Tell me about Shepherd in the upper grades

[Anonymous]

Is there a lot of flight in the upper grades? Is the school becoming more diverse (to match the neighborhood)?

We are thinking of buying a home in the neighborhood but our children are in 2nd and K right now, so we would be beginning in the middle of their offerings. The test scores aren't the best in the city, but overall they are quite strong.

Is the office friendly and open to tours if we were to call?

[Anonymous]

Shepherd Park is heavily African American and Jewish, so what demographics are you exactly looking for?

[Anonymous]

Shepherd Elementary is one of the best kept secrets in DCPS. It's your ticket to Deal/Wilson!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Shepherd Park is heavily African American and Jewish, so what demographics are you exactly looking for?

Shepherd Elementary is 80% AA, the neighborhood is certainly no longer 80% AA. I think PP is asking when the school will start representing the neighborhood and the honest question is when more IB families start going to the school. It really is a good, solid school. Amongst the top of the schools EOTP, high great school ratings, great teachers, and an excellent PTA. Many families buy in the neighborhood with their kids already in charter or private so I don't fault them.

-AA SP resident

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Shepherd Elementary is one of the best kept secrets in DCPS. It's your ticket to Deal/Wilson!

Not likely. They got written out in this last round didnt they?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Shepherd Elementary is one of the best kept secrets in DCPS. It's your ticket to Deal/Wilson!

Not likely. They got written out in this last round didnt they?

No they did not.

[Anonymous]

We have quite a few friends with children in the school, in different grades. We toured and found the principal to very open and welcoming, but placed our children closer to our home. Nowhere is perfect for every child, but most seem happy. We know a couple who moved their children to private, another who went to private and returned, another who got into a HRC and then returned. The PTA and neighborhood appear to be very supportive of the school, even those parents whose children don't attend will support the fundraisers. There also seems to be a strong sense of community with the families at the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have quite a few friends with children in the school, in different grades. We toured and found the principal to very open and welcoming, but placed our children closer to our home. Nowhere is perfect for every child, but most seem happy. We know a couple who moved their children to private, another who went to private and returned, another who got into a HRC and then returned. The PTA and neighborhood appear to be very supportive of the school, even those parents whose children don't attend will support the fundraisers. There also seems to be a strong sense of community with the families at the school

This is the true statement. It also makes me very happy to have such a supportive neighborhood!

[Anonymous]

**a true statement, not "the"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is there a lot of flight in the upper grades? Is the school becoming more diverse (to match the neighborhood)?

We are thinking of buying a home in the neighborhood but our children are in 2nd and K right now, so we would be beginning in the middle of their offerings. The test scores aren't the best in the city, but overall they are quite strong.

Is the office friendly and open to tours if we were to call?

We bought relatively recently in the neighborhood. I think SP is still predominantly AA--maybe 60%?--but I couldn't find exact statistics. I did find some other demographic info--for example, almost 50% of Shepherd Park residents have graduate degrees:

http://www2.onboardnavigator.com/1.5/WebContent/OBWC_report.aspx?&AID=386-b385f004f6c7&CD_SID=CO001&RTID=14&RID=60584&Frame=0&Height=600&Width=650&AgentEmail=&AgentID=&SearchID=1&LSID=11&STEXT=SHEPHERD%20PARK&STYPE=6&STEXTOPT=&STYPEOPT=-1&STEXTOPT2=&STYPEOPT2=-1&ITID=-1&SITID=-1&PassBackValues=&NHood=SHEPHERD%20PARK&Market=WASHINGTON&TaxID=&County5=&PropertyType=-1&TransactionType=-1

So what you have is a mostly black & Jewish middle/upper SES neighborhood in upper NW DC. A bit of a strange beast--I've joked that our kids will grow up attending barbeques and bar mitzvahs. So yes, the school is a bit imbalanced racially relative to the neighborhood, but part of that is explained by some Jewish residents who send their kids to JPDS and similar, and some other parents who opt for private or HRCS, especially those that offer language immersion (SP kids go to YY, LAMB, MV, etc.). Shepherd Elementary has a high proportion of out of boundary students, but that is changing, at the upper and lower grades but especially the lower.

Re: IB flight for upper grades--I have a kid in PK, but I do know some neighborhood families who have kids enrolled in the middle and upper grades--including the PTA president and other PTA officers. I'm sure if you inquired either directly with them or through Principal Miles, they'd be happy to share their experiences. I think any flight that occurred in the past is less prominent now (although this happens to some extent in 4th and 5th grade all over DC, even in Ward 3).

As for tours, the last scheduled tour of the season is next week, Thur. 2/19 at 9:30am. If that doesn't work, I'd imagine if you called something else could be worked out. Principal Miles is very responsive.

And as for the boundary revisions, Shepherd stays zoned for Deal and now officially becomes zoned for Wilson (instead of Coolidge), which means that your child can attend Wilson even if they didn't attend Deal for middle school.

Hope this helps.

[Anonymous]

Thank you to the immediate PP - very helpful.

Currently we are at a school where our children are really the only ones of their race/SES, so we are unconcerned with schools that have larger populations of a certain type of demographic. We are just looking for a bit more of a mix than we currently have, because we don't currently have one and that's not ideal for anyone or any community.

