Maury Capitol Hill

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also Maury ranked at the bottom of funding per student last year. Literally last place.

And again, the “robust PTA fundraising” was cited as a reason why.

Our fundraising has screwed us yet again.

Please don't be dramatic. I think the cluster is a bad idea but you sound ridiculous.

Maury ranks low on per student funding because it has very low percentages of SpEd and at risk kids. That's it. The school is full of kids who are well supported at home, on or above grade level, and without a lot of learning disorders or risk factors like poverty and housing insecurity. Kids at Maury do fine with this lower per-student funding not because the PTO is making up the difference but because they do not need the things that extra funding pays for.

You probably don't understand this because you have never had a child at a school in DC with a high SpEd and at-risk population, so you don't understand that a lot of the services that high per-pupil funding pays for are things you don't need anyway, like special transportation for kids coming from shelters, remedial tutoring starting in kindergarten to address delays that should have been caught and addressed years prior, etc.

You can oppose the cluster without trying to make it sound like students at Maury are being deprived of precious resources within DCPS. Students at Maury want for very little and PTO funding goes to pay for things that most DCPS students don't get at all.

So all the NW schools have higher percentages of SpEd and at risk kids?

Maury has no truly self contained classrooms (CES or ILS/OLS) only the HFA program. That’s incredibly unusual, yes.

Maury was also renovated just 5 years ago. Between it's low percentage of at risk and SpEd kids and a $52 million total renovation (really a brand new building), it is completely ridiculous to argue that Maury students are somehow being shortchanged by DCPS.

Oppose the cluster, by all means, it sounds half-baked. But the whining and rending of garments on this thread as though the Maury community is beleaguered is incredibly pathetic. At this point I could care less what happens to y'all, reading all this absurd self-pity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Devil's advocate, but these are the same kids who will later be their classmates at EH. Wouldn't it be better to get them in earlier? If anything, the few kids at Miner who are at grade level or borderline, would certainly benefit from a more rigorous school. Maury kids won't unlearn things just because their peers aren't performing. That's how they are selling EH right now at least.

Almost half of the Maury 4th grade leaves to go to Basis, Latin, etc; they don't go on to EH. These are many of the top students at Maury.

And many of those Maury kids that don't get into Basis, Latin, or an acceptable PCS move or go private.

Does anyone have the numbers for the # of Maury kids per grade at E-H? Or even more detailed, 4th grade at Maury AND 6th grade at E-H?

The # of Maury kids per grade at Eastern?

I'm guessing it's quite low and the cluster would be a temporary band-aid for DCPS to improve #'s for Minor on paper but have worse long term results for Maury and Minor.

Most of the Maury 5th grade goes to EH and yes that includes some “top students” lol. (The lottery cannot select for “top students.”)

Sure, but some "top students" self-select for the lottery.

+1. Also, the numbers are already pretty low by 5th grade. You have over 80 in a class in the earlier grades, and a ton of departures in 4th grade. So, most Maury students to do not continue onto EH.

2/3s went to EH this year. From 3 4th grade classes to a majority of 2 5th grade classes. EH had a big enrollment bump!

Not according to DCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also Maury ranked at the bottom of funding per student last year. Literally last place.

And again, the “robust PTA fundraising” was cited as a reason why.

Our fundraising has screwed us yet again.

Please don't be dramatic. I think the cluster is a bad idea but you sound ridiculous.

Maury ranks low on per student funding because it has very low percentages of SpEd and at risk kids. That's it. The school is full of kids who are well supported at home, on or above grade level, and without a lot of learning disorders or risk factors like poverty and housing insecurity. Kids at Maury do fine with this lower per-student funding not because the PTO is making up the difference but because they do not need the things that extra funding pays for.

You probably don't understand this because you have never had a child at a school in DC with a high SpEd and at-risk population, so you don't understand that a lot of the services that high per-pupil funding pays for are things you don't need anyway, like special transportation for kids coming from shelters, remedial tutoring starting in kindergarten to address delays that should have been caught and addressed years prior, etc.

You can oppose the cluster without trying to make it sound like students at Maury are being deprived of precious resources within DCPS. Students at Maury want for very little and PTO funding goes to pay for things that most DCPS students don't get at all.

So all the NW schools have higher percentages of SpEd and at risk kids?

