Oyster Adams versus DCI

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Things just aren't that rosy. Many of the UMC families in the DCI feeders continue to peel off for BASIS, Latin, privates, the burbs and schools outside the DC area. This happens in the Deal feeders, at Deal and JR, but not to nearly the same extent. DCI just doesn't knock it out of the park academically. The middle school still doesn't track for any core subject but math. Your kid winds up taking 8th grade ELA, science and social studies with many kids who work years behind grade level. Teacher turnover is too high, with some of the best educators bailing for much better paid jobs with DCPS and in the burbs. The DCI high school still doesn't offer a wide range of Diploma classes, particularly at the higher level and in the sciences, and there seems to be almost no momentum to change that.

+100.

No kids at DCI but I’ve been following the school, looked at the data, and PP above is incorrect. Almost all families for this school year from feeders, which includes UMC, are tracking into DCI. Hardly anyone is peeling off. They have a 95% retention of feeder families across the board, across all languages. Deal and JR definately don’t have this high of a retention from their feeders.

[Anonymous]

The data can't be capturing how UMC families in the feeders commonly bail for BASIS or the Latins after 4th grade. We know a bunch of DCI feeder families who are BASIS, Latin 1 and Latin Cooper for 5th grade this fall. All you have to do is look at the situation for 5th grade at YY to spot the trend. YY has three 4th grade classes, but only two 5th grade classes, and the classes for 5th are smaller than they were in 4th.

[Anonymous]

People peeling off for Latin and Basis are people whose kids have not attended DCI for middle school and for whom rigorous language learning was not a priority. This is a thread about a person deciding between DCI and Oyster-- this is tangential information at best.

[Anonymous]

It’s not as tangential as you might think. Much of the strength of DCI depends upon buy-in from the families at the feeder schools. Many of the top students at the feeder schools peel off at 5th grade for BASIS and the Latins rather than stay for 5th and proceed to DCI. This has two important consequences: many excellent students don’t end up at DCI and the feeder schools which backfill and allow new students at 5th grade end up feeding in students to DCI with much less language experience, further lowering the chances of a strong cohort of top students. If DCI had more rigorous academics (outside foreign language study) it would be more appealing for top students to stay at their feeder and feed into there.
How many top Oyster students peel off at 5th grade? I’m guessing not many and even if it does lose people, the proficiency test to enter Oyster (which is absent from the charter immersion schools) ensure that students are merely new to the school but not new to the foreign language.

[Anonymous]

This. You nailed it, PP. Some of the DCI feeder families who run off to BASIS and the Latins were indeed serious about language. But they’re more serious about ELA, math, science etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s not as tangential as you might think. Much of the strength of DCI depends upon buy-in from the families at the feeder schools. Many of the top students at the feeder schools peel off at 5th grade for BASIS and the Latins rather than stay for 5th and proceed to DCI. This has two important consequences: many excellent students don’t end up at DCI and the feeder schools which backfill and allow new students at 5th grade end up feeding in students to DCI with much less language experience, further lowering the chances of a strong cohort of top students. If DCI had more rigorous academics (outside foreign language study) it would be more appealing for top students to stay at their feeder and feed into there.
How many top Oyster students peel off at 5th grade? I’m guessing not many and even if it does lose people, the proficiency test to enter Oyster (which is absent from the charter immersion schools) ensure that students are merely new to the school but not new to the foreign language.

No, the families who peel off are not serious about the language, never were. They just wanted to get out of their poorly performing IB schools. This mostly applies to YY. Kids also leave are those who struggle with the language in the Spanish track. We knew a few friends of friends that left because of this.

The feeder schools don’t have a lot of spots in the upper grades. It’s easy to see this in the data. The few Spanish spots that open get filled by families in DCPS bilingual schools.

Lastly, it doesn’t matter if you are at level 101 in the language or advanced because DCI tracks for languages and it’s the advance kids who go on to do the IB diploma.

