Future of Brent Pk3?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm wondering if this is finally reaching the tipping point as there are enough parents that have lost in the lottery process getting to leadership positions. The issue is, if you have a current 1st grader or up, you don't understand how bad it is. The fact that 9 IB sibling families didn't get in through the lottery last year (mind you there were only 10 in the entire city) should have been a wake up call.

Leadership positions? How bad it is? Parents with kids who are in K or younger lack perspective that comes with having ushered an older kid through the elementary grades. Being an inbound family excluded from PK at Brent sucks, particularly if you have an older kid already attending but it's hardly the end of the world. How many IB families with sibling preference were excluded from PK3 as the result of this year's lottery? It's fair to question whether mixed-age classrooms make the most sense, and it's also fair to ask if maintaining PK4 is the best use of limited resources in terms of serving the larger community, even if Central Office is unlikely to allow Brent to phase out PK3, but don't blow things out of proportion.

Why would the Central Office be against it? Seems to me going to 3 PK4 classes makes sense. In the big years, you could get 80% of the IB families in. In the small years, you could let some of the OB kids in a year early instead of waiting until they start K.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCPS, Brent principal and PTA board have made it clear that they don't want to ditch PreK3/mixed-age classes. Issue is not being discussed seriously. If you really need a PreK3 somewhere on or around the Hill, you'll get a spot by the start of school from your 12 choices, probably at an AppleTree campus. You just can't apply only to super popular programs. try JO Wilson, Miner, Payne, Walker Jones, Amidon etc. They're all decent for that age group.

I wouldn't dismiss a number of 150+ if you're willing to jump in after the school year starts. You'd be surprised how low schools will still dip into waiting lists come late Sept. or early Oct.

This is simply not true any more. None of the schools on or near the hill are a guarantee for PK3 or 4 even after the school year starts. We never got off the waiting list at Payne or Tyler (traditional not Spanish) or Van Ness last year. The schools are all improving. They are all on people's communizing route in. There are more and more young families staying on the Hill and trying their neighborhood schools, in part because they can't get into charters. And for Brent families some of the schools you mentioned are far away and in the opposite direction. People tend to live on the hill because they love a walkable community. Two miles each way twice a day is not walkable with small kids.

And to the poster who said that the Brent boundary is fine, what are you smoking? The school is not big enough to accommodate all the in bounds kids. When next year's kindergarten class starts (the one that had 40 or so in bounds kids wait listed for PK3) where are they going to put them? Or are they just going to cram them all into the existing classrooms and have 40 kids in a K class. They either need to expand the school or shrink the boundary. The boundary review was a joke because it didn't do any forward projections. Five years ago you could lottery into Brent out of bounds, now you can't even get in if you are IB, yet they used the upper grades OOB stats to say the boundary/capacity was fine.

No politician in their right mind would push to shrink Brent's boundary.

Brent is a mosquito on the back of the DCPS elephant. It's cute that inbound parents whose kids might not get into PK think they are a matter of concern at the top of anyone's action list, when the overwhelming number of schools are struggling to serve poor and at-risk kids.

not a Brent parent and I totally disagree. DCPS recognizes its middle school problem and it will not be able to improve MS performance without more buy in from neighborhood schools. Schools like Brent and Maury provide the largest pools of this demographic. Economic diversity benefits those at risk students, but if they ignore the broader needs of their constituents they'll continue to get the toughest cases with the worst prospects for academic success. The more affluent parents also bring great social capital, and as much as some Hill parents bash the Cluster (I'm not a Cluster parent either), they've historically been effective at advocating for their schools in a way that Jefferson and Eliot Hine have not.

Elementary and middle schools are apples and oranges. It's next to impossible to have effective advocacy for middle schools because it's only three years and parents are already thinking about HS by the end of 7th Grade. Deal is Sui generis by virtue of its size and commonalities shared by higher-SES families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCPS, Brent principal and PTA board have made it clear that they don't want to ditch PreK3/mixed-age classes. Issue is not being discussed seriously. If you really need a PreK3 somewhere on or around the Hill, you'll get a spot by the start of school from your 12 choices, probably at an AppleTree campus. You just can't apply only to super popular programs. try JO Wilson, Miner, Payne, Walker Jones, Amidon etc. They're all decent for that age group.

