Ward 3 - Wilson feeders meeting last night: did anyone attend?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Then what is to stop families from renting in-bounds for 1 year at a Deal/Wilson feeder school and then moving out and being grandfathered in all the way to Wilson?

Yes, that seems like it's really easy to game the system. With poorly planned rules like that, no wonder DCPS is facing these logistical problems.

Practically speaking though, it would probably be a huge pain to get your kid to a school WOTP if you moved EOTP and are a working parent. Tough to sustain in the long run, no?

Once your kids get to 5th grade, and certainly by 6th, you put them on the Metro. Easy commute to Deal.

Have you ridden the metro lately? There's nothing easy about it, and it's not getting better. If a family moves EOTP to a more affordable neighborhood, putting their 10 year old on two trains to get to school is a PITA. The kid will rack up tardies. It is not sustainable.

Ride it every day, as do my kids and many others. Metrobus is also popular with OOB and charter students, and tends to have fewer delays.

[Anonymous]

%12 repeating 9th grade? This is the school you are all fighting over?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:%12 repeating 9th grade? This is the school you are all fighting over?

Uh...yeah. You always go for the cherry on top, even if the ice cream is kind of a turd.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ride it every day, as do my kids and many others. Metrobus is also popular with OOB and charter students, and tends to have fewer delays.

NP. I also have ridden the Metro almost every day for the past 16-17 years - mostly the Red, Yellow, and Green lines between Silver Spring and downtown. While I see plenty of teens, and even some younger teens, riding Metro alone, I don't often see 10 year olds riding without adults or older teens accompanying them. I see a few more on the bus, but not a lot.

To be fair, my evening commute is likely too late to bump into the after-school crowd. But my morning commute covers the 7am-9am period, so if they were riding in large numbers, I'd probably see them there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Please don't be dense. It's about race and equity system-wide. If students of color are shut out of the best / only high performing schools because the city is racially segregated and a neighborhood school system exacerbates that, it's a problem.

Seems to me you're the one being dense.

What do the schooling choices of 1200 OOB students at Deal and Wilson have to do with "race and equity system-wide"? At best, you're giving a benefit to those 1,200 chosen students.
But you're doing nothing to help the other 80,000 students in the system.

What about your approach targets "students of color"? If a white student living in a million-dollar house in one of the many EOTP neighborhoods is attending Wilson OOB, how is it a problem to re-route that student?

Your definition of "segregation" needs help. Wilson is currently 27% white, which means it's 73% "students of color." If the changes discussed here change Wilson so that it's only 60% students of color, and 40% white, are you going to claim that's "segregation"? Even if every one of the 50% OOB students at Wilson were a student of color (which we all know is not the case), then that means at least 23% of Wilson's students of color are living in-bounds. So no matter what changes get made, a bare minimum of 23% of Wilson's students will be "students of color," and we both know the reality is a much higher percentage. Those ratios have Wilson as likely the most integrated school in the entire city. Where's the segregation again?

DP: absolutely correct. People keep spouting off this notion that Deal and Wilson have to be crowded to be diverse without looking at the numbers. It just isn't true folks.

Wilson's population today still includes significant numbers of families from SW that are grandfathered in. If you look at the pipeline, it's headed toward a very different demographic mix.

Honestly I think the way equity should be addressed is to finally implement the 10% at-risk set asides at every Wilson feeder school and end the current OOB lottery system, where anyone who gets lucky gets in, including wealthy, white students from other parts of town.

I don't think that is accurate. The old DME materials before the boundary change suggests that was not a large percentage anyway -- this was the data on 9th grade for 2013-14 (the class that just graduated):

Wilson HS
217 39% Deal
86 15% Hardy
86 15% not data available (i.e, new to DCPS: so just moved in bound, or in bound and coming from private school)
68 12% Wilson HS (repeating 9th)
29 5% Oyster Adams
11 2% Jefferson MS
8 1% Paul JHS PCS
54 10% other (coming from within the DCPS/PCS system, but fewer than 5 from each school so school not listed individually)

The issue is that SW used to be IB for Wilson. Jefferson didn't feed there (it fed to Eastern) but some people living IB for Jefferson (ie, in SW) could send their kids to Wilson regardless of whether they went to Jefferson or not. So some of the kids from the no data available, Paul PCS, and other categories may have lived in SW and had a right to attend Wilson. This situation is going to be over in a couple years anyway. For better or worse, with rising IB rates at Wilson feeders, rising housing costs in Wilson's boundary, and boundary/feeder changes, Wilson and its feeders will be a lot richer and whiter 5 years from now than 5 years ago.

I think Jefferson did feed it, at least it part. Because the boundaries went beyond SW. If I recall, the line was at 3rd or 4th St SE, which included the Brent district. So one of the four (!) feeder patterns at Brent was Brent, Jefferson, and Wilson. Makes you wonder which member of Congress got that set up in the late 60s or 70s.

