Is Real Change Even Possible?
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Anonymous
As an EH parent that came from a feeder school, I can anecdotally say that from my experience the 'playground chatter' has changed in the past 10 years from 'transfer out mid-elementary to get into a SH feeder' to parents being happy to stay through 5th and then go to EH. That may account for the decrease in enrollment at SH - as well as the new Latin campus etc, and nothing negative about SH at all. Also I have noticed at EH, and may be true at other middle schools - that there are a number of kids every year who transfer in from a charter school - so they probably always lived in boundary, and then when they transfer in it increases both enrollment and IB numbers. As for rigor between various DCPS schools, IMO it is hard to totally compare any two schools b/c there are few parents who have experience at multiple schools. |
Anonymous
From the other MS boundaries that feed to Eastern, Stuart-Hobson enrolled 56 in SY19-20 and 72 in SY24-25. (I think the SY19-20 number is likely a bit higher than shown because they don't report numbers smaller than 10 and there are none reported from Jefferson that year but 12 in the following year) |
Anonymous
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The biggest hits to Stuart-Hobson's IB enrollment have come from increased enrollment at BASIS and the opening of the second Latin campus.
Students living in the boundary in SY19-20 47% attended Stuart-Hobson 13% attended Latin 12% attended BASIS 6% attended DCI Students living in the boundary in SY24-25 31% attended Stuart-Hobson 16% attended BASIS 11% attended Latin Cooper 9% attended Latin 5% attended DCI 2% attended Eliot-Hine |
Anonymous
| SH has a large OOB “cluster school” feeder population at Watkins (which people lottery into at least in part for the MS option). SH also has some size constraints associated with its building size. There are quite a few former Brent students at SH, but there is no proximity preference for middle school. It is reasonably difficult to lottery directly into 6th grade at SH. Agree that EH feeder students no longer peel off in large numbers for SH. |
Anonymous
| One factor that has stagnated SH a bit is Watkins’ decline. LT has massively improved in terms of IB buy-in and UMC buy-in during the period from ‘19-‘20 to now, but Watkins has gone downhill in both categories m. Additionally, increased IB buy-in for LT may actually paradoxically have the effect of decreasing the percentage of enrolled kids heading to SH. |
Anonymous
You don’t need gifted programs so much as common sense (but fluid) ability tracking. |
Anonymous
This is true. I know a number of families who would were planning to lottery for a select group of charters and, if they didn't get in, simply do private. But they were persuaded to give L-T a chance and have decided to stay because it's a good school. But they never intended to or even considered to do MS at DCPS -- again they will lottery for charters and go private if they don't get a spot. The same with HS -- their kids will do the application high schools or attend private. These parents can afford private school (just as they can afford homes in close in Capitol Hill) and don't feel compelled to attend a school "on the upswing." They want a school that is already established as having ng met their standards for academic rigor and good behavior. L-T does, SH and Eastern do not. You also see plenty of parents like this at Maury and Brent though. |
Anonymous
My hope is this will be counteracted by a big increase in IB buy in at JOW after their renovation. But it's going to take some time -- I think their swing space time is actually going to hurt their IB participation next year, and I don't think the administration is particularly invested in IB families. But a brand new campus on K is bound to attract families for PK, especially with Two Rivers in decline, and if they can hang onto more of those kids for upper grades, they can build off that momentum. |
Anonymous
And kids who are even marginally academically qualified are lotterying out of the neighborhood system as soon as they get to 9th. |
Anonymous
Leaving the neighborhood pyramid at 9th? Not long ago it was 2nd. |
Anonymous
Exactly. Progress is slow, too slow for some to see, but it's real. When my kid started at our IB, many people left after PK3. Now the coveted "fine through 2nd" status is settling in. |
Anonymous
Yes, for this long time LT family, the change has been astounding. When we started, they couldn’t report non-at risk or white scores in the testing grades; now my kid has at least 5 5th grade classmates heading to expensive privates (GDS, Maret, CHDS). When we started, the PTO had no money and no big fundraiser. Now it has an auction that raises 6 figures in a night. The community has gone from one where the best local DCPS MS (SH) was clearly the best option to one where plenty of families have a real choice. It doesn’t surprise me that the effect on SH attendance is decidedly mixed even as the school improves and most people at LT have a decent impression. Even with that, like last year, this year there will be a decent chunk of UMC kids heading to SH, including a few academically very good students (and a few stand out theater performers, who probably liked SH for that reason). |
Anonymous
I think people must be using "IB" as a proxy for something else. Maybe socioeconomic class? Or the distribution of IB students across grades has changed? Because the numbers don't support what you're saying. Number of students living IB at Ludlow-Taylor went from 439 in SY19-20 to 436 in SY24-25. Number of students living IB and attending Ludlow-Taylor went from 263 in SY19-20 to 267 in SY24-25. |
Anonymous
One thing I was going to say is that making inferences about the relative share of kids going to each school and the change in share over time is that it’s hard without knowing the denominator. My intuition is that there’s a lot more kids in DC than there used to be because it’s become viable to raise them here, and not everyone who can leave does. |
Anonymous
LOL. Yes, somehow the discussion of whether the system can improve has morphed into a discussion of gentrification on the Hill. While an important discussion, it is not the sort of change that OP is hoping for, I think. |