Maury has no truly self contained classrooms (CES or ILS/OLS) only the HFA program. That’s incredibly unusual, yes.

Maury was also renovated just 5 years ago. Between it's low percentage of at risk and SpEd kids and a $52 million total renovation (really a brand new building), it is completely ridiculous to argue that Maury students are somehow being shortchanged by DCPS.

Oppose the cluster, by all means, it sounds half-baked. But the whining and rending of garments on this thread as though the Maury community is beleaguered is incredibly pathetic. At this point I could care less what happens to y'all, reading all this absurd self-pity.

Maybe learn something about the school before you pontificate? The situation in the upper grades is not the same as PK. Many parents will agree that Maury is not ready to handle an upper elementary that doubles in size & significantly increases in academic & behavioral support needs. That’s based on actual experience. DME apparently believes some kind of magic will happen that will erase these needs, but with an absence of any explanation for how that is supposed to happen. With the loss of Title 1 status as well, there’s no apparent plan other than “Maury can absorb it.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Devil's advocate, but these are the same kids who will later be their classmates at EH. Wouldn't it be better to get them in earlier? If anything, the few kids at Miner who are at grade level or borderline, would certainly benefit from a more rigorous school. Maury kids won't unlearn things just because their peers aren't performing. That's how they are selling EH right now at least.

Almost half of the Maury 4th grade leaves to go to Basis, Latin, etc; they don't go on to EH. These are many of the top students at Maury.

And many of those Maury kids that don't get into Basis, Latin, or an acceptable PCS move or go private.

Does anyone have the numbers for the # of Maury kids per grade at E-H? Or even more detailed, 4th grade at Maury AND 6th grade at E-H?

The # of Maury kids per grade at Eastern?

I'm guessing it's quite low and the cluster would be a temporary band-aid for DCPS to improve #'s for Minor on paper but have worse long term results for Maury and Minor.

Most of the Maury 5th grade goes to EH and yes that includes some “top students” lol. (The lottery cannot select for “top students.”)

Sure, but some "top students" self-select for the lottery.

+1. Also, the numbers are already pretty low by 5th grade. You have over 80 in a class in the earlier grades, and a ton of departures in 4th grade. So, most Maury students to do not continue onto EH.

2/3s went to EH this year. From 3 4th grade classes to a majority of 2 5th grade classes. EH had a big enrollment bump!

Not according to DCPS.

The DCPS numbers are for the kids who enrolled last year not this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There’s been a ton of focus on Maury.

What does the Miner community think about all this?

We’re IB (currently, at least) for Maury. But we’re at Miner. Reading through the pages and pages of this thread, you’d think the world was ending. The fact remains that the single most important thing for your child’s development is - you. The support and security you provide at home, you reinforcing the lessons they’re being taught in school, and your overall involvement and commitment in their educational journey.

If you continue to care about your kids education and be involved (which all of you are here fervently commenting, so you’re obviously passionate), a cluster won’t negatively impact your child. It just won’t. It’s elementary school. Chill out a bit, maybe go outside and touch some grass.

A lot of comments here are just so detached from reality and are condescending towards us lowlifes allegedly suffering at Miner. But what do I know, because of the educational path I’ve placed my kid on at Miner they’re probably destined to max out at some mediocre community college and live paycheck to paycheck. It’s also a miracle we haven’t been gunned down on the way to/from school. Based on these comments, maybe we’ll start commuting via armored vehicle.

But seriously, this thread just reaffirms my belief that maybe Maury is full of a bunch of NIMBY blow hards that I’d rather not expose my kids to - apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and many of you seem pretty insufferable. Have a nice night - hope to see you at a cluster-PTA meeting next year! Or wait, you won’t be there because you’ll white-flight the heck out of dodge, move to a suburb, and terrorize some other PTA. Good riddance!

Troll score: 2.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s almost like DCPS does not want to have highly functional schools exist within the system. They want to destroy what is currently working rather than learn from and emulate the functional school. The whole situation is ridiculous.

What’s happening is that someone who is not very bright either (1) thinks if the smoosh two schools together as an experiment, Miner will be no worse off so they might as well try it (and they DNGAF about Maury) or (2) they want to stick it to gentrifiers.

Maury should engage Charles Allen. See if that good for nothing waste of space can advocate for a preserving a successful school or if he will sell out the Hill once again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s almost like DCPS does not want to have highly functional schools exist within the system. They want to destroy what is currently working rather than learn from and emulate the functional school. The whole situation is ridiculous.

