By the numbers: A dispassioned evaluation of Hardy (compared to Deal and Wilson)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:went to the Hardy open house last week. 3 of the feeders have added a fifth grade class & one added another 1/2... and Eaton is coming. The overall DCPS enrollment for the coming years is bigger than the past. Deal is too overloaded. Bigger IB (and overall) Enrollment is Coming.

Assuming this is true, this is not great news for Wilson, which is packed to the gills already without more people coming in from Hardy.

The logical thing would be to shrink Wilson's zone to west of Rock Creek Park. But politically, this will never happen. How about a rigorous residency audit in the meantime? If five percent of Wilson students actually live in Maryland, that would still be a number of spots to free up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:went to the Hardy open house last week. 3 of the feeders have added a fifth grade class & one added another 1/2... and Eaton is coming. The overall DCPS enrollment for the coming years is bigger than the past. Deal is too overloaded. Bigger IB (and overall) Enrollment is Coming.

Presumably Hardy will shrink OOB spots as IB enrollment climbs, no?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:went to the Hardy open house last week. 3 of the feeders have added a fifth grade class & one added another 1/2... and Eaton is coming. The overall DCPS enrollment for the coming years is bigger than the past. Deal is too overloaded. Bigger IB (and overall) Enrollment is Coming.

Presumably Hardy will shrink OOB spots as IB enrollment climbs, no?

DCPS is moving toward finally closing Fillmore as part of this dynamic.. and the Eaton kids that would've gone to Deal are shifting to Hardy... so have to factor that in (so some of the change would be those kids moving from one MS to the other, but back to Wilson for HS).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:went to the Hardy open house last week. 3 of the feeders have added a fifth grade class & one added another 1/2... and Eaton is coming. The overall DCPS enrollment for the coming years is bigger than the past. Deal is too overloaded. Bigger IB (and overall) Enrollment is Coming.

Assuming this is true, this is not great news for Wilson, which is packed to the gills already without more people coming in from Hardy.

I'm not so sure. The number of IB students choosing Hardy is increasing and I really think next year we'll see a doubling of that percentage in the 6th grade. But I also think that many of those same students will look beyond Wilson for high school if their families determine that it's too crowded, not a good fit, too riddled by problems, etc. Many of those parents are able and willing to make the investment for private starting in high school, when it really matters for college. Plus SWW is a great option and depending on what happens with Duke Ellington, it could be a feasible option for arts-focused kids too. If anything, I bet Wilson's numbers with relation to students matriculating from Hardy will stay roughly the same. I guess time will tell.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:went to the Hardy open house last week. 3 of the feeders have added a fifth grade class & one added another 1/2... and Eaton is coming. The overall DCPS enrollment for the coming years is bigger than the past. Deal is too overloaded. Bigger IB (and overall) Enrollment is Coming.

Presumably Hardy will shrink OOB spots as IB enrollment climbs, no?

DCPS is moving toward finally closing Fillmore as part of this dynamic.. and the Eaton kids that would've gone to Deal are shifting to Hardy... so have to factor that in (so some of the change would be those kids moving from one MS to the other, but back to Wilson for HS).

If Principal Pride is able to reclaim all of the 3rd floor, she could grow enrollment. But during the open house she said that in her opinion a right-sized 6th grade class would be 150 students. Right now, there are about 135 students per grade. So growing that class size by 15 kids. She said she doesn't want the school to grow too quickly. And to be clear, if Fillmore is closed, it is NOT because Hardy is trying to expand. She also made it clear that she'll be paying close attention to her feeder elementaries in trying to make educated guesses of how many kids will enroll next year so that she can argue for a reasonable number of OOB slots awarded via the lottery and not over extend the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:went to the Hardy open house last week. 3 of the feeders have added a fifth grade class & one added another 1/2... and Eaton is coming. The overall DCPS enrollment for the coming years is bigger than the past. Deal is too overloaded. Bigger IB (and overall) Enrollment is Coming.

Presumably Hardy will shrink OOB spots as IB enrollment climbs, no?

