Jefferson Academy Kool-Aid

[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.

Parents working on behalf of Jefferson is a absolutely an affront, and a no brainer at that. You guys are pushing Bowser to lavish tens of millions of dollars on a middle school that's 2/3 empty, not used by current in-boundary families, and not going to be used by current in-boundary families as long as DCPS won't tolerate academic tracking to serve advanced middle school students. Moreover, you want the building renovated fantastically ASAP.

Building a Taj Mahal middle school that's destined to stay mostly empty for many years isn't fair to the hard-working taxpayer. We have more than enough recently renovated high schools that fit the bill, while strong charters struggle to afford basic facilities. Bowser balked at paying for gym for Washigton Latin last year, citing cost concerns. Jefferson should be merged with another failing program. If you're going to have failing schools, have ones where you aren't heating entire floors of empty classrooms.

[Anonymous]

Jefferson is serving only about 80 kids living in the catchment boundary. Brent is never going to send scores of kids to Jefferson by virtue of its size alone and the same will be true of Van Ness. So what is the rationale for keeping the school open when it's only half filled and badly in need of modernization? DCPS is incapable of seeing the forest for the trees, otherwise Eliot-Hine would have been modernized before Watkins to provide a suitable swing space. Maybe some Hill parents can coalesce around a plan to excess Jefferson so that Basis or another charter can have a proper middle/high school campus. After all, Henderson should be made to choke on her pronouncement that DCPS doesn't do middle school very well. In the absence of the NCLB waiver Jefferson would be just another of many failing schools in our city.

[Anonymous]

+1. Yes!

[Anonymous]

Make Elliot Hine and Jefferson one school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Make Elliot Hine and Jefferson one school.

I agree there should be one less middle school in Ward 6. But If you close EH, where would kids from hill East attend? If you close Jefferson, where will kids from SW attend?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Make Elliot Hine and Jefferson one school.

I agree there should be one less middle school in Ward 6. But If you close EH, where would kids from hill East attend? If you close Jefferson, where will kids from SW attend?

Phase out feeder rights for OOB students at Stuart-Hobson and there will be more than enough room for a solid cohort of Ward 6 students, whether from SW or Hill East. It would seem to make less sense to close Eliot-Hine with Maury's proximity and the continuing gentrification of Hill East and to a lesser extent Rosedale. SW and Near Southeast will never be home to a meaningful numbers of middle schoolers so why let the tail wag the dog in terms of thoughtful planning?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Jefferson is serving only about 80 kids living in the catchment boundary. Brent is never going to send scores of kids to Jefferson by virtue of its size alone and the same will be true of Van Ness. So what is the rationale for keeping the school open when it's only half filled and badly in need of modernization? DCPS is incapable of seeing the forest for the trees, otherwise Eliot-Hine would have been modernized before Watkins to provide a suitable swing space. Maybe some Hill parents can coalesce around a plan to excess Jefferson so that Basis or another charter can have a proper middle/high school campus. After all, Henderson should be made to choke on her pronouncement that DCPS doesn't do middle school very well. In the absence of the NCLB waiver Jefferson would be just another of many failing schools in our city.

So where are all of these kids from VN and Brent going to go to Middle school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Make Elliot Hine and Jefferson one school.

I agree there should be one less middle school in Ward 6. But If you close EH, where would kids from hill East attend? If you close Jefferson, where will kids from SW attend?

Phase out feeder rights for OOB students at Stuart-Hobson and there will be more than enough room for a solid cohort of Ward 6 students, whether from SW or Hill East. It would seem to make less sense to close Eliot-Hine with Maury's proximity and the continuing gentrification of Hill East and to a lesser extent Rosedale. SW and Near Southeast will never be home to a meaningful numbers of middle schoolers so why let the tail wag the dog in terms of thoughtful planning?

Again, I agree that there should be one less middle school in Ward 6, but your numbers and assumptions are wrong.

There seems to be a misunderstanding of Southwest - the neighborhood has lots of dwellings for families with kids. Many are home to disadvantaged families, but nonetheless there is a severe misunderstanding of the composition of Southwest, it is full of children and getting more all the time. Amidon ES in Southwest, at 82% in-bounds, has the most in-bounds students of any Ward Six school.

