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

[Anonymous]

At the meeting it was suggested that the 2027 timing was designed to let the new Miner principal have some time to get the bearings, as well as to allow there to be a few years of data on how the at-risk set asides are playing out at Maury before the WG begins. That makes sense to me, although I can also understand Miner parents' frustration. Miner parents understandably want fast action taken to improve Miner, although (weirdly) that does not seem to be in DME's purview with this boundary exercise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The working group to evaluate whether there even should be a merger will begin no earlier than 2027.

Why on earth shouldn't the working group start now? Not even bother to IMPLEMENT a working group for 3 years? Awful. Sorry, I know this board is full of Maury parents, but I think that Miner parents continue to get absolutely screwed with this decision. In bounds for a school that isn't working and DCPS will do nothing in the meantime.

Maybe the Miner constituents should advocate for measure that will actually help Miner instead of enormously divisive and untested plans like the cluster.

Nothing will help Miner without some form of boundary re-draw or demographic change. It has too many at risk kids in the school for even an effective administration to address.

[Anonymous]

But it also has a significant number of not at risk kids in boundary who do not attend the school. If the school made some changes to improve and got those kids to attend, Miner could have very different school demographics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But it also has a significant number of not at risk kids in boundary who do not attend the school. If the school made some changes to improve and got those kids to attend, Miner could have very different school demographics.

Very good point. The boundary committee is focused on the kind of changes that impact seats and capacity but not necessarily strategies for improvement. Reducing out of bound seats, limiting charters, pushing wealthier families from west to east, combining poorer and wealthier populations, etc. are all ideas being advanced. Can't say whether these are good or bad ideas as there is a stunning lack of data and analysis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But it also has a significant number of not at risk kids in boundary who do not attend the school. If the school made some changes to improve and got those kids to attend, Miner could have very different school demographics.

According to DME, the Miner IB population demographics mirror the attending demographics. Maybe that data can be parsed more closely, but they've said increasing IB population wouldn't change the at-risk numbers. Increasing IB MC/UMC attendance would also potentially displace the Miner OOB kids who are coming from worse school environments. The cluster would potentially do this as well, if it were successful. I believe that's a big reason DME is punting here. They've heard from a lot of affluent parents from both school communities. They have not heard from Miner at-risk families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But it also has a significant number of not at risk kids in boundary who do not attend the school. If the school made some changes to improve and got those kids to attend, Miner could have very different school demographics.

Very good point. The boundary committee is focused on the kind of changes that impact seats and capacity but not necessarily strategies for improvement. Reducing out of bound seats, limiting charters, pushing wealthier families from west to east, combining poorer and wealthier populations, etc. are all ideas being advanced. Can't say whether these are good or bad ideas as there is a stunning lack of data and analysis.

How are they pushing wealthier families west to east? They're clearly trying to do the converse with at-risk set-asides and move at-risk families east to west.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But it also has a significant number of not at risk kids in boundary who do not attend the school. If the school made some changes to improve and got those kids to attend, Miner could have very different school demographics.

According to DME, the Miner IB population demographics mirror the attending demographics. Maybe that data can be parsed more closely, but they've said increasing IB population wouldn't change the at-risk numbers. Increasing IB MC/UMC attendance would also potentially displace the Miner OOB kids who are coming from worse school environments. The cluster would potentially do this as well, if it were successful. I believe that's a big reason DME is punting here. They've heard from a lot of affluent parents from both school communities. They have not heard from Miner at-risk families.

The two sets of demographics don't match exactly, but it's largely true. However, the Miner demographics are driven by extraordinarily different demographics in a much bigger ECE vs a much smaller rest of the school. When you have a school that has 7 ECE classrooms and then 1 in other grades, the ECE being 50% UMC white completely masks what the actual demographics of the rest of the school are in the overall numbers.

[Anonymous]

I think this is worst-case scenario for Miner because now there is absolutely no reason for current IB families or DCPS to invest effort into improving Miner, if the cluster idea is still on the table and a working group is coming. But if you have school age kids now, or even have kids staring PK in the next few years, the incentive to look elsewhere for school has never been higher because who even knows what is happening with Miner?