Jefferson didn't feed Wilson in the sense that people who got OOB spaces at Jefferson could then continue on to Wilson.
But part of the Wilson boundary was also IB for Jefferson. So if you lived there, your IB HS was Wilson and your IB MS was Jefferson. But if you attended a different MS, you still had the right to Wilson. This was true as recently as the school boundary reassignment process in the Gray Administration, but now has changed.

[Anonymous]

Any update from last night's working group meeting?

Also, the survey is still active. If you have not had your voice heard yet, there's still time. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1ipTNuOvk5_t4UrFuYIsfEpefhZfF0EpFUOrq_0au6U8/viewform?edit_requested=true

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Any update from last night's working group meeting?

Also, the survey is still active. If you have not had your voice heard yet, there's still time. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1ipTNuOvk5_t4UrFuYIsfEpefhZfF0EpFUOrq_0au6U8/viewform?edit_requested=true

Apparently, DCPS is not happy with the results of the survey and is working to increase the number of OOB survey takers. No one cooks the books like DCPS!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please don't be dense. It's about race and equity system-wide. If students of color are shut out of the best / only high performing schools because the city is racially segregated and a neighborhood school system exacerbates that, it's a problem.

Seems to me you're the one being dense.

What do the schooling choices of 1200 OOB students at Deal and Wilson have to do with "race and equity system-wide"? At best, you're giving a benefit to those 1,200 chosen students.
But you're doing nothing to help the other 80,000 students in the system.

What about your approach targets "students of color"? If a white student living in a million-dollar house in one of the many EOTP neighborhoods is attending Wilson OOB, how is it a problem to re-route that student?

Your definition of "segregation" needs help. Wilson is currently 27% white, which means it's 73% "students of color." If the changes discussed here change Wilson so that it's only 60% students of color, and 40% white, are you going to claim that's "segregation"? Even if every one of the 50% OOB students at Wilson were a student of color (which we all know is not the case), then that means at least 23% of Wilson's students of color are living in-bounds. So no matter what changes get made, a bare minimum of 23% of Wilson's students will be "students of color," and we both know the reality is a much higher percentage. Those ratios have Wilson as likely the most integrated school in the entire city. Where's the segregation again?

Politics is often more about perception that reality.

Access to OOB seats is a huge issue. Cutting the number of OOB seats at Deal and Wilson is threatening to the ~28,000 kids who are OOB somewhere else, they could be next. It's much easier to get political sympathy for preserving OOB access than for alleviating crowding.

Sure, because a meaningful percentage of those OOB kids are truant on any given day. What do they or their parents care about "overcrowding"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:%12 repeating 9th grade? This is the school you are all fighting over?

Uh...yeah. You always go for the cherry on top, even if the ice cream is kind of a turd.

No, YOU do. Not everyone does.

[Anonymous]

As long as the wards which elect the Mayor are 5, 7, 8, and parts of 1, 4, and 6?

Wilson and Deal will never be a private white country club.

If you don't like the overcrowding, go suburb or go private. Sorry to pop your balloon, but it gets old watching people say the same stupid stuff over and over and over as you couldn't figure out history (or at least a search engine).

With the exception of Mary Cheh, there are no elected officials in DC who give a tinker's damn about overcrowding in the more popular schools. Why? Because families keep wanting to attend them anyway, and the complainers who complain loudest about overcrowding have no political power outside of Ward 3.

DCUM is not a voting block. Wards 1, 4, & 5 are - and they like their access to Ward 3 schools.

Don't like it? Leave. There is someone willing to take your child's place - oh, and complain less about it, too.

[Anonymous]

A few things to share re Tuesday night's meeting:

-- Yes, the DCPS survey is still open. You can fill it out here: https://tinyurl.com/yajh5gvt It will close on September 8th. (BTW it is a DCPS survey, not a W3EdNet survey) DCPS did express concerns that the sample was not representative, with OOB families being underrepresented. The preliminary results are essentially the same as those presented at the last meeting.
-- As noted before DCPS' slide decks and notes from previous meeting are here: https://dcpsplanning.wordpress.com/category/wilson-feeder-pattern/
-- We spent the first part of the meeting providing feedback on the notes (as requested by DCPS) and letting them know where we thought they did not reflect the discussion. (In fairness, we are talking a lot, and I can imagine it is difficult to be a notetaker in that situation.)
-- We also received some school-by-school enrollment projections from DCPS. A number of folks took issue with those numbers, especially for Deal and Wilson. That will be an "ongoing conversation".
-- Finally we broke into groups to discuss various options presented by DCPS.

The working group's next meeting is September 19th at 6pm at a location still to be determined.