I wouldn't dismiss a number of 150+ if you're willing to jump in after the school year starts. You'd be surprised how low schools will still dip into waiting lists come late Sept. or early Oct.

This is simply not true any more. None of the schools on or near the hill are a guarantee for PK3 or 4 even after the school year starts. We never got off the waiting list at Payne or Tyler (traditional not Spanish) or Van Ness last year. The schools are all improving. They are all on people's communizing route in. There are more and more young families staying on the Hill and trying their neighborhood schools, in part because they can't get into charters. And for Brent families some of the schools you mentioned are far away and in the opposite direction. People tend to live on the hill because they love a walkable community. Two miles each way twice a day is not walkable with small kids.

And to the poster who said that the Brent boundary is fine, what are you smoking? The school is not big enough to accommodate all the in bounds kids. When next year's kindergarten class starts (the one that had 40 or so in bounds kids wait listed for PK3) where are they going to put them? Or are they just going to cram them all into the existing classrooms and have 40 kids in a K class. They either need to expand the school or shrink the boundary. The boundary review was a joke because it didn't do any forward projections. Five years ago you could lottery into Brent out of bounds, now you can't even get in if you are IB, yet they used the upper grades OOB stats to say the boundary/capacity was fine.

No politician in their right mind would push to shrink Brent's boundary.

Brent is a mosquito on the back of the DCPS elephant. It's cute that inbound parents whose kids might not get into PK think they are a matter of concern at the top of anyone's action list, when the overwhelming number of schools are struggling to serve poor and at-risk kids.

not a Brent parent and I totally disagree. DCPS recognizes its middle school problem and it will not be able to improve MS performance without more buy in from neighborhood schools. Schools like Brent and Maury provide the largest pools of this demographic. Economic diversity benefits those at risk students, but if they ignore the broader needs of their constituents they'll continue to get the toughest cases with the worst prospects for academic success. The more affluent parents also bring great social capital, and as much as some Hill parents bash the Cluster (I'm not a Cluster parent either), they've historically been effective at advocating for their schools in a way that Jefferson and Eliot Hine have not.

Elementary and middle schools are apples and oranges. It's next to impossible to have effective advocacy for middle schools because it's only three years and parents are already thinking about HS by the end of 7th Grade. Deal is Sui generis by virtue of its size and commonalities shared by higher-SES families.

why did Brookland get built? or Stuart Hobson modernized?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCPS, Brent principal and PTA board have made it clear that they don't want to ditch PreK3/mixed-age classes. Issue is not being discussed seriously. If you really need a PreK3 somewhere on or around the Hill, you'll get a spot by the start of school from your 12 choices, probably at an AppleTree campus. You just can't apply only to super popular programs. try JO Wilson, Miner, Payne, Walker Jones, Amidon etc. They're all decent for that age group.

I wouldn't dismiss a number of 150+ if you're willing to jump in after the school year starts. You'd be surprised how low schools will still dip into waiting lists come late Sept. or early Oct.

This is simply not true any more. None of the schools on or near the hill are a guarantee for PK3 or 4 even after the school year starts. We never got off the waiting list at Payne or Tyler (traditional not Spanish) or Van Ness last year. The schools are all improving. They are all on people's communizing route in. There are more and more young families staying on the Hill and trying their neighborhood schools, in part because they can't get into charters. And for Brent families some of the schools you mentioned are far away and in the opposite direction. People tend to live on the hill because they love a walkable community. Two miles each way twice a day is not walkable with small kids.