I'm sure Maury families are happy but I think Miner got screwed in this process. The upshot for the school is that everyone focused very hard on how much it is failing and how no one wants to go there for several months, and now it will be left to its own devices for the next 3+ years. Great.

What a total WASTE of everyone's time and energy. The DME could not have screwed this up harder if he'd tried.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The working group to evaluate whether there even should be a merger will begin no earlier than 2027.

Why on earth shouldn't the working group start now? Not even bother to IMPLEMENT a working group for 3 years? Awful. Sorry, I know this board is full of Maury parents, but I think that Miner parents continue to get absolutely screwed with this decision. In bounds for a school that isn't working and DCPS will do nothing in the meantime.

Maybe the Miner constituents should advocate for measure that will actually help Miner instead of enormously divisive and untested plans like the cluster.

Nothing will help Miner without some form of boundary re-draw or demographic change. It has too many at risk kids in the school for even an effective administration to address.

This is simply not true. There are tons of schools with similar or even higher at-risk numbers than Miner that do significantly better on PARCC — and I don’t want to overstate the importance of standardized test scores, but I’m not aware of what other objective standards there are to look to.

DC needs to be able to have effective schools with high at-risk populations, since DCPS is 50% at-risk. It can’t be that we just throw up our hands and say it’s impossible at 64%. We know that it is not impossible from the data for other schools that do better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think this is worst-case scenario for Miner because now there is absolutely no reason for current IB families or DCPS to invest effort into improving Miner, if the cluster idea is still on the table and a working group is coming. But if you have school age kids now, or even have kids staring PK in the next few years, the incentive to look elsewhere for school has never been higher because who even knows what is happening with Miner?

I'm sure Maury families are happy but I think Miner got screwed in this process. The upshot for the school is that everyone focused very hard on how much it is failing and how no one wants to go there for several months, and now it will be left to its own devices for the next 3+ years. Great.

What a total WASTE of everyone's time and energy. The DME could not have screwed this up harder if he'd tried.

I can’t quite tell what DME is really saying with this. Is it that they still want a cluster but want to give everyone time to get used to the idea and stop bothering them about it? I’ll note that the current language is for the committee to explore “feasibility,” which seems to presuppose desirability. Or is it a way to save face while basically giving up this idea?

I think the committee is a waste of resources that would be better used to work on whatever is going wrong at Miner. I am also opposed to the cluster and not looking forward to sleeping with one eye open through 2027.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think this is worst-case scenario for Miner because now there is absolutely no reason for current IB families or DCPS to invest effort into improving Miner, if the cluster idea is still on the table and a working group is coming. But if you have school age kids now, or even have kids staring PK in the next few years, the incentive to look elsewhere for school has never been higher because who even knows what is happening with Miner?

I'm sure Maury families are happy but I think Miner got screwed in this process. The upshot for the school is that everyone focused very hard on how much it is failing and how no one wants to go there for several months, and now it will be left to its own devices for the next 3+ years. Great.

What a total WASTE of everyone's time and energy. The DME could not have screwed this up harder if he'd tried.

DME absolutely botched this and continues to make bad choices. I agree that the working group has the potential to disadvantage Miner. It will be in a state of limbo from the perspective of parents and future principals. How are they going to secure a committed new principal with the looming threat that they'll be removed or that their hard work could be undone by a cluster?

This is a missed opportunity and the DME should have done its job from the beginning and looked at boundary redraws. DME knows its too late to introduce a boundary change, so they're throwing out nonstarters. They didn't even look at the most obvious change, which is a north south dividing line along 15th and 16th that carves out Azeeze-Bates to Maury.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But it also has a significant number of not at risk kids in boundary who do not attend the school. If the school made some changes to improve and got those kids to attend, Miner could have very different school demographics.

According to DME, the Miner IB population demographics mirror the attending demographics. Maybe that data can be parsed more closely, but they've said increasing IB population wouldn't change the at-risk numbers. Increasing IB MC/UMC attendance would also potentially displace the Miner OOB kids who are coming from worse school environments. The cluster would potentially do this as well, if it were successful. I believe that's a big reason DME is punting here. They've heard from a lot of affluent parents from both school communities. They have not heard from Miner at-risk families.

