SELA PICKS WARD 4 - Takoma, DC

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How did Sela get this space? IT families would have liked it.

I believe they have some outside financial support.

They are leasing it from Duglas Developement. Douglas recently purchased this building.

[Anonymous]

Every time I see this thread I think to myself "Sela Ward? Where's she been? What's she in these days?"

[Anonymous]

It's pretty depressing that most of the posts celebrating the location are only concerned with the commute.

It's a definite minority, and I'm being generous here, who are celebrating the Hebrew language immersion quality of the school.

So, let's be honest. No one is interested is in Hebrew language immersion. You're just hoping the lottery rescues you from your home school, and, that your commute is short.

Kind of ugly when spelled out that way, isn't it?



Totally ignorant, and also, not accurate. It's a new school - might not have a lottery, if they fill up first come, first serve. Most parents in D.C. are just looking for a quality charter school near their house, because they don't have a quality DCPS school near their house. The foreign language is just the cherry on the sundae! Go Hebrew, go Swahili, go Uzbek, I don't care. Just give me a quality school. Teaching my kid a language is a bonus.


PP #2, you and 17:26 make PP#1s point for her. You and 17:26 basically say, yeah! I don't really give a crap about the mission of this school, all I know is that I might get a seat and it's close! And by the way, you're ignorant for suggesting that I don't really give a crap about the mission of this school! Ignorant!

Exactly. You all make her point. You care about your commute and you think it's going to be a quality charter school, based on...nothing to do with believing that Hebrew immersion is important to a quality education. In order to call the PP ignorant, you'd have to show that Hebrew immersion is necessary and important to a quality education. Not one of you has done that. You rely on on your commute and on the assumption, based on nothing, that this is a quality school simply because it is a charter school.

I agree, that is the truly sad and pathetic thing.

[Anonymous]

Most of you barely speak English, so it's not surprising you denigrate foreign language learning

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most of you barely speak English, so it's not surprising you denigrate foreign language learning

So true, now that's sad!

[Anonymous]

Congrats to Sela for getting ahead of the curve and finding a space prior to enrollment. So many schools seem to wait until the last minute- and then end up a cramped, dirty incubator like the one LAMB used to be in. I wonder if Bowser is being more supportive of charters now that she's all but acknowledged she's running to replace Mr. Gray?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous
Most of you barely speak English, so it's not surprising you denigrate foreign language learning

No one denigrated foreign language learning. Apparently, you have a reading comprehension problem.

[Anonymous]

is Chinese "necessary and important" (Yu Ying/Creative Minds)? Is Montessori/Spanish Montessori "necessary and important" (SS/LAMB)? Is Afro-Centrism "necessary and important" (Roots)? Is hotel restaurant management "necessary and important" (Hospitality High)? "Green-centered" (Mundo Verde)? Girls only? (Excel Acad.). All charter schools have a special twist beyond providing the necessary and important basic building blocks of learning. Luckily, we have a charter school board who vets these schools - if you don't like a given school's mission, don't enroll, but stop turning every post on Sela (or Yu Ying, or Basis, the list goes on and on) into this hate-fest. Let people be happy or critical of a location without questioning the legitimacy of the school over and over. It's bitter, and boring, and unfair.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:is Chinese "necessary and important" (Yu Ying/Creative Minds)? Is Montessori/Spanish Montessori "necessary and important" (SS/LAMB)? Is Afro-Centrism "necessary and important" (Roots)? Is hotel restaurant management "necessary and important" (Hospitality High)? "Green-centered" (Mundo Verde)? Girls only? (Excel Acad.). All charter schools have a special twist beyond providing the necessary and important basic building blocks of learning. Luckily, we have a charter school board who vets these schools - if you don't like a given school's mission, don't enroll, but stop turning every post on Sela (or Yu Ying, or Basis, the list goes on and on) into this hate-fest. Let people be happy or critical of a location without questioning the legitimacy of the school over and over. It's bitter, and boring, and unfair.

Amen! Go Sela! Go Basis! Go Latin! Go YY! Rise above this DCUM nonsense!

[Anonymous]

Go Sela! The location is great, the mission is great. The school will "rock" (pun intended..).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:is Chinese "necessary and important" (Yu Ying/Creative Minds)? Is Montessori/Spanish Montessori "necessary and important" (SS/LAMB)? Is Afro-Centrism "necessary and important" (Roots)? Is hotel restaurant management "necessary and important" (Hospitality High)? "Green-centered" (Mundo Verde)? Girls only? (Excel Acad.). All charter schools have a special twist beyond providing the necessary and important basic building blocks of learning. Luckily, we have a charter school board who vets these schools - if you don't like a given school's mission, don't enroll, but stop turning every post on Sela (or Yu Ying, or Basis, the list goes on and on) into this hate-fest. Let people be happy or critical of a location without questioning the legitimacy of the school over and over. It's bitter, and boring, and unfair.