My main question that I suppose the tour will help with is how does Shepherd help higher-achieving children? I am not talking about geniuses or formal gifted programs, but I am talking about things like are they able to provide a cohort and enriching support for children who read a few levels above grade? This is something we are struggling with right now, and I have hope that Shepherd deals with this type of situation more regularly and therefore more effectively.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is there a lot of flight in the upper grades? Is the school becoming more diverse (to match the neighborhood)?

We are thinking of buying a home in the neighborhood but our children are in 2nd and K right now, so we would be beginning in the middle of their offerings. The test scores aren't the best in the city, but overall they are quite strong.

Is the office friendly and open to tours if we were to call?

We bought relatively recently in the neighborhood. I think SP is still predominantly AA--maybe 60%?--but I couldn't find exact statistics. I did find some other demographic info--for example, almost 50% of Shepherd Park residents have graduate degrees:

http://www2.onboardnavigator.com/1.5/WebContent/OBWC_report.aspx?&AID=386-b385f004f6c7&CD_SID=CO001&RTID=14&RID=60584&Frame=0&Height=600&Width=650&AgentEmail=&AgentID=&SearchID=1&LSID=11&STEXT=SHEPHERD%20PARK&STYPE=6&STEXTOPT=&STYPEOPT=-1&STEXTOPT2=&STYPEOPT2=-1&ITID=-1&SITID=-1&PassBackValues=&NHood=SHEPHERD%20PARK&Market=WASHINGTON&TaxID=&County5=&PropertyType=-1&TransactionType=-1

So what you have is a mostly black & Jewish middle/upper SES neighborhood in upper NW DC. A bit of a strange beast--I've joked that our kids will grow up attending barbeques and bar mitzvahs. So yes, the school is a bit imbalanced racially relative to the neighborhood, but part of that is explained by some Jewish residents who send their kids to JPDS and similar, and some other parents who opt for private or HRCS, especially those that offer language immersion (SP kids go to YY, LAMB, MV, etc.). Shepherd Elementary has a high proportion of out of boundary students, but that is changing, at the upper and lower grades but especially the lower.

Re: IB flight for upper grades--I have a kid in PK, but I do know some neighborhood families who have kids enrolled in the middle and upper grades--including the PTA president and other PTA officers. I'm sure if you inquired either directly with them or through Principal Miles, they'd be happy to share their experiences. I think any flight that occurred in the past is less prominent now (although this happens to some extent in 4th and 5th grade all over DC, even in Ward 3).

As for tours, the last scheduled tour of the season is next week, Thur. 2/19 at 9:30am. If that doesn't work, I'd imagine if you called something else could be worked out. Principal Miles is very responsive.

And as for the boundary revisions, Shepherd stays zoned for Deal and now officially becomes zoned for Wilson (instead of Coolidge), which means that your child can attend Wilson even if they didn't attend Deal for middle school.

Hope this helps.

How about eating watermelon and penny-pinching money. I mean why did you stop there? ... Joke not so funny now, huh?

[Anonymous]

Is it a stereotype that Jews have bar mitzvahs?

[Anonymous]

Is it a stereotype that AAs eat BBQs? Think so. Funny you didn't mention it. You're a real stand up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thank you to the immediate PP - very helpful.

Currently we are at a school where our children are really the only ones of their race/SES, so we are unconcerned with schools that have larger populations of a certain type of demographic. We are just looking for a bit more of a mix than we currently have, because we don't currently have one and that's not ideal for anyone or any community.

My main question that I suppose the tour will help with is how does Shepherd help higher-achieving children? I am not talking about geniuses or formal gifted programs, but I am talking about things like are they able to provide a cohort and enriching support for children who read a few levels above grade? This is something we are struggling with right now, and I have hope that Shepherd deals with this type of situation more regularly and therefore more effectively.

PP you're responding to here. Whoa, looks like the thread devolved a bit while I was at happy hour!

To answer the PP who thought I was stereotyping AAs: I'm black myself, and the BBQ comment was in jest. I was more speaking to how happy I am to have our kids grow up in such a diverse and inclusive community--at least, that's been our experience thus far. Oh, and I also know Protestants, Muslims, nonreligious people, etc. in SP--so a very welcoming place.

OP, to answer your follow-up question: I asked about differentiation and "gifted and talented" programs last spring when we were deciding whether to enroll at Shepherd, and here's what the principal emailed me in response. It sounds like they do a variety of things:

"As long as Shepherd is an IB school there will be no formal Gifted and Talented program. Programs such as this go against the IB philosophy. However, we accommodate the needs of advanced students in many different ways and it changes based on the needs of our students. Some things that we have done or we are currently doing: small group instruction provided by the teacher, students are grouped via their ability based on various assessments, small group instruction provided by another teacher on the grade level because the other teacher has students with like abilities, small group instruction on a different grade level because there are no like ability students on the grade level, small group pull out instruction provided by a resource person, differentiated assignments (homework and classwork) and various enrichment opportunities during the day and after school."

She also said all Shepherd teachers have ongoing training in differentiation. Hope that addresses your question.

Oh, and just another piece of anecdotal info: I know many parents in the lower and upper grades with professional backgrounds--some of whom have MDs, JDs, PhDs, MBAs, Ivy degrees, etc., and many of whom I'd imagine may have had the same questions as you--and they all chose Shepherd. Just FWIW.