And to the poster who said that the Brent boundary is fine, what are you smoking? The school is not big enough to accommodate all the in bounds kids. When next year's kindergarten class starts (the one that had 40 or so in bounds kids wait listed for PK3) where are they going to put them? Or are they just going to cram them all into the existing classrooms and have 40 kids in a K class. They either need to expand the school or shrink the boundary. The boundary review was a joke because it didn't do any forward projections. Five years ago you could lottery into Brent out of bounds, now you can't even get in if you are IB, yet they used the upper grades OOB stats to say the boundary/capacity was fine.

No politician in their right mind would push to shrink Brent's boundary.

Brent is a mosquito on the back of the DCPS elephant. It's cute that inbound parents whose kids might not get into PK think they are a matter of concern at the top of anyone's action list, when the overwhelming number of schools are struggling to serve poor and at-risk kids.

not a Brent parent and I totally disagree. DCPS recognizes its middle school problem and it will not be able to improve MS performance without more buy in from neighborhood schools. Schools like Brent and Maury provide the largest pools of this demographic. Economic diversity benefits those at risk students, but if they ignore the broader needs of their constituents they'll continue to get the toughest cases with the worst prospects for academic success. The more affluent parents also bring great social capital, and as much as some Hill parents bash the Cluster (I'm not a Cluster parent either), they've historically been effective at advocating for their schools in a way that Jefferson and Eliot Hine have not.

Elementary and middle schools are apples and oranges. It's next to impossible to have effective advocacy for middle schools because it's only three years and parents are already thinking about HS by the end of 7th Grade. Deal is Sui generis by virtue of its size and commonalities shared by higher-SES families.

it may be 3 years but parents with multiple children are more concerned about the big picture than the three year window per child

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCPS, Brent principal and PTA board have made it clear that they don't want to ditch PreK3/mixed-age classes. Issue is not being discussed seriously. If you really need a PreK3 somewhere on or around the Hill, you'll get a spot by the start of school from your 12 choices, probably at an AppleTree campus. You just can't apply only to super popular programs. try JO Wilson, Miner, Payne, Walker Jones, Amidon etc. They're all decent for that age group.

I wouldn't dismiss a number of 150+ if you're willing to jump in after the school year starts. You'd be surprised how low schools will still dip into waiting lists come late Sept. or early Oct.

This is simply not true any more. None of the schools on or near the hill are a guarantee for PK3 or 4 even after the school year starts. We never got off the waiting list at Payne or Tyler (traditional not Spanish) or Van Ness last year. The schools are all improving. They are all on people's communizing route in. There are more and more young families staying on the Hill and trying their neighborhood schools, in part because they can't get into charters. And for Brent families some of the schools you mentioned are far away and in the opposite direction. People tend to live on the hill because they love a walkable community. Two miles each way twice a day is not walkable with small kids.

And to the poster who said that the Brent boundary is fine, what are you smoking? The school is not big enough to accommodate all the in bounds kids. When next year's kindergarten class starts (the one that had 40 or so in bounds kids wait listed for PK3) where are they going to put them? Or are they just going to cram them all into the existing classrooms and have 40 kids in a K class. They either need to expand the school or shrink the boundary. The boundary review was a joke because it didn't do any forward projections. Five years ago you could lottery into Brent out of bounds, now you can't even get in if you are IB, yet they used the upper grades OOB stats to say the boundary/capacity was fine.

No politician in their right mind would push to shrink Brent's boundary.

Brent is a mosquito on the back of the DCPS elephant. It's cute that inbound parents whose kids might not get into PK think they are a matter of concern at the top of anyone's action list, when the overwhelming number of schools are struggling to serve poor and at-risk kids.

not a Brent parent and I totally disagree. DCPS recognizes its middle school problem and it will not be able to improve MS performance without more buy in from neighborhood schools. Schools like Brent and Maury provide the largest pools of this demographic. Economic diversity benefits those at risk students, but if they ignore the broader needs of their constituents they'll continue to get the toughest cases with the worst prospects for academic success. The more affluent parents also bring great social capital, and as much as some Hill parents bash the Cluster (I'm not a Cluster parent either), they've historically been effective at advocating for their schools in a way that Jefferson and Eliot Hine have not.

