Thoughts on Brent?
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Anonymous
Bet. |
Anonymous
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As in "agreed" or "okay?"
Ditto, at least for a kid who can work above grade level. |
Anonymous
I'm the PP who listed the schools on the Hill I think have "solid to strong" academics (Maury, L-T, SWS, Payne, Chisolm, usually Brent when not in swing space and with the caveat that this combined 4th/5th nonsense sounds unacceptable to me). What do you view as lacking at these schools? IME, any DCPS will require parental support and supplementing at home if you want your kid to stay on track to do well in, for instance, private MS or HS, applications schools, certain suburban districts if you move. But as someone who highly values education, I'd be doing that regardless -- we do tons of reading outside of school work, our kids do Beast Academy and AoPS in the summer, we supplement music and language, and I do a ton of writing work with my kids outside of school (a write professionally). I'd be doing that if we were at a JKLM or in MoCo or VA or our kids were at a private. I don't view school as "set it and forget it" anywhere. My experience is that teachers at Hill DCPS schools are happy to keep up with that. They teach DCPS curriculum, which is solid but not advanced, but are happy to support advanced learners where possible, and my kids are engaged and growing at school. I don't see them lagging anywhere. But I'm super involved and helping them along. I think that's just how you do it these days. |
Anonymous
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OP here. Nothing in this thread has dissuaded me from the assumption I came with: Brent, even in a swing space, is a better bet than our current school, at least through 4th.
Thank you all for your help! |
Anonymous
| maybe worth trying, but they are likely to run through most of the waitlist for K and you may not ever necessarily have an especially strong neighborhood community feel in some of the class years most heavily impacted by the swing space. |
Anonymous
Remains to be seen, but I think the swing space may make for a very tied in sense of community in the next few years among those who remain. Those who are staying are obviously committed to the school or wouldn’t be dealing with the hassle of the swing space logistics. May be smaller by the numbers but those who are there are presumably pretty invested. There are also a lot of parks, including the site for the buses, for community activities. The building itself has never been a highlight as it is way past its sell by date. |
Anonymous
It is very difficult to keep a real sense of community going in a swing space. Events held at the space are sparsely attended because they are far from everyone's home, including teachers. Given that Brent is so heavily IB, they may try having events in spaces local to the real campus (e.g., Garfield Park; not helpful that X Park is also all torn up at the moment), but those will have close to no teacher attendance and the outdoor aspect will be limiting. Anyway, for OP who attends what seems to be a worse school that isn't much closer to her home than Brent in swing space, I can 100% see taking a flyer on this (especially since it sounds like her kid is on the younger side so will benefit from the sparkly new building at the other end). But I do think the swing space years are going to be hard on the school and there's so much money in the zone that I think a lot of people will buy their way out of it. |
Anonymous
| FWIW: We are at Brent and we send our kid to mathnasium bc they like math. Many other families who joined along with us also had kids who just love math, so due to its location of convenience and flexible scheduling, many kids in there are just treating it like another after school activity, not necessarily because of tutoring or needing supplementary math. |
Anonymous
| How old is your kid? We weren't satisfied with Brent's math instruction in 4th or 5th grades. Thank goodness for Mathnasium. |
Anonymous
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Some photos of the ongoing renovation work at the swing space. This isn't the level of progress I'd expect with 33 days until teachers report.
https://x.com/charlesallen/status/1943408270044958916 New HVAC, bathroom conversions for ECE kiddos, electrical work, cleanup, & more. https://x.com/charlesallen/status/1943408283450016000 Some items like the new turf field will be completed after school begins but by end of October. |
Anonymous
OP is not looking at the real issue which is middle schools. Don’t depend on the lottery. |
Anonymous
Charles Allen's newsletter suggested he was worried about the progress as well. My previous impression was that DCPS typically managed to make it work even when behind schedule (e.g., Peabody post-flood), but now having experienced their absolute gaslighting and then 1/2 year delay on the L-T addition, I definitely don't trust them anymore. |
Anonymous
| The most recent update email included this table of pending building tasks at Meyer: https://mcusercontent.com/7e41bdf908faa5822df471415/images/1d63ccea-1ca5-6e4a-7709-9fc46772cd51.png |
Anonymous
Is that woman wearing a bike helmet? |
Anonymous
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I didn’t want to create a whole new thread but my child is currently at Brent and their sibling will eventually be joining.
However, they may need to be in self-contained special education classroom. I was going through the modernization questions and the design team is adding 3 self-contained rooms. Does this mean Brent will have self-contained? Just trying to plan as my oldest loves the school and does not have an IEP. But children going to different schools may be tough… |