What’s happening is that someone who is not very bright either (1) thinks if the smoosh two schools together as an experiment, Miner will be no worse off so they might as well try it (and they DNGAF about Maury) or (2) they want to stick it to gentrifiers.

Maury should engage Charles Allen. See if that good for nothing waste of space can advocate for a preserving a successful school or if he will sell out the Hill once again.

He’s in a tricky position. While Maury is in W6 and Miner isn’t; Miner was in W6 until last year’s Ward shuffle & both schools have IB W6 families & IB non-W6 families. If this is popular with Miner families, it’s likely to be most popular with Miner’s W6 families who can throw a ball and hit Maury & are obviously forever envious. I wouldn’t count on Charles Allen to weigh in against those folks. I do think he’ll raise the logistical challenge-related issue though, so will likely slew negative in that sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There’s been a ton of focus on Maury.

What does the Miner community think about all this?

We’re IB (currently, at least) for Maury. But we’re at Miner. Reading through the pages and pages of this thread, you’d think the world was ending. The fact remains that the single most important thing for your child’s development is - you. The support and security you provide at home, you reinforcing the lessons they’re being taught in school, and your overall involvement and commitment in their educational journey.

If you continue to care about your kids education and be involved (which all of you are here fervently commenting, so you’re obviously passionate), a cluster won’t negatively impact your child. It just won’t. It’s elementary school. Chill out a bit, maybe go outside and touch some grass.

A lot of comments here are just so detached from reality and are condescending towards us lowlifes allegedly suffering at Miner. But what do I know, because of the educational path I’ve placed my kid on at Miner they’re probably destined to max out at some mediocre community college and live paycheck to paycheck. It’s also a miracle we haven’t been gunned down on the way to/from school. Based on these comments, maybe we’ll start commuting via armored vehicle.

But seriously, this thread just reaffirms my belief that maybe Maury is full of a bunch of NIMBY blow hards that I’d rather not expose my kids to - apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and many of you seem pretty insufferable. Have a nice night - hope to see you at a cluster-PTA meeting next year! Or wait, you won’t be there because you’ll white-flight the heck out of dodge, move to a suburb, and terrorize some other PTA. Good riddance!

Troll score: 2.

I’m hoping PP is a troll. Otherwise her poor kid’s development is definitely going to go sideways, if she’s the most important factor in it.

[Anonymous]

The Maury families are protective of their school because it was a Tier 1 school as recently as 2015. A lot of families chose a less convenient location strictly for the school. DCPS wanted community buy-in for community elementary and they got it. To dismantle it so quickly is just dumb. Throw all the $$ and resources at Miner and make it Maury 2.0. Then do JO Wilson, etc. Maury is a model, not a resource.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also Maury ranked at the bottom of funding per student last year. Literally last place.

And again, the “robust PTA fundraising” was cited as a reason why.

Our fundraising has screwed us yet again.

Please don't be dramatic. I think the cluster is a bad idea but you sound ridiculous.

Maury ranks low on per student funding because it has very low percentages of SpEd and at risk kids. That's it. The school is full of kids who are well supported at home, on or above grade level, and without a lot of learning disorders or risk factors like poverty and housing insecurity. Kids at Maury do fine with this lower per-student funding not because the PTO is making up the difference but because they do not need the things that extra funding pays for.

You probably don't understand this because you have never had a child at a school in DC with a high SpEd and at-risk population, so you don't understand that a lot of the services that high per-pupil funding pays for are things you don't need anyway, like special transportation for kids coming from shelters, remedial tutoring starting in kindergarten to address delays that should have been caught and addressed years prior, etc.

You can oppose the cluster without trying to make it sound like students at Maury are being deprived of precious resources within DCPS. Students at Maury want for very little and PTO funding goes to pay for things that most DCPS students don't get at all.

So all the NW schools have higher percentages of SpEd and at risk kids?

Maury has no truly self contained classrooms (CES or ILS/OLS) only the HFA program. That’s incredibly unusual, yes.

Maury was also renovated just 5 years ago. Between it's low percentage of at risk and SpEd kids and a $52 million total renovation (really a brand new building), it is completely ridiculous to argue that Maury students are somehow being shortchanged by DCPS.

