Middle Schools for Cap Hill

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:What is this stupid argument. Hill schools lose 25-50% of 5th grade to charters etc every year. It’s not “confirmation bias.”

No one disagrees that Hill schools lose kids in 5th. The question is whether that is trending up or down. Trying to figure out what will happen next year by using what you "know" this year if you think that is what is happening because you "know" no one could stay because "DCPS is intentionally hurting UMC white IB folks" is where confirmation bias comes in.

You don't know how many kids are staying or going as against prior years and you need to look at actual data to see trendlines. We know there are more kids going to SH from feeders than there used to be and that there are more IB kids in 5th at Hill ES than there were 5 years ago (and for sure 10 years ago). Those changes happen a few kids at a time over a number of years. You can't see those shifts in a single year (one year does not a trend make) and as much as you may "know" what every kid in 4th grade or 5th grade is doing, you just don't.

Sure there’s some increase, but every 4th grade family tries the lottery. Even the most self-righteous moms end up trying it.

+1, and I'd also argue that it's actually hard to assess trends either way at the moment because of Covid. It's thrown things up the air. People who were never really considering private wound up discovering during Covid that they can scrounge the money up for it (and saw that privates in DC actually opened in the 2020-21 school year). People considering MS at their DCPS IB but figured they'd move or go private for HS moved up their timelines in some cases. I think Covid made some people more apt to stay put (less change during a tumultuous time for a kid at a critical juncture in school) and made others more likely to lottery into a charter if they could, because of frustration with how their school handled Covid.

MS is a tough time for behavior and social issues, even at the best possible school. Covid has exacerbated that. I don't think you can assume that trends will continue to move in the same direction because so many parents shifted focus and priorities during Covid.

And while prior trends moved in favor of more families staying at Hill elementaries for 5th, and more trying their IB MS, it's not like these trends were overwhelming. We're talking about a very small trickle in that direction. Compare that to the shift we saw at L-T towards more IB families overall. Now THAT was a trend, that pushed L-T out of Title 1 status really fast.

I am skeptical of anyone who thinks they know with any certainty how this is all going to shake out in a few years. I know people who told me with absolutely certaining 5 years ago that SH would be over 50% IB kids by now. Well, it's not. And Eastern is still considered a non-option for most Hill families. So when you talk trends, you need to talk all of them, not just the ones that support your hypothesis.

I also think the increase in families staying for 5th is most likely a result of “escape” middle schools (BASIS and Latin) getting harder to crack. This is why I think numbers will drop even further this year, with the addition of Latin II.

Yes, but are there not similar elementary schools to LT in other non Capitol Hill or non Wilson neighborhoods? Say Shaw or Petworth? Won’t those kids be applying to these charters as well? I assumed there is but I actually have no idea and it’s a serious question?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:What is this stupid argument. Hill schools lose 25-50% of 5th grade to charters etc every year. It’s not “confirmation bias.”

What is really concerning are some of the racial undertones in some of the other PPs. There is no way of knowing the SES or educational achievement of any of the new kids in 5th grade unless you're just making assumptions...

Sure there is. It’s well discussed in our school that the upper grade lottery admits have “higher needs.” Lotterying into (or boundary frauding into) an elementary school with a bad MS doesn’t result suggest a family with ample means. I’m happy to have them in our school; I just feel bad that Ward 7 and 8 are so terrible that our MS is an improvement to them.

Being Pollyanish about this stuff helps nobody.

I find it funny that families who live IB for Brent talk about people that don't have "ample means" as if they are paying 60k/yr for private school. If it makes you feel better to pretend like by living IB for Brent you are rich then go on with your bad self. Also, love the assumption that someone who doesn't look like you or belong to your book club surely must be committing boundary fraud to be attending school with Molly and Dylan.

You must be one of those Tucker viewers who thinks that racism isn't racism if you claim you are just being real.

not accepting the facts does zero good for anyone. seriously. you’re in denial about how bad ward 7 and 8 schools are, and you persist in it because it makes you feel self righteous. in contrast I want all DC kids (and PG kids lol) to have access to high quality schools. I have no issue with the kids added to our school - I just wish we got the additional staff we need to support them.

There it is. You said the quiet part out loud. It isn't "YOUR SCHOOL". It belongs to all of DC and it is the school of anyone who attends. You view it as an "us vs. them". That's not how this works.

This is a dumb take. People talk about “their” school on DCUM all the time. It’s not an “us v them” thing. It’s an identifying thing. “Our school” has science, but only because the PTO essentially pays for half of it. If I didn’t say “our school,” people would accuse me of making generalizations.

So would it be alright if "your" PTO paid for science at all schools instead of just "your" school?

