What kind of school will Van Ness Elementary end up being? More like Brent, Maury, or Ludlow-Taylor?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:An elementary without a decent MS feed is a dead end.

Brent parents disagree. A number of IB families returned for 5th Grade after turning down a seat at Basis. There are 23 kids in the class this year. Up from 15 last year and 11 or so the year before.

How many of those 23 will go on to Jefferson?

All of them.

How many of them will try the lottery for Latin and SH next year? I will believe 23 will go to Jefferson when I see it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:An elementary without a decent MS feed is a dead end.

Brent parents disagree. A number of IB families returned for 5th Grade after turning down a seat at Basis. There are 23 kids in the class this year. Up from 15 last year and 11 or so the year before.

How many of those 23 will go on to Jefferson?

All of them.

How many of them will try the lottery for Latin and SH next year? I will believe 23 will go to Jefferson when I see it.

+1. Add Hardy to that list.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We just moved to the neighborhood, so I'm probably not the best one to weigh in on this, but I'll add my two cents.

I'm excited about the school. (Incidentally, my daughter is currently #1 on the wait list for PreK, and it doesn't look like we'll get in this year.) Between the great facility and staff, I believe there's a lot of potential there. One thing that strikes me as different from Brent, Maury, and the others is that there seems to be a number of kids from military families at Van Ness. Two different staff members said something along the lines of, "our student population is very transient because of the large number of military families." This is not necessarily bad, but it might mean that fewer families invest in the school for the long haul.

I'm just getting to know the neighborhood and Van Ness, but I'm hopeful that this will be a good option for my two children.

I thought all IB kids were guaranteed a spot in PK4 at Van Ness?

I think you had to apply by the initial lottery deadline and/or rank it first.

Yes, I did not apply to the lottery in time. Our move to DC was somewhat last minute.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:An elementary without a decent MS feed is a dead end.

Brent parents disagree. A number of IB families returned for 5th Grade after turning down a seat at Basis. There are 23 kids in the class this year. Up from 15 last year and 11 or so the year before.

How many of those 23 will go on to Jefferson?

All of them.

How many of them will try the lottery for Latin and SH next year? I will believe 23 will go to Jefferson when I see it.

+1. Add Hardy to that list.

They will not all go. In fact I think some families have even been somewhat open that they won't. However even if 10 families go, that would be a start.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:An elementary without a decent MS feed is a dead end.

Brent parents disagree. A number of IB families returned for 5th Grade after turning down a seat at Basis. There are 23 kids in the class this year. Up from 15 last year and 11 or so the year before.

How many of those 23 will go on to Jefferson?

All of them.

How many of them will try the lottery for Latin and SH next year? I will believe 23 will go to Jefferson when I see it.

Latin is about as likely as today's chance of a blizzard. My understanding is that three rising Fifth Graders from Brent were accepted for this year and one of those had sibling preference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We just moved to the neighborhood, so I'm probably not the best one to weigh in on this, but I'll add my two cents.

I'm excited about the school. (Incidentally, my daughter is currently #1 on the wait list for PreK, and it doesn't look like we'll get in this year.) Between the great facility and staff, I believe there's a lot of potential there. One thing that strikes me as different from Brent, Maury, and the others is that there seems to be a number of kids from military families at Van Ness. Two different staff members said something along the lines of, "our student population is very transient because of the large number of military families." This is not necessarily bad, but it might mean that fewer families invest in the school for the long haul.

I'm just getting to know the neighborhood and Van Ness, but I'm hopeful that this will be a good option for my two children.

I thought all IB kids were guaranteed a spot in PK4 at Van Ness?

I think you had to apply by the initial lottery deadline and/or rank it first.

Yes, I did not apply to the lottery in time. Our move to DC was somewhat last minute.

I'd be willing to bet you'll get in, there were a couple of students that left my DC's PK4 class in the first 2 weeks last year. He loved it and was so excited to start K yesterday.

[Anonymous]

By the way, from the looks of my child's class at Van Ness, it is definitely not a Title I school this year.

[Anonymous]

Public housing will always be part of Van Ness.

[Anonymous]

And every DCPS EotP to some degree. So what?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:JO wilson

JO Wilson and LT have more potential than Maury and Brent and Van Ness due to middle school feed. Maury and Brent are played out and will always be chaotic in the upper grades with churn.

Got an axe to grind because you couldn't afford a 3-bed house in the Brent or Maury Districts?

Not buying it. It's not unusual for kids from Maury and Brent to head to private or parochial middle schools, or charters. The PTAs both raise a lot of dough, and have done for years - Brent now pulls in more than 300K annually. The resources pay for classroom aides, pullout groups for advanced learners, even specials teachers. The problematic middle school feeds aren't pushing down enrollment. This year's Brent 5th grade will be 40% larger than last year's.

Brent essentially has no public housing in its school district, Maury has little, and Van Ness has some (but will have less as the years go by and Navy Yard development continues a pace). Van Ness is already attract a higher percentage of whites and non-FARMs than Ludlow. I see Van Ness emerging on a par with Maury demographically and academically once it has at least one class per grade.

The east end of the Maury district is more affordable than anything in the LT district. It's also much less convenient/walkable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Public housing will always be part of Van Ness.

Right now, a lot of kids from the part of SW zoned for Van Ness (which is largely public housing) still go to Amidon, either because they are in grades VN does not offer, or because their older siblings are there and they get sibling preference, or because it's where their families planned to send them they entered the OOB lottery. I think that will change over time. There will also be more public housing units built in SE. But whether the school remains Title I depends in large part on who from the neighborhood chooses to go (and stays), and who from OOB gets in through the lottery. I think it could go back and forth, being Title I some years but not others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Public housing will always be part of Van Ness.

Right now, a lot of kids from the part of SW zoned for Van Ness (which is largely public housing) still go to Amidon, either because they are in grades VN does not offer, or because their older siblings are there and they get sibling preference, or because it's where their families planned to send them they entered the OOB lottery. I think that will change over time. There will also be more public housing units built in SE. But whether the school remains Title I depends in large part on who from the neighborhood chooses to go (and stays), and who from OOB gets in through the lottery. I think it could go back and forth, being Title I some years but not others.

Amidon is only around 35% in bound. Many kids in SW public housing attend charters. I see them waiting for the bus along M street every day.

[Anonymous]

Some OOB Amidon kids are IB for Van Ness.

But yes, a lot of kids in SW public housing go to charters. Some of them stay there long-term, and some come back to their IB schools, at times in the middle of the year.

[Anonymous]

^^ meant to say, that is also a factor that VN will have to address as it adds upper grades. Kids who are expelled or withdrawn from charters have a right to join their IB schools at any point in the year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And every DCPS EotP to some degree. So what?

So that's what charters are for: people who want to do better. Basis (and to lesser degrees Latin and DCI) are the real Capitol Hill middle schools - because DCPS refuses to produce anything better for families who care about education. Van Ness is going to suffer the same fate as Brent and Maury (though it will always be lower-end because of the public housing). Still, there's no decent MS feed and as long as that is the case, it will lose families to the charters that actually have some intellectual ambition.