news from Southwest: Amidon-Bowen and Jefferson
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Anonymous
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The latest issue of the Southwester had several education-related stories: an interview with the parents of a kindergartner at Amidon, a piece by one of the Jefferson students who participated in Arena Stage's Voices of Now project, and a photo essay of the Jefferson robotics club. http://www.thesouthwester.com/june2015.pdf
Neighborhood listservs also mentioned that Amidon's kickball team won the city championship, and their Geoplunge team improved on its record from last year. It's nice to see the schools getting some positive attention--a lot of kids seem to be moving into or being born in the neighborhood, and it's great for them to feel like the neighborhood school is an option...of course, folks from outside of the neighborhood are also welcomed, and both schools had short/no waitlists after Round 1 and are good Round 2 or post-Round 2 choices. |
Anonymous
| Thank you for sharing. My DD is in PK4 at AB after switching from Appletree and she has had such a fantastic year. It's amazing how far the school grounds have come since we moved into the neighborhood a few years ago. We are near the top of the waitlist for a charter but are strongly leaning towards staying next year. I heard they will be hiring a foreign language teacher next year which will be a huge plus. It's nice to see good things going on at Jefferson too. |
Anonymous
| I really think Jefferson is a hidden gem. The test scores are as good or better than any DCPS middle school except Hardy and Deal, and the median growth percentiles show that kids make a lot of progress while they're there. It's small, which a lot of parents want, but they have sports teams and a lot of other extracurriculars than most K-8 schools. Close to metro and a lot of bus lines, too. They are an IB candidate school that does some differentiated learning (I've heard the principal talk about it at neighborhood events and school fundraisers, but don't have a kid there so don't know details). The staff I've met seem nice and I like that they put a lot of their assignments and syllabi online so I can see what kids in different classes are working on. There are not a lot of academically advanced kids at this point, but I get the sense that kids are met where they're at. So advanced kids get challenged individually, and if more started attending the school, there would be opportunities for them to be grouped together. |
Anonymous
| CHPSPO PR |
Anonymous
+1 even with changing demographics, I doubt these schools will be much different in 10 years. |
Anonymous
WTHAYTA |
Anonymous
I nominate you for "Dumbest comment of the day". Take your biases out of this and just look at the words on the page. If the demographics change then of course the school will be different. As will the parks, property values, income levels. |
Anonymous
PP here. I apologize for. It being more complete. Should have said "even with the changing demographics of the city, I doubt these schools will be much different because of the amount of students they will continue to draw from the projects and the fact a that all the pie in the sky millinneals who now have babies and toddlers will have fled the area and DCPS once Emma and Liam hit 1st grade." Better for you? And what the heck do parks have to do with DCPS? You can build a splash park around Payne and no college-educated parent is going to send their child there past K. There are multimillion dollar homes on East Capitol and the children all go charter or private. |
Anonymous
| I think they will change. Will they be like Deal? No. But 10 years ago, was Deal like Deal is today? Also no. More and more middle/upper class families are moving to neighborhoods that have low-income people (Shaw, Petworth, SW, etc.) and if even a fraction of them stay and send their kids to school the schools will be different. Probably better in some but not all ways. It really only takes a few kids from well-educated families plus teacher getting a few kids from basic to proficient before there's a big change in proficiency rates. There are already families in SW who went private and say if Amidon 5 years ago was like it is now, they'd go. Others won't go unless it's 50% proficient, still others till 75%. Some will never go. But a refurbished school with some very good teachers and extracurriculars is still a step in the right direction. |
Anonymous
DCPS split the Amidon-Bowen boundary so 2 of the 3 public housing complexes will now start going one grade at a time to Van Ness. Both schools will have a mixture of income levels. And from volunteering at a different school, you'd be surprised at how uncorrelated household income and school behavior/academic achievement can be. I realize that on a macro scale, there is a big relationship between these two factors. But in a classroom of 18 kids, it's hard to predict who the few most compliant/disruptive/noisy/gifted kids will be. |
Anonymous
Talk to us again when your kids are 10 and facing middle school. Kumbaya togetherness gets you nowhere when you are facing the morass of DCPS central office. And it middle school academics and social milieu actually matter. There are real barriers here, not just scaredy cat parents |
Anonymous
I'm doubtful that much will change in terms of demographics without tearing down most of SW, including rebuilding the Freeway below grade. There isn't a great deal of highly desirable housing stock avaialble for single families. And while Jefferson is in the midst of the new Wharf zone, the vast majority of development will be commercial/hotel and retail space, unlike the new development along and to the east of S. Capitol. The SW Federal Zone, including L'Enfant Plaza, and Maine Avenue further restrict opportunities for development in the area. I'm also doubtful that the efforts of some parents to convince high SES families to take a leap of faith at Jefferson will pay any dividends. Some of us were intrigued by the reinvention of Jeffrson as an Academy just a few years ago, and to its credit the school does seem to be doing a good job with the population it serves (the overwhelming majority of whom are not from SW), the reality remains that very few families want to be the "first." More so, where does three years at Jefferson lead: Eastern. |
Anonymous
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I agree that losing the Wilson boundary was a blow. But there is still the option of going to Jefferson then applying to Banneker, SWW, Ellington, or McKinley Tech (plus charters, private, or moving). The scores are basically the same as Stuart-Hobson's. It's true that many families don't want their kid to be the only. But I think there are a couple families that are willing to try it (and may have already tried it at the feeder schools). And there are some families that won't be the only, but will go to a school that's 10% white (see: Stuart-Hobson).
Also, there are hundreds of market-rate 2-4 bedroom townhouses in SW. I've seen several turn over in recent years from older couples to recently married people or families with little kids. They won't all stay. But I think some will. |
Anonymous
| Kumbaya, my lord, kumbaya . . . |
Anonymous
Serious question, why do you care? |