Good schools EoTP

[Anonymous]

I agree with PP above because it's impossible read the tea leaves for MS and HS with little kids.

When my kids were babies, far and away the best public ES option EotP was Watkins. That ship began to sail after the language immersion started opening in Ward 5 around 2009. Watkins still hasn't recovered.

Now we've got Latin Cooper opening in the fall, a school that could take off as a new, UMC-friendly MS & HS option EotP, or not. Many of the Brent, Maury and Ludlow-Taylor 5th graders this year will be kids who didn't get the lottery results for Latin 1 or BASIS.

If living with lottery risk isn't your thing, OP, and you probably wouldn't be OK with a heavily low SES DCPS MS (Jefferson, Eliot-Hine, Stuart Hobson, Brookland) I'd stick to the Deal-Wilson pyramid. But then Deal and Wilson aren't as strong academically as BASIS and, arguably, Walls. If you move to NOVA or MoCo, you don't have the stress of all the uncertainty.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree with PP above because it's impossible read the tea leaves for MS and HS with little kids.

When my kids were babies, far and away the best public ES option EotP was Watkins. That ship began to sail after the language immersion started opening in Ward 5 around 2009. Watkins still hasn't recovered.

Now we've got Latin Cooper opening in the fall, a school that could take off as a new, UMC-friendly MS & HS option EotP, or not. Many of the Brent, Maury and Ludlow-Taylor 5th graders this year will be kids who didn't get the lottery results for Latin 1 or BASIS.

If living with lottery risk isn't your thing, OP, and you probably wouldn't be OK with a heavily low SES DCPS MS (Jefferson, Eliot-Hine, Stuart Hobson, Brookland) I'd stick to the Deal-Wilson pyramid. But then Deal and Wilson aren't as strong academically as BASIS and, arguably, Walls. If you move to NOVA or MoCo, you don't have the stress of all the uncertainty.

This. It's just not a precise enough thing when you have a toddler. When we bought our house, we were zoned for a school that doesn't even exist anymore. Then everyone thought Mundo Verde and CMI were the shizzle. Lee was a brand-new startup. DCPS was trying to close Garrison. Wells didn't exist, DCI . Boundaries all over the place were different than they are now. ITS, SSMA, and various other schools were in different locations than they are now. The system has too many moving parts for the parent of a very young child to be able to predict.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would not bet on SP staying in the Deal-Wilson pyramid. Try Glover Park, or Takoma Park (MD) with that budget.

Ward 4 is still a strong base for Bowser, and the concentraton of black elites with money. there is zero chance it shepard gets moved out of west of the park feed. ZERO. Cause UMC black folks think DC schools middle and highs schools EoTP are bad just like white folks

[Anonymous]

Might find a house in Woodridge or Brookland.

Houses east of the river are just a bridge and 30/40 minutes away from some schools like Mann, Key, Hyde, Stoddert.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would not bet on SP staying in the Deal-Wilson pyramid. Try Glover Park, or Takoma Park (MD) with that budget.

Ward 4 is still a strong base for Bowser, and the concentraton of black elites with money. there is zero chance it shepard gets moved out of west of the park feed. ZERO. Cause UMC black folks think DC schools middle and highs schools EoTP are bad just like white folks

Well aren’t they? I’m just saying….. would you send your kid to Hart, Ballou or Anacostia? Elementary isn’t the problem because I would be fine with JO Wilson, Brent, Watkins, Maury, Van Ness, etc….. the problem is the middle and high school feeder. Will that change? Maybe but here is good for thought. I graduated from Wilson in 1995 and it was the IT high school 27 years ago along with Deal. The only other high school that people wan the d was Banneker. So it doesn’t appear the trajectory is changing much.

Me personally, I’d brave the commute for the feeder I want. Although Hardy will feed to the new high school which will have citywide lottery seats for all grades that Wilson doesn’t have. At least right at this moment. However, I suspect when the new high school opens, both schools will have citywide seats. The issue then becomes will students EOTR/P take the commute.

I don’t know. For me, I’m going to stick it out at me elementary if I were EOTR, pray for a miracle for middle, move or go private.

[Anonymous]

The EOTP DCPS middle schools are just not going to get better anytime soon when most subjects don’t have tracking and you have kids 3-4 grade levels apart. I don’t see that changing in DCPS. In fact, they are de-tracking, case in point honors for all at Wilson

If you don’t get into a school with a potential good feeder by K, I would move to the close in burbs and be done with it.

The schools are much better, there is tracking, and you have a sure middle and high school feed that is good. In addition, you get a middle and high school with good facilities, lots of clubs, sports, and extracurriculars. It won’t be so disruptive to move in K vs 3rd or 4th and your kid will actually be with much higher performing peers all the way thru elementary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The EOTP DCPS middle schools are just not going to get better anytime soon when most subjects don’t have tracking and you have kids 3-4 grade levels apart. I don’t see that changing in DCPS. In fact, they are de-tracking, case in point honors for all at Wilson

If you don’t get into a school with a potential good feeder by K, I would move to the close in burbs and be done with it.

The schools are much better, there is tracking, and you have a sure middle and high school feed that is good. In addition, you get a middle and high school with good facilities, lots of clubs, sports, and extracurriculars. It won’t be so disruptive to move in K vs 3rd or 4th and your kid will actually be with much higher performing peers all the way thru elementary.

