Best DCPS/Charters that DCUM ignores - aka please don't mention Key, Murch, Maury, Deal, BASIS, JR, Oyster, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I understand not having confidence in the (Amidon) feeder. But there is right now another thread with enrollment data showing the 6th grade this year at Jefferson actually has 27 students from VN, 22 from Amidon, and 16 from Tyler.

VN, Amidon, and Tyler aren't traditionally considered "good" schools, just not bad, i.e., the kind of school where higher SES parents are comfortable sending their kids from PK3 through 1st or 2nd or so, and then peel off. The debate over Jefferson is usually over whether there is a critical mass of Brent kids willing to go there. That said, there are certainly worse options than Jefferson for middle school.

A small percentage of families might give these poorly performing schools like Jefferson or Eastern a try. But the key is how long do they last. Many leave after the 1st year. Retention is not good for typical reasons.

[Anonymous]

For the record, the majority of kids who came to Jefferson from Brent last year are still there this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For the record, the majority of kids who came to Jefferson from Brent last year are still there this year.

It’s also worth noting that USN&WR ranks Jefferson as the third-best DCPS standalone middle school (behind only Deal and Hardy).

https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/middle-schools/district-of-columbia

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the record, the majority of kids who came to Jefferson from Brent last year are still there this year.

It’s also worth noting that USN&WR ranks Jefferson as the third-best DCPS standalone middle school (behind only Deal and Hardy).

https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/middle-schools/district-of-columbia

Adams is a standalone middle school in the same sense that Deal and Hardy are. It's a DCPS school that accepts both inbound and feeder kids. A little different in that the only feeder is Oyster and that new kids have to pass the Spanish proficiency tests, but it's not definitely not restricted solely to Oyster kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the record, the majority of kids who came to Jefferson from Brent last year are still there this year.

It’s also worth noting that USN&WR ranks Jefferson as the third-best DCPS standalone middle school (behind only Deal and Hardy).

https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/middle-schools/district-of-columbia

Just proves how damn low the standards are in DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For the record, the majority of kids who came to Jefferson from Brent last year are still there this year.

All 5 of them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd really question your definition of "good school" as "start high and stay high". Preschool students don't "start high" unless you mean their parents are high-income. You can try to assess elementary schools by PARCC scores, but there's so much student mobility and attrition, and so many schools have small PARCC-reporting cohorts, that the data is not very helpful.

Personally, I define a "good school" as a school in which the adults are doing a good job.

Seaton
Ketcham
Whittier
Post-reno JOW
Langley used to be a hot topic on this board, but now I think people accept that it's one of the many DCPS elementaries that is perfectly fine in the lower grades.

Plenty of Seats available if op wants to try any of them this year.

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/45/1132093.page

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the record, the majority of kids who came to Jefferson from Brent last year are still there this year.

All 5 of them?

Definitely more than that. And my point is that the majority of Brent families who gave Jefferson a try for 6th grade last year were happy enough to return for 7th this year.

Looking the bigger picture, the overall retention for Jefferson students from year to year is very good. And it’s clearly one of the more popular middle schools in DC, as demonstrated by the length of its waitlist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For the record, the majority of kids who came to Jefferson from Brent last year are still there this year.

Yes, all 7 or 8 of them in-boundary. No thanks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the record, the majority of kids who came to Jefferson from Brent last year are still there this year.

All 5 of them?

Definitely more than that. And my point is that the majority of Brent families who gave Jefferson a try for 6th grade last year were happy enough to return for 7th this year.

Looking the bigger picture, the overall retention for Jefferson students from year to year is very good. And it’s clearly one of the more popular middle schools in DC, as demonstrated by the length of its waitlist.

Slight correction: I should say that the majority of those Brent families were apparently happy enough with Jefferson. I, of course, don’t know the internal motivations of all of them. But it’s nonetheless still a positive that most have stayed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the record, the majority of kids who came to Jefferson from Brent last year are still there this year.

It’s also worth noting that USN&WR ranks Jefferson as the third-best DCPS standalone middle school (behind only Deal and Hardy).

https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/middle-schools/district-of-columbia

Adams is a standalone middle school in the same sense that Deal and Hardy are. It's a DCPS school that accepts both inbound and feeder kids. A little different in that the only feeder is Oyster and that new kids have to pass the Spanish proficiency tests, but it's not definitely not restricted solely to Oyster kids.

The DCPS website treats Oyster-Adams as a single PK-8 school, as does USN&WR in its rankings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the record, the majority of kids who came to Jefferson from Brent last year are still there this year.

All 5 of them?

Definitely more than that. And my point is that the majority of Brent families who gave Jefferson a try for 6th grade last year were happy enough to return for 7th this year.

Looking the bigger picture, the overall retention for Jefferson students from year to year is very good. And it’s clearly one of the more popular middle schools in DC, as demonstrated by the length of its waitlist.

I understand what you are trying to parse but...

The sample size is very, very small. This would be more meaningful with a larger sample size

People who went to Jefferson are likely in one of two categories: true believers or people with no other viable options (read: bad lottery luck and no mobility. It stands to reason that those groups would remain.

This is one time when relativity might be instructive. How does the YoY retention of Jefferson for that cohort differ from the SH and EH cohorts from other ES?

[Anonymous]

There's also this fallacy that UMC people value the same things. My kid is approaching middle school at Maury, and I can see that what would be a good fit for my kid would definitely not be a good fit for many of his friends. An IB middle school that is all things for all people would be great, but I'm not sure how that's possible -- and it's probably why so many people have bad memories of middle school. I like the fact that DC is so mix and match -- it's not so odd here to go private for a bit, then go public, or charter, or whatever, to find the best fit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the record, the majority of kids who came to Jefferson from Brent last year are still there this year.

Yes, all 7 or 8 of them in-boundary. No thanks.

NP I just don't understand what attitudes like this accomplish.

[Anonymous]

VN, Amidon, and Tyler are all Title 1 but this is a thread about overlooked schools and I think it is inaccurate to say all of the UMC families who went their for PreK necessarily leave by 1st/2nd grade.