Jefferson Academy Kool-Aid

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Washington Global? Brookland middle? MacFarland? Hardy?

Brookland MS and Hardy are tough without going to feeder first and Hardy feeder ES spots are getting tougher to snare. Brookland has a great facility but not much else to recommend it. Hardy has a lousy facility but great feeders and potential

MacFarland -- Why? Ditto for Washington Global. Would just as soon try Jefferson

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Make Elliot Hine and Jefferson one school.

I agree there should be one less middle school in Ward 6. But If you close EH, where would kids from hill East attend? If you close Jefferson, where will kids from SW attend?

A very short bus ride shouldn't be all that hard to figure out. Don't some of the WMATA busses have special school routes for high schools?

The inboundary area for Deal was HUGE, like half the city huge and students figured out how to get there. People make it work for quality schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jefferson is serving only about 80 kids living in the catchment boundary. Brent is never going to send scores of kids to Jefferson by virtue of its size alone and the same will be true of Van Ness. So what is the rationale for keeping the school open when it's only half filled and badly in need of modernization? DCPS is incapable of seeing the forest for the trees, otherwise Eliot-Hine would have been modernized before Watkins to provide a suitable swing space. Maybe some Hill parents can coalesce around a plan to excess Jefferson so that Basis or another charter can have a proper middle/high school campus. After all, Henderson should be made to choke on her pronouncement that DCPS doesn't do middle school very well. In the absence of the NCLB waiver Jefferson would be just another of many failing schools in our city.

So where are all of these kids from VN and Brent going to go to Middle school?

See if you can get in touch with Adrian Fenty and ask why he surplused Hine.

So the answer to three deficient MS on the Hill is a fourth deficient MS? Hine was failing even when a much lower bar for failure existed at DCPS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And there are numerous Brent parents at Stuart-Hobson, some loop via Watkins' 5th grade, some lottery in, some already live IB.

1. How many kids IB for Brent have "looped" to SH via 5th at Watkins?
2. How many families IB for the Cluster have stayed at Brent through 5th and then enrolled at SH?
3. How many families IB for Brent stayed through 5th and then enrolled at SH via the lottery?

Data from the past 5 years would be instructive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jefferson is serving only about 80 kids living in the catchment boundary. Brent is never going to send scores of kids to Jefferson by virtue of its size alone and the same will be true of Van Ness. So what is the rationale for keeping the school open when it's only half filled and badly in need of modernization? DCPS is incapable of seeing the forest for the trees, otherwise Eliot-Hine would have been modernized before Watkins to provide a suitable swing space. Maybe some Hill parents can coalesce around a plan to excess Jefferson so that Basis or another charter can have a proper middle/high school campus. After all, Henderson should be made to choke on her pronouncement that DCPS doesn't do middle school very well. In the absence of the NCLB waiver Jefferson would be just another of many failing schools in our city.

So where are all of these kids from VN and Brent going to go to Middle school?

See if you can get in touch with Adrian Fenty and ask why he surplused Hine.

So the answer to three deficient MS on the Hill is a fourth deficient MS? Hine was failing even when a much lower bar for failure existed at DCPS

Logic isn't your strength, is it? Hine was located on major bus line and above the EM metro station.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can't believe SH is 15% inbounds - what a joke! Get rid of the OOB elementary school feeder rights, draw a normal looking boundary (say 1 mile radius around the school, rather than the absurd jury-rigged boundary currently in place) and SH would turn into Deal OVERNIGHT. In fact, SH would probably turn majority white/high SES overnight.

Some of us around Ward 6 are actually trying to come up with practical solutions to our splintered middle
School situation that put the most number of students ( of all backgrounds ) in a better position educationally than they are now.

Then there are jack**** like the pp who give us all a bad name.

I, for one, don't crave a majority white/high income school for my white/middle income kids. I desire a school that has fabulous visionary leadership, professional teaching staff, a variety of electives and extracurricular activities, a positive school culture and a majority of students who have come out of their elementary schools prepared to learn and thrive at grade level. It can happen. And experience tells me DCPS isn't willing to make that happen. So it leaves ignorant parents to think it is all about white kids

Thank you for saying that. I have a hard time believing that people like that PP are my neighbors on the HIll.

what about for HS? get off your high horse. You aren't sending your kid to Easter High School either.

