Why are HRCS so popular? Test scores stink.

[Anonymous]

PP. I think it was 4, forgot about one who just had a baby. One of the teachers that left is an AA male teacher that went to teach at the new all boys high school. Win for everyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Former CMI parent here, upper grade. Last year admin definitely promised
to use textbooks in Middle School and to somehow teach organizing skills,
executive function skills. Actually they promised to do everything at once,
hopefully they'll manage to sort something out, and at least foster a pleasant
classroom "culture" which seemed to be a real priority. Good luck pressing
for more content, hope it works.

Like any new charter school, the MS is a new charter school. Is has to start at year 1. Budget, staff, etc. If you were here for CMI Elementry year 1 you probably remember lots of bumps in the road as well. Now, on year 5 we have a WL over 1000+ families, an amazing facility, a middle school (!), and parents who don't even remember when it was an admin team of 3 and everyone knew each other.

A WL doesn't buy you a science lab or 10th grade math for 7th graders.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow - CMI must be a heck of a place if it can turn TWO general threads into CMI specific only.

It's the new YY. Or maybe BASIS in that regard.

No, that means it has some very vocal boosters. Boosters boost, it's what they do. The school needs to deliver on some academic promises and produce some real results before it's the new... whatever.

It's popular for younger grades, very white, very child friendly and that's good. The MS focus seems to be all over the map. What's going on with the commitment to SN students? Frankly I think those kids need another decent school option than the rest of us need one more high-end elementary HRC. The size of the school is never going to allow it the economies of scale to produce Basis/DCI/Latin opportunities, the parents pushing for this are extremely unrealistic.

[Anonymous]

That would be BASIS, not CMI. Wrong school, PP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow - CMI must be a heck of a place if it can turn TWO general threads into CMI specific only.

It's the new YY. Or maybe BASIS in that regard.

No, that means it has some very vocal boosters. Boosters boost, it's what they do. The school needs to deliver on some academic promises and produce some real results before it's the new... whatever.

It's popular for younger grades, very white, very child friendly and that's good. The MS focus seems to be all over the map. What's going on with the commitment to SN students? Frankly I think those kids need another decent school option than the rest of us need one more high-end elementary HRC. The size of the school is never going to allow it the economies of scale to produce Basis/DCI/Latin opportunities, the parents pushing for this are extremely unrealistic.

This. We are at ITS and feel like the K-8 model is set up to fail in DC. So many people will continue to lotto for a high school path and/or a larger middle that can provide more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That would be BASIS, not CMI. Wrong school, PP.

No... absent direct evidence to the contrary it's a given that BASIS has deeper pockets for teaching and capital resources, more knowledge about a MS curricula (and implementation), and more actual MS students than CMI does.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow - CMI must be a heck of a place if it can turn TWO general threads into CMI specific only.

It's the new YY. Or maybe BASIS in that regard.

No, that means it has some very vocal boosters. Boosters boost, it's what they do. The school needs to deliver on some academic promises and produce some real results before it's the new... whatever.

It's popular for younger grades, very white, very child friendly and that's good. The MS focus seems to be all over the map. What's going on with the commitment to SN students? Frankly I think those kids need another decent school option than the rest of us need one more high-end elementary HRC. The size of the school is never going to allow it the economies of scale to produce Basis/DCI/Latin opportunities, the parents pushing for this are extremely unrealistic.

This. We are at ITS and feel like the K-8 model is set up to fail in DC. So many people will continue to lotto for a high school path and/or a larger middle that can provide more.

I have seen private and parochial schools successfully implement K-8, but in DC's public model it just doesn't look feasible. Privates and parochials can sort their students at entry, counsel them out, and charge admission. That doesn't work for public schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That would be BASIS, not CMI. Wrong school, PP.

No... absent direct evidence to the contrary it's a given that BASIS has deeper pockets for teaching and capital resources, more knowledge about a MS curricula (and implementation), and more actual MS students than CMI does.

I think the PP meant that BASIS has uncritical booster parents, CMI doesn't. Not that CMI has a more robust middle school program than BASIS at this point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow - CMI must be a heck of a place if it can turn TWO general threads into CMI specific only.

It's the new YY. Or maybe BASIS in that regard.

No, that means it has some very vocal boosters. Boosters boost, it's what they do. The school needs to deliver on some academic promises and produce some real results before it's the new... whatever.

It's popular for younger grades, very white, very child friendly and that's good. The MS focus seems to be all over the map. What's going on with the commitment to SN students? Frankly I think those kids need another decent school option than the rest of us need one more high-end elementary HRC. The size of the school is never going to allow it the economies of scale to produce Basis/DCI/Latin opportunities, the parents pushing for this are extremely unrealistic.

This. We are at ITS and feel like the K-8 model is set up to fail in DC. So many people will continue to lotto for a high school path and/or a larger middle that can provide more.

I have seen private and parochial schools successfully implement K-8, but in DC's public model it just doesn't look feasible. Privates and parochials can sort their students at entry, counsel them out, and charge admission. That doesn't work for public schools.

Private is not a good comparison privates have budgets to pay teachers and afford labs. It doesn't work at our school not because the inability to counsel out but the fact that every single 4th grader will be playing the lottery to try to get into a middle school that has a feeder path for high school. The ones that get lucky will leave and hide empty spots will be given to students that are coming from worse performing schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Former CMI parent here, upper grade. Last year admin definitely promised
to use textbooks in Middle School and to somehow teach organizing skills,
executive function skills. Actually they promised to do everything at once,
hopefully they'll manage to sort something out, and at least foster a pleasant
classroom "culture" which seemed to be a real priority. Good luck pressing
for more content, hope it works.

