So how many IB are going to really be at Hardy?
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Anonymous
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Deal boundaries do not have similar IB demographics than Hardy boundaries. At all !!!!
Just compare the mean house value in Georgetown, Wesley Heights, Foxhall, Spring Valley (West of Mass; The East section feeds into Deal), to the mean house value of Deal boundaries. Maybe just Glover Park and part of Palisades can compare to a small and wealthier portion of Deal boundaries. Just open Zillow.com, and fly over the Hardy boundaries to see a sequence of areas populated with only multi-million houses: fly over Foxhall Ave, over Wesley Heights, over Spring Valley West. Miles and miles of houses above one, or two, or above six million dollars!!... Those who claim that the demographics are comparable do not know anything either about Hardy boundaries, nor about how they look like. Most families in the Hardy boundaries are just not interested in public schools, in general or after 4-5 years in their cute walkable elementary school (Mann, Key). 95% of the entries in this thread are written by people who have no real knowledge of the recent dynamics of Hardy, of the feeding neighborhoods etc. and just launch naive ideas . People who say that the demographics is the same as Deal , lack basic knowledge of the real facts of these boundaries. People who talk about focus group lack basic knowledge of what Hardy's efforts of reaching out to feeding schools have been in the past year (maybe just ask your PTO President, since feeding school PTOs have held regular meetings with Hardy administrators and DCPS during the whole past year). Please get a life away from Hardy , or drop your mouse, come and gather first hand information, from the school administrators, from your feeding school PTOs, or take a drive through Georgetown, Wesley Heights, Foxhall, Spring Valley West of Mass. (and then through the Deal neighborhood) if you really want to have an understanding of the picture. Hardy is doing great, academically, logistically, behaviorally etc. The school is taking off with feeder schools and IB families. If you are interested come see the school and talk to the people in charge at the school. if you are not interested, then please move to another thread. Have a life away from Hardy. IB Hardy mom (extremely happy about the school, as is her child) |
Anonymous
These meetings, in bold -- this is another good sign of progress. What have been the outcomes of these meetings, in terms of next steps to recruit IB students and make changes to attract them? |
Anonymous
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I'm with 13:25: the school has already, and is now, changing IB parents' minds about the suitability of Hardy as an academically sound school. You'll see it more next year, and the year after that.
How many IB kids are attending 6th grade this year, anyway? Do we know the exact number? |
Anonymous
There are multimillion $ houses in Forest Hills, Chevy Chase DC and Cleveland Park and families there send their kids to Deal (maybe not so much in Cleveland Park, once it is dropped from Deal). Burleith, Glover Park, Palisades, Cathedral Heights Foxhall, area apartments are in Hardy district and are not mansion districts either. It's a false argument that Hardy's IB market is just too rich to choose Hardy over private school. If that were really the view, then why bother to make an effort to boost IB attendance at all if it's a fool's errand. Hardy needs to listen to what its neighborhood wants in a middle school and then if possible try to implement it. |
Anonymous
I am guessing that the PP meant the reference to "cute, walkable elementary schools" to be disparaging, but isn't that the goal of DCPS education at the elementary level: to have really good, neighborhood-centered, walkable schools? The daily helter-skelter of little kids being driven across the city to go to school certainly isn't ideal -- and flies totally in the face of the policies that other DC agencies (DDOT, Office of Planning) are actively promoting. |
Anonymous
Demographics are not the same. That's a fact. Let's stop here. And Cleveland Park wealthiest send their kids to the privates, not to Eaton. Let's say things straights: neighborhood families want a school with less OB (black) kids, who do not belong to the neighborhood community and drop test results down. They asked the Principal to artificially cap the number of OB for this year's 6th grade. Have a 6th grade cohort of only 50 kids or so. Test results would go up. Pride said, mmm I an not sure but let me think about it. School administrators (Vice-Principal) and teachers said that's ugly. DCPS said no. So Hardy's 6th grade has 130 kids, not only 50 IB/feeder kids. I say no myself when IB parents talk to me and go around the question they would like to ask but can't: "how many white kids are in your kid's math class? Let's give the school a break for another couple of weeks , the start of the school year has been rough , lots of last minute enrollments, students had two weeks to change their electives, back of school night, lines of parents asking to meet , I imagine also a tsunami of parents emails, final schedules distributed only on Monday. Then we will ask and get the numbers, possibly with a breakdown into feeder and IBs. I can see that IB population has increased (kids biking to school, or coming from west, not from the buses on Wisconsin), and I am happy to see an increasing neighborhood scene. But I happy too that DCPS and the school administration decided not to close the school access to fulfill the neighborhood requests. Same IB mom as 14:37 |