Oppose the cluster, by all means, it sounds half-baked. But the whining and rending of garments on this thread as though the Maury community is beleaguered is incredibly pathetic. At this point I could care less what happens to y'all, reading all this absurd self-pity.

Maybe learn something about the school before you pontificate? The situation in the upper grades is not the same as PK. Many parents will agree that Maury is not ready to handle an upper elementary that doubles in size & significantly increases in academic & behavioral support needs. That’s based on actual experience. DME apparently believes some kind of magic will happen that will erase these needs, but with an absence of any explanation for how that is supposed to happen. With the loss of Title 1 status as well, there’s no apparent plan other than “Maury can absorb it.”

Good lord, can you read? I'm not endorsing the cluster, I'm just pointing out that Maury is not some struggling school in desperate need of assistance. Maury is doing great. I agree that messing with that is a bad idea. I'm not the DME and think the cluster plan is half baked.

But the whining in this thread and people wildly swinging from "Maury is an exemplification of what can be done with community involvement and struggling schools like Miner should view it as a model for how to proceed" to "Maury is underfunded with massive problems in the upper grades and needs intervention quickly" is almost comical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Maury families are protective of their school because it was a Tier 1 school as recently as 2015. A lot of families chose a less convenient location strictly for the school. DCPS wanted community buy-in for community elementary and they got it. To dismantle it so quickly is just dumb. Throw all the $$ and resources at Miner and make it Maury 2.0. Then do JO Wilson, etc. Maury is a model, not a resource.

Miner and JO already get tons of funding. Funding isn't the issue. The problem is the concentration of at risk, high needs students in schools. JO can follow the Maury model, in that it can use its upcoming renovation to attract more of the UMC IB families, assuming administrative competence and high participation by existing IB families.

Miner can't adopt the Maury model because it simply has a higher number of at risk families within its boundary and it's proximity to Benning makes this unlikely to change anytime soon.

A cluster may not be the solution to this problem, but let's not pretend that that Miner can simply will itself into becoming Maury, even with more funding (which it already gets!). That's not how it works.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Maury families are protective of their school because it was a Tier 1 school as recently as 2015. A lot of families chose a less convenient location strictly for the school. DCPS wanted community buy-in for community elementary and they got it. To dismantle it so quickly is just dumb. Throw all the $$ and resources at Miner and make it Maury 2.0. Then do JO Wilson, etc. Maury is a model, not a resource.

Miner and JO already get tons of funding. Funding isn't the issue. The problem is the concentration of at risk, high needs students in schools. JO can follow the Maury model, in that it can use its upcoming renovation to attract more of the UMC IB families, assuming administrative competence and high participation by existing IB families.

Miner can't adopt the Maury model because it simply has a higher number of at risk families within its boundary and it's proximity to Benning makes this unlikely to change anytime soon.

A cluster may not be the solution to this problem, but let's not pretend that that Miner can simply will itself into becoming Maury, even with more funding (which it already gets!). That's not how it works.

There are actually a good number of UMC and MC “Hill East” families in the Miner boundary and they choose to go elsewhere. UMC parents banded together about 7 years ago and tried to make a go of Miner and they all eventually bailed because the administration was such a trainwreck. Miner has been hugely dysfunctional in the past 10 years, and DCPS staffing choices are largely at fault.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Maury families are protective of their school because it was a Tier 1 school as recently as 2015. A lot of families chose a less convenient location strictly for the school. DCPS wanted community buy-in for community elementary and they got it. To dismantle it so quickly is just dumb. Throw all the $$ and resources at Miner and make it Maury 2.0. Then do JO Wilson, etc. Maury is a model, not a resource.

Miner and JO already get tons of funding. Funding isn't the issue. The problem is the concentration of at risk, high needs students in schools. JO can follow the Maury model, in that it can use its upcoming renovation to attract more of the UMC IB families, assuming administrative competence and high participation by existing IB families.

Miner can't adopt the Maury model because it simply has a higher number of at risk families within its boundary and it's proximity to Benning makes this unlikely to change anytime soon.

A cluster may not be the solution to this problem, but let's not pretend that that Miner can simply will itself into becoming Maury, even with more funding (which it already gets!). That's not how it works.

There are actually a good number of UMC and MC “Hill East” families in the Miner boundary and they choose to go elsewhere. UMC parents banded together about 7 years ago and tried to make a go of Miner and they all eventually bailed because the administration was such a trainwreck. Miner has been hugely dysfunctional in the past 10 years, and DCPS staffing choices are largely at fault.