Jefferson, strictly speaking, has the most in-bounds students of the three middle schools:

Jefferson
34% in-bounds
94 in-bounds students

Stuart Hobson
15% in-bounds
63 in-bounds students

Eliot Hine
25% in-bounds
64 in-bounds students

Imagine going to city leaders and asking them to close Jefferson and have those (mostly disadvantaged) kids make their way to Eliot Hine, essentially driving past Stuart Hobson on their way to school.

[Anonymous]

I can't believe SH is 15% inbounds - what a joke! Get rid of the OOB elementary school feeder rights, draw a normal looking boundary (say 1 mile radius around the school, rather than the absurd jury-rigged boundary currently in place) and SH would turn into Deal OVERNIGHT. In fact, SH would probably turn majority white/high SES overnight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can't believe SH is 15% inbounds - what a joke! Get rid of the OOB elementary school feeder rights, draw a normal looking boundary (say 1 mile radius around the school, rather than the absurd jury-rigged boundary currently in place) and SH would turn into Deal OVERNIGHT. In fact, SH would probably turn majority white/high SES overnight.

Hold that thought for the next boundary review.

[Anonymous]

tl;dr: Please segregate the high SES kids from "the others", even if they live on the next block. No other solution is acceptable.

And some people wonder why they've been ignored for ten years???

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can't believe SH is 15% inbounds - what a joke! Get rid of the OOB elementary school feeder rights, draw a normal looking boundary (say 1 mile radius around the school, rather than the absurd jury-rigged boundary currently in place) and SH would turn into Deal OVERNIGHT. In fact, SH would probably turn majority white/high SES overnight.

Some of us around Ward 6 are actually trying to come up with practical solutions to our splintered middle
School situation that put the most number of students ( of all backgrounds ) in a better position educationally than they are now.

Then there are jack**** like the pp who give us all a bad name.

I, for one, don't crave a majority white/high income school for my white/middle income kids. I desire a school that has fabulous visionary leadership, professional teaching staff, a variety of electives and extracurricular activities, a positive school culture and a majority of students who have come out of their elementary schools prepared to learn and thrive at grade level. It can happen. And experience tells me DCPS isn't willing to make that happen. So it leaves ignorant parents to think it is all about white kids

[Anonymous]

This whole long and painful thread has me wondering why there are so many kids so far below grade school being promoted to middle school. Are there any improvements being made, district wide, to identify kids who are falling behind earlier so that they don't show up to middle school so far behind? I understand the multiple barriers that many kids, particularly poor kids, face in life that translate into school performance, but at some point the buck stops with the school in terms of advancing kids to grades for which they are unprepared.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This whole long and painful thread has me wondering why there are so many kids so far below grade school being promoted to middle school. Are there any improvements being made, district wide, to identify kids who are falling behind earlier so that they don't show up to middle school so far behind? I understand the multiple barriers that many kids, particularly poor kids, face in life that translate into school performance, but at some point the buck stops with the school in terms of advancing kids to grades for which they are unprepared.

I think they are trying - that's why we have near universal PK3 in Title 1 neighborhoods (get them in sooner and try to begin closing the 3 million word gap,e tc).

Retaining kids (especially minority males) for whatever reason is so closely correlated with later crime and incarceration that it's hard to see it happening.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jefferson is serving only about 80 kids living in the catchment boundary. Brent is never going to send scores of kids to Jefferson by virtue of its size alone and the same will be true of Van Ness. So what is the rationale for keeping the school open when it's only half filled and badly in need of modernization? DCPS is incapable of seeing the forest for the trees, otherwise Eliot-Hine would have been modernized before Watkins to provide a suitable swing space. Maybe some Hill parents can coalesce around a plan to excess Jefferson so that Basis or another charter can have a proper middle/high school campus. After all, Henderson should be made to choke on her pronouncement that DCPS doesn't do middle school very well. In the absence of the NCLB waiver Jefferson would be just another of many failing schools in our city.

So where are all of these kids from VN and Brent going to go to Middle school?

Basis or somewhere in VA.