Elementary and middle schools are apples and oranges. It's next to impossible to have effective advocacy for middle schools because it's only three years and parents are already thinking about HS by the end of 7th Grade. Deal is Sui generis by virtue of its size and commonalities shared by higher-SES families.

why did Brookland get built? or Stuart Hobson modernized?

You clearly weren't part of the charade that was the Ward 6 Middle School Plan. The Cluster and SH receives more than its fair share because of the articulation path and, more importantly, political clout of some of its leadership from outside the Ward. Is it any wonder that DGS has spent five years trying to figure out how to make a school like Brent ADA compliant? I can't speak to Brookland but am fairly certain that politics played a major role in the decision to build a $120 million school.

[Anonymous]

Here we go again about the middle school problem. The thread is about PK3 so let's stick to that. The boundary is not changing. The Upcoming PK4 class is an anomaly like the current K class so it will work itself out next year just as the K class figured it out. This past PK3 lottery was fine and got plenty of IB kids in as well as all IB with siblings. There is no issue and PK3 is likely here to stay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCPS, Brent principal and PTA board have made it clear that they don't want to ditch PreK3/mixed-age classes. Issue is not being discussed seriously. If you really need a PreK3 somewhere on or around the Hill, you'll get a spot by the start of school from your 12 choices, probably at an AppleTree campus. You just can't apply only to super popular programs. try JO Wilson, Miner, Payne, Walker Jones, Amidon etc. They're all decent for that age group.

I wouldn't dismiss a number of 150+ if you're willing to jump in after the school year starts. You'd be surprised how low schools will still dip into waiting lists come late Sept. or early Oct.

This is simply not true any more. None of the schools on or near the hill are a guarantee for PK3 or 4 even after the school year starts. We never got off the waiting list at Payne or Tyler (traditional not Spanish) or Van Ness last year. The schools are all improving. They are all on people's communizing route in. There are more and more young families staying on the Hill and trying their neighborhood schools, in part because they can't get into charters. And for Brent families some of the schools you mentioned are far away and in the opposite direction. People tend to live on the hill because they love a walkable community. Two miles each way twice a day is not walkable with small kids.

And to the poster who said that the Brent boundary is fine, what are you smoking? The school is not big enough to accommodate all the in bounds kids. When next year's kindergarten class starts (the one that had 40 or so in bounds kids wait listed for PK3) where are they going to put them? Or are they just going to cram them all into the existing classrooms and have 40 kids in a K class. They either need to expand the school or shrink the boundary. The boundary review was a joke because it didn't do any forward projections. Five years ago you could lottery into Brent out of bounds, now you can't even get in if you are IB, yet they used the upper grades OOB stats to say the boundary/capacity was fine.

No politician in their right mind would push to shrink Brent's boundary.

Brent is a mosquito on the back of the DCPS elephant. It's cute that inbound parents whose kids might not get into PK think they are a matter of concern at the top of anyone's action list, when the overwhelming number of schools are struggling to serve poor and at-risk kids.

not a Brent parent and I totally disagree. DCPS recognizes its middle school problem and it will not be able to improve MS performance without more buy in from neighborhood schools. Schools like Brent and Maury provide the largest pools of this demographic. Economic diversity benefits those at risk students, but if they ignore the broader needs of their constituents they'll continue to get the toughest cases with the worst prospects for academic success. The more affluent parents also bring great social capital, and as much as some Hill parents bash the Cluster (I'm not a Cluster parent either), they've historically been effective at advocating for their schools in a way that Jefferson and Eliot Hine have not.

Elementary and middle schools are apples and oranges. It's next to impossible to have effective advocacy for middle schools because it's only three years and parents are already thinking about HS by the end of 7th Grade. Deal is Sui generis by virtue of its size and commonalities shared by higher-SES families.

why did Brookland get built? or Stuart Hobson modernized?