Current CMI parent here, lower grade. I spoke with Admin about these issues last week and they said that they are still implementing the curriculum of the MS -- textbooks, organizing skills, executive function skills. I think we all need to wait and see what happens during this year. There is no way to predict what will and won't happen, and I think many parents are seeing what they don't have in the first month and think that's it. I expect that there will be real textbooks for all the classes within the next month.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Former CMI parent here, upper grade. Last year admin definitely promised
to use textbooks in Middle School and to somehow teach organizing skills,
executive function skills. Actually they promised to do everything at once,
hopefully they'll manage to sort something out, and at least foster a pleasant
classroom "culture" which seemed to be a real priority. Good luck pressing
for more content, hope it works.

Like any new charter school, the MS is a new charter school. Is has to start at year 1. Budget, staff, etc. If you were here for CMI Elementry year 1 you probably remember lots of bumps in the road as well. Now, on year 5 we have a WL over 1000+ families, an amazing facility, a middle school (!), and parents who don't even remember when it was an admin team of 3 and everyone knew each other.

A WL doesn't buy you a science lab or 10th grade math for 7th graders.

The MS has a WL over 1000+ families? I heard that it doesn't even have one family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That would be BASIS, not CMI. Wrong school, PP.

No... absent direct evidence to the contrary it's a given that BASIS has deeper pockets for teaching and capital resources, more knowledge about a MS curricula (and implementation), and more actual MS students than CMI does.

BASIS doesn't have problems yet because it does 5-12 very well, but look at the new ES proposal forums. DCUM parents are critical of the preschool to 8 schools, like CMI MS & ITS MS, for the same reasons. There is a limit that a school can handle and a school doing 5-12 is handing a lot with 8 grades. preschool-5 schools are also handling 8 grades. Preschool to 8 grades handle 11 different grades. Yes, there are K-12 schools and I've visited them, but they separate the schools (ES, MS, HS) in every aspect from different playgrounds to different admit to different campuses even. It's not comparable. (Well, perhaps more comparable to BASIS since the proposal is for different campuses with different admin and different playgrounds.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow - CMI must be a heck of a place if it can turn TWO general threads into CMI specific only.

It's the new YY. Or maybe BASIS in that regard.

No, that means it has some very vocal boosters. Boosters boost, it's what they do. The school needs to deliver on some academic promises and produce some real results before it's the new... whatever.

It's popular for younger grades, very white, very child friendly and that's good. The MS focus seems to be all over the map. What's going on with the commitment to SN students? Frankly I think those kids need another decent school option than the rest of us need one more high-end elementary HRC. The size of the school is never going to allow it the economies of scale to produce Basis/DCI/Latin opportunities, the parents pushing for this are extremely unrealistic.

This. We are at ITS and feel like the K-8 model is set up to fail in DC. So many people will continue to lotto for a high school path and/or a larger middle that can provide more.

I have seen private and parochial schools successfully implement K-8, but in DC's public model it just doesn't look feasible. Privates and parochials can sort their students at entry, counsel them out, and charge admission. That doesn't work for public schools.

Private is not a good comparison privates have budgets to pay teachers and afford labs. It doesn't work at our school not because the inability to counsel out but the fact that every single 4th grader will be playing the lottery to try to get into a middle school that has a feeder path for high school. The ones that get lucky will leave and hide empty spots will be given to students that are coming from worse performing schools.

There are ways to avoid this pitfall -- the overarching point being to stress the positives

1) Make the MS from 5-8, so it is completely separate from the ES (right now 5th is a transition year but it can be affirmatively part of the MS so that students will be applying separate for the MS and attracting new students in that key year, too, instead of losing students in that year)

2) Start SN priority for the MS like at Bridges to create a stronger WL and add to the value of small classes with individual attention and small environments. If it was a SN priority school with the SN focus, more families with SN students would be "playing the lottery" in 4th grade to get into MS.

3) Create a MS PTA so it creates a stronger and separate cohesive group with its own funding, own priorities, and own control with a focus on the needs of their SN students

4) Allow for as much flexibility as possible in terms of allowing students to do work on with other schools or other organizations (thus allowing to meet the needs of different SN students without wasting money on "labs" or whatever most of the students don't want/need).

The key both for the SN students in DC who deserve a wonderful school and for the school who needs to attract more students is to create a SN priority, which is exactly what was implied on the amendment app in the first place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Former CMI parent here, upper grade. Last year admin definitely promised
to use textbooks in Middle School and to somehow teach organizing skills,
executive function skills. Actually they promised to do everything at once,
hopefully they'll manage to sort something out, and at least foster a pleasant
classroom "culture" which seemed to be a real priority. Good luck pressing
for more content, hope it works.

Current CMI parent here, lower grade. I spoke with Admin about these issues last week and they said that they are still implementing the curriculum of the MS -- textbooks, organizing skills, executive function skills. I think we all need to wait and see what happens during this year. There is no way to predict what will and won't happen, and I think many parents are seeing what they don't have in the first month and think that's it. I expect that there will be real textbooks for all the classes within the next month.

Not getting textbooks until 4-6 weeks in is hardly auspicious. Remember the well placed outrage when that regularly happened at DCPS?

Figuring things out as you go along is maybe ok (or easier to hide) when kids are 3 and 4. 6th is a different story.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That would be BASIS, not CMI. Wrong school, PP.

No... absent direct evidence to the contrary it's a given that BASIS has deeper pockets for teaching and capital resources, more knowledge about a MS curricula (and implementation), and more actual MS students than CMI does.

I think the PP meant that BASIS has uncritical booster parents, CMI doesn't. Not that CMI has a more robust middle school program than BASIS at this point.

CMI has uncritical booster parents. Come to a PTA meeting. There is zero criticism.