that's where we're going to stay,good intentions notwithstanding.

I agree. That's why the idea of a mega-hill 7-8 at Jefferson and all 6th graders at SH is a good one. It is simple enough conceptually that with enough lobbying maybe it could work for everyone.

[Anonymous]

^ Hope so, doubt it, the narrow-minded Cluster leadership is really unlikely to play ball.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Great, so they might add a math class, and they might not. What happens when they plan to add the class, whoops, but most of the kids who were supposed to populate it get off various wait lists (BASIS, Washington Latin, Stuart Hobson, private schools) over the summer and don't show up for 6th grade? The class is canceled and your kid takes the same math class they had a year or two earlier? As for English classes, so Jefferson might require your advanced kid to read and extra book or two, while other students in the class are being taught to read at grade level (or one or two years below grade level). Forgive me for being rude, but the arrangement doesn't inspire confidence in this Brent upper grades mom.

You realize that at Latin or Basis they will be in every class with kids not at grade level too - except math.

You realize that Latin is majority white/high SES, and BASIS is nearly majority white/high SES (and getting more white/high SES with every passing school year).

Latin's MS is not majority white. Latin is 42% white, 7% special Ed, and 22% economically disadvantaged. http://www.dcpcsb.org/sites/default/files/309_Washington_Latin_PCS_Middle_School.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Great, so they might add a math class, and they might not. What happens when they plan to add the class, whoops, but most of the kids who were supposed to populate it get off various wait lists (BASIS, Washington Latin, Stuart Hobson, private schools) over the summer and don't show up for 6th grade? The class is canceled and your kid takes the same math class they had a year or two earlier? As for English classes, so Jefferson might require your advanced kid to read and extra book or two, while other students in the class are being taught to read at grade level (or one or two years below grade level). Forgive me for being rude, but the arrangement doesn't inspire confidence in this Brent upper grades mom.

You realize that at Latin or Basis they will be in every class with kids not at grade level too - except math.

You realize that Latin is majority white/high SES, and BASIS is nearly majority white/high SES (and getting more white/high SES with every passing school year).

Latin's MS is not majority white. Latin is 42% white, 7% special Ed, and 22% economically disadvantaged. http://www.dcpcsb.org/sites/default/files/309_Washington_Latin_PCS_Middle_School.pdf

That's the 2014-15 data. The 2015-16 middle school data (on OSSE's learndc.org) is:

White 54.9
Black 37.4
Asian 3.8
Multi 3.3

Spec Ed - 8.7%
ELL - .8%
Econ disadvantaged - 14.8%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This mom of a bright, not-so-rich Brent kid regrets attending a Jefferson open house. Our PTA spin doctors now count me among those seriously interested in the school after learning more, when the opposite is true. I can't see a suitably advanced academic program springing up at Jefferson at all, let alone in the few years we have before middle school. My kid attended a Johns Hopkins CTY camp last summer, finding social studies hard for the first time.

Four fourth graders without siblings are into Latin while two dozen applied. We are an upper grades school community in trouble, folks.

Do you really regret going to an open house? I would think you would now feel more informed about your options and whether they are suitable or not suitable for your daughter.

What I don't understand about this situation is why some Brent parents feel that other parents working on behalf of Jefferson is an affront. No one is saying that Jefferson is the right fit for every child or that every kid going through Brent should go to Jefferson. To me, working to improve the by-rights middle school seems like a desirable thing for the community not an insult.

[Anonymous]

Question to all - I just read through this thread, and I kept wondering - what was middle school like for you? How did your expectations for academics and social experiences get set? By your own experiences? By what other schools in the city offer?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This mom of a bright, not-so-rich Brent kid regrets attending a Jefferson open house. Our PTA spin doctors now count me among those seriously interested in the school after learning more, when the opposite is true. I can't see a suitably advanced academic program springing up at Jefferson at all, let alone in the few years we have before middle school. My kid attended a Johns Hopkins CTY camp last summer, finding social studies hard for the first time.

Four fourth graders without siblings are into Latin while two dozen applied. We are an upper grades school community in trouble, folks.

Do you really regret going to an open house? I would think you would now feel more informed about your options and whether they are suitable or not suitable for your daughter.

What I don't understand about this situation is why some Brent parents feel that other parents working on behalf of Jefferson is an affront. No one is saying that Jefferson is the right fit for every child or that every kid going through Brent should go to Jefferson. To me, working to improve the by-rights middle school seems like a desirable thing for the community not an insult.

Absolutely is not an affront. The problem is that--and this has happened before--the few parent leaders who optimistically dive in to "improving" or "helping"'or "promoting" Jefferson give DCPS leadership and our politicians the impression that everything is fine with the feeder patterns in Ward 6 and an ability to spew PR about neighborhood buy-in to the plan. It basically makes it impossible for people unhappy with the status quo structure of small, splintered, woe-fully underperforming middle schools to get any traction. The worst part is that these "activists" DONT send their students there anyway and then the cycle starts again.

There is a difference between supporting our neighborhood middle schools and the students who are there now through fundraising, advocacy attending events, volunteering to tutor or give internships etc. and what is happening now which is parent leadership insisting they will be sending their own students there and that they are laying the ground work by getting involved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This mom of a bright, not-so-rich Brent kid regrets attending a Jefferson open house. Our PTA spin doctors now count me among those seriously interested in the school after learning more, when the opposite is true. I can't see a suitably advanced academic program springing up at Jefferson at all, let alone in the few years we have before middle school. My kid attended a Johns Hopkins CTY camp last summer, finding social studies hard for the first time.

Four fourth graders without siblings are into Latin while two dozen applied. We are an upper grades school community in trouble, folks.

Do you really regret going to an open house? I would think you would now feel more informed about your options and whether they are suitable or not suitable for your daughter.

What I don't understand about this situation is why some Brent parents feel that other parents working on behalf of Jefferson is an affront. No one is saying that Jefferson is the right fit for every child or that every kid going through Brent should go to Jefferson. To me, working to improve the by-rights middle school seems like a desirable thing for the community not an insult.

It takes people down a futile path. It wastes time. It provides political cover for city leadership. It is tilting at windmills. it gets in the way of solutions that might work in a timeframe for my kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Great, so they might add a math class, and they might not. What happens when they plan to add the class, whoops, but most of the kids who were supposed to populate it get off various wait lists (BASIS, Washington Latin, Stuart Hobson, private schools) over the summer and don't show up for 6th grade? The class is canceled and your kid takes the same math class they had a year or two earlier? As for English classes, so Jefferson might require your advanced kid to read and extra book or two, while other students in the class are being taught to read at grade level (or one or two years below grade level). Forgive me for being rude, but the arrangement doesn't inspire confidence in this Brent upper grades mom.

You realize that at Latin or Basis they will be in every class with kids not at grade level too - except math.

You realize that Latin is majority white/high SES, and BASIS is nearly majority white/high SES (and getting more white/high SES with every passing school year).

Latin's MS is not majority white. Latin is 42% white, 7% special Ed, and 22% economically disadvantaged. http://www.dcpcsb.org/sites/default/files/309_Washington_Latin_PCS_Middle_School.pdf

That's the 2014-15 data. The 2015-16 middle school data (on OSSE's learndc.org) is:

White 54.9
Black 37.4
Asian 3.8
Multi 3.3

Spec Ed - 8.7%
ELL - .8%
Econ disadvantaged - 14.8%

That officially makes Latin the whitest middle school in DC.