You clearly weren't part of the charade that was the Ward 6 Middle School Plan. The Cluster and SH receives more than its fair share because of the articulation path and, more importantly, political clout of some of its leadership from outside the Ward. Is it any wonder that DGS has spent five years trying to figure out how to make a school like Brent ADA compliant? I can't speak to Brookland but am fairly certain that politics played a major role in the decision to build a $120 million school.

which is it? is it "impossible to have effective advocacy for middle schools" or is it impossible for YOU to effectively advocate for MS? You've contradicted yourself with that argument.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here we go again about the middle school problem. The thread is about PK3 so let's stick to that. The boundary is not changing. The Upcoming PK4 class is an anomaly like the current K class so it will work itself out next year just as the K class figured it out. This past PK3 lottery was fine and got plenty of IB kids in as well as all IB with siblings. There is no issue and PK3 is likely here to stay.

How many IB kids didn't get in this year? Wasn't it like 20 or so? Why not let them in? And how did the K class work itself out? You mean the got old enough to go to K?

For the people who support PS3 without having a little one coming up, why? Letting in less than 50% of the IB kids without siblings is one of the worse rates in the city.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here we go again about the middle school problem. The thread is about PK3 so let's stick to that. The boundary is not changing. The Upcoming PK4 class is an anomaly like the current K class so it will work itself out next year just as the K class figured it out. This past PK3 lottery was fine and got plenty of IB kids in as well as all IB with siblings. There is no issue and PK3 is likely here to stay.

How many IB kids didn't get in this year? Wasn't it like 20 or so? Why not let them in? And how did the K class work itself out? You mean the got old enough to go to K?

For the people who support PS3 without having a little one coming up, why? Letting in less than 50% of the IB kids without siblings is one of the worse rates in the city.

There are at least 15 IB kids on the PK3 WL this year, and (as everyone has acknowledged) this year was an admittedly small cohort. So in a "small" year, 1/3 of IB kids are shut out, and in a "large" year (last year), 2/3 are shut out. It is not correct to say there is no issue or that it will "work itself out."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here we go again about the middle school problem. The thread is about PK3 so let's stick to that. The boundary is not changing. The Upcoming PK4 class is an anomaly like the current K class so it will work itself out next year just as the K class figured it out. This past PK3 lottery was fine and got plenty of IB kids in as well as all IB with siblings. There is no issue and PK3 is likely here to stay.

How many IB kids didn't get in this year? Wasn't it like 20 or so? Why not let them in? And how did the K class work itself out? You mean the got old enough to go to K?

For the people who support PS3 without having a little one coming up, why? Letting in less than 50% of the IB kids without siblings is one of the worse rates in the city.

There are at least 15 IB kids on the PK3 WL this year, and (as everyone has acknowledged) this year was an admittedly small cohort. So in a "small" year, 1/3 of IB kids are shut out, and in a "large" year (last year), 2/3 are shut out. It is not correct to say there is no issue or that it will "work itself out."

Eliminating mixed classes would accommodate more PK3 children, no doubt. Go fight that battle with the Principal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCPS, Brent principal and PTA board have made it clear that they don't want to ditch PreK3/mixed-age classes. Issue is not being discussed seriously. If you really need a PreK3 somewhere on or around the Hill, you'll get a spot by the start of school from your 12 choices, probably at an AppleTree campus. You just can't apply only to super popular programs. try JO Wilson, Miner, Payne, Walker Jones, Amidon etc. They're all decent for that age group.

I wouldn't dismiss a number of 150+ if you're willing to jump in after the school year starts. You'd be surprised how low schools will still dip into waiting lists come late Sept. or early Oct.

This is simply not true any more. None of the schools on or near the hill are a guarantee for PK3 or 4 even after the school year starts. We never got off the waiting list at Payne or Tyler (traditional not Spanish) or Van Ness last year. The schools are all improving. They are all on people's communizing route in. There are more and more young families staying on the Hill and trying their neighborhood schools, in part because they can't get into charters. And for Brent families some of the schools you mentioned are far away and in the opposite direction. People tend to live on the hill because they love a walkable community. Two miles each way twice a day is not walkable with small kids.