[Anonymous]

Correct.

[Anonymous]

It’s just not true that all the families who bail from YuYing weren’t serious about Mandarin. In fact, some of the YY families who hosted Chinese Au pairs for many years left for BASIS or Latin 1. If you were at YY all along with the current 5th grade cohort, you know who I mean.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s just not true that all the families who bail from YuYing weren’t serious about Mandarin. In fact, some of the YY families who hosted Chinese Au pairs for many years left for BASIS or Latin 1. If you were at YY all along with the current 5th grade cohort, you know who I mean.

Oh come on. It’s a well known fact that kids are not going to be fluent or strong in Chinese at YY. Just because a family has an au pair so kids can do better at YY doesn’t mean they are expecting fluency. Best is kids may be able to communicate.

Here’s what really happens at YY. Families choose the school not for Chinese but for test scores. Most have no interest in fluency in Chinese from the beginning. They are happy if kids can do some basic communication and write. The Chinese is not the reason they pick’YY.
The majority of these families then move on.

Even if some of these kids go to DCI, they are not the ones going for the IB diploma. It’s the Spanish track kids.

BTW, every thread on DCI doesn’t need to get taken hostage by the crazy YY mom who keeps on posting. OP is asking about continuing Spanish at Oyster or DCI and the better choice for that is DCI.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s just not true that all the families who bail from YuYing weren’t serious about Mandarin. In fact, some of the YY families who hosted Chinese Au pairs for many years left for BASIS or Latin 1. If you were at YY all along with the current 5th grade cohort, you know who I mean.

Oh come on. It’s a well known fact that kids are not going to be fluent or strong in Chinese at YY. Just because a family has an au pair so kids can do better at YY doesn’t mean they are expecting fluency. Best is kids may be able to communicate.

Here’s what really happens at YY. Families choose the school not for Chinese but for test scores. Most have no interest in fluency in Chinese from the beginning. They are happy if kids can do some basic communication and write. The Chinese is not the reason they pick’YY.
The majority of these families then move on.

Even if some of these kids go to DCI, they are not the ones going for the IB diploma. It’s the Spanish track kids.

BTW, every thread on DCI doesn’t need to get taken hostage by the crazy YY mom who keeps on posting. OP is asking about continuing Spanish at Oyster or DCI and the better choice for that is DCI.

Typo Adams not Oyster

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wilson is much better than DCI high school. They’d already have had 8-11 years of immersion, no need to prioritize immersion in high school over academics.

Based on what?

Kind of everything?

You don’t seem too sure about that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not as tangential as you might think. Much of the strength of DCI depends upon buy-in from the families at the feeder schools. Many of the top students at the feeder schools peel off at 5th grade for BASIS and the Latins rather than stay for 5th and proceed to DCI. This has two important consequences: many excellent students don’t end up at DCI and the feeder schools which backfill and allow new students at 5th grade end up feeding in students to DCI with much less language experience, further lowering the chances of a strong cohort of top students. If DCI had more rigorous academics (outside foreign language study) it would be more appealing for top students to stay at their feeder and feed into there.
How many top Oyster students peel off at 5th grade? I’m guessing not many and even if it does lose people, the proficiency test to enter Oyster (which is absent from the charter immersion schools) ensure that students are merely new to the school but not new to the foreign language.

No, the families who peel off are not serious about the language, never were. They just wanted to get out of their poorly performing IB schools. This mostly applies to YY. Kids also leave are those who struggle with the language in the Spanish track. We knew a few friends of friends that left because of this.

The feeder schools don’t have a lot of spots in the upper grades. It’s easy to see this in the data. The few Spanish spots that open get filled by families in DCPS bilingual schools.

Lastly, it doesn’t matter if you are at level 101 in the language or advanced because DCI tracks for languages and it’s the advance kids who go on to do the IB diploma.