There's a difference between trying to find a solution that works for all neighbors/DC citizens (while acknowledging that, no, I would not send my kid to Eastern now) and being nakedly racist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jefferson is serving only about 80 kids living in the catchment boundary. Brent is never going to send scores of kids to Jefferson by virtue of its size alone and the same will be true of Van Ness. So what is the rationale for keeping the school open when it's only half filled and badly in need of modernization? DCPS is incapable of seeing the forest for the trees, otherwise Eliot-Hine would have been modernized before Watkins to provide a suitable swing space. Maybe some Hill parents can coalesce around a plan to excess Jefferson so that Basis or another charter can have a proper middle/high school campus. After all, Henderson should be made to choke on her pronouncement that DCPS doesn't do middle school very well. In the absence of the NCLB waiver Jefferson would be just another of many failing schools in our city.

So where are all of these kids from VN and Brent going to go to Middle school?

See if you can get in touch with Adrian Fenty and ask why he surplused Hine.

So the answer to three deficient MS on the Hill is a fourth deficient MS? Hine was failing even when a much lower bar for failure existed at DCPS

Logic isn't your strength, is it? Hine was located on major bus line and above the EM metro station.

That's true - that would have been a perfect location. Instead, we are going to have an ugly behemoth condo there, just the beginning of the 14th St-ification of Eastern Market and Barracks Row.

[Anonymous]

Hine's campus is tiny compared to Eliot Hine or Jefferson. It's central location would be nice for students travelling from across Capitol Hill and SW, but the location also made it appealing to developers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jefferson is serving only about 80 kids living in the catchment boundary. Brent is never going to send scores of kids to Jefferson by virtue of its size alone and the same will be true of Van Ness. So what is the rationale for keeping the school open when it's only half filled and badly in need of modernization? DCPS is incapable of seeing the forest for the trees, otherwise Eliot-Hine would have been modernized before Watkins to provide a suitable swing space. Maybe some Hill parents can coalesce around a plan to excess Jefferson so that Basis or another charter can have a proper middle/high school campus. After all, Henderson should be made to choke on her pronouncement that DCPS doesn't do middle school very well. In the absence of the NCLB waiver Jefferson would be just another of many failing schools in our city.

So where are all of these kids from VN and Brent going to go to Middle school?

See if you can get in touch with Adrian Fenty and ask why he surplused Hine.

So the answer to three deficient MS on the Hill is a fourth deficient MS? Hine was failing even when a much lower bar for failure existed at DCPS

Logic isn't your strength, is it? Hine was located on major bus line and above the EM metro station.

Hine was a no brainer to dispose of. It was a failing school which had even worse neighborhood retention than Jefferson. It had a good location but was in terrible condition and had no outdoor space.

If the discussion is about NEIGHBORHOOD SCHOOLS, why do I care about transit access? Is that supposed to teach me about logic?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And there are numerous Brent parents at Stuart-Hobson, some loop via Watkins' 5th grade, some lottery in, some already live IB.

1. How many kids IB for Brent have "looped" to SH via 5th at Watkins?
2. How many families IB for the Cluster have stayed at Brent through 5th and then enrolled at SH?
3. How many families IB for Brent stayed through 5th and then enrolled at SH via the lottery?

Data from the past 5 years would be instructive.

I'd bet single digits (IB for Brent later enrolling in SH). I don't know of any/haven't heard of any . . . but I admittedly don't know many kids in 5th (this year or the last couple of years).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And there are numerous Brent parents at Stuart-Hobson, some loop via Watkins' 5th grade, some lottery in, some already live IB.

1. How many kids IB for Brent have "looped" to SH via 5th at Watkins?
2. How many families IB for the Cluster have stayed at Brent through 5th and then enrolled at SH?
3. How many families IB for Brent stayed through 5th and then enrolled at SH via the lottery?

Data from the past 5 years would be instructive.

I'd bet single digits (IB for Brent later enrolling in SH). I don't know of any/haven't heard of any . . . but I admittedly don't know many kids in 5th (this year or the last couple of years).