And to the poster who said that the Brent boundary is fine, what are you smoking? The school is not big enough to accommodate all the in bounds kids. When next year's kindergarten class starts (the one that had 40 or so in bounds kids wait listed for PK3) where are they going to put them? Or are they just going to cram them all into the existing classrooms and have 40 kids in a K class. They either need to expand the school or shrink the boundary. The boundary review was a joke because it didn't do any forward projections. Five years ago you could lottery into Brent out of bounds, now you can't even get in if you are IB, yet they used the upper grades OOB stats to say the boundary/capacity was fine.

No politician in their right mind would push to shrink Brent's boundary.

Brent is a mosquito on the back of the DCPS elephant. It's cute that inbound parents whose kids might not get into PK think they are a matter of concern at the top of anyone's action list, when the overwhelming number of schools are struggling to serve poor and at-risk kids.

not a Brent parent and I totally disagree. DCPS recognizes its middle school problem and it will not be able to improve MS performance without more buy in from neighborhood schools. Schools like Brent and Maury provide the largest pools of this demographic. Economic diversity benefits those at risk students, but if they ignore the broader needs of their constituents they'll continue to get the toughest cases with the worst prospects for academic success. The more affluent parents also bring great social capital, and as much as some Hill parents bash the Cluster (I'm not a Cluster parent either), they've historically been effective at advocating for their schools in a way that Jefferson and Eliot Hine have not.

Elementary and middle schools are apples and oranges. It's next to impossible to have effective advocacy for middle schools because it's only three years and parents are already thinking about HS by the end of 7th Grade. Deal is Sui generis by virtue of its size and commonalities shared by higher-SES families.

why did Brookland get built? or Stuart Hobson modernized?

You clearly weren't part of the charade that was the Ward 6 Middle School Plan. The Cluster and SH receives more than its fair share because of the articulation path and, more importantly, political clout of some of its leadership from outside the Ward. Is it any wonder that DGS has spent five years trying to figure out how to make a school like Brent ADA compliant? I can't speak to Brookland but am fairly certain that politics played a major role in the decision to build a $120 million school.

which is it? is it "impossible to have effective advocacy for middle schools" or is it impossible for YOU to effectively advocate for MS? You've contradicted yourself with that argument.

There is no contradiction. The Cluster has been able to effectively advocate by leveraging its unique structure. By all appearances, it has paid off handsomely in terms of modernizing SH and restoring funds for the modernization of Watkins both for new windows last summer and a gut overhaul next year. It's also no coincidence that half of the Watkins and SH population is from Wards 7 and 8. That's distinctly different than one-off middle school advocacy issues like Jefferson or EH where a handful of parents are pushing for modernization and curricular changes and yet still have the ability to jump from the sinking ship before middle school. Henderson complains that she felt that she was burned by Brent parents after "giving them everything they wanted" a few years ago. And there's not a great deal of sympathy for a school with a history of going "downtown" over issues like celebration policies, changing from Mandarin to Spanish, mixed age classrooms, etc. DCPS will pay lip service to Brent parents in an effort to placate them but there's no political will or muscle to make things happen in the part of Allen or Wells before him. That's how the rubber meets the road in DC politics, not grassroots organizing and advocacy by some rich, white families. And let's please not conflate throwing money at politically-connected construction firms with successful advocacy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here we go again about the middle school problem. The thread is about PK3 so let's stick to that. The boundary is not changing. The Upcoming PK4 class is an anomaly like the current K class so it will work itself out next year just as the K class figured it out. This past PK3 lottery was fine and got plenty of IB kids in as well as all IB with siblings. There is no issue and PK3 is likely here to stay.

How many IB kids didn't get in this year? Wasn't it like 20 or so? Why not let them in? And how did the K class work itself out? You mean the got old enough to go to K?

