Hill Middle Schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So if you don't get into the Charters for MS where do you go? I thought privates at MS were hard to get into at that point. Do families just move?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, the main thing that's holding Jefferson back is the lack of definite rigor. They don't seem to offer many true honors/intensified classes. Few UMC feeder parents are sold on their vague "we differentiate marvelously!" pledge. The lack of diversity doesn't help either. Where are the Asian students? There seem to be zero and only a tiny number of whites.

Jefferson has an accelerated math track with admission based on test scores and other specified metrics.

The school is 1.1% Asian (as compared with DCPS overall, which is 2% Asian).

I fully believe that Jefferson’s primary impediment to attracting more Capitol Hill kids is its location. Overall, however, it’s among the more popular middle schools in the city, with a waitlist that consistently exceeds the number of offers made.

If this were true, wouldn't Stuart Hobson have been popular with IB families for years? After all, the school is just a few blocks from Union Station and Stanton Park. Yet SH has yet to take off as a neighborhood middle school. These are tough schools. Not dangerous, but full of low SES kids leading tough lives, which turns off most UMC Ward 6 parents (though they'd be hard pressed to admit it). There's still not much in the way of definite academic tracking in DCPS middle schools, really just for math, even in 8th grade. Rigor remains insufficient and enrichment weak compared to privates, the better charters and the high-performing suburban schools in the area. Most UMC families just aren't incentivized to enroll. A few more do every year, but most still won't.

Maury and Payne families enroll in Eliot-Hine. We are moving or going private for HS (since my kid probably won’t get into Walls and is not a good enough student for Banneker.)

Sometimes people try to lottery into Deal and Hardy feeders, just for 5th grade. That's not as reliable a strategy as it used to be, and it involves a bad commute, but sometimes it works.

It's pretty easy to get into Inspired Teaching, so it's rare for someone to literally not get into any charters. A lot of dealing with this school system involves being flexible and not too picky.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So if you don't get into the Charters for MS where do you go? I thought privates at MS were hard to get into at that point. Do families just move?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, the main thing that's holding Jefferson back is the lack of definite rigor. They don't seem to offer many true honors/intensified classes. Few UMC feeder parents are sold on their vague "we differentiate marvelously!" pledge. The lack of diversity doesn't help either. Where are the Asian students? There seem to be zero and only a tiny number of whites.

Jefferson has an accelerated math track with admission based on test scores and other specified metrics.

The school is 1.1% Asian (as compared with DCPS overall, which is 2% Asian).

I fully believe that Jefferson’s primary impediment to attracting more Capitol Hill kids is its location. Overall, however, it’s among the more popular middle schools in the city, with a waitlist that consistently exceeds the number of offers made.

If this were true, wouldn't Stuart Hobson have been popular with IB families for years? After all, the school is just a few blocks from Union Station and Stanton Park. Yet SH has yet to take off as a neighborhood middle school. These are tough schools. Not dangerous, but full of low SES kids leading tough lives, which turns off most UMC Ward 6 parents (though they'd be hard pressed to admit it). There's still not much in the way of definite academic tracking in DCPS middle schools, really just for math, even in 8th grade. Rigor remains insufficient and enrichment weak compared to privates, the better charters and the high-performing suburban schools in the area. Most UMC families just aren't incentivized to enroll. A few more do every year, but most still won't.

Maury and Payne families enroll in Eliot-Hine. We are moving or going private for HS (since my kid probably won’t get into Walls and is not a good enough student for Banneker.)

Sometimes people try to lottery into Deal and Hardy feeders, just for 5th grade. That's not as reliable a strategy as it used to be, and it involves a bad commute, but sometimes it works.

It's pretty easy to get into Inspired Teaching, so it's rare for someone to literally not get into any charters. A lot of dealing with this school system involves being flexible and not too picky.

I personally have not heard of anyone lotterying in to a Deal/Hardy feeder for 5th. The only family I know that did that did it earlier, and ended up moving to MD well before MS. I personally would rather move than commute that far.

A very small handful chose ITS, TR or Soujourner for MS - but at this point they don’t really seem preferable to EH. (Esp TR for MS.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Community buy-in at SH is built less on location than its status as a CH Cluster School fed by Watkins-Peabody. There have been at least 40 white kids at SH in 6th-8th grades each year for the last two decades. As you may know, SH housed Watkins' 5th grade up until 2008. Jefferson Academy had to start attracting UMC CH families from scratch around 5 years ago. With Latin Cooper going strong, the upward struggle to attract neighborhood talent without designated honors classes outside math at both schools continues. If BASIS gets permission to open a K-4 school, the struggle is only going to intensify.