Agreed it's probably low. It hasn't been that hard to gain spots at Latin and Basis until the past year or two. The small 5th grade class size at Brent speaks to how few fit 2. & 3. and on 1. Watkins has offered 2/2/0 5th grade seats in lottery the past 3 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jefferson is serving only about 80 kids living in the catchment boundary. Brent is never going to send scores of kids to Jefferson by virtue of its size alone and the same will be true of Van Ness. So what is the rationale for keeping the school open when it's only half filled and badly in need of modernization? DCPS is incapable of seeing the forest for the trees, otherwise Eliot-Hine would have been modernized before Watkins to provide a suitable swing space. Maybe some Hill parents can coalesce around a plan to excess Jefferson so that Basis or another charter can have a proper middle/high school campus. After all, Henderson should be made to choke on her pronouncement that DCPS doesn't do middle school very well. In the absence of the NCLB waiver Jefferson would be just another of many failing schools in our city.

So where are all of these kids from VN and Brent going to go to Middle school?

See if you can get in touch with Adrian Fenty and ask why he surplused Hine.

So the answer to three deficient MS on the Hill is a fourth deficient MS? Hine was failing even when a much lower bar for failure existed at DCPS

Logic isn't your strength, is it? Hine was located on major bus line and above the EM metro station.

Hine was a no brainer to dispose of. It was a failing school which had even worse neighborhood retention than Jefferson. It had a good location but was in terrible condition and had no outdoor space.

If the discussion is about NEIGHBORHOOD SCHOOLS, why do I care about transit access? Is that supposed to teach me about logic?

Should we discuss Jefferson or EH without giving consideration to transit options which impact how kids would get to school? A logical person might conclude that a middle school centrally located in Ward 6 with readily accessible transit options would be a win-win in terms of attracting a more economically diverse group of students from throughout Ward 6 and beyond. Even Brookland got a $120 million dollar facility when McKinley Tech was only 60 percent enrolled. Demolishing and rebuilding Hine would have made more sense than throwing millions at SH and deferring badly needed modernization of Nefferson and EH for more than a decade. If you want a neighborhood school then you need to think of a plan to make that happen. It never will as things currently stand.

[Anonymous]

+1. The Hill is in dire need of a new forum for parents to provide input on how to address the brewing neighborhood middle school crisis. The simple fact is that many families with kids currently in Hill DCPS elementary schools are going to wind up moving to the burbs if nothing changes. Brent, Maury and SWS parents have already lost access to Stuart Hobson short spectacular lottery luck, and many Cluster and Ludlow-Taylor parents won't use the school going forward. Jefferson is going to be a non-starter for families already at Brent, Tyler SI and Van Ness, other than perhaps a few die hards.

Few Hill families can afford private school from 6th grade up, and there aren't nearly enough spots in independent middle schools within easy reach of the Hill even for those who can. I don't like how the Brent PTA middle school committee is lobbying hard to gin up a massive investment in Jefferson without soliciting input from the broader school community first, to determine whether or not this is what most parents want. If I had a chance to respond to a survey on MS development options, or to vote in a PTA sponsored referendum on MS, I'd vote no on the Jefferson plan, with many others. This is the inconvenient truth school leaders must face at some point. The democratic process hasn't been subverted here; there has been no democratic process to avoiding the messiness of one. As a result, you're going to see a backlash over time, as the optimists crank up their PR machine to push the magical-thinking in Tues News, Brent neighbors, at PTA meetings etc.

[Anonymous]

the middle school committee people will burn out and pipe down as time goes on

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can't believe SH is 15% inbounds - what a joke! Get rid of the OOB elementary school feeder rights, draw a normal looking boundary (say 1 mile radius around the school, rather than the absurd jury-rigged boundary currently in place) and SH would turn into Deal OVERNIGHT. In fact, SH would probably turn majority white/high SES overnight.

Some of us around Ward 6 are actually trying to come up with practical solutions to our splintered middle
School situation that put the most number of students ( of all backgrounds ) in a better position educationally than they are now.

Then there are jack**** like the pp who give us all a bad name.

I, for one, don't crave a majority white/high income school for my white/middle income kids. I desire a school that has fabulous visionary leadership, professional teaching staff, a variety of electives and extracurricular activities, a positive school culture and a majority of students who have come out of their elementary schools prepared to learn and thrive at grade level. It can happen. And experience tells me DCPS isn't willing to make that happen. So it leaves ignorant parents to think it is all about white kids

Just to interject. Don't say Ward 6. All of these "solutions" are Hill specific and are not focused on the rest of Ward 6. We are definitely left out of your middle school discussions.