Janney third grade parents--what do you think of the giant class sizes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are all the third grade classes set up this way? Will it be like that for the 4th and fifth grades too then for this cohort?

all the 3rd grade classes are 31/32.
the old principal (who left in May) wouldn't answer this last year when asked about 4th/5th grade sizes. it would seem to be the plan because the school is out of rooms and
some neighborhood covenant prevents them from adding trailers to the yard.
It's concerning because some of the younger grades are even bigger.

It's pretty clear that Janney will have to redo it's boundaries or get rid of PreK

It's only natural that those current parts of the Janney district closest to Murch and Hearst are re-zoned to there.

[Anonymous]

A quality education n is about more than test scores. There's no shortage of studies confirming the correlation between academic achievement and teacher ratios. I'm not saying that Janney kids won't do well either way in the long run but ...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not a Janney parent, but it seems like the overcrowding blame should fall squarely on the folks who fought the boundary revision process so hard. I guess DCPS could have done a better job standing up to that interest group, but it looks to me like DCPS is basically just letting Janney parents reap what they sowed.

seems like it.

[Anonymous]

Can't if they still rezone to Murch and ask them to stop taking OOB?

[Anonymous]

Janney did something similar a few years ago. They put over forty third graders into one classroom. It did not seem to work out well. I am surprised that they are trying something similar. Did parents know about this in advance? Two teachers or not, that is a huge class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can't if they still rezone to Murch and ask them to stop taking OOB?

Murch is designed for 400 students, has over 620, is very very full, with entire grades in trailers, and a building from 100 years ago. In addition to that, Murch will be renovated in the next two year and the over 600 Murch kids will have to go somewhere we do not yet know where. in short, Murch is not the solution for Janney's overcrowding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not a Janney parent, but it seems like the overcrowding blame should fall squarely on the folks who fought the boundary revision process so hard. I guess DCPS could have done a better job standing up to that interest group, but it looks to me like DCPS is basically just letting Janney parents reap what they sowed.

seems like it.

+1 Rezoning was the third rail, so there you go.

[Anonymous]

The janney parents were the most vocal in fighting the boundary change so this is what they get. Super crowded classes. I still want to know how a kid gets shoved so hard into a cubby in the middle of the day that it causes a concussion but no one seems to know anything about it. Where the eff are the teachers when this kind of roughhousing is going on.

[Anonymous]

Are all the 3rd grade classes that big? Or just this one? Maybe having 2 teachers helps a little bit, but I can't imagine how chaotic that must be. There was one year I recall at Murch when there were 30 kids in each 1st grade class (with 1 teacher, 1 aide), and it was a nightmare all around, even though I think everyone did the best they could. The next year they added an extra class to deal with the numbers. But, for that one year, it was really tough.

Maybe this is what Janney gets for fighting boundaries, but that's not really fair to put on them. Obviously, families in that area love their school and put a premium on living there so they can send their kids there. Yeah, sure, nothing is forever, but it seems to me to be a bit of a cheap shot to say that they get what they deserve. Maybe if DCPS did their job and made all the elementary schools as good as how the Janney parents perceive their school to be, there wouldn't be a boundary issue in the first place.

OP, if I can offer any advice: talk to other parents in the class and go as a group to express your concerns. Perhaps if a group shares a common view, it will lead to some kind of change, if that's even possible? If there is nothing the Principal will or can do, then you at least know what you are facing.

[Anonymous]

All the third grade classes are that big (31 to 33).

The kid who was injured was taken to the hospital and is doing fine.

[Anonymous]

Seems like a lot of Janney Schadenfreude...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can't if they still rezone to Murch and ask them to stop taking OOB?

Murch is designed for 400 students, has over 620, is very very full, with entire grades in trailers, and a building from 100 years ago. In addition to that, Murch will be renovated in the next two year and the over 600 Murch kids will have to go somewhere we do not yet know where. in short, Murch is not the solution for Janney's overcrowding.

And it is very, very hard for DCPS to throttle OOB back. Parents EOTP have very settled expectations that a number of slots will be available in WOTP schools. Maybe not Janney and Mann, but certainly Hearst, Eaton, Murch. Reducing OOB slots significantly is the political third rail of DC politics, and chancellors and mayors Know it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can't if they still rezone to Murch and ask them to stop taking OOB?

Murch is designed for 400 students, has over 620, is very very full, with entire grades in trailers, and a building from 100 years ago. In addition to that, Murch will be renovated in the next two year and the over 600 Murch kids will have to go somewhere we do not yet know where. in short, Murch is not the solution for Janney's overcrowding.

And it is very, very hard for DCPS to throttle OOB back. Parents EOTP have very settled expectations that a number of slots will be available in WOTP schools. Maybe not Janney and Mann, but certainly Hearst, Eaton, Murch. Reducing OOB slots significantly is the political third rail of DC politics, and chancellors and mayors Know it.

Eh, don't be too sure. Murch has -- wait for it -- dialed back the number of OOB spots every single year since I started watching 7 years ago.

If it's implemented a teeny bit at a time, the dialing back process doesn't rouse the lion across the park that is the (for the moment) politically connected Gold Coast class.

[Anonymous]

The Principal could have not allocated the additional classroom to PreK last year - but chose to do so.

So given the current population, 3rd, 4th and 5th grade classes for the foreseeable future will have 30+ children to a grade.

I would recommend that they look hard at families that were IB and moved OOB who are not enrolled because of Principal discretion.

Does any Janney family know a classmate who does not really live IBs? Willing to step up and report it to the school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can't if they still rezone to Murch and ask them to stop taking OOB?

Murch is designed for 400 students, has over 620, is very very full, with entire grades in trailers, and a building from 100 years ago. In addition to that, Murch will be renovated in the next two year and the over 600 Murch kids will have to go somewhere we do not yet know where. in short, Murch is not the solution for Janney's overcrowding.

And it is very, very hard for DCPS to throttle OOB back. Parents EOTP have very settled expectations that a number of slots will be available in WOTP schools. Maybe not Janney and Mann, but certainly Hearst, Eaton, Murch. Reducing OOB slots significantly is the political third rail of DC politics, and chancellors and mayors Know it.

Eh, don't be too sure. Murch has -- wait for it -- dialed back the number of OOB spots every single year since I started watching 7 years ago.

If it's implemented a teeny bit at a time, the dialing back process doesn't rouse the lion across the park that is the (for the moment) politically connected Gold Coast class.

Agreed. This is actually happening at many WOTP schools. Even schools like Hearst that are largely OOB are shifting quickly (for better or worse). And this isn't new either. Janney had more OOB slots not that long ago.