NP, but you are really stupid.

Referring to the school your child attends as "our school" is normal. Just as it is normal for the new students in 5th grade to begin calling it "our school" also. There's a million phrases on this board to pick apart but you picked the dumbest option possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is this stupid argument. Hill schools lose 25-50% of 5th grade to charters etc every year. It’s not “confirmation bias.”

No one disagrees that Hill schools lose kids in 5th. The question is whether that is trending up or down. Trying to figure out what will happen next year by using what you "know" this year if you think that is what is happening because you "know" no one could stay because "DCPS is intentionally hurting UMC white IB folks" is where confirmation bias comes in.

You don't know how many kids are staying or going as against prior years and you need to look at actual data to see trendlines. We know there are more kids going to SH from feeders than there used to be and that there are more IB kids in 5th at Hill ES than there were 5 years ago (and for sure 10 years ago). Those changes happen a few kids at a time over a number of years. You can't see those shifts in a single year (one year does not a trend make) and as much as you may "know" what every kid in 4th grade or 5th grade is doing, you just don't.

Sure there’s some increase, but every 4th grade family tries the lottery. Even the most self-righteous moms end up trying it.

+1, and I'd also argue that it's actually hard to assess trends either way at the moment because of Covid. It's thrown things up the air. People who were never really considering private wound up discovering during Covid that they can scrounge the money up for it (and saw that privates in DC actually opened in the 2020-21 school year). People considering MS at their DCPS IB but figured they'd move or go private for HS moved up their timelines in some cases. I think Covid made some people more apt to stay put (less change during a tumultuous time for a kid at a critical juncture in school) and made others more likely to lottery into a charter if they could, because of frustration with how their school handled Covid.

MS is a tough time for behavior and social issues, even at the best possible school. Covid has exacerbated that. I don't think you can assume that trends will continue to move in the same direction because so many parents shifted focus and priorities during Covid.

And while prior trends moved in favor of more families staying at Hill elementaries for 5th, and more trying their IB MS, it's not like these trends were overwhelming. We're talking about a very small trickle in that direction. Compare that to the shift we saw at L-T towards more IB families overall. Now THAT was a trend, that pushed L-T out of Title 1 status really fast.

I am skeptical of anyone who thinks they know with any certainty how this is all going to shake out in a few years. I know people who told me with absolutely certaining 5 years ago that SH would be over 50% IB kids by now. Well, it's not. And Eastern is still considered a non-option for most Hill families. So when you talk trends, you need to talk all of them, not just the ones that support your hypothesis.

My lord, the Men Girls are all out in full force this morning. You just "+1" to agree with a post that expressed with absolute certainty that they "know" what's happening this year and in the future, and you followed it up with a thoughtful post about how trends aren't one year in the making, acknowledging trends in pre-covid times are the opposite of what the person you "agreed" with said. And you concluded with what I think is a fair statement that no one knows what trends will or won't continue as covid abates.

So other than wanting to back Muffy so you can tell her how much you love her and her hair at the next book club meeting, tell me how you actually agree with her post? And how you disagree with my posts arguing the people who claim to "know" simply do not?

PP here. You get this is an anonymous board, right? I don't know any of you and could care less what you think of me. Definitely not trying to score points with anyone to get into a book club. What on earth.

I was agreeing with the point that once people get to 4th grade, or MS, even the people who were most vocal about investing in IB schools and improving the MS feed will do a lottery application. I've done it, people I know have done it. Anecdotal, of course, but what I have found to be true is that by 4th/5th grade your kid is talking about MS with all their friends, you have a good sense of who is lettering and what their preferences are, and it is the rare parent who tell their kid "No, we are going to stay with the IB and not even look at charters or other options." I personally know parents who really wanted to do the IB MS but wound up doing a lottery application and sending their kid to BASIS because it was what their kid wanted and they ultimately did not want to force their kid to attend a school they didn't want to attend, when most of their friends were going elsewhere.

The PP you call "Muffy" (lol) was saying something that I see reflected in my own experience. Sorry if you think that makes us "Mean Girls". I doubt I know PP in real life and am not trying to score social points here, but whatever.

You go girl. See ya in the book club (and love the hair!)

-Muffy

rofl

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is this stupid argument. Hill schools lose 25-50% of 5th grade to charters etc every year. It’s not “confirmation bias.”

What is really concerning are some of the racial undertones in some of the other PPs. There is no way of knowing the SES or educational achievement of any of the new kids in 5th grade unless you're just making assumptions...

Sure there is. It’s well discussed in our school that the upper grade lottery admits have “higher needs.” Lotterying into (or boundary frauding into) an elementary school with a bad MS doesn’t result suggest a family with ample means. I’m happy to have them in our school; I just feel bad that Ward 7 and 8 are so terrible that our MS is an improvement to them.

