New opposition petition to the Maury-Miner boundary proposal from DME

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:my children go to one of the well-functioning title 1 elementary schools in the surrounding area. we started there in preK and have been there a long time now. it has been a really good experience.

Miner is not well functioning, evidently.

[Anonymous]

Huh. I belong to MOTH but never go on it, and went and read some of the conversation about the cluster as a result of seeing it mentioned here.

I'm not IB for either school and don't really have a dog in the fight. I'm sympathetic to Maury families being unhappy about the cluster but also see the arguments in favor in terms of addressing a demographic disparity that does look pretty glaring given the proximity of the schools.

I feel like the comments on MOTH have been a bit vitriolic (actually surprisingly so) but not more so on one side or the other. I think it's just a very personal issue and people tend to get emotional easily and there is defensiveness on all sides.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:my children go to one of the well-functioning title 1 elementary schools in the surrounding area. we started there in preK and have been there a long time now. it has been a really good experience.

Miner is not well functioning, evidently.

+1, though whether this is an argument for or against the cluster depends on whether or not you are IB for Maury, it turns out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Huh. I belong to MOTH but never go on it, and went and read some of the conversation about the cluster as a result of seeing it mentioned here.

I'm not IB for either school and don't really have a dog in the fight. I'm sympathetic to Maury families being unhappy about the cluster but also see the arguments in favor in terms of addressing a demographic disparity that does look pretty glaring given the proximity of the schools.

I feel like the comments on MOTH have been a bit vitriolic (actually surprisingly so) but not more so on one side or the other. I think it's just a very personal issue and people tend to get emotional easily and there is defensiveness on all sides.

It’s not really equal vitrol, with on side jumping out of the gate with accusations of racism.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:my children go to one of the well-functioning title 1 elementary schools in the surrounding area. we started there in preK and have been there a long time now. it has been a really good experience.

Miner is not well functioning, evidently.

+1, though whether this is an argument for or against the cluster depends on whether or not you are IB for Maury, it turns out.

I’m not convinced that Miner parents (many of whom are dropping off from Virginia and MD) actually want the two drop-off scenario either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:my children go to one of the well-functioning title 1 elementary schools in the surrounding area. we started there in preK and have been there a long time now. it has been a really good experience.

Miner is not well functioning, evidently.

+1, though whether this is an argument for or against the cluster depends on whether or not you are IB for Maury, it turns out.

I’m not convinced that Miner parents (many of whom are dropping off from Virginia and MD) actually want the two drop-off scenario either.

DME specifically said they haven't heard from at-risk families. In addition, they identified that low income Miner families in the NE corner of Miner's boundary would have the greatest increase in commute going to Maury, not even taking dual drop-off into account.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:my children go to one of the well-functioning title 1 elementary schools in the surrounding area. we started there in preK and have been there a long time now. it has been a really good experience.

Miner is not well functioning, evidently.

+1, though whether this is an argument for or against the cluster depends on whether or not you are IB for Maury, it turns out.

I’m not convinced that Miner parents (many of whom are dropping off from Virginia and MD) actually want the two drop-off scenario either.

DME specifically said they haven't heard from at-risk families. In addition, they identified that low income Miner families in the NE corner of Miner's boundary would have the greatest increase in commute going to Maury, not even taking dual drop-off into account.

yes and not to mention that Maury is poorly served by buses downtown so anyone headed there needs to tack on an extra 15-20 minutes to get to the metro.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Apparently the recommendation will be to form a committee to explore the cluster idea. Completely outrageous.

And they’re talking about recommending that a 30% at-risk set aside be implemented JUST for Maury.

They freely admit that this will disproportionately affect the (already weak) upper grades.

What a disaster.

Ok, it looks like one potential recommendation is to implement the 30% generally. Still a stupid idea.

I disagree. There has to be a way to alleviate the pockets of concentrated poverty, since we can't do it through housing, let's at least have these kids in better-performing schools with peers who have college ambitions.

there are not enough high-performing kids in DCPS to do this.

And it's really something for DC to push schools to the brink of Title I without actually qualifying, and without any extra support from DC.

I continue not to see reliable data that moving to a 30% at-risk school alone is enough to improve academic outcomes for an at-risk student. And as others have pointed out, there are plenty of children in DC who don't quite qualify for "at-risk" who will therefore be disadvantaged by this.

Also fundamentally think any threshold like this makes sense only on a grade level basis, not school wide. As the committee openly acknowledged last night, what this will do at many elementary schools is just fill upper grade spots with exclusively at-risk kids, who are more likely to be (though of course aren't necessarily) below grade level -- this won't help them, and it will in all likelihood make upper grades less desirable to IB families, which ultimately is bad for middle schools as well as the elementary schools.

To further illustrate, it's one thing to have 30% at-risk in fifth grade, but if your fifth grade is 40% at-risk and has spots open up because you have students leaving for Latin/Basis, but the school as a whole is only 20% at-risk, having this set-aside as you try to fill those fifth grade spots is a bigger problem.

But based on earlier discussion it sounds like schools can just opt not to fill spots via lottery? I never knew that, but maybe that's the way forward.