I'm sorry to say I agree with you, unless there is a major sea-change in how DCPS approaches neighborhood schools. Hardy turned around, as I understand it, because the principal made a concerted effort to adapt the school to the needs of the IB families. The current ethos is totally different: no more honors, tracking is bad, etc etc. I used to have faith that "of course schools would want to make sure students succeed to the best of their ability," but after observing the political process in DC for the past few years, I no longer believe it. I actually believe that misguided policies could result in the destruction of DCPS middle and HS fit for the college-bound. Seriously, seriously considering MoCo for MS-HS now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The EOTP DCPS middle schools are just not going to get better anytime soon when most subjects don’t have tracking and you have kids 3-4 grade levels apart. I don’t see that changing in DCPS. In fact, they are de-tracking, case in point honors for all at Wilson

If you don’t get into a school with a potential good feeder by K, I would move to the close in burbs and be done with it.

The schools are much better, there is tracking, and you have a sure middle and high school feed that is good. In addition, you get a middle and high school with good facilities, lots of clubs, sports, and extracurriculars. It won’t be so disruptive to move in K vs 3rd or 4th and your kid will actually be with much higher performing peers all the way thru elementary.

I'm sorry to say I agree with you, unless there is a major sea-change in how DCPS approaches neighborhood schools. Hardy turned around, as I understand it, because the principal made a concerted effort to adapt the school to the needs of the IB families. The current ethos is totally different: no more honors, tracking is bad, etc etc. I used to have faith that "of course schools would want to make sure students succeed to the best of their ability," but after observing the political process in DC for the past few years, I no longer believe it. I actually believe that misguided policies could result in the destruction of DCPS middle and HS fit for the college-bound. Seriously, seriously considering MoCo for MS-HS now.

(And I also agree with you about moving in K. Although I believe that most kids don't really have true friendship groups until 3rd grade and up, it's looking to be really disruptive to move now that my child is in upper elementary. Much better to start out where you want to be.)

[Anonymous]

Nonsense that your kid will be with "much higher performing peers all the way thru elementary" if you move from DC to a suburban school rather than EotP, other than perhaps in the case of super-duper test-in GT programs in MoCo and Fairfax for 4th and 5th grades (very hard to crack). Total BS where Brent, Maury, SWS and even Ludlow Taylor, Tyler Spanish Immersion and Watkins are concerned. My kids have not been short on seriously high-performing peers in DCPS EotP all the way through elementary, UMC kids who do math two grade levels ahead and read all the Harry Potter books in 2nd or 3rd grade.

We looked at public elementary schools in MoCo and Northern VA where at-risk percentages were higher, sometimes a lot higher, than at our DCPS ES EotP. In these suburban schools, we saw classes where a single teacher taught as many as 30 kids. We've never had more than around 23 students in any DCPS ES class for our kids, generally with two teachers in the room at least half the day. Just not worth moving to the burbs for ES anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nonsense that your kid will be with "much higher performing peers all the way thru elementary" if you move from DC to a suburban school rather than EotP, other than perhaps in the case of super-duper test-in GT programs in MoCo and Fairfax for 4th and 5th grades (very hard to crack). Total BS where Brent, Maury, SWS and even Ludlow Taylor, Tyler Spanish Immersion and Watkins are concerned. My kids have not been short on seriously high-performing peers in DCPS EotP all the way through elementary, UMC kids who do math two grade levels ahead and read all the Harry Potter books in 2nd or 3rd grade.

We looked at public elementary schools in MoCo and Northern VA where at-risk percentages were higher, sometimes a lot higher, than at our DCPS ES EotP. In these suburban schools, we saw classes where a single teacher taught as many as 30 kids. We've never had more than around 23 students in any DCPS ES class for our kids, generally with two teachers in the room at least half the day. Just not worth moving to the burbs for ES anymore.

Ok ... but your kids will get older, and they will have to go to MS, and all your "high performing peers" in elementary school will go to Basis, Latin, or move to NW or MoCo.

[Anonymous]

Nothing to stop us from following the high performing peers where they land after 8 good years at our DCPS ES. Life can be lived one year at a time.

[Anonymous]

My son’s at one of the DCPS middle schools, MacFarland, and loving it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nonsense that your kid will be with "much higher performing peers all the way thru elementary" if you move from DC to a suburban school rather than EotP, other than perhaps in the case of super-duper test-in GT programs in MoCo and Fairfax for 4th and 5th grades (very hard to crack). Total BS where Brent, Maury, SWS and even Ludlow Taylor, Tyler Spanish Immersion and Watkins are concerned. My kids have not been short on seriously high-performing peers in DCPS EotP all the way through elementary, UMC kids who do math two grade levels ahead and read all the Harry Potter books in 2nd or 3rd grade.

We looked at public elementary schools in MoCo and Northern VA where at-risk percentages were higher, sometimes a lot higher, than at our DCPS ES EotP. In these suburban schools, we saw classes where a single teacher taught as many as 30 kids. We've never had more than around 23 students in any DCPS ES class for our kids, generally with two teachers in the room at least half the day. Just not worth moving to the burbs for ES anymore.

Ok ... but your kids will get older, and they will have to go to MS, and all your "high performing peers" in elementary school will go to Basis, Latin, or move to NW or MoCo.

NP but I don’t think MoCo schools have the same shine they used to for DCPS parents. The schools just aren’t that impressive, it’s the SES of those schools that makes them still have the reputation they have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nothing to stop us from following the high performing peers where they land after 8 good years at our DCPS ES. Life can be lived one year at a time.

+1 (and we can enjoy the appreciation on our DC homes in the meantime!)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nothing to stop us from following the high performing peers where they land after 8 good years at our DCPS ES. Life can be lived one year at a time.

Exactly.