The "cluster" concept means nothing to most people on the Hill who still have kids in DCPS. I mean, your own post says SH houses Watkins 5th grade up until 2008. 2008!!!! That was 14 years ago my friend. A 5th grader at SH that year would be a law school grad by now.

I know there are a lot of old timers on DCUM who still remember fondly the cluster wars. You are all adorable.

See forest for the trees perhaps. Somebody posted about stronger IB buy-in for SH than Jefferson, although, in many respects, Jefferson has more to offer (I agree). There's a history to SH's buy-in, which isn't strong to this day. Point is, the Ward 6 DCPS middle school situation hasn't come out of nowhere and isn't in danger of being fixed within the next decade as a result. The wild card now is BASIS' K-4 school, which could mop up 2/3 of the BASIS 5th grade spots within a few short years. Might not be a bad idea to pay attention if you have lower grades kids at Maury, Brent, LT, SWS, Watkins and plan to stay on the Hill after ES. I'm sort of shocked that Latin Cooper's May and June WL went from around 50 names last year to 250 this year. Adorable, yea.

The cluster is a non-issue that no one who moved to CH in the last 5-10 years knows anything about. Or cares.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So if you don't get into the Charters for MS where do you go? I thought privates at MS were hard to get into at that point. Do families just move?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, the main thing that's holding Jefferson back is the lack of definite rigor. They don't seem to offer many true honors/intensified classes. Few UMC feeder parents are sold on their vague "we differentiate marvelously!" pledge. The lack of diversity doesn't help either. Where are the Asian students? There seem to be zero and only a tiny number of whites.

Jefferson has an accelerated math track with admission based on test scores and other specified metrics.

The school is 1.1% Asian (as compared with DCPS overall, which is 2% Asian).

I fully believe that Jefferson’s primary impediment to attracting more Capitol Hill kids is its location. Overall, however, it’s among the more popular middle schools in the city, with a waitlist that consistently exceeds the number of offers made.

If this were true, wouldn't Stuart Hobson have been popular with IB families for years? After all, the school is just a few blocks from Union Station and Stanton Park. Yet SH has yet to take off as a neighborhood middle school. These are tough schools. Not dangerous, but full of low SES kids leading tough lives, which turns off most UMC Ward 6 parents (though they'd be hard pressed to admit it). There's still not much in the way of definite academic tracking in DCPS middle schools, really just for math, even in 8th grade. Rigor remains insufficient and enrichment weak compared to privates, the better charters and the high-performing suburban schools in the area. Most UMC families just aren't incentivized to enroll. A few more do every year, but most still won't.

Maury and Payne families enroll in Eliot-Hine. We are moving or going private for HS (since my kid probably won’t get into Walls and is not a good enough student for Banneker.)

Sometimes people try to lottery into Deal and Hardy feeders, just for 5th grade. That's not as reliable a strategy as it used to be, and it involves a bad commute, but sometimes it works.

It's pretty easy to get into Inspired Teaching, so it's rare for someone to literally not get into any charters. A lot of dealing with this school system involves being flexible and not too picky.

I personally have not heard of anyone lotterying in to a Deal/Hardy feeder for 5th. The only family I know that did that did it earlier, and ended up moving to MD well before MS. I personally would rather move than commute that far.

A very small handful chose ITS, TR or Soujourner for MS - but at this point they don’t really seem preferable to EH. (Esp TR for MS.)

Truth if you want to stay through high school. ITS if you have younger children and you would like for them to attend ITS as well. Then they can all be in one place and on one calendar. Or ITS if you really really want that small school feeling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So if you don't get into the Charters for MS where do you go? I thought privates at MS were hard to get into at that point. Do families just move?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, the main thing that's holding Jefferson back is the lack of definite rigor. They don't seem to offer many true honors/intensified classes. Few UMC feeder parents are sold on their vague "we differentiate marvelously!" pledge. The lack of diversity doesn't help either. Where are the Asian students? There seem to be zero and only a tiny number of whites.

Jefferson has an accelerated math track with admission based on test scores and other specified metrics.

The school is 1.1% Asian (as compared with DCPS overall, which is 2% Asian).

I fully believe that Jefferson’s primary impediment to attracting more Capitol Hill kids is its location. Overall, however, it’s among the more popular middle schools in the city, with a waitlist that consistently exceeds the number of offers made.

