King Elementary School, Democracy Prep or others in Congress Heights
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
|
We bought an awesome house east of the river close to downtown DC, have a toddler and are wondering about schools. My baby is in a great daycare at work right now, and I could keep him there until he needs to start school. But I am curious about the PK3 and PK4 programs nearby. We'll be playing the lottery next year and applying for other schools, but, as backup, I wanted to know more about the schools close to home.
Does anyone have their kids in a Congress Heights pre-K program? Our neighborhood school is King Elementary, but we also live close to the other schools on MLK, like the new Democracy Plus and others. Are you satisfied with the school? What has your experience been with the teachers, principals, other students? I'm willing to give these schools the benefit of the doubt. I know our neighborhood has a bad reputation, but I've found it to be quite lovely. We hang out at the playground and find the kids to be a friendly bunch of kids. Maybe the schools have a similar problem? Bad reputation, but are possibly nice schools with a good sense of community? Any thoughts? |
Anonymous
|
Never heard of any of these schools and I've been living here all my life.
Needless to say, I doubt if anyone has heard on them on this forum either. |
Anonymous
| Yeah I agree. I haven't seen too many threads about schools in Ward 8. Lol. The one thread about the new Ballou HS building is what emboldened me to post. I figured there's got to be some Ward 8 mommas out there on this forum! Just wondering where my neighbors send their kids! |
Anonymous
| I am familiar with Eagle Academy. You should check out the Mcogney campus. I taught there and would feel comfortable sending my child to preschool there. |
Anonymous
Last post and this post are from OP.  I can't even find people in my neighborhood that send their kids to the neighborhood or the nearby charter schools Most of my neighbors are older, so they don't have kids, and the kids I meet at the playground go to schools all over DC. I plan on visiting the schools this fall to get some first hand exposure, but I haven't gone yet. I wanted to see if there was someone here from Ward 8???
|
Anonymous
Sorry, typo. Should read McGogney. |
Anonymous
| King is a decent school in Ward 8. It is one of the 40 most struggling DCPS schools so it gets extra resources. It has had the same principal for going on at least four years now. The schools is stable and safe with curriculum that is aligned to the Common Core State Standards. Teachers are held to high standards--as are the administrators 'less they lose their jobs. That said, it is in a rather impoverished part of the city and there are the usual amount of challenging students there not to mention an area that sees its fair share of urban ills. I'd say this is a school that you'd set low expectations for and very likely be somewhat pleasantly surprised. |
Anonymous
Democracy prep is new to dc -- a takeover of imagine in the old Congress heights renovated building. Appletree has a pre-k at savannah terrace. Also check out center city and KIPP. Rocketship opens in 2015, with Appletree running their pre-k. Simon ES is a good DCPS option. |
Anonymous
Thanks for your responses! OP again. I'm just so curious about the nearby schools, and I, especially, bleed for neighborhood schools. Honestly, I have only the most cursory experience with ours, King Elementary. I went to vote at the school earlier this year and saw one extremely small class eating lunch in the cafeteria. I think there were TWO teachers with the tiny class. I thought to myself what can be so bad about that? I think the low-performing schools reputation is more than anything a reflection of SES. We are middle class/aren't rich ourselves, so that isn't a problem for me.  I want to know if there is something fundamentally wrong with the schools.
I understand what you mean about the setting the expectations low and being pleased. We totally did that in our neighborhood. We moved here two years ago, because we figured it was such a deal we'd give it a try. (We bought a beautiful 4 bedroom brick house for 200K in SE DC, five minutes away from the Capitol, hardly any traffic ever, crazy cheap for DC, I know, all because of the bad reputation our neighborhood has.) Needless to say, we were super nervous to move in, because of the reputation, but it was one of the best decision we've ever made in our lives. We love our neighborhood that much. I hope we have the same experience with our neighborhood school. To the poster who spoke about King Elementary, could you explain what things are less satisfactory? Teacher performance, student performance, principal? Also, could you tell me a little bit about yourself, aka, what your relationship to the school is? Are you a parent, teacher, etc? Thanks again! |
Anonymous
| What I would say isn't anything super-specific--it's just that King simply faces the same challenges that all DCPS schools in Ward 8 face. They have low achievement scores, fairly high staff turnover. But that is not uncommon. The fact that they've had the same principal for four year (maybe more now) is actually unusually high. In fact, I can't think of another Ward 8 school that has had the same principal for that same amount of time. (DCPS I'm talking about, no idea about charters.) |
Anonymous
| Don't know much about King. Have heard good things about Beers, which would not be a terrible commute (<15 minute drive, or 20 minutes with the W4 bus). |
Anonymous
Some of us have heard of these schools. |
Anonymous
Charter schools in NE. |
Anonymous
+1 The poster who lived here all her life and never heard of King? Get out of Ward 3 from time to time. OP, there are community activists working on reenergizing the neighborhood schools in your area. I'd reach out to them to talk about King. As far as Democracy Prep, I'd check out the Ward 8 representative on the Community Advisory Group for the Public Charter School Board. They can give you a better sense of what's going on re: those schools. |
Anonymous
That seems like a heck of a commute to me. If I lived EOTR, I would look downtown first (if the commute allowed it). Maybe Thompson, Seaton. |