Oyster and bancroft feed to McFarland

[Anonymous]

Yeah, I also love that these delusional posters seems to think that Ouster elementary feeds to Deal. The level of cluelessness in this thread is strong.

[Anonymous]

But what if Adams became a city wide test in only?

[Anonymous]

So Oyster students would lose their feed into a bilingual middle school? That’s a profoundly dumb idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But what if Adams became a city wide test in only?

And where will the Oyster kids who don’t get in attend school?!? Just stop!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But what if Adams became a city wide test in only?

And where will the Oyster kids who don’t get in attend school?!? Just stop!

They'll go to MacFarland with the other students from DCPS bilingual schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, it makes more sense in theory for the special language programs like Oyster-Adams to be city-wide magnets. But where do you put all the in-boundary kids who no longer have a guaranteed school? The middle school, at least in the early years, was working kind of as a magnet because a lot of the affluent, English-dominant kids from the neighborhood would leave; the families didn't want to take a risk on the unproven middle school program. For years, the middle school had a much larger proportion of out-of-boundary kids than the early grades. Most of those kids who bailed on the middle school ended up in Deal. By now there's probably a higher portion of in-boundary students in middle school that would lose their right to go there. Where are they going to go other than Deal/Hardy? Why would you carve out a few neighborhoods that are solidly in Ward 3 and very close to the school and force them out of the ward?

It's also not educationally-sound to force dual-language middle and high schools on a few select neighborhoods. Dual language programs are not for every kid and some cannot stay in it long term. There has to be a conventional, single language option available as of right.

It's complicated ...

They'd go to MacFarland and Roosevelt just like all the other kids at bilingual DCPS elementary schools.

Bancroft is in Ward 1. It is 3.3 miles from Deal and 1.4 miles from MacFarland.

Adams is also closer to MacFarland than to Deal, and it's 3.6 miles from Wilson and 2.2 miles from Roosevelt.

Thanks, for that info. Do you think DCPS is thinking of this? I do think it is a good idea to move those schools out of the Deal and Wilson feed, but would DCPS send them to Cardozo? Add them to all the pissed of Seaton families with no middle school they like, and maybe something good will come of Cardozo.

I have no idea what DCPS is thinking. Probably they aren't really thinking about any of this and just hope that families will get tired of crowded conditions WOTP and voluntarily go elsewhere, which isn't going to happen.

I don't think Bancroft and Oyster would go to Cardozo but to MacFarland and Roosevelt, where the other DCPS bilingual schools are routed. Cardozo is a separate issue, best served by combining the schools currently zoned there with the ones that do middle school at Francis-Stevens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, it makes more sense in theory for the special language programs like Oyster-Adams to be city-wide magnets. But where do you put all the in-boundary kids who no longer have a guaranteed school? The middle school, at least in the early years, was working kind of as a magnet because a lot of the affluent, English-dominant kids from the neighborhood would leave; the families didn't want to take a risk on the unproven middle school program. For years, the middle school had a much larger proportion of out-of-boundary kids than the early grades. Most of those kids who bailed on the middle school ended up in Deal. By now there's probably a higher portion of in-boundary students in middle school that would lose their right to go there. Where are they going to go other than Deal/Hardy? Why would you carve out a few neighborhoods that are solidly in Ward 3 and very close to the school and force them out of the ward?

It's also not educationally-sound to force dual-language middle and high schools on a few select neighborhoods. Dual language programs are not for every kid and some cannot stay in it long term. There has to be a conventional, single language option available as of right.

It's complicated ...

You put the Oyster kids at Francis Stevens (which would have room because its middle school should close and those kids would go to Cardozo MS), Cooke, and Marie Reed.
You put the Bancroft kids at Cooke, Raymond, and Tubman.

You don't have to fit the entire capacity of all the schools together because some of the kids would still lottery into the bilingual programs at Oyster and Bancroft. The total capacity of the schools don't change, but the middle schoolers currently at Adams would go to MacFarland and the middle schoolers at SWW would go to Cardozo, better utilizing the extra spaces at those middle schools.

I have to say this thread is quite funny, and comments like above simply hilarious.

Yeah, let's move kids and schools around for fun. Then let's do the same with hospitals, offices, the White House, and why not Capitol Arena too.

It's like Lego!

It's not for fun. It's to best use the schools we currently have, without having some of them overcrowded and some 3/4 empty, and without having to spend $100 million for new schools when there's plenty of capacity in nearby buildings. It's not a huge deal to change schools. Most kids in DC move schools every couple years and some a lot more often than that. And it's not like kids are going to have to trek 30 miles to school each day or something. These schools are all within a couple miles of each other, and well-served by public transit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, it makes more sense in theory for the special language programs like Oyster-Adams to be city-wide magnets. But where do you put all the in-boundary kids who no longer have a guaranteed school? The middle school, at least in the early years, was working kind of as a magnet because a lot of the affluent, English-dominant kids from the neighborhood would leave; the families didn't want to take a risk on the unproven middle school program. For years, the middle school had a much larger proportion of out-of-boundary kids than the early grades. Most of those kids who bailed on the middle school ended up in Deal. By now there's probably a higher portion of in-boundary students in middle school that would lose their right to go there. Where are they going to go other than Deal/Hardy? Why would you carve out a few neighborhoods that are solidly in Ward 3 and very close to the school and force them out of the ward?

