Southwest to Eastern HS

[jsteele]

While there has been a lot discussion about Crestwood and 16th Street Heights losing access to Deal and Wilson, other parts of town have also lost access to Wilson. Some parts of Ward 2 are expected to go to Cardozo. That doesn't seem like a very attractive trade. The entire Southwest is now supposed to go to Eastern instead of Wilson.

I don't know that much about Eastern and I know even less about the students from Southwest that have been attending Wilson. I'm interesting in hearing more about both of these things. First, does anyone know how many students we are talking about? Also, realistically, how big of a drop-off in terms of educational opportunities is Eastern? Is it possible that SW students can get the same quality of education at Eastern as they could at Wilson? Or, is there a huge gulf?

[Anonymous]

Eastern can be a fine school, it already has the IB program in place. Since it was reconstituted, the testing results have been "okay". With the new boundary and student population, Eastern can legitimately challenge Wilson academically IF DCPS gets the middle school situation sorted.

[Anonymous]

^Pie in the sky. DCPS has been trying to force the upper middle income Brent families to Jefferson and the Maury families to Eliot-Hine for several years. None are going yet DCPS isn't changing it's tune.

[Anonymous]

My kids are in 2nd and K and I really, really hope we will be able to send them to Eastern when the time comes. It's a beautiful school in a great neighborhood; I think it holds a lot of promise. The current proposal would move us in-bounds for E-H and Eastern; we are currently zoned for Browne and Dunbar.

[Anonymous]

I do a lot of work in the SW communtiy and I was just thinking how odd it is that no one has mentioned it. Amidon is underenrolled and I know Jefferson has really been struggling to attrach more students. I believe they offer IB at the middle school level to make themselves stand out. Honestly, I think this is really going to hurt them. they are kind of in the middle of nowhere to begin with and now without even feeder rights to Wilson not sure how they will continue to attract academically minded students who might have a choice.

[Anonymous]

I live in SW and the neighborhood's plenty frustrated about it but generally pretty clear it was going to happen. Jefferson actually has pretty good scores for its student population and has a pre-IB program (or, whatever you call it for MS) so the assumption had been that DCPS would want to increase the number of those students who go to Eastern to boost that IB program with some somewhat better prepared students.

Eastern's definitely a step down from Wilson. The renovation is nice and the idea of the IB program is, too. But it's not the most rigorous IB curriculum, especially as compared to, say, the RIchard Montgomery IB in Montgomery County and I think there's general skepticism that there's a lot of there there.

Amidon's been a very weak school for a while, although moreso since Van Ness closed and many of its students moved to the Bowen catchment area and then Bowen closed and merged with Amidon. More education oriented parents in the neighborhood just didn't use the school. In the last year or so, they've gotten a PTA president and leadership who really invigorated the school and, with Appletree and Amidon's own preK program located on campus, more people were giving it a try for pre-K. I think it was poised to be one of those schools where parents tried it out for pre-K and then stayed on to try ES especially since the junior high is OK and Wilson was at the end of it all. I think that's much less likely now. People will just go straight to private or charters at pre-K. Or move to the suburbs - that's what we're doing.

[Anonymous]

All of what PP said is true. Additionally, between the rather ugly rhetoric from the Van Ness Parents Group about how desperate they are to exclude students from SW from that school when it reopens and the redistricting of Wilson to be sure that no kids outside affluent NW have any access, it feels very much like DCPS and the affluent parts of the city are making every effort to constrict the educational opportunities and presence of kids in SW. Certainly there is not a single element of any of the school boundary proposals that have not left kids in SW materially worse off. We'd been thinking we'd go private all along because Amidon's still weak. But now we're really thinking about whether we want our tax dollars to go to DC at all.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:All of what PP said is true. Additionally, between the rather ugly rhetoric from the Van Ness Parents Group about how desperate they are to exclude students from SW from that school when it reopens and the redistricting of Wilson to be sure that no kids outside affluent NW have any access, it feels very much like DCPS and the affluent parts of the city are making every effort to constrict the educational opportunities and presence of kids in SW. Certainly there is not a single element of any of the school boundary proposals that have not left kids in SW materially worse off. We'd been thinking we'd go private all along because Amidon's still weak. But now we're really thinking about whether we want our tax dollars to go to DC at all.

If it makes you feel any better, my so-called "affluent" Northwest neighborhood is treated similarly to yours. I believe we are the only neighborhood in the entire city to lose by-right access to both Wilson and Deal (some lost access to one or the other). So, if nothing else, I feel your pain.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of what PP said is true. Additionally, between the rather ugly rhetoric from the Van Ness Parents Group about how desperate they are to exclude students from SW from that school when it reopens and the redistricting of Wilson to be sure that no kids outside affluent NW have any access, it feels very much like DCPS and the affluent parts of the city are mking every effort to constrict the educational opportunities and presence of kids in SW. Certainly there is not a single element of any of the school boundary proposals that have not left kids in SW materially worse off. We'd been thinking we'd go private all along because Amidon's still weak. But now we're really thinking about whether we want our tax dollars to go to DC at all.

If it makes you feel any better, my so-called "affluent" Northwest neighborhood is treated similarly to yours. I believe we are the only neighborhood in the entire city to lose by-right access to both Wilson and Deal (some lost access to one or the other). So, if nothing else, I feel your pain.

