DC house hunting in quality school districts

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:is a condo out of the question? city living here is going to look increasingly like nyc, where i just moved from. lots of families in apartments and condos as opposed to sfh. personally, i am very ok with that. especially if it means that you can buy a nice place in woodley/kalorama/adams morgan: your kids can go to oyster and you can live in a vibrant, centrally located nabe.

Not sure what you're talking about. We live in adams morgan and are zoned to Marie Reed. Plenty of Kalorama residents are cranky about being re-zoned away from Oyster as well. And the only people who I know with kids at Oyster aren't happy with it and say it's going downhill. We love our home in Adams Morgan -- might never leave if it wasn't for the school issue. But let's face it: you can't have everything -- there are tradeoffs, including giving up "vibrant, centrally located nabe" to have your kids in one of the best available DCPS. Sorry.

Yes, I heard this too. It changed the school dynamics of A.M. Oyster, yes. Cooke and Marie Reed, no!

[Anonymous]

Hmm... what's this about rezoning? We've lived in Kalorama Triangle for several years and continue to be zoned for Oyster.

[Anonymous]

OP here - thank you for all the input! the links to the attendance zones for neighborhood elementary schools and the zoned school tool are helpful in focusing our sights as we begin the house search.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hmm... what's this about rezoning? We've lived in Kalorama Triangle for several years and continue to be zoned for Oyster.

Better double-check. Many blocks over the Ellington bridge are (as of this year) inbounds for Marie Reed instead of Oyster, with proximity to Cooke. Time for private school?

[Anonymous]

I know Marie Reed has a lot of poor kids, but I have also heard a lot of good things coming from the school. Is the reason to go private solely the performance in the past? Is it possible rezoning will enable enough well off parents to come in to raise opportunity in the school?

[Anonymous]

Probably going to get hugely flamed for this, but I think the only really systemic way to improve DCPS is to set a standard that no one school can have more then ____% of FRMS---and then set about assigning schools and redistricting in order to achieve that goal.

This is probably politically, and perhaps practically, unachievable---given the significant swaths of poverty in certain areas of the city. But I can't really see a lot of east of the park schools improving significantly until there is some system like that. Take Cooke and Marie Reed for example. There are simply a lot more in-boundary poor families in public/subsidized housing than there are middle class families in single family homes/high-end condos.

[Anonymous]

http://www.nclb.osse.dc.gov/dccas_reportcards.asp

Rounding, in 2010, DC state level had 22k economically disadvantaged and 10k non-econ disadvantated students that took DC-CAS tests. So if the all schools were uniformly mixed, about 2/3 of the students would be FARMs, 1/3 non-FARMS in each and every school.

The problem is that the parents of non-FARMS students will go private/parochial before they will send kids to a 2/3 FARMS school (at least I would). So that 2/3 goes up to 3/4 more leave 5/6 more leave, pretty soon it is 100% FARMS systemwide.

The reason non-FARMS students are in DC schools is that they are on islands (schools) with primarily other non-FARMS students on the island. Islands with names like Janney, Murch, Mann, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:http://www.nclb.osse.dc.gov/dccas_reportcards.asp

Rounding, in 2010, DC state level had 22k economically disadvantaged and 10k non-econ disadvantated students that took DC-CAS tests. So if the all schools were uniformly mixed, about 2/3 of the students would be FARMs, 1/3 non-FARMS in each and every school.

The problem is that the parents of non-FARMS students will go private/parochial before they will send kids to a 2/3 FARMS school (at least I would). So that 2/3 goes up to 3/4 more leave 5/6 more leave, pretty soon it is 100% FARMS systemwide.

The reason non-FARMS students are in DC schools is that they are on islands (schools) with primarily other non-FARMS students on the island. Islands with names like Janney, Murch, Mann, etc.

Exactly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hmm... what's this about rezoning? We've lived in Kalorama Triangle for several years and continue to be zoned for Oyster.

Better double-check. Many blocks over the Ellington bridge are (as of this year) inbounds for Marie Reed instead of Oyster, with proximity to Cooke. Time for private school?

Nope-- just fed our address in. Still Oyster/ Deal (if necessary)/ Wilson. And I live at what I thought was the edge of Oyster's (old) boundary. I don't know which blocks may have been dropped, but it's clear that it's still possible to live in urban DC and attend one of the better schools as a matter of right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hmm... what's this about rezoning? We've lived in Kalorama Triangle for several years and continue to be zoned for Oyster.

Better double-check. Many blocks over the Ellington bridge are (as of this year) inbounds for Marie Reed instead of Oyster, with proximity to Cooke. Time for private school?

Nope-- just fed our address in. Still Oyster/ Deal (if necessary)/ Wilson. And I live at what I thought was the edge of Oyster's (old) boundary. I don't know which blocks may have been dropped, but it's clear that it's still possible to live in urban DC and attend one of the better schools as a matter of right.

You're lucky! I have friends in Kalorama who used to be Oyster and just got switched to Marie Reed. They're very unhappy too, because they were planning on enrolling their child for next fall - so for a few years they've believed they were safe.

[Anonymous]

I might add that now they're rather frantically looking at privates, but it's too late for almost everything. Application season is over.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hmm... what's this about rezoning? We've lived in Kalorama Triangle for several years and continue to be zoned for Oyster.

From the map on this page -- http://oysterbilingual.devis.com/Admissions/SchoolBoundary/ -- it looks like the Oyster boundary no longer extends down to the "tip" of Kalorama Triangle, where CT and Columbia come together; now, the bottom of the boundary is the north side of Kalorama Road. Wouldn't be surprised to see it continue creeping up the triangle over time and ultimately solidifying entirely west of the park.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hmm... what's this about rezoning? We've lived in Kalorama Triangle for several years and continue to be zoned for Oyster.

From the map on this page -- http://oysterbilingual.devis.com/Admissions/SchoolBoundary/ -- it looks like the Oyster boundary no longer extends down to the "tip" of Kalorama Triangle, where CT and Columbia come together; now, the bottom of the boundary is the north side of Kalorama Road. Wouldn't be surprised to see it continue creeping up the triangle over time and ultimately solidifying entirely west of the park.

a) I didn't think that was new.

b) I would be surprised, especially considering the location of the Adams Campus. If over-enrollment necessitates shrinking the boundary, I think it would make more sense to drop some blocks closer to Cleveland Park and their school that has difficulty attracting neighborhood children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hmm... what's this about rezoning? We've lived in Kalorama Triangle for several years and continue to be zoned for Oyster.

From the map on this page -- http://oysterbilingual.devis.com/Admissions/SchoolBoundary/ -- it looks like the Oyster boundary no longer extends down to the "tip" of Kalorama Triangle, where CT and Columbia come together; now, the bottom of the boundary is the north side of Kalorama Road. Wouldn't be surprised to see it continue creeping up the triangle over time and ultimately solidifying entirely west of the park.

a) I didn't think that was new.

b) I would be surprised, especially considering the location of the Adams Campus. If over-enrollment necessitates shrinking the boundary, I think it would make more sense to drop some blocks closer to Cleveland Park and their school that has difficulty attracting neighborhood children.

It was new to them. They live in the triangle bordered by Kalorama, Columbia, and Connecticut.

[Anonymous]

2008 map