Yes, but it's not an exact science. The lottery opens in January, at which time the schools indicate how many spots they propose to offer per grade (at least they've done this in the past...I'd argue that the schools should not be locked into awarding a certain number of OOB spots so early in the school year). This is months before IB/Feeder School families have to submit re-enrollment paperwork. If there are clear signs that Hardy feeders will be sending record numbers of rising 6th graders next year, I would hope that Principal Pride would wait to award OOB spots until after she knows how many kids she getting from the feeders. Keep as long a waitlist as you want, but wait to award spots until you know you have the spots.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:went to the Hardy open house last week. 3 of the feeders have added a fifth grade class & one added another 1/2... and Eaton is coming. The overall DCPS enrollment for the coming years is bigger than the past. Deal is too overloaded. Bigger IB (and overall) Enrollment is Coming.

Presumably Hardy will shrink OOB spots as IB enrollment climbs, no?

DCPS is moving toward finally closing Fillmore as part of this dynamic.. and the Eaton kids that would've gone to Deal are shifting to Hardy... so have to factor that in (so some of the change would be those kids moving from one MS to the other, but back to Wilson for HS).

If Principal Pride is able to reclaim all of the 3rd floor, she could grow enrollment. But during the open house she said that in her opinion a right-sized 6th grade class would be 150 students. Right now, there are about 135 students per grade. So growing that class size by 15 kids. She said she doesn't want the school to grow too quickly. And to be clear, if Fillmore is closed, it is NOT because Hardy is trying to expand. She also made it clear that she'll be paying close attention to her feeder elementaries in trying to make educated guesses of how many kids will enroll next year so that she can argue for a reasonable number of OOB slots awarded via the lottery and not over extend the school.

There will be a lot of pressure from "Central" as well as certain Council members to maintain a lot of OOB spots at Hardy, even if it means growing the school a lot.

[Anonymous]

they only opened 25 OOB spaces originally in this past year's lottery... so they've already been accommodating for the potential - and can adjust. https://public.tableau.com/profile/aaron2446#!/vizhome/MSDCSeatsandWaitlistOfferData/MSDCPublicDisplay

[Anonymous]

Principal Pride offered something like 70 or 80 OOB lottery spots for 6th grade for the 2015-16 school year. In last year's lottery the number dropped to 25 spots offered in the initial lottery (lots were offered spots off of the waitlist later), so she was able to set the bar much lower with "Central's" permission. I think it's wrong to make schools commit to specific numbers of lottery spots in advance of a mid-December lottery launch. That is many months before IB/Feeder families have to submit enrollment paperwork, several months before school budgets are finalized. It seems to require a lot of reading of tea leaves. Open the lottery, don't specify how many spots are being offered by grade until the results are announced in April. That would allow principals the time to develop more accurate predictions for the following school year's enrollment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:went to the Hardy open house last week. 3 of the feeders have added a fifth grade class & one added another 1/2... and Eaton is coming. The overall DCPS enrollment for the coming years is bigger than the past. Deal is too overloaded. Bigger IB (and overall) Enrollment is Coming.

Assuming this is true, this is not great news for Wilson, which is packed to the gills already without more people coming in from Hardy.

Keep in mind that a lot of Deal students are IB for Hardy. When Hardy is considered equal that will stop

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Principal Pride offered something like 70 or 80 OOB lottery spots for 6th grade for the 2015-16 school year. In last year's lottery the number dropped to 25 spots offered in the initial lottery (lots were offered spots off of the waitlist later), so she was able to set the bar much lower with "Central's" permission. I think it's wrong to make schools commit to specific numbers of lottery spots in advance of a mid-December lottery launch. That is many months before IB/Feeder families have to submit enrollment paperwork, several months before school budgets are finalized. It seems to require a lot of reading of tea leaves. Open the lottery, don't specify how many spots are being offered by grade until the results are announced in April. That would allow principals the time to develop more accurate predictions for the following school year's enrollment.

But by looking at the link above it seems that her 25 number was off by a lot. 82 offers by August?!?! Her bar actually means nothing. It is just a random number she chooses?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:went to the Hardy open house last week. 3 of the feeders have added a fifth grade class & one added another 1/2... and Eaton is coming. The overall DCPS enrollment for the coming years is bigger than the past. Deal is too overloaded. Bigger IB (and overall) Enrollment is Coming.