Thanks, it does kind of. It's just frustrating to see a set of schools that have really struggled to get closer to good and to serve a student population that doesn't get a lot of attention just have the rug yanked out from under them. I hate it because I really love the little neighborhood down here - it's friendly and neighborly and has an economically diverse set of long term residents, with little of the edge that exists in more gentrifying neighborhoods and it just feels like the city is happily tossing it aside in place of either more dramatically troubled or stridently privleged communities.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of what PP said is true. Additionally, between the rather ugly rhetoric from the Van Ness Parents Group about how desperate they are to exclude students from SW from that school when it reopens and the redistricting of Wilson to be sure that no kids outside affluent NW have any access, it feels very much like DCPS and the affluent parts of the city are mking every effort to constrict the educational opportunities and presence of kids in SW. Certainly there is not a single element of any of the school boundary proposals that have not left kids in SW materially worse off. We'd been thinking we'd go private all along because Amidon's still weak. But now we're really thinking about whether we want our tax dollars to go to DC at all.

If it makes you feel any better, my so-called "affluent" Northwest neighborhood is treated similarly to yours. I believe we are the only neighborhood in the entire city to lose by-right access to both Wilson and Deal (some lost access to one or the other). So, if nothing else, I feel your pain.

Thanks, it does kind of. It's just frustrating to see a set of schools that have really struggled to get closer to good and to serve a student population that doesn't get a lot of attention just have the rug yanked out from under them. I hate it because I really love the little neighborhood down here - it's friendly and neighborly and has an economically diverse set of long term residents, with little of the edge that exists in more gentrifying neighborhoods and it just feels like the city is happily tossing it aside in place of either more dramatically troubled or stridently privleged communities.

How big of a gap do you perceive to be between Wilson and Eastern and do you think there is any possibility of closing it? If so, what would it take? I don't really want to downplay anyone's concerns about proposed changes, but there are cases -- such as being moved from Deal to Hardy -- that I think are at least reasonable. Whatever performance gap there is can be closed easily. Then there are cases like Wilson to Cardozo in which the gap might be insurmountable. I tend to think of Wilson to Eastern being somewhere in between, but I don't know enough about it to know exactly where it is on the spectrum.

[Anonymous]

Eastern has potential, but only if DCPS finds a way to drastically and simultaneously improve Eliot-Hine, Stuart-Hobson and potentially Jefferson such that a critical mass of high-SES families will feel comfortable. Does anyone with the possible exception of Word Salad Lady think this likely anytime in the foreseeable future? After relaunch, about 60 percent of 6th Grade students were not proficient in either reading or math, while the percentage of higher-performing students was negligible. With perpetual Title I status (99% FARMS) and few, if any, high-SES families feeding from rising Ward 6 elementary schools like Maury, Brent or even Ludlow-Taylor, the prospects remain dim. If anything, the redrawn boundaries will not change the fact that a large number of students are drawn from EotR. They will now simply be classified as OOB.

[Anonymous]

I am hearing talk from a few Basis middle school parents that they have no intention of allowing their students to stay at Basis for high school. They are wondering if the honors/IB Diploma program at Eastern would be doable if a whole group of them went at once. It is all questions at this point but the idea passing through their minds is a hopeful thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Eastern has potential, but only if DCPS finds a way to drastically and simultaneously improve Eliot-Hine, Stuart-Hobson and potentially Jefferson such that a critical mass of high-SES families will feel comfortable. Does anyone with the possible exception of Word Salad Lady think this likely anytime in the foreseeable future? After relaunch, about 60 percent of 6th Grade students were not proficient in either reading or math, while the percentage of higher-performing students was negligible. With perpetual Title I status (99% FARMS) and few, if any, high-SES families feeding from rising Ward 6 elementary schools like Maury, Brent or even Ludlow-Taylor, the prospects remain dim. If anything, the redrawn boundaries will not change the fact that a large number of students are drawn from EotR. They will now simply be classified as OOB.

Honestly, until there is some critical mass of white kids and I don't know that number would be probably at least 10%, the white, higher SES parents on the Hill from Eliot, SH are NOT going to choose eastern. Eastern looks good and offers some good programs but most parents don't want their kid to be the "only" in HS which are already difficult years academically, socially and mentally. Everyone can rave about Banneker but its the same perception. Thats the high perfoming black HS, School without Walls is the preferred test in option for white parents.

[Anonymous]

It just never made sense to me that kids from SW could feed into Wilson. I understand that SW are upset that this has been taken away from them, but it makes little sense. I can, however, sympathize with the Crestwood residents. At least they are geographically closer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am hearing talk from a few Basis middle school parents that they have no intention of allowing their students to stay at Basis for high school. They are wondering if the honors/IB Diploma program at Eastern would be doable if a whole group of them went at once. It is all questions at this point but the idea passing through their minds is a hopeful thing.

I see Eastern's prospects as a desirable neighborhood high school being poor for 5-15 years, and good after that, for the next generation of Capitol Hill denizens. That is to say the future parents currently living in group houses on the Hill . I'v been hearing talk from Maury parents that Eliot-Hine would be doable if a whole group of them went at once for several years now. Until that happens, the Basis MS parents aren't going.