Creative Minds Middle School?

[Anonymous]

I know that CM was approved to open a middle school. Will they have additional seats for new families? Has any information been released on how this will work?

[Anonymous]

They plan to open one additional class of 17 for the incoming 6th grade, is my understanding from an internal meeting they had with the parents of the older children. This will allow the current rising 5th graders (1 class of 17) and 17 open spots for 6th grade.

[Anonymous]

So, 17 spaces seem like good odds. Will there be chinese language?

[Anonymous]

The plan outlined in a recent meeting for parents in the older grades is to offer both
Chinese and Spanish in the Middle School (with the possibility of choosing one of these
languages), which continues the curriculum in the lower grades.

[Anonymous]

34 students per grade in a high quality MS sounds... ambitious. However, good luck to them for wanting to step into the gap.

[Anonymous]

34 is just for the first few years. There will ultimately be 51 per grade (3 classes of 17).

[Anonymous]

Page 5 of this document outlines the growth plan. http://www.dcpcsb.org/sites/default/files/report/Creative%20Minds%20PCS%20MS%20-%20Full%20Application%20-%20Spring%202015.pdf

[Anonymous]

Even 3 classes of 17 is small. That's 153 kids in the whole school--tough to compete in team sports, or to differentiate all that much. For the right kids, though, it could be great.

[Anonymous]

The problem all of these (K-8) plans run into is that parents with kids in 1st, 2nd, and maybe 3rd grade really, really want their elementary school to continue. They're very happy with the school and advocate with the administration to make it last. Then, by about 3rd or 4th grade, their child is different, their needs are different, and the family makes very different reflections about school. Often, they start looking for something bigger, something with more options, more extra-curriculars, with with more emphasis on selection, honors, rigor. It's hard for administrations to push back and also economically attractive not to because it's comparatively cheaper to run a middle school than an elementary school. So there are some economies of scale to be gained. But inevitably, the middle school will serve quite a different set of students, no worse, no better necessarily, but different. For the rest of the lot, it puts another "option" on the map and thereby adds another way by which we can shuffle our kids around into seemingly acceptable but - in sum - altogether suboptimal solutions. So, yes, good luck with that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Even 3 classes of 17 is small. That's 153 kids in the whole school--tough to compete in team sports, or to differentiate all that much. For the right kids, though, it could be great.

Im not sure if differentiation will be as big a concern. I sense that Creative Minds is self selecting in a lot of ways in that most of the kids come to school prepared to learn and are at or above grade level. A classroom where most of the kids are high achieving doesn't need the same level of differentiation as many gentrifying schools east of the park where half the kids are testing at "below basic" in the same class where a hanfdul of kids are a grade ahead and bored out of their minds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The problem all of these (K-8) plans run into is that parents with kids in 1st, 2nd, and maybe 3rd grade really, really want their elementary school to continue. They're very happy with the school and advocate with the administration to make it last. Then, by about 3rd or 4th grade, their child is different, their needs are different, and the family makes very different reflections about school. Often, they start looking for something bigger, something with more options, more extra-curriculars, with with more emphasis on selection, honors, rigor. It's hard for administrations to push back and also economically attractive not to because it's comparatively cheaper to run a middle school than an elementary school. So there are some economies of scale to be gained. But inevitably, the middle school will serve quite a different set of students, no worse, no better necessarily, but different. For the rest of the lot, it puts another "option" on the map and thereby adds another way by which we can shuffle our kids around into seemingly acceptable but - in sum - altogether suboptimal solutions. So, yes, good luck with that.

Yes, this is very well stated. We are a Lee family who has no interest in a middle school option at Lee. I think the need in DC is for good middle-to-high school options, not elementary-to-middle. (We will try for Latin when the time comes but are planning on private for middle and high school if we are still in the area.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem all of these (K-8) plans run into is that parents with kids in 1st, 2nd, and maybe 3rd grade really, really want their elementary school to continue. They're very happy with the school and advocate with the administration to make it last. Then, by about 3rd or 4th grade, their child is different, their needs are different, and the family makes very different reflections about school. Often, they start looking for something bigger, something with more options, more extra-curriculars, with with more emphasis on selection, honors, rigor. It's hard for administrations to push back and also economically attractive not to because it's comparatively cheaper to run a middle school than an elementary school. So there are some economies of scale to be gained. But inevitably, the middle school will serve quite a different set of students, no worse, no better necessarily, but different. For the rest of the lot, it puts another "option" on the map and thereby adds another way by which we can shuffle our kids around into seemingly acceptable but - in sum - altogether suboptimal solutions. So, yes, good luck with that.

Yes, this is very well stated. We are a Lee family who has no interest in a middle school option at Lee. I think the need in DC is for good middle-to-high school options, not elementary-to-middle. (We will try for Latin when the time comes but are planning on private for middle and high school if we are still in the area.)

