Crazy to move from BCC cluster ES to Janney/Deal/Wilson for schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The special needs population is statistically around 10%. Your kid will be around black and brown kids at Deal and Wilson.

By the time OP's 6 yr old child would enter Deal in 5 years, that child would be around very, very few black and brown kids. They're aging out of the pipeline (leftover from the OOB days), plus far fewer get to go in the first place now due to boundary changes under Gray. Someone here will now say "Sheperd Park, and Crestwood!" but the truth is that both of those EOTP neighborhoods grandfathered and gerrymandered into Deal are shifting from brown to white, as we speak. So in 5-8 years, they'll still be EOTP but they'll be sending grandfathered and gerrymandered white students to Deal.

Plus, Wilson's boundaries shrunk significantly, changing the demographics of the HS. Plus, the areas way EOTP still inbounds for Wilson are also getting less brown / more white — because the entire city is, and that is a fact. Ward 7 and 8 are not … but they're not going to Wilson, not now nor when OP's kid might in 8 years.

Note that all of this ^^ I'm saying is neither good nor bad. But it is reality.

Not exactly sure how any of this relates to the OP, but you've got a few of the details wrong re: your EOTP neighborhoods. Crestwood was grandfathered for a few years, but Shepherd Park and Mt. Pleasant are zoned for Wilson. In fact, SP was zoned for Coolidge HS up until a couple of years ago, when it became in-boundary for Wilson.

As for becoming "less brown / more white," Shepherd's 1st grade class (same age as OP's kid) is definitely majority minority. Bancroft is also still majority minority. So while there's some change taking place in the early grades, these schools will still be sending plenty of minority students to Deal and Wilson in coming years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don't underestimate how great it will be when your middle-schooler can get himself/herself to some after-school activities, orthodontist appts., etc., via bus/Metro, without relying on someone driving them there.

I really don't think NW DC is generally more walkable or urban than inner MoCo. Sure there are are areas in either that are more or less walkable but it's no more likely that an orthodontist requires a car for kid going to BCC than one going to Wilson.

[Anonymous]

Absolutely!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't underestimate how great it will be when your middle-schooler can get himself/herself to some after-school activities, orthodontist appts., etc., via bus/Metro, without relying on someone driving them there.

I really don't think NW DC is generally more walkable or urban than inner MoCo. Sure there are are areas in either that are more or less walkable but it's no more likely that an orthodontist requires a car for kid going to BCC than one going to Wilson.

Entirely wrong here, unless the BCC neighborhood in question is one that hugs Wisconsin Ave. Like "east Bethesda" or Somerset. Or the NWDC neighborhood happens to be Wesley Heights

[Anonymous]

Not exactly sure how any of this relates to the OP, but you've got a few of the details wrong re: your EOTP neighborhoods. Crestwood was grandfathered for a few years, but Shepherd Park and Mt. Pleasant are zoned for Wilson. In fact, SP was zoned for Coolidge HS up until a couple of years ago, when it became in-boundary for Wilson.

As for becoming "less brown / more white," Shepherd's 1st grade class (same age as OP's kid) is definitely majority minority. Bancroft is also still majority minority. So while there's some change taking place in the early grades, these schools will still be sending plenty of minority students to Deal and Wilson in coming years.

Look up the word gerrymandered. it's grandfathered AND gerrymandered. If you don't think SP and Crestwood and Bancroft were gerrymandered to remain included within Deal boundaries, then you weren't here 4 years ago. As opposed to a strict concentric ring-drawing around the Deal building and spreading outward, which is the logical mathematical option.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't underestimate how great it will be when your middle-schooler can get himself/herself to some after-school activities, orthodontist appts., etc., via bus/Metro, without relying on someone driving them there.

I really don't think NW DC is generally more walkable or urban than inner MoCo. Sure there are are areas in either that are more or less walkable but it's no more likely that an orthodontist requires a car for kid going to BCC than one going to Wilson.

Entirely wrong here, unless the BCC neighborhood in question is one that hugs Wisconsin Ave. Like "east Bethesda" or Somerset. Or the NWDC neighborhood happens to be Wesley Heights

There's a lot of BCC neighborhoods that are walkable to metro/retail. I would add Chevy Chase west and Brookdale to your list.