For the people who support PS3 without having a little one coming up, why? Letting in less than 50% of the IB kids without siblings is one of the worse rates in the city.

There are at least 15 IB kids on the PK3 WL this year, and (as everyone has acknowledged) this year was an admittedly small cohort. So in a "small" year, 1/3 of IB kids are shut out, and in a "large" year (last year), 2/3 are shut out. It is not correct to say there is no issue or that it will "work itself out."

Eliminating mixed classes would accommodate more PK3 children, no doubt. Go fight that battle with the Principal.

I am in favor of having only PK4 at Brent, with all or most of the IB kids able to attend, and then the PK class will be indicative of the K group.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCPS, Brent principal and PTA board have made it clear that they don't want to ditch PreK3/mixed-age classes. Issue is not being discussed seriously. If you really need a PreK3 somewhere on or around the Hill, you'll get a spot by the start of school from your 12 choices, probably at an AppleTree campus. You just can't apply only to super popular programs. try JO Wilson, Miner, Payne, Walker Jones, Amidon etc. They're all decent for that age group.

I wouldn't dismiss a number of 150+ if you're willing to jump in after the school year starts. You'd be surprised how low schools will still dip into waiting lists come late Sept. or early Oct.

This is simply not true any more. None of the schools on or near the hill are a guarantee for PK3 or 4 even after the school year starts. We never got off the waiting list at Payne or Tyler (traditional not Spanish) or Van Ness last year. The schools are all improving. They are all on people's communizing route in. There are more and more young families staying on the Hill and trying their neighborhood schools, in part because they can't get into charters. And for Brent families some of the schools you mentioned are far away and in the opposite direction. People tend to live on the hill because they love a walkable community. Two miles each way twice a day is not walkable with small kids.

And to the poster who said that the Brent boundary is fine, what are you smoking? The school is not big enough to accommodate all the in bounds kids. When next year's kindergarten class starts (the one that had 40 or so in bounds kids wait listed for PK3) where are they going to put them? Or are they just going to cram them all into the existing classrooms and have 40 kids in a K class. They either need to expand the school or shrink the boundary. The boundary review was a joke because it didn't do any forward projections. Five years ago you could lottery into Brent out of bounds, now you can't even get in if you are IB, yet they used the upper grades OOB stats to say the boundary/capacity was fine.

No politician in their right mind would push to shrink Brent's boundary.

Brent is a mosquito on the back of the DCPS elephant. It's cute that inbound parents whose kids might not get into PK think they are a matter of concern at the top of anyone's action list, when the overwhelming number of schools are struggling to serve poor and at-risk kids.

not a Brent parent and I totally disagree. DCPS recognizes its middle school problem and it will not be able to improve MS performance without more buy in from neighborhood schools. Schools like Brent and Maury provide the largest pools of this demographic. Economic diversity benefits those at risk students, but if they ignore the broader needs of their constituents they'll continue to get the toughest cases with the worst prospects for academic success. The more affluent parents also bring great social capital, and as much as some Hill parents bash the Cluster (I'm not a Cluster parent either), they've historically been effective at advocating for their schools in a way that Jefferson and Eliot Hine have not.

Elementary and middle schools are apples and oranges. It's next to impossible to have effective advocacy for middle schools because it's only three years and parents are already thinking about HS by the end of 7th Grade. Deal is Sui generis by virtue of its size and commonalities shared by higher-SES families.

why did Brookland get built? or Stuart Hobson modernized?

You clearly weren't part of the charade that was the Ward 6 Middle School Plan. The Cluster and SH receives more than its fair share because of the articulation path and, more importantly, political clout of some of its leadership from outside the Ward. Is it any wonder that DGS has spent five years trying to figure out how to make a school like Brent ADA compliant? I can't speak to Brookland but am fairly certain that politics played a major role in the decision to build a $120 million school.

which is it? is it "impossible to have effective advocacy for middle schools" or is it impossible for YOU to effectively advocate for MS? You've contradicted yourself with that argument.