If this were true, wouldn't Stuart Hobson have been popular with IB families for years? After all, the school is just a few blocks from Union Station and Stanton Park. Yet SH has yet to take off as a neighborhood middle school. These are tough schools. Not dangerous, but full of low SES kids leading tough lives, which turns off most UMC Ward 6 parents (though they'd be hard pressed to admit it). There's still not much in the way of definite academic tracking in DCPS middle schools, really just for math, even in 8th grade. Rigor remains insufficient and enrichment weak compared to privates, the better charters and the high-performing suburban schools in the area. Most UMC families just aren't incentivized to enroll. A few more do every year, but most still won't.

Maury and Payne families enroll in Eliot-Hine. We are moving or going private for HS (since my kid probably won’t get into Walls and is not a good enough student for Banneker.)

Sometimes people try to lottery into Deal and Hardy feeders, just for 5th grade. That's not as reliable a strategy as it used to be, and it involves a bad commute, but sometimes it works.

It's pretty easy to get into Inspired Teaching, so it's rare for someone to literally not get into any charters. A lot of dealing with this school system involves being flexible and not too picky.

I personally have not heard of anyone lotterying in to a Deal/Hardy feeder for 5th. The only family I know that did that did it earlier, and ended up moving to MD well before MS. I personally would rather move than commute that far.

A very small handful chose ITS, TR or Soujourner for MS - but at this point they don’t really seem preferable to EH. (Esp TR for MS.)

I know a family who lotteried into a Hardy feeder in 5th. Very recently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The self-serving Capitol Hill Middle School Initiative of the Public School Parents Organization, CHPSPO, now W6PSPO, is largely to blame. The group has lobbied Ward 6 for the past 13 years not to support charters, to keep SWS, Brent and Maury from feeding into SH, to keep DCPS from setting up a pan-Ward 6 middle school etc. Brent actually fed into SH for a couple years under Michelle Rhee until the 2014 boundary review change that.

https://w6pspo.org/current-initiatives/middle-school-initiative/

I don’t think Brent fed to SH before 2014. There was a 2010-ish reshuffle due to the initiative above, that’s also when SWS and Capitol Hill Montessori left the cluster. Maybe before 2010? But I think before 2010 Watkins was the only SH feeder.

Tommy Wells arranged for Brent to feed into SH in 2010. The arrangement lasted less than 3 years. Only a handful of Brent parents took advantage of the guaranteed feed. Almost everybody rushed to Latin, then to BASIS when it opened in 2013. Watkins was the only SH feeder until 2014.

I was up close to this process in 2010 and just don’t think this is true. I *think* Wells put it on the table as a possibility, but Cluster parents were split on if they wanted Brent to feed to SH and Brent parents were also unsure Please can others chime in?

[Anonymous]

Tommy Wells did lobby DCPS to let Brent feed to SH but the Cluster admins and parent leaders were, for the most part, not on board. They’ve been pushing to block more extensive academic tracking and other needed neighborhood MS reforms/consolidation of programs ever since. Meanwhile, most of the upper grades Brent families have run to charters for a decade now. But a few more are heading to SH with each passing year, after losing out in the Latin, BASIS and now Latin Cooper lotteries. Many Brent families get a proximity preference for SH because there homes are within half a mile.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tommy Wells did lobby DCPS to let Brent feed to SH but the Cluster admins and parent leaders were, for the most part, not on board. They’ve been pushing to block more extensive academic tracking and other needed neighborhood MS reforms/consolidation of programs ever since. Meanwhile, most of the upper grades Brent families have run to charters for a decade now. But a few more are heading to SH with each passing year, after losing out in the Latin, BASIS and now Latin Cooper lotteries. Many Brent families get a proximity preference for SH because there homes are within half a mile.

This is not true — who are these parent leaders at the cluster pushing against reform? In what context? And the admins have enough going on to spend time worrying about the rest of the neighborhood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tommy Wells did lobby DCPS to let Brent feed to SH but the Cluster admins and parent leaders were, for the most part, not on board. They’ve been pushing to block more extensive academic tracking and other needed neighborhood MS reforms/consolidation of programs ever since. Meanwhile, most of the upper grades Brent families have run to charters for a decade now. But a few more are heading to SH with each passing year, after losing out in the Latin, BASIS and now Latin Cooper lotteries. Many Brent families get a proximity preference for SH because there homes are within half a mile.

This is not true — who are these parent leaders at the cluster pushing against reform? In what context? And the admins have enough going on to spend time worrying about the rest of the neighborhood.

What they’re saying is true… but they’re talking about events that happened nearly 15 years ago for no particular reason.