Anonymous
Let's stop here. Because at Hardy, we tell people who point out uncomfortable truths to STFU. That's already been abundantly pointed out upthread. Your post about demographics did not contain a single fact. It was all your speculating. You started with the presumption that there's nothing wrong with the school, it must be the parents. DCPS doesn't provide information about affluence, but it does about poverty. For each school it provides the percentage of kids who qualify for free and reduced price meals (FARM). For Key, it's 6%. For Mann it's also 6%. Stoddert it's 14%, Hyde it's 16%. For Janney it's 4%. Lafayette 7%. Murch 9%. By that standard -- one that relies on objective data, not conjecture -- those three schools are richer than the Hardy feeders. Yet kids from those schools are flocking to Deal. You can get facts (not conjecture) about where neighborhood kids go to school: http://edu.codefordc.org/#!/neighborhood/13 If in-boundary families are so averse to public schools, why do so many go to Latin and Basis? It's more than go to Hardy. A few, not many, have the chance to go to Deal, and just about all of them go. Significantly more kids go to Wilson and Walls than all the public middle schools combined. If the neighborhood is so anti-public-school why do so many sit out public for middle but return for high? I'm sorry, but the theory that it's something about the residents just doesn't hold up. It's not like there's something in the water on the south side of Massachusetts that's missing on the north side. It's the school. |
Anonymous
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I'm not taking sides here, but the PP is wrong about the demographics being the same. Data is your friend, so use it.
Median income for 2007-2011: Deal catchment: Friendship Hts, Tenleytown, AU Park (cluster 11): 215k Chevy Chase: (cluster 10): 254k Forest Hills, Cleveland Park (cluster 12): 217k Boundary Areas (both Deal and Hardy catchments): Mass Ave Hts, Cleveland Park, Normanstone (cluster 15): 291k Cathedral Heights, Glover Park, Mclean Grdns (cluster 14): 157k Hardy catchment: Spring Valley, Palisades, Wesley Hts (cluster 13): 297k Gtown, Burlieth (cluster 4): 304k All data from http://www.neighborhoodinfodc.org/nclusters/nclusters.html |
Anonymous
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PP here again (I'm also 8:44 from this morning):
It is interesting to note that the two clusters with teh highest median incomes (the two Hardy catchment clusters) are also the most populated. I think the numbers are medians not means, but it is suggestive that Spring Valley, Palisades, Wesley Hts and Gtown are considerably wealthier than other areas, including Cleveland Park. If the numbers I cited are means, then my point is even clearer and it is not suggestive that Hardy catchment is wealthier, it is wealthier. |
Anonymous
Thanks!! And if you add the whole Deal boundary zones / feeding schools (Shepherd, Hearst, Bancroft) you will see that Deal and Hardy boundary demographics are substantially different, the latter being composed of much wealthier zones. Of course IB enrollment to Hardy is significantly lower than Deal's for reasons which go beyond the IB demographics. But let's clarify for the uninformed readers that the two constituency are substantially different, with Hardy boundary zones showing an average median income which is twice as much as Deal boundary zones. |
Anonymous
What percent of current middle school age kids living IB to Hardy, attend private schools, vs the percent who attend charters, Deal, etc? The fact that the Hardy zone has more attending privates doesn't mean Hardy can't "flip". I mean lots of kids in Potomac and McLean attend privates, but the neighborhood public schools in those areas are well regarded and an important draw for those areas, IIUC. |
Anonymous
Wow, I've rarely seen such specious reasoning and coupled with the assertion to use facts! You presented figures about percentages of kids eligible for FARMS. A lower percentage of these students -- especially when it's only lower, for example, in the case of Janney, by 2%-12% than the schools IB for Hardy -- does not indicate that the school is wealthier. It only indicates that it has a higher percentage of students eligible for FARMS. For all we know, 96% of Janney students could come from middle class families while 84% of the students at Hyde could come from very wealthy families. Obviously, as we all know, the picture is undoubtedly more complicated than that. But citing these frankly low percentages of students eligible for FARMS and saying it tells you how wealthy the student body is overall? Oh man, there's no basis in fact for that assertion. For all I know the rest of your post is accurate but you blew your credibility by calling for facts and then distorting the story the facts actually tell. |
Anonymous
| Statistics are always the last line of self-defense in a debate. |
Anonymous
| 17:20 here -- D'oh! I meant a "It only indicates that it has a *lower* percentage of students eligible for FARMS." |
Anonymous
What are you talking about? DCUM love our metrics and citations. |