Assuming this is true, this is not great news for Wilson, which is packed to the gills already without more people coming in from Hardy.

Keep in mind that a lot of Deal students are IB for Hardy. When Hardy is considered equal that will stop

Deal is not supposed to be accepting OOB students. What does this mean? Are you referring to IB Hardy parents who falsify documents, use someone else's address, or rent a cheap efficiency apartment (in which they do not actually live) in order to get IB Deal status for their children's middle school years?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Principal Pride offered something like 70 or 80 OOB lottery spots for 6th grade for the 2015-16 school year. In last year's lottery the number dropped to 25 spots offered in the initial lottery (lots were offered spots off of the waitlist later), so she was able to set the bar much lower with "Central's" permission. I think it's wrong to make schools commit to specific numbers of lottery spots in advance of a mid-December lottery launch. That is many months before IB/Feeder families have to submit enrollment paperwork, several months before school budgets are finalized. It seems to require a lot of reading of tea leaves. Open the lottery, don't specify how many spots are being offered by grade until the results are announced in April. That would allow principals the time to develop more accurate predictions for the following school year's enrollment.

But by looking at the link above it seems that her 25 number was off by a lot. 82 offers by August?!?! Her bar actually means nothing. It is just a random number she chooses?

The lower lottery number (25) was because she was trying to save space for feeder school kids and I would assume that calculation was based on discussions with feeder school PTAs and parents. But not until the enrollment deadline in the spring do schools have a clear picture of who's coming in the fall. To be sure, there was a marked increase in feeder school children that enrolled in 6th grade this year, building upon the increase from the previous year, but it wasn't the bumper crop that is anticipated for next year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:went to the Hardy open house last week. 3 of the feeders have added a fifth grade class & one added another 1/2... and Eaton is coming. The overall DCPS enrollment for the coming years is bigger than the past. Deal is too overloaded. Bigger IB (and overall) Enrollment is Coming.

Assuming this is true, this is not great news for Wilson, which is packed to the gills already without more people coming in from Hardy.

Keep in mind that a lot of Deal students are IB for Hardy. When Hardy is considered equal that will stop

Deal is not supposed to be accepting OOB students. What does this mean? Are you referring to IB Hardy parents who falsify documents, use someone else's address, or rent a cheap efficiency apartment (in which they do not actually live) in order to get IB Deal status for their children's middle school years?

For 2016-17 Deal took 4 OOB 6th graders and 1 8th grader. Perhaps they were enrolled at the Chancellor's discretion, but the data is on MSDC. https://public.tableau.com/profile/aaron2446#!/vizhome/MSDCSeatsandWaitlistOfferData/MSDCPublicDisplay

Any students at Deal who live IB for Hardy could get there most simply and legally by attending a Deal feeder as an OOB student during elementary school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Principal Pride offered something like 70 or 80 OOB lottery spots for 6th grade for the 2015-16 school year. In last year's lottery the number dropped to 25 spots offered in the initial lottery (lots were offered spots off of the waitlist later), so she was able to set the bar much lower with "Central's" permission. I think it's wrong to make schools commit to specific numbers of lottery spots in advance of a mid-December lottery launch. That is many months before IB/Feeder families have to submit enrollment paperwork, several months before school budgets are finalized. It seems to require a lot of reading of tea leaves. Open the lottery, don't specify how many spots are being offered by grade until the results are announced in April. That would allow principals the time to develop more accurate predictions for the following school year's enrollment.

But by looking at the link above it seems that her 25 number was off by a lot. 82 offers by August?!?! Her bar actually means nothing. It is just a random number she chooses?

The number was not random. All feeder schools' families considering Hardy were asked to fill out their intent forms last year around December. I would guess for our IB school half of those submitting the forms went with Deal (there were OOB at the school but their residence address was IB to Deal) or private independent / catholic schools. Also, 82 offers does not equal to 82 OOB spaces.