It's also not educationally-sound to force dual-language middle and high schools on a few select neighborhoods. Dual language programs are not for every kid and some cannot stay in it long term. There has to be a conventional, single language option available as of right.

It's complicated ...

You put the Oyster kids at Francis Stevens (which would have room because its middle school should close and those kids would go to Cardozo MS), Cooke, and Marie Reed.
You put the Bancroft kids at Cooke, Raymond, and Tubman.

You don't have to fit the entire capacity of all the schools together because some of the kids would still lottery into the bilingual programs at Oyster and Bancroft. The total capacity of the schools don't change, but the middle schoolers currently at Adams would go to MacFarland and the middle schoolers at SWW would go to Cardozo, better utilizing the extra spaces at those middle schools.

I have to say this thread is quite funny, and comments like above simply hilarious.

Yeah, let's move kids and schools around for fun. Then let's do the same with hospitals, offices, the White House, and why not Capitol Arena too.

It's like Lego!

It's not for fun. It's to best use the schools we currently have, without having some of them overcrowded and some 3/4 empty, and without having to spend $100 million for new schools when there's plenty of capacity in nearby buildings. It's not a huge deal to change schools. Most kids in DC move schools every couple years and some a lot more often than that. And it's not like kids are going to have to trek 30 miles to school each day or something. These schools are all within a couple miles of each other, and well-served by public transit.

Good thing it’s not going to happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oyster already feeds to Oyster Adams Middle school in Dupont Circle Kalorama area. So you would want to shift their feeder for high school to Rosevelt, which makes excellent sense to me.

Parents may flip out.

It would be quite interesting if Wilson/ DCPS targeted Hispanics and bilinguals to kick them out.

or, you know, decided to be consistent and feed every bilingual program to the same middle and high school.

If Bancroft and Oyster don't like going to MacFarland, another solution would be to make Bancroft and Oyster city-wide bilingual magnets where nobody has IB preference. Then expand the Francis-Stevens boundary to include the current Oyster zone (there would be enough room, especially if F-S stops offering middle school and all the kids who go there were routed to Cardozo MS and HS) and expand the Raymond/Tubman/Cooke boundaries to include the current Bancroft zone.

3. OR you can leave O-A as it is so that DCPS doesn’t mess up one of the best public bilingual schools in the DC Metro area. O-A is and has been regarded as a national model for bilingual education for almost 45 years. Stop trying to fix a school that isn’t broken. DCPS needs to figure out how it can improve the city’s other bilingual schools without involving O-A.

The problem is that DCPS schools are only as food as the number of UMC families they attract. OA will always be better Mcfarannbecasue all the feeders into McFalrand losenmost ofntheie IMC families by 2nd grade. We are one of those families. Literally sharing the wealth of those families will help McFarland.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
The problem is that DCPS schools are only as food as the number of UMC families they attract. OA will always be better Mcfarannbecasue all the feeders into McFalrand losenmost ofntheie IMC families by 2nd grade. We are one of those families. Literally

sharing the wealth of those families

will help McFarland.

Maybe this isn't what you are saying, but it sounds like many people in this thread think that re-zoning UMC families into failing schools will cause those families to attend those schools and make them better. This is silly, as you say about McFarland --- UMC families leave by second grade because they have options. Until there's an attractive offering that attracts a critical mass of UMC families, it isn't going to happen.

[Anonymous]

Can you echo chamber participants cut out the “MacFarland is failing” mantra?

A school doesn’t need UMC students to be successful. They just need to do a good job teaching the kids they have. And MacFarland is just really opening this year. The last two years were just a small piece of the program.

On the feeder schools, you’re about 10 years out of date. If you don’t know any UMC families with 4th/5th graders at Powell and West then you don’t know what’s going on and should consider keeping your mouth shut. You probably also don’t know (or maybe don’t care) how many non-UMC students are at those and other feeder schools who are great students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So Oyster students would lose their feed into a bilingual middle school? That’s a profoundly dumb idea.

MacFarland is a bilingual middle school, duh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The problem is that DCPS schools are only as food as the number of UMC families they attract. OA will always be better Mcfarannbecasue all the feeders into McFalrand losenmost ofntheie IMC families by 2nd grade. We are one of those families. Literally

sharing the wealth of those families

will help McFarland.

Maybe this isn't what you are saying, but it sounds like many people in this thread think that re-zoning UMC families into failing schools will cause those families to attend those schools and make them better. This is silly, as you say about McFarland --- UMC families leave by second grade because they have options. Until there's an attractive offering that attracts a critical mass of UMC families, it isn't going to happen.

Well I thought UMC families loved dual language programs? Isn't this the reason Powell is what it is today? BMPV not so much but may get there because there isn't room in the lottery for everybody.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So Oyster students would lose their feed into a bilingual middle school? That’s a profoundly dumb idea.

MacFarland is a bilingual middle school, duh.

MacFarland is half bilingual middle school, half regular middle school.

[Anonymous]

All - I'm convinced that MacFarland is great and will be great for our kids. It's basically a new school run by a good administrator with great staff in a new building just waiting for you. I fully expect my third grader to attend.

I've met Principal Sanders enough times to get a good sense of who and how he is. He is likable and bilingual (bilingual family too!) and has a lot of experience with longtime DC families and appreciates the community that he has and what DC needs to build here. He came out of Powell and has high school experience.

One negative is his support for UNC, but I mean, come on.