Agree DCPS staffing is a problem but that's linked to IB demographics too. Yes there are UMC families in the boundary with the gentrification of Kingman Park and environs. But there are also a number of low-income housing projects as well as a bunch of apartments that are mostly Section 8. Maury's boundary doesn't have that, neither does JOW's. Any administrator they bring into Miner has to be ready to deal with a large at risk population, regardless of how many UMC IB families attend. In some ways the many UMC families living IB complicate matters, because many of them still attend Miner for PK if they don't get a good lottery spot elsewhere (they aren't getting into Maury, obviously). Running a school with 65% at risk population, where most 3rd-5th graders are scoring a 1 or 2 on the PARCC, but where you also have a decent number of ECE parents who are UMC and more likely to be demanding in the way UMC parents often are (I say this as a white, UMC parent who knows how we can be, especially as first time parents of a preschooler), and it's kind of miserable. You won't make anyone happy.

Miner also has a lot of OOB students coming from across the river, with low school participation rates. High OOB percentage makes everything about a high poverty school harder because you lose school community and it can make it much harder to build relationships with families. You almost never see them.

This doesn't' justify the total $hit$how that Miner has experienced with school administrators over the years, but it does help explain it -- it's just not a job that a lot of strong administers want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also Maury ranked at the bottom of funding per student last year. Literally last place.

And again, the “robust PTA fundraising” was cited as a reason why.

Our fundraising has screwed us yet again.

Please don't be dramatic. I think the cluster is a bad idea but you sound ridiculous.

Maury ranks low on per student funding because it has very low percentages of SpEd and at risk kids. That's it. The school is full of kids who are well supported at home, on or above grade level, and without a lot of learning disorders or risk factors like poverty and housing insecurity. Kids at Maury do fine with this lower per-student funding not because the PTO is making up the difference but because they do not need the things that extra funding pays for.

You probably don't understand this because you have never had a child at a school in DC with a high SpEd and at-risk population, so you don't understand that a lot of the services that high per-pupil funding pays for are things you don't need anyway, like special transportation for kids coming from shelters, remedial tutoring starting in kindergarten to address delays that should have been caught and addressed years prior, etc.

You can oppose the cluster without trying to make it sound like students at Maury are being deprived of precious resources within DCPS. Students at Maury want for very little and PTO funding goes to pay for things that most DCPS students don't get at all.

So all the NW schools have higher percentages of SpEd and at risk kids?

Maury has no truly self contained classrooms (CES or ILS/OLS) only the HFA program. That’s incredibly unusual, yes.

Maury was also renovated just 5 years ago. Between it's low percentage of at risk and SpEd kids and a $52 million total renovation (really a brand new building), it is completely ridiculous to argue that Maury students are somehow being shortchanged by DCPS.

Oppose the cluster, by all means, it sounds half-baked. But the whining and rending of garments on this thread as though the Maury community is beleaguered is incredibly pathetic. At this point I could care less what happens to y'all, reading all this absurd self-pity.

Maybe learn something about the school before you pontificate? The situation in the upper grades is not the same as PK. Many parents will agree that Maury is not ready to handle an upper elementary that doubles in size & significantly increases in academic & behavioral support needs. That’s based on actual experience. DME apparently believes some kind of magic will happen that will erase these needs, but with an absence of any explanation for how that is supposed to happen. With the loss of Title 1 status as well, there’s no apparent plan other than “Maury can absorb it.”

Good lord, can you read? I'm not endorsing the cluster, I'm just pointing out that Maury is not some struggling school in desperate need of assistance. Maury is doing great. I agree that messing with that is a bad idea. I'm not the DME and think the cluster plan is half baked.

But the whining in this thread and people wildly swinging from "Maury is an exemplification of what can be done with community involvement and struggling schools like Miner should view it as a model for how to proceed" to "Maury is underfunded with massive problems in the upper grades and needs intervention quickly" is almost comical.

Maybe stop for a second to realize that your perspective as a PK parent is limited …

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don’t understand how this idea meets the boundary study’s three stated goals.

Precisely this. It only even arguably helps one of the three goals, and that one is far from clear. DME and the high-priced consultants that our tax dollars are paying for are making it up as they go along.