Only somewhat connected to the discussions last night, the DME's office also shared with me (after the meeting) the following slide deck on DC public school enrollment trends: https://dme.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dme/publication/attachments/Public%20School%20Enrollment%20Trends%202011-2016%20FINAL.pdf

Thanks,

Brian
W3EdNet

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As long as the wards which elect the Mayor are 5, 7, 8, and parts of 1, 4, and 6?

Wilson and Deal will never be a private white country club.

If you don't like the overcrowding, go suburb or go private. Sorry to pop your balloon, but it gets old watching people say the same stupid stuff over and over and over as you couldn't figure out history (or at least a search engine).

With the exception of Mary Cheh, there are no elected officials in DC who give a tinker's damn about overcrowding in the more popular schools. Why? Because families keep wanting to attend them anyway, and the complainers who complain loudest about overcrowding have no political power outside of Ward 3.

DCUM is not a voting block. Wards 1, 4, & 5 are - and they like their access to Ward 3 schools.

Don't like it? Leave. There is someone willing to take your child's place - oh, and complain less about it, too.

Ward 3 should go to Congress and get authority to form their own school district, while the GOP is in control. Can you imagine how great the schools would be?!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As long as the wards which elect the Mayor are 5, 7, 8, and parts of 1, 4, and 6?

Wilson and Deal will never be a private white country club.

If you don't like the overcrowding, go suburb or go private. Sorry to pop your balloon, but it gets old watching people say the same stupid stuff over and over and over as you couldn't figure out history (or at least a search engine).

With the exception of Mary Cheh, there are no elected officials in DC who give a tinker's damn about overcrowding in the more popular schools. Why? Because families keep wanting to attend them anyway, and the complainers who complain loudest about overcrowding have no political power outside of Ward 3.

DCUM is not a voting block. Wards 1, 4, & 5 are - and they like their access to Ward 3 schools.

Don't like it? Leave. There is someone willing to take your child's place - oh, and complain less about it, too.

The suburbs are crowded too. More so than Ward 3.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As long as the wards which elect the Mayor are 5, 7, 8, and parts of 1, 4, and 6?

Wilson and Deal will never be a private white country club.

If you don't like the overcrowding, go suburb or go private. Sorry to pop your balloon, but it gets old watching people say the same stupid stuff over and over and over as you couldn't figure out history (or at least a search engine).

With the exception of Mary Cheh, there are no elected officials in DC who give a tinker's damn about overcrowding in the more popular schools. Why? Because families keep wanting to attend them anyway, and the complainers who complain loudest about overcrowding have no political power outside of Ward 3.

DCUM is not a voting block. Wards 1, 4, & 5 are - and they like their access to Ward 3 schools.

Don't like it? Leave. There is someone willing to take your child's place - oh, and complain less about it, too.

The suburbs are crowded too. More so than Ward 3.

And yet MoCo and Fairfax are two of the best school districts in the country - a statement that no-one has ever made about DC. (No, don't talk about how great some data is that you can dredge up about Lafayette or Janney. As a rule, DCPS blows goats and MoCo does not. The DCPS solution is cram everyone from EOTP into WOTP schools, so that WOTP parents will go back to choosing private or leaving for the suburbs.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As long as the wards which elect the Mayor are 5, 7, 8, and parts of 1, 4, and 6?

Wilson and Deal will never be a private white country club.

If you don't like the overcrowding, go suburb or go private. Sorry to pop your balloon, but it gets old watching people say the same stupid stuff over and over and over as you couldn't figure out history (or at least a search engine).

With the exception of Mary Cheh, there are no elected officials in DC who give a tinker's damn about overcrowding in the more popular schools. Why? Because families keep wanting to attend them anyway, and the complainers who complain loudest about overcrowding have no political power outside of Ward 3.

DCUM is not a voting block. Wards 1, 4, & 5 are - and they like their access to Ward 3 schools.

Don't like it? Leave. There is someone willing to take your child's place - oh, and complain less about it, too.

You aren't paying attention to vote counts. Here are the Ward results from the 2014 Democratic Primary, which is where Muriel Bowser effectively got chosen as mayor:

Muriel Bowser votes / total votes for mayor / Bowser % of ward vote (vote totals rounded to nearest 100)
Ward 1 ... 5,500 / 12,000 / 46%
Ward 2 ... 4,000 / 8,000 / 50%
Ward 3 ... 8,700 / 13,800 / 63%
Ward 4 ... 8,200 / 16,600 / 50%
Ward 5 ... 4,400 / 13,000 / 34%
Ward 6 ... 6,000 / 16,100 / 29%
Ward 7 ... 3,000 / 10,400 / 29%
Ward 8 ... 2,200 / 7,100 / 31%

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/quote/390/11245497.page

Ward 3 provided more votes for Bowser than any other ward. Ward 3 is the only place she won a majority of votes. She won because (1) Vincent Gray was wounded, (2) Tommy Wells drew support from Gray, and (3) Ward 3 got behind her. If Ward 3 abandons her, she loses in 2018.