[Anonymous]

Kids being able to walk to school and everything else is a huge family life benefit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, who knows what schools will look like by the time your 1st grader reaches high school, but here is some current data from the US News and World Report High School Ranking data (flawed also, but has different data than Great Schools) that was posted on a thread a while back. I think BCC dominates Wilson currently, but in a decade who knows?

http://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/...chools/wilson-high-school-4649
Wilson: national rank 815, #2 in Washington DC
Total enrollment 1696
Total minority enrollment 75%
Total economically disadvantaged 100% [I think this may be because Wilson is Title 1, so automatically shows up as 100% economically disadvantaged?)
College readiness index: 47
AP tested: 80
AP passed: 45
Math proficiency: 69
English proficiency: 70

http://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/...a-chevy-chase-high-school-9137
BCC: unranked in 2016, national rank 161 in 2015
Total enrollment: 1872
Total minority enrollment: 43%
Total economically disadvantaged: 11%
College readiness index: 68
AP tested: 79
AP passed: 81
Math proficiency: 92
English proficiency: 91

Ok, well to start with Wilson has 1791 enrolled, is not a Title 1 school, and only has 27% FARMS. So not sure the rest is reliable either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP- Don't let yourself be swayed one way or the other by an anecdote. Go -- tour the schools. Look at the stats, consider your house, how urban or suburban you want to be, etc. Though I am a DCPS cheerleader, I also would take all the MoCo fear mongering with a grain of salt. Hyperbole is easy in everything.

OP here. You are correct that I do need to do more research before taking such drastic measures, but since DC is in MCPS at the moment I do have my own issues/observations.

What concerns me most about MCPS is trajectory. My impression is that MoCo economically and MCPS academically both probably peaked in the late 90's and mid 00's. I do have anxiety about the future of MoCo and I think a lot of it is justified. In some ways, oddly, moving to NW DC feels like moving to a gated community/planned community, like Columbia, MD where you can feel assured that no one will build a 400-unit apartment building down the street from your house. Right now it feels a lot like it is coasting off that momentum, both on behalf of the school/government and also increasingly the parents.

Sure our PTA is active and we have tons of volunteers, but over one year the number of families that joined the PTA and paid a paltry fee decreased by 10% while the school population grew. These are not good signs and these is the cohort my DC will be in school with for 11 more years if we stay. A lot of the anecdotes compare current HS cohorts to their contemporaries between MCPS and DCPS.

I am trying to also think ahead 10 years from now based on the trends I am seeing now and it concerns me greatly. What I think is happening now is that instead of these MCPS schools being good because they are co-located in areas where parents are well educated and dedicated to their child's education, I sense an increase in parents who are here just because they think it is supposed to be the best not realizing that what happens in the classroom is only half of the battle. Add to that class sizes of 30, along with (and please don't hate me for saying this) with 1/3 of the class ESOL students and another 1/10 special needs, the act of teaching a coherent lesson plan is impossible.

What DCPS presents to me is the idea/potential of having a class with 25 kids, a teacher AND an aid, with 75% of the kids at or above grade level and maybe one or two trouble makers. That to me is what public education is supposed to be and does not seem like too much of an ask. Unfortunately this scenario is too much of an ask for MCPS.

I know I may sound to some like a bit of a jerk. I know there is also a lot of grass-is-greenerism running through my thought processes right now. But I have a colleague who has a child at Lafayette who says its fantastic. I have another colleague with a child that went through Deal and is now at Wilson and has nothing but amazing things to say. I just have a major hunch that MCPS is for the most part riding on reputation and that time's up on MoCo.

Maybe the reason D.C. Schools don't have as many special needs kids or "bad" kids is because they don't have the ability to accommodate them like MCPS does. I really think you are misguided in your thinking. My kids are getting a top notch education in MCPS. I simply have not seen anything like you are describing in my childrens' schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't underestimate how great it will be when your middle-schooler can get himself/herself to some after-school activities, orthodontist appts., etc., via bus/Metro, without relying on someone driving them there.

I really don't think NW DC is generally more walkable or urban than inner MoCo. Sure there are are areas in either that are more or less walkable but it's no more likely that an orthodontist requires a car for kid going to BCC than one going to Wilson.