Being Pollyanish about this stuff helps nobody.

I find it funny that families who live IB for Brent talk about people that don't have "ample means" as if they are paying 60k/yr for private school. If it makes you feel better to pretend like by living IB for Brent you are rich then go on with your bad self. Also, love the assumption that someone who doesn't look like you or belong to your book club surely must be committing boundary fraud to be attending school with Molly and Dylan.

You must be one of those Tucker viewers who thinks that racism isn't racism if you claim you are just being real.

not accepting the facts does zero good for anyone. seriously. you’re in denial about how bad ward 7 and 8 schools are, and you persist in it because it makes you feel self righteous. in contrast I want all DC kids (and PG kids lol) to have access to high quality schools. I have no issue with the kids added to our school - I just wish we got the additional staff we need to support them.

There it is. You said the quiet part out loud. It isn't "YOUR SCHOOL". It belongs to all of DC and it is the school of anyone who attends. You view it as an "us vs. them". That's not how this works.

This is a dumb take. People talk about “their” school on DCUM all the time. It’s not an “us v them” thing. It’s an identifying thing. “Our school” has science, but only because the PTO essentially pays for half of it. If I didn’t say “our school,” people would accuse me of making generalizations.

So would it be alright if "your" PTO paid for science at all schools instead of just "your" school?

I’m not sure what this question is even meant to mean? With the exception of maybe Lafayette because of this size, no PTO raises enough to do that.
Very few DCPS parents wouldn’t prefer that DCPS paid for science for all students.

[Anonymous]

Science is probably lacking in DCPS.

All they care about is math and reading because PARCC

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Science is probably lacking in DCPS.

All they care about is math and reading because PARCC

Typo poorly

[Anonymous]

Pretty much.

[Anonymous]

50% UMC?!?! There is not a single house under a million dollars in their boundary!

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, and the great majority of UMC Ludlow 4th graders are either heading to BASIS, one of the Latins, Inspired Teaching, CHM, a private or hoping to get off a public charter school wait list.

Bravo, DCPS!

There is no data to support this statement. In fact an increasing percentage of LT students are remaining for 5th. It is also funny to watch people talk about LT as one of the "gentrified" schools in the same breath as they say DCPS has no shot of gentrifying schools. You are all glossing over what LT looked like merely 4 or 5 years ago.

My point here is that it doesn't advance anyone's interest to just make things up. So many of you on DCUM just do what Stephen Colbert's character on the Colbert Report used to do: don't worry about facts, just stick to "truthiness".

Different poster. You don't seem to have the skinny on LT in 2022. We've been collecting data in the neighborhood. No great challenge.

We've asked around about IB numbers for 4th grade at LT for SY 2020-2021 vs. 5th grade IB numbers. We get this info from half a dozen IB LT 4th grade families (longtime neighbors, friends) who've been at the school for years.

What my numbers tell me is that more than half the IB LT families in 4th and 5th grade left for ms charters last year. This year, it looks like most will leave, with strong LT representation at Latin 2. Not the great majority leaving as stated above, but a majority.

Same old story, like Maury, Brent and SWS. Any surprises?

Draw your own conclusions.

So the DCUM echo chamber wasn't myopic enough for you? You seriously asked your friends in the neighborhood and THAT's your sample "data"?

Sorry, you think some DCUM posts are more accurate than... asking her neighbors who are IB for the school?

The LT 4th grade class has fewer than 50 kids. The LT IB is tiny geographically. Probably 50% is UMC and vast majority of that is IB (or within 2 blocks of the IB). It would be extremely easy for her to get a pretty accurate picture from talking to 6 neighbor families. We're only talking about 25 kids and folks are compiling local email lists for each of the big 3 IB Hill ES destinations, so if she talked to one family with a kid going to each of Basis, Latin I and Latin II, that alone would clue her into the destinations of roughly 50% of the UMC kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
50% UMC?!?! There is not a single house under a million dollars in their boundary!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, and the great majority of UMC Ludlow 4th graders are either heading to BASIS, one of the Latins, Inspired Teaching, CHM, a private or hoping to get off a public charter school wait list.

Bravo, DCPS!

There is no data to support this statement. In fact an increasing percentage of LT students are remaining for 5th. It is also funny to watch people talk about LT as one of the "gentrified" schools in the same breath as they say DCPS has no shot of gentrifying schools. You are all glossing over what LT looked like merely 4 or 5 years ago.

My point here is that it doesn't advance anyone's interest to just make things up. So many of you on DCUM just do what Stephen Colbert's character on the Colbert Report used to do: don't worry about facts, just stick to "truthiness".