[Anonymous]

If this were true, wouldn't Stuart Hobson have been popular with IB families for years? After all, the school is just a few blocks from Union Station and Stanton Park. Yet SH has yet to take off as a neighborhood middle school. These are tough schools. Not dangerous, but full of low SES kids leading tough lives, which turns off most UMC Ward 6 parents (though they'd be hard pressed to admit it). There's still not much in the way of definite academic tracking in DCPS middle schools, really just for math, even in 8th grade. Rigor remains insufficient and enrichment weak compared to privates, the better charters and the high-performing suburban schools in the area. Most UMC families just aren't incentivized to enroll. A few more do every year, but most still won't.

FWIW, S-H offers a wide range of enrichment opportunities. The theater, art, and music programs are robust. Nearly 70 students went to Space Camp this spring. There is a craft club, debate, mock trial, sports for every season, archery, cheerleading, gardening, several field trips a month. It has been my experience that if students or staff have an idea or opportunity they would like to implement, leadership supports the effort.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
If this were true, wouldn't Stuart Hobson have been popular with IB families for years? After all, the school is just a few blocks from Union Station and Stanton Park. Yet SH has yet to take off as a neighborhood middle school. These are tough schools. Not dangerous, but full of low SES kids leading tough lives, which turns off most UMC Ward 6 parents (though they'd be hard pressed to admit it). There's still not much in the way of definite academic tracking in DCPS middle schools, really just for math, even in 8th grade. Rigor remains insufficient and enrichment weak compared to privates, the better charters and the high-performing suburban schools in the area. Most UMC families just aren't incentivized to enroll. A few more do every year, but most still won't.

FWIW, S-H offers a wide range of enrichment opportunities. The theater, art, and music programs are robust. Nearly 70 students went to Space Camp this spring. There is a craft club, debate, mock trial, sports for every season, archery, cheerleading, gardening, several field trips a month. It has been my experience that if students or staff have an idea or opportunity they would like to implement, leadership supports the effort.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
If this were true, wouldn't Stuart Hobson have been popular with IB families for years? After all, the school is just a few blocks from Union Station and Stanton Park. Yet SH has yet to take off as a neighborhood middle school. These are tough schools. Not dangerous, but full of low SES kids leading tough lives, which turns off most UMC Ward 6 parents (though they'd be hard pressed to admit it). There's still not much in the way of definite academic tracking in DCPS middle schools, really just for math, even in 8th grade. Rigor remains insufficient and enrichment weak compared to privates, the better charters and the high-performing suburban schools in the area. Most UMC families just aren't incentivized to enroll. A few more do every year, but most still won't.

FWIW, S-H offers a wide range of enrichment opportunities. The theater, art, and music programs are robust. Nearly 70 students went to Space Camp this spring. There is a craft club, debate, mock trial, sports for every season, archery, cheerleading, gardening, several field trips a month. It has been my experience that if students or staff have an idea or opportunity they would like to implement, leadership supports the effort.

IDGAF about cheerleading or craft club if my kid is going to be behind in ELA and math…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
If this were true, wouldn't Stuart Hobson have been popular with IB families for years? After all, the school is just a few blocks from Union Station and Stanton Park. Yet SH has yet to take off as a neighborhood middle school. These are tough schools. Not dangerous, but full of low SES kids leading tough lives, which turns off most UMC Ward 6 parents (though they'd be hard pressed to admit it). There's still not much in the way of definite academic tracking in DCPS middle schools, really just for math, even in 8th grade. Rigor remains insufficient and enrichment weak compared to privates, the better charters and the high-performing suburban schools in the area. Most UMC families just aren't incentivized to enroll. A few more do every year, but most still won't.

FWIW, S-H offers a wide range of enrichment opportunities. The theater, art, and music programs are robust. Nearly 70 students went to Space Camp this spring. There is a craft club, debate, mock trial, sports for every season, archery, cheerleading, gardening, several field trips a month. It has been my experience that if students or staff have an idea or opportunity they would like to implement, leadership supports the effort.

IDGAF about cheerleading or craft club if my kid is going to be behind in ELA and math…

This. Frankly, spinning their wheels providing a zillion activities is evidence of poor judgment when the focus should be on adequate academics. (Though I do love me some space camp!)

[Anonymous]

Exactly. Depressing that honors English didn’t survive Covid at SH. I’m not aware of any real pushback at the school, or plans to reinstate honors English, even in 8th grade. Situation for advanced math seems much better at Hobson.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Exactly. Depressing that honors English didn’t survive Covid at SH. I’m not aware of any real pushback at the school, or plans to reinstate honors English, even in 8th grade. Situation for advanced math seems much better at Hobson.

Hi, S-H English teacher here. I was responding to "enrichment weak compared to privates." Thanks for all the generous feedback on rigor.