Ranking Ludlow-Taylor vs SWS

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I don't have a preference here, but was following the discussion and looked at school profiles and wow SWS has made great strides in diversifying their student population in the last 5 years ago! I remember when we were doing the lottery,the one thing about SWS that gave me pause was that it was like 80% white. That is really strange for a DCPS school that fills all seats via lottery, as it means that very few black families were choosing to lottery for SWS despite the good test scores. We still ranked it, but way lower than I would have otherwise because I saw this as a potential red flag that it wasn't a very welcoming community.

Well that's really different now. Less than 50% white and nearly 30% black. I assume there are some geographic reasons for it to still be more white than most charters and all city schools (it's not super accessible by public transit) but this is still a big improvement and indicates the school is working to be inclusive. Good for them.

I think you're misremembering. Farthest back I can find is 2018-2019 at 68% white. By 2020-2021 that was down to 59%. And 47% last year.

I think driven by 1) more apartments built up around that area, so more accessible to people who don't live in expensive Capitol Hill row houses, 2) more people in the Capitol Hill row houses opting into their IB school.

PP here and yes, I guess I misremembered the exact number. Still -- 68% white for an all-city school