Different poster. You don't seem to have the skinny on LT in 2022. We've been collecting data in the neighborhood. No great challenge.

We've asked around about IB numbers for 4th grade at LT for SY 2020-2021 vs. 5th grade IB numbers. We get this info from half a dozen IB LT 4th grade families (longtime neighbors, friends) who've been at the school for years.

What my numbers tell me is that more than half the IB LT families in 4th and 5th grade left for ms charters last year. This year, it looks like most will leave, with strong LT representation at Latin 2. Not the great majority leaving as stated above, but a majority.

Same old story, like Maury, Brent and SWS. Any surprises?

Draw your own conclusions.

So the DCUM echo chamber wasn't myopic enough for you? You seriously asked your friends in the neighborhood and THAT's your sample "data"?

Sorry, you think some DCUM posts are more accurate than... asking her neighbors who are IB for the school?

The LT 4th grade class has fewer than 50 kids. The LT IB is tiny geographically. Probably 50% is UMC and vast majority of that is IB (or within 2 blocks of the IB). It would be extremely easy for her to get a pretty accurate picture from talking to 6 neighbor families. We're only talking about 25 kids and folks are compiling local email lists for each of the big 3 IB Hill ES destinations, so if she talked to one family with a kid going to each of Basis, Latin I and Latin II, that alone would clue her into the destinations of roughly 50% of the UMC kids.

Sorry, LT is 50% UMC in 4th grade. The IB is like 95% UMC (although there are definitely homes under a million in the boundary). The school is probably like 40-45% IB at that grade level, but there are OOB UMC kids too (including a ton that live w/in 2-3 blocks of the IB boundary, many of whom therefore closer to LT than their zoned school).

[Anonymous]

Out of curiosity, I asked my Hill elementary 4th grade kid who in their class is headed to BASIS next year. She rattled off half the class (apparently they discussed where everyone is going next year some time after the lottery). And this is before BASIS even gets through much of their waitlist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Out of curiosity, I asked my Hill elementary 4th grade kid who in their class is headed to BASIS next year. She rattled off half the class (apparently they discussed where everyone is going next year some time after the lottery). And this is before BASIS even gets through much of their waitlist.

No surprises there. It’s not like this is new as others on this thread have been saying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, and the great majority of UMC Ludlow 4th graders are either heading to BASIS, one of the Latins, Inspired Teaching, CHM, a private or hoping to get off a public charter school wait list.

Bravo, DCPS!

There are UMC LT families heading to CHML for middle school??? That does not seem like a good decision. I would go to SH over CHML in a heartbeat.

As someone who is IB for Jefferson and considering CMHL, what is the issue with CHML and why is that not considered a good choice?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, and the great majority of UMC Ludlow 4th graders are either heading to BASIS, one of the Latins, Inspired Teaching, CHM, a private or hoping to get off a public charter school wait list.

Bravo, DCPS!

There are UMC LT families heading to CHML for middle school??? That does not seem like a good decision. I would go to SH over CHML in a heartbeat.

As someone who is IB for Jefferson and considering CMHL, what is the issue with CHML and why is that not considered a good choice?

You might be better off at CHML than Jefferson, but it's doubtful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, and the great majority of UMC Ludlow 4th graders are either heading to BASIS, one of the Latins, Inspired Teaching, CHM, a private or hoping to get off a public charter school wait list.

Bravo, DCPS!

There are UMC LT families heading to CHML for middle school??? That does not seem like a good decision. I would go to SH over CHML in a heartbeat.

As someone who is IB for Jefferson and considering CMHL, what is the issue with CHML and why is that not considered a good choice?

You might be better off at CHML than Jefferson, but it's doubtful.

What is the reason behind the sentiment? What are the issues at CHML that places it in the same category at Jefferson? I would really like to know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, and the great majority of UMC Ludlow 4th graders are either heading to BASIS, one of the Latins, Inspired Teaching, CHM, a private or hoping to get off a public charter school wait list.

Bravo, DCPS!

There are UMC LT families heading to CHML for middle school??? That does not seem like a good decision. I would go to SH over CHML in a heartbeat.

As someone who is IB for Jefferson and considering CMHL, what is the issue with CHML and why is that not considered a good choice?

You might be better off at CHML than Jefferson, but it's doubtful.

What is the reason behind the sentiment? What are the issues at CHML that places it in the same category at Jefferson? I would really like to know.

Have you taken a gander at their standardized test scores?

CHML is ranked 45th middle school in DC. Jefferson is ranked 19. CHML math proficiency is 32%.

I wouldn't take either of those options, but CHML is objectively worse.