Not everyone is hating. I've got nothing against Sela and am impressed with what they have accomplished so far.

That said, given the racial, ethnic and economic dominant groups in DC public schools, there IS a difference between Sela and every single other example you just gave: every other one of those special foci are applicable and immediately useful to the majority students of DC. Chinese is a business language of the present and future, spoken by millions of people. Montessori has overall good results for student performance. Afro-centrism or Spanish language schools, well African Americans and Latinos are the 2 biggest racial/ethnic groups in DC schools. Green-centered, is the environmental and also a business wave of the present and future, can position students who might otherwise not be exposed to that field and get them engaged and exposed. Girls only schools: many who believe (& back up with decades of findings) that academically girls do better in long run with time in girls-only schools.

So either because of the demographics of DC or the directions of business in present and future, every single example you give has applicability or real utility to DCs kids... EXCEPT Sela. Aside from the general benefit of learning a 2nd language (and there is a benefit to that, I'm not saying there isn't), there is absolutely nothing about learning Hebrew specifically that is really relevant to a majority of DC kids in terms of usability, better educational outcomes, or proven benefits or world economics.

If you are alleging there is, please be specific about exactly what that benefit is that is beneficial beyond all the good stuff that comes from learning a 2nd language.

[Anonymous]

Same ^PP And again, saying that is not = to hating on Sela. Just responding to the examples you gave and pointing out the differences, because those are real differences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:is Chinese "necessary and important" (Yu Ying/Creative Minds)? Is Montessori/Spanish Montessori "necessary and important" (SS/LAMB)? Is Afro-Centrism "necessary and important" (Roots)? Is hotel restaurant management "necessary and important" (Hospitality High)? "Green-centered" (Mundo Verde)? Girls only? (Excel Acad.). All charter schools have a special twist beyond providing the necessary and important basic building blocks of learning. Luckily, we have a charter school board who vets these schools - if you don't like a given school's mission, don't enroll, but stop turning every post on Sela (or Yu Ying, or Basis, the list goes on and on) into this hate-fest. Let people be happy or critical of a location without questioning the legitimacy of the school over and over. It's bitter, and boring, and unfair.

Not everyone is hating. I've got nothing against Sela and am impressed with what they have accomplished so far.

That said, given the racial, ethnic and economic dominant groups in DC public schools, there IS a difference between Sela and every single other example you just gave: every other one of those special foci are applicable and immediately useful to the majority students of DC. Chinese is a business language of the present and future, spoken by millions of people. Montessori has overall good results for student performance. Afro-centrism or Spanish language schools, well African Americans and Latinos are the 2 biggest racial/ethnic groups in DC schools. Green-centered, is the environmental and also a business wave of the present and future, can position students who might otherwise not be exposed to that field and get them engaged and exposed. Girls only schools: many who believe (& back up with decades of findings) that academically girls do better in long run with time in girls-only schools.

So either because of the demographics of DC or the directions of business in present and future, every single example you give has applicability or real utility to DCs kids... EXCEPT Sela. Aside from the general benefit of learning a 2nd language (and there is a benefit to that, I'm not saying there isn't), there is absolutely nothing about learning Hebrew specifically that is really relevant to a majority of DC kids in terms of usability, better educational outcomes, or proven benefits or world economics.

If you are alleging there is, please be specific about exactly what that benefit is that is beneficial beyond all the good stuff that comes from learning a 2nd language.

Montessori has overall good results for student performance. NOT UNIVERSALLY TRUE. Depends on school.
Benefits of Afro-centrism. Depends on school - if you follow the Post, you'll see some very bad examples in our area.
Spanish-language: Important - but is it necessary?
Green-centered? Can you even define what that really means? Again, depends on school. MV is clearly making it work, but is it necessary?
Girls only? Is it necessary? Again, depends on the school. A bad all girls school is a bad school. Period.

I guess what I am saying, is that your allegations are also very subjective - and many people dispute the utility of one or more of the above.

First of all "all the good stuff that comes from learning a 2nd language" is not insignificant.

Second, Israel is an important business, research & development center. Yes, many Israelis speak English, but knowing Hebrew could prove useful. When I was growing up, the emphasis was on Russian and Japanese, now the emphasis is on Spanish and Mandarin - we don't know what the future holds for our world. So making judgments about a given language in today's context is pretty futile. Third, if you examine the history of ethnic groups in this country and in D.C., you will note that Jews are a big part of the American/DC story. I'm sure that there are Jewish DC kids studying Spanish and Chinese in charter schools. Non-Jewish kids will study Hebrew at Sela. It's part of America and the District are about, or should be, different kinds of folks studying and learning with and from each other. I don't have personal connection to Hebrew, but I think it's a cool option for our kids to have, and it does seem that there is an irrational hyper-focus on Sela (Basis, Latin, YY, etc.). Let's just be happy they found a good site for their school.