Totally agree any set aside needs to be done on a grade by grade basis, or it could be a lot more than 40% in upper grades. LT is 17% at risk and I would guess that the 5th grade is 40% at risk now in the absence of any preference, because a lot of kids were taken in the lottery to fill a 3rd class and those were heavily at risk kids. Because there are relatively few lottery slots available in the lower grades and few at risk kids living IB, this would basically mean that all lottery spots offered in any grade would go to at risk kids (and because of LT’s location, those spots will fill unlike in UNW). So now lower grades will have marginally higher percentages of at risk kids 4-5 extra kids, year… totally fine and what the set aside is for. But grades 3-5 will probably be 30-70% at risk and it will essentially create 2 different schools with conflicting priorities and all the money concentrated in the lower grades, but the total amount being less... so harder for the PTO to guarantee the things it does now like free aftercare, clubs and field trips for at risk kids. The school won’t quite get back to T1 overall, so no extra money to cover the gaps and a worse experience for those at risk kids. Just a total mess. And a vicious cycle where more and more 5th graders will head to charters.

Also, if the at risk trumps sibling preference and proximity preference, it will totally change the character of the school and leave a lot of existing families in the lurch.

[Anonymous]

Could someone give a rundown of last night’s meeting(s)? Are the recommendations (as stated in the two relevant slides) now final?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Huh. I belong to MOTH but never go on it, and went and read some of the conversation about the cluster as a result of seeing it mentioned here.

I'm not IB for either school and don't really have a dog in the fight. I'm sympathetic to Maury families being unhappy about the cluster but also see the arguments in favor in terms of addressing a demographic disparity that does look pretty glaring given the proximity of the schools.

I feel like the comments on MOTH have been a bit vitriolic (actually surprisingly so) but not more so on one side or the other. I think it's just a very personal issue and people tend to get emotional easily and there is defensiveness on all sides.

It’s not really equal vitrol, with on side jumping out of the gate with accusations of racism.

True. The only really nasty remarks have come from that one “side.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I could also do without all these posts on MOTH and certain parents' social media explicitly calling people who oppose the pairing racist. These are people who have chosen to raise their kids and attend public schools in NE DC (and Maury families attend a school that is over 40% non-white).

Agreed. I have found the "promerger" crowd on MOTH to be rather aggressive and accusatory. I am of course biased (as I'm opposed to the merger) so I do wonder if others have felt the same?

I have found it extremely interesting that a lot of the loudest cheerleaders on MOTH and elsewhere in the community don't actually send their kids to Miner.

Hated that the pro-petition labels opposition concerns as "anxieties" and "opponents of change". Fun political garbage.

Talks I've had with my neighbors have all been reasonable and that includes folks who were for and against the cluster. I think there are sensible arguments for and against. People on the internet are inflammatory, there's some fiery stuff out there from merger opposition as well; but everyone I've talked to in person has been civil.

Generally agreed. Online is very different from in-person, where people have generally been respectful. The only lack of civility I witnessed in person was at one of the discussions that the Maury principal held. A pro-merger mom mis-represented that her small discussion group had been in agreement in support of merger, and then it looked like she literally tried to prevent another parent from getting the mic to correct the record.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I could also do without all these posts on MOTH and certain parents' social media explicitly calling people who oppose the pairing racist. These are people who have chosen to raise their kids and attend public schools in NE DC (and Maury families attend a school that is over 40% non-white).

Agreed. I have found the "promerger" crowd on MOTH to be rather aggressive and accusatory. I am of course biased (as I'm opposed to the merger) so I do wonder if others have felt the same?

I have found it extremely interesting that a lot of the loudest cheerleaders on MOTH and elsewhere in the community don't actually send their kids to Miner.

Hated that the pro-petition labels opposition concerns as "anxieties" and "opponents of change". Fun political garbage.

Talks I've had with my neighbors have all been reasonable and that includes folks who were for and against the cluster. I think there are sensible arguments for and against. People on the internet are inflammatory, there's some fiery stuff out there from merger opposition as well; but everyone I've talked to in person has been civil.

Generally agreed. Online is very different from in-person, where people have generally been respectful. The only lack of civility I witnessed in person was at one of the discussions that the Maury principal held. A pro-merger mom mis-represented that her small discussion group had been in agreement in support of merger, and then it looked like she literally tried to prevent another parent from getting the mic to correct the record.

really???

[Anonymous]

School boundaries should be according to proximity to the schools, like everyone within 2 mile radius, not according to social engineering experiments. People buy homes for schools and any loss in home values is a hit on retirement funds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:School boundaries should be according to proximity to the schools, like everyone within 2 mile radius, not according to social engineering experiments. People buy homes for schools and any loss in home values is a hit on retirement funds.

Except with the school boundaries on the Hill, everyone involved is well within 2 miles of almost every school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:School boundaries should be according to proximity to the schools, like everyone within 2 mile radius, not according to social engineering experiments. People buy homes for schools and any loss in home values is a hit on retirement funds.

Except with the school boundaries on the Hill, everyone involved is well within 2 miles of almost every school.

+1, this does not work for dense urban districts. And with Maury and Miner specifically, the schools themselves are just a few blocks apart, so no matter how you draw the line between them, it will always be "socially engineered" to some degree. The current boundaries are definitely socially engineered.