I think you agree with PP, they are not serious about the language, but they are not serious about math, ELA, science…and that is why they leave.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not as tangential as you might think. Much of the strength of DCI depends upon buy-in from the families at the feeder schools. Many of the top students at the feeder schools peel off at 5th grade for BASIS and the Latins rather than stay for 5th and proceed to DCI. This has two important consequences: many excellent students don’t end up at DCI and the feeder schools which backfill and allow new students at 5th grade end up feeding in students to DCI with much less language experience, further lowering the chances of a strong cohort of top students. If DCI had more rigorous academics (outside foreign language study) it would be more appealing for top students to stay at their feeder and feed into there.
How many top Oyster students peel off at 5th grade? I’m guessing not many and even if it does lose people, the proficiency test to enter Oyster (which is absent from the charter immersion schools) ensure that students are merely new to the school but not new to the foreign language.

No, the families who peel off are not serious about the language, never were. They just wanted to get out of their poorly performing IB schools. This mostly applies to YY. Kids also leave are those who struggle with the language in the Spanish track. We knew a few friends of friends that left because of this.

The feeder schools don’t have a lot of spots in the upper grades. It’s easy to see this in the data. The few Spanish spots that open get filled by families in DCPS bilingual schools.

Lastly, it doesn’t matter if you are at level 101 in the language or advanced because DCI tracks for languages and it’s the advance kids who go on to do the IB diploma.

I think you agree with PP, they are not serious about the language, but they are not serious about math, ELA, science…and that is why they leave.

I meant to say that they are serious about math, ELA, science, etc.

[Anonymous]

I don’t believe in a crazy yy mom. I hear pkenty of concern to go around about academics in dci’s ms & hs. I also hear more complaints about leadership and rigor at….adams and jr. Bowser is the main culprit in my books. She’s just not a good mayor on ed. She lets dcps cut too many corners and won’t let charters get the per capital funding they need When ops talk about the best dci teachers running off to get the pay they deserve they’re highlighting a serious prob.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not as tangential as you might think. Much of the strength of DCI depends upon buy-in from the families at the feeder schools. Many of the top students at the feeder schools peel off at 5th grade for BASIS and the Latins rather than stay for 5th and proceed to DCI. This has two important consequences: many excellent students don’t end up at DCI and the feeder schools which backfill and allow new students at 5th grade end up feeding in students to DCI with much less language experience, further lowering the chances of a strong cohort of top students. If DCI had more rigorous academics (outside foreign language study) it would be more appealing for top students to stay at their feeder and feed into there.
How many top Oyster students peel off at 5th grade? I’m guessing not many and even if it does lose people, the proficiency test to enter Oyster (which is absent from the charter immersion schools) ensure that students are merely new to the school but not new to the foreign language.

No, the families who peel off are not serious about the language, never were. They just wanted to get out of their poorly performing IB schools. This mostly applies to YY. Kids also leave are those who struggle with the language in the Spanish track. We knew a few friends of friends that left because of this.

The feeder schools don’t have a lot of spots in the upper grades. It’s easy to see this in the data. The few Spanish spots that open get filled by families in DCPS bilingual schools.

Lastly, it doesn’t matter if you are at level 101 in the language or advanced because DCI tracks for languages and it’s the advance kids who go on to do the IB diploma.

I think you agree with PP, they are not serious about the language, but they are not serious about math, ELA, science…and that is why they leave.

I meant to say that they are serious about math, ELA, science, etc.

Then they are deluded because Latin doesn’t track either and if you look at the data, DCI stats are very similar to Latin in ELA and math with DCI having a little higher at risk.

Basis does better and has more rigor. It’s a good fit for some and bomb for others.

Every school has its positives and negatives.

But if you are serious about Spanish and want a good all around school in regards to size (not too small or big), great campus and facilities, lots of offerings with extracurriculars, clubs, and sports and the possibility of going for the IB diploma, then DCI is it.