There is no contradiction. The Cluster has been able to effectively advocate by leveraging its unique structure. By all appearances, it has paid off handsomely in terms of modernizing SH and restoring funds for the modernization of Watkins both for new windows last summer and a gut overhaul next year. It's also no coincidence that half of the Watkins and SH population is from Wards 7 and 8. That's distinctly different than one-off middle school advocacy issues like Jefferson or EH where a handful of parents are pushing for modernization and curricular changes and yet still have the ability to jump from the sinking ship before middle school. Henderson complains that she felt that she was burned by Brent parents after "giving them everything they wanted" a few years ago. And there's not a great deal of sympathy for a school with a history of going "downtown" over issues like celebration policies, changing from Mandarin to Spanish, mixed age classrooms, etc. DCPS will pay lip service to Brent parents in an effort to placate them but there's no political will or muscle to make things happen in the part of Allen or Wells before him. That's how the rubber meets the road in DC politics, not grassroots organizing and advocacy by some rich, white families. And let's please not conflate throwing money at politically-connected construction firms with successful advocacy.

total BS -- it's can easy and lazy to conflate OOB numbers with Wards 7 & 8 but that doesn't make it true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here we go again about the middle school problem. The thread is about PK3 so let's stick to that. The boundary is not changing. The Upcoming PK4 class is an anomaly like the current K class so it will work itself out next year just as the K class figured it out. This past PK3 lottery was fine and got plenty of IB kids in as well as all IB with siblings. There is no issue and PK3 is likely here to stay.

How many IB kids didn't get in this year? Wasn't it like 20 or so? Why not let them in? And how did the K class work itself out? You mean the got old enough to go to K?

For the people who support PS3 without having a little one coming up, why? Letting in less than 50% of the IB kids without siblings is one of the worse rates in the city.

There are at least 15 IB kids on the PK3 WL this year, and (as everyone has acknowledged) this year was an admittedly small cohort. So in a "small" year, 1/3 of IB kids are shut out, and in a "large" year (last year), 2/3 are shut out. It is not correct to say there is no issue or that it will "work itself out."

PK3 is not mandatory. People are upset because they have to pay another year of daycare. It works itself out in K which is required and all inbound students are accepted. Getting rid of PK3 wont' be a real option unless IB kids coming in at K are causing serious overcrowding issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here we go again about the middle school problem. The thread is about PK3 so let's stick to that. The boundary is not changing. The Upcoming PK4 class is an anomaly like the current K class so it will work itself out next year just as the K class figured it out. This past PK3 lottery was fine and got plenty of IB kids in as well as all IB with siblings. There is no issue and PK3 is likely here to stay.

How many IB kids didn't get in this year? Wasn't it like 20 or so? Why not let them in? And how did the K class work itself out? You mean the got old enough to go to K?

For the people who support PS3 without having a little one coming up, why? Letting in less than 50% of the IB kids without siblings is one of the worse rates in the city.

There are at least 15 IB kids on the PK3 WL this year, and (as everyone has acknowledged) this year was an admittedly small cohort. So in a "small" year, 1/3 of IB kids are shut out, and in a "large" year (last year), 2/3 are shut out. It is not correct to say there is no issue or that it will "work itself out."

PK3 is not mandatory. People are upset because they have to pay another year of daycare. It works itself out in K which is required and all inbound students are accepted. Getting rid of PK3 wont' be a real option unless IB kids coming in at K are causing serious overcrowding issues.

So this isn't true at all. Kids that are shut out of PS3 are shut out for two years instead of one. This year there was one spot for PK4 offered (with nine IB w/siblings on the WL).

The other issue is what happens when this kids return in K. 40 of the kids were there for 3 and 4 while 30 kids were brand new. That was a large adjustment for all involved and it is totally unnecessary.

Again, ask anyone who has been through this and they will tell you they would prefer an almost guaranteed spot at PK4.