I struggle with that because there are definitely some higher income families that buy in Kingman Park in general. I wish we could see hard numbers rather than just accept this at face value. Rosedale rowhomes and the streets (i.e. surrounding the Rosedale rec center) tend to be very small/narrow though so not as appealing to higher SES families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But it also has a significant number of not at risk kids in boundary who do not attend the school. If the school made some changes to improve and got those kids to attend, Miner could have very different school demographics.

According to DME, the Miner IB population demographics mirror the attending demographics. Maybe that data can be parsed more closely, but they've said increasing IB population wouldn't change the at-risk numbers. Increasing IB MC/UMC attendance would also potentially displace the Miner OOB kids who are coming from worse school environments. The cluster would potentially do this as well, if it were successful. I believe that's a big reason DME is punting here. They've heard from a lot of affluent parents from both school communities. They have not heard from Miner at-risk families.

I struggle with that because there are definitely some higher income families that buy in Kingman Park in general. I wish we could see hard numbers rather than just accept this at face value. Rosedale rowhomes and the streets (i.e. surrounding the Rosedale rec center) tend to be very small/narrow though so not as appealing to higher SES families.

Based on the data put out by DME, there are a minimum of 200 non-at-risk in bounds for Miner who don’t go there. Get them to attend, and Miner’s a totally different school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But it also has a significant number of not at risk kids in boundary who do not attend the school. If the school made some changes to improve and got those kids to attend, Miner could have very different school demographics.

According to DME, the Miner IB population demographics mirror the attending demographics. Maybe that data can be parsed more closely, but they've said increasing IB population wouldn't change the at-risk numbers. Increasing IB MC/UMC attendance would also potentially displace the Miner OOB kids who are coming from worse school environments. The cluster would potentially do this as well, if it were successful. I believe that's a big reason DME is punting here. They've heard from a lot of affluent parents from both school communities. They have not heard from Miner at-risk families.

I struggle with that because there are definitely some higher income families that buy in Kingman Park in general. I wish we could see hard numbers rather than just accept this at face value. Rosedale rowhomes and the streets (i.e. surrounding the Rosedale rec center) tend to be very small/narrow though so not as appealing to higher SES families.

Based on the data put out by DME, there are a minimum of 200 non-at-risk in bounds for Miner who don’t go there. Get them to attend, and Miner’s a totally different school.

Good luck. That's true anywhere, but you generally won't get those parents to send their kids. How many Maury parents are going to send their kid to Eliot Hine for MS? Hey if they all just attend, it's a different school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But it also has a significant number of not at risk kids in boundary who do not attend the school. If the school made some changes to improve and got those kids to attend, Miner could have very different school demographics.

According to DME, the Miner IB population demographics mirror the attending demographics. Maybe that data can be parsed more closely, but they've said increasing IB population wouldn't change the at-risk numbers. Increasing IB MC/UMC attendance would also potentially displace the Miner OOB kids who are coming from worse school environments. The cluster would potentially do this as well, if it were successful. I believe that's a big reason DME is punting here. They've heard from a lot of affluent parents from both school communities. They have not heard from Miner at-risk families.

I struggle with that because there are definitely some higher income families that buy in Kingman Park in general. I wish we could see hard numbers rather than just accept this at face value. Rosedale rowhomes and the streets (i.e. surrounding the Rosedale rec center) tend to be very small/narrow though so not as appealing to higher SES families.

Based on the data put out by DME, there are a minimum of 200 non-at-risk in bounds for Miner who don’t go there. Get them to attend, and Miner’s a totally different school.

Good luck. That's true anywhere, but you generally won't get those parents to send their kids. How many Maury parents are going to send their kid to Eliot Hine for MS? Hey if they all just attend, it's a different school.

An increasing number of Maury kids are attending EH each year, and Payne for that matter. It is on the upswing with increasing buy-in, a great principal, good programming, and a nice campus. It doesn't happen overnight. Miner, unfortunately, has a number of issues both demographic and administrative negatively impacting it.