OP here. If an area doesn't have sidewalks in my book it isn't walkable. 95% of NW DC has sidewalks. Cross western venue and maybe it's 50% depending on how you define inner suburbs. Our neighborhood thankfully has sidewalks even Edgemoor is 50/50 and E. Bethesda is like 20%. Being close to downtown Bethesda has more advantages than NW DC with activities like 2 movie theatres, Roundhouse theatre, Imagination Stge, Art Works, and we have a Y very close by. But, right now I just don't feel like the trade offs between that, the pace of development, and over crowded schools seems like it's worth it.

And to answer some other PPs, I actually grew up in a city going to inner city schools during the 80s. I saw a kid get stabbed first hand in the 6th grade. In HS we had crips that sold crack cocaine. I saw many kids make bad choices, myself included on occasion. But thankfully we still had tracking back then so the kids that were motivated to learn could and the ones that weren't didn't have to. I would also like to say in case anyone has any ideas, that my family is interracial and DH is black. For me it is not about race but about having a stable community and a quality school. Diversity was actually one of the reasons we picked our ES. Moving to a NW DC ES would actually be a step down in diversity for us. But at some point it just feels like basic physics and common sense need to take over.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Could you do private? Moving is going to cost a lot, for no guarantee that you'll like the schools better.

There's also no guarantee that OP will like the private school better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Could you do private? Moving is going to cost a lot, for no guarantee that you'll like the schools better.

There's also no guarantee that OP will like the private school better.

NP here -- based on OP's description, I think she would prefer private school. Smaller classes, few or none ESOL and special needs. Few troublemakers.
Parents willing to donate to school.

I have had experience with several well regarded NW DCPS, though not with Janney. Except for 30 in a class, I found OP's description of MCPS close to what I experienced at those schools. Class size at Janney is larger, depending on the grade; based on DCUM, seems there is a downward trend; but if people start moving in from MCPS...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Could you do private? Moving is going to cost a lot, for no guarantee that you'll like the schools better.

There's also no guarantee that OP will like the private school better.

NP here -- based on OP's description, I think she would prefer private school. Smaller classes, few or none ESOL and special needs. Few troublemakers.
Parents willing to donate to school.

I have had experience with several well regarded NW DCPS, though not with Janney. Except for 30 in a class, I found OP's description of MCPS close to what I experienced at those schools. Class size at Janney is larger, depending on the grade; based on DCUM, seems there is a downward trend; but if people start moving in from MCPS...

No, class size at Janney is not larger. The 30 kids in a class from last year was an anomaly restricted to 3rd graders and an experience they are not likely to repeat.
My kid is now in 4th grade and the class size is 24. Kindergartners are at 20 per class.

[Anonymous]

Janney and Deal are great schools. Wilson? The jury is still out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, who knows what schools will look like by the time your 1st grader reaches high school, but here is some current data from the US News and World Report High School Ranking data (flawed also, but has different data than Great Schools) that was posted on a thread a while back. I think BCC dominates Wilson currently, but in a decade who knows?

http://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/...chools/wilson-high-school-4649
Wilson: national rank 815, #2 in Washington DC
Total enrollment 1696
Total minority enrollment 75%
Total economically disadvantaged 100% [I think this may be because Wilson is Title 1, so automatically shows up as 100% economically disadvantaged?)
College readiness index: 47
AP tested: 80
AP passed: 45
Math proficiency: 69
English proficiency: 70

http://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/...a-chevy-chase-high-school-9137
BCC: unranked in 2016, national rank 161 in 2015
Total enrollment: 1872
Total minority enrollment: 43%
Total economically disadvantaged: 11%
College readiness index: 68
AP tested: 79
AP passed: 81
Math proficiency: 92
English proficiency: 91

Ok, well to start with Wilson has 1791 enrolled, is not a Title 1 school, and only has 27% FARMS. So not sure the rest is reliable either.

When you disaggregate this data for race and SES status, I would be willing to bet a fair amount of money that there is little difference in the results of white, high SES students at both schools. This data seems to be for the schools as a whole and we all know that low scores (for Wilson that is likely low SES students that BCC does not have to factor into its average) bring down the average as a whole. Drill down into these numbers and you will get a much more accurate picture of what is going on at Wilson.