[Anonymous]

There's definitely at least one, maybe two serious anti-charter operative on this board, someone with an agenda and a shoulder bearing a chip, who comes on every couple of days with a cluster of astro-turfing posts, usually late at night or in other distinct patterns, with a group of posts coming in from some angle purporting to have inside knowledge or purporting to have some opinionated idea of what might happen at charter X, all followed by a slew of sock-puppeting posts all agreeing with the first, all composed and posted within minutes of each other. And if anyone points out facts to the contrary, they are yelled at for daring to tamp down agenda-driven opinions with actual facts, accused of boosterism and so on, even to the point of obscenities so foul they get deleted. Just be aware of that, pay it no mind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:is Chinese "necessary and important" (Yu Ying/Creative Minds)? Is Montessori/Spanish Montessori "necessary and important" (SS/LAMB)? Is Afro-Centrism "necessary and important" (Roots)? Is hotel restaurant management "necessary and important" (Hospitality High)? "Green-centered" (Mundo Verde)? Girls only? (Excel Acad.). All charter schools have a special twist beyond providing the necessary and important basic building blocks of learning. Luckily, we have a charter school board who vets these schools - if you don't like a given school's mission, don't enroll, but stop turning every post on Sela (or Yu Ying, or Basis, the list goes on and on) into this hate-fest. Let people be happy or critical of a location without questioning the legitimacy of the school over and over. It's bitter, and boring, and unfair.

Not everyone is hating. I've got nothing against Sela and am impressed with what they have accomplished so far.

That said, given the racial, ethnic and economic dominant groups in DC public schools, there IS a difference between Sela and every single other example you just gave: every other one of those special foci are applicable and immediately useful to the majority students of DC. Chinese is a business language of the present and future, spoken by millions of people. Montessori has overall good results for student performance. Afro-centrism or Spanish language schools, well African Americans and Latinos are the 2 biggest racial/ethnic groups in DC schools. Green-centered, is the environmental and also a business wave of the present and future, can position students who might otherwise not be exposed to that field and get them engaged and exposed. Girls only schools: many who believe (& back up with decades of findings) that academically girls do better in long run with time in girls-only schools.

So either because of the demographics of DC or the directions of business in present and future, every single example you give has applicability or real utility to DCs kids... EXCEPT Sela. Aside from the general benefit of learning a 2nd language (and there is a benefit to that, I'm not saying there isn't), there is absolutely nothing about learning Hebrew specifically that is really relevant to a majority of DC kids in terms of usability, better educational outcomes, or proven benefits or world economics.

If you are alleging there is, please be specific about exactly what that benefit is that is beneficial beyond all the good stuff that comes from learning a 2nd language.

Montessori has overall good results for student performance. NOT UNIVERSALLY TRUE. Depends on school.
Benefits of Afro-centrism. Depends on school - if you follow the Post, you'll see some very bad examples in our area.
Spanish-language: Important - but is it necessary?
Green-centered? Can you even define what that really means? Again, depends on school. MV is clearly making it work, but is it necessary?
Girls only? Is it necessary? Again, depends on the school. A bad all girls school is a bad school. Period.

I guess what I am saying, is that your allegations are also very subjective - and many people dispute the utility of one or more of the above.

First of all "all the good stuff that comes from learning a 2nd language" is not insignificant.

Second, Israel is an important business, research & development center. Yes, many Israelis speak English, but knowing Hebrew could prove useful. When I was growing up, the emphasis was on Russian and Japanese, now the emphasis is on Spanish and Mandarin - we don't know what the future holds for our world. So making judgments about a given language in today's context is pretty futile. Third, if you examine the history of ethnic groups in this country and in D.C., you will note that Jews are a big part of the American/DC story. I'm sure that there are Jewish DC kids studying Spanish and Chinese in charter schools. Non-Jewish kids will study Hebrew at Sela. It's part of America and the District are about, or should be, different kinds of folks studying and learning with and from each other. I don't have personal connection to Hebrew, but I think it's a cool option for our kids to have, and it does seem that there is an irrational hyper-focus on Sela (Basis, Latin, YY, etc.). Let's just be happy they found a good site for their school.

You gotta be able to do better than "Isreal is an important business, research and degvelopment center" to show how learning Hebrew in DC is going to position DC kids of color to really have an advantage in business. What % of the world's business transactions are conducted in Hebrew? Compare that to all 4 of the languages you just mentioned: Chinese, Spanish, Japanese and even Russian, and you could stop the discussion on language utility in the business world right there.

A good school is always a benefit to an underserved neighborhood or population, which is why in no way am I against Sela if it turns out to be a good school. But please don't keep trying to make a case for Hebrew as a needed or truly useful language to the majority of DC kids when that argument is really truly not there. It's ok to do something because a small group are intrested, and maybe Sela will spread the interest in Hebrew. That's not a bad thing.

But do not make it into something it's not, it does the whole idea a damage.