Amen. Very well put PP. We feel the same at ITS. Even though I am impressed with what they have done in few short years building a small middle school (and we LOVE the school), I think my DC's needs have changed in 3rd grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even 3 classes of 17 is small. That's 153 kids in the whole school--tough to compete in team sports, or to differentiate all that much. For the right kids, though, it could be great.

Im not sure if differentiation will be as big a concern. I sense that Creative Minds is self selecting in a lot of ways in that most of the kids come to school prepared to learn and are at or above grade level. A classroom where most of the kids are high achieving doesn't need the same level of differentiation as many gentrifying schools east of the park where half the kids are testing at "below basic" in the same class where a hanfdul of kids are a grade ahead and bored out of their minds.

The problem here is that "you get what you get" not what you want. CM has to take all comers, it doesn't get to self select any more than Basis. Basis would like to self-select: it draws heavily from the Hill where the MS options are viewed as sub-par. This works great for the kids who came from Brent and Maury, but Basis has a major PR problem. They want the kids who aren't keeping up to leave. If CM thinks it will find a way to not offer differentiated instruction, then welcome to being an ostrich. The Latin model seems to be focused on rigor, but also bringing students up to speed. Latin, however, has a lot more resources at its disposal, and won't find them spread so thin as CM would.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem all of these (K-8) plans run into is that parents with kids in 1st, 2nd, and maybe 3rd grade really, really want their elementary school to continue. They're very happy with the school and advocate with the administration to make it last. Then, by about 3rd or 4th grade, their child is different, their needs are different, and the family makes very different reflections about school. Often, they start looking for something bigger, something with more options, more extra-curriculars, with with more emphasis on selection, honors, rigor. It's hard for administrations to push back and also economically attractive not to because it's comparatively cheaper to run a middle school than an elementary school. So there are some economies of scale to be gained. But inevitably, the middle school will serve quite a different set of students, no worse, no better necessarily, but different. For the rest of the lot, it puts another "option" on the map and thereby adds another way by which we can shuffle our kids around into seemingly acceptable but - in sum - altogether suboptimal solutions. So, yes, good luck with that.

Yes, this is very well stated. We are a Lee family who has no interest in a middle school option at Lee. I think the need in DC is for good middle-to-high school options, not elementary-to-middle. (We will try for Latin when the time comes but are planning on private for middle and high school if we are still in the area.)

Amen. Very well put PP. We feel the same at ITS. Even though I am impressed with what they have done in few short years building a small middle school (and we LOVE the school), I think my DC's needs have changed in 3rd grade.

Not everyone feels this way. I do NOT want a big middle school for my kids (I went to one - it was lord of the flies). So there just has to be enough families liek me who want a small middle school experience, and, with the lack of ms options in dc, it looks like some creative minds, it, lee families who don't feel like me may end up having to staying put (and perhaps loving it). The pk-8 model is very popular in progressive dc private schools, so I don't know why it wouldn't work in progressive charters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem all of these (K-8) plans run into is that parents with kids in 1st, 2nd, and maybe 3rd grade really, really want their elementary school to continue. They're very happy with the school and advocate with the administration to make it last. Then, by about 3rd or 4th grade, their child is different, their needs are different, and the family makes very different reflections about school. Often, they start looking for something bigger, something with more options, more extra-curriculars, with with more emphasis on selection, honors, rigor. It's hard for administrations to push back and also economically attractive not to because it's comparatively cheaper to run a middle school than an elementary school. So there are some economies of scale to be gained. But inevitably, the middle school will serve quite a different set of students, no worse, no better necessarily, but different. For the rest of the lot, it puts another "option" on the map and thereby adds another way by which we can shuffle our kids around into seemingly acceptable but - in sum - altogether suboptimal solutions. So, yes, good luck with that.

Yes, this is very well stated. We are a Lee family who has no interest in a middle school option at Lee. I think the need in DC is for good middle-to-high school options, not elementary-to-middle. (We will try for Latin when the time comes but are planning on private for middle and high school if we are still in the area.)

Amen. Very well put PP. We feel the same at ITS. Even though I am impressed with what they have done in few short years building a small middle school (and we LOVE the school), I think my DC's needs have changed in 3rd grade.

Not everyone feels this way. I do NOT want a big middle school for my kids (I went to one - it was lord of the flies). So there just has to be enough families liek me who want a small middle school experience, and, with the lack of ms options in dc, it looks like some creative minds, it, lee families who don't feel like me may end up having to staying put (and perhaps loving it). The pk-8 model is very popular in progressive dc private schools, so I don't know why it wouldn't work in progressive charters.

Well, for starters, because urban charters don't have selective admissions like private schools do. DCPS is moving away from the K-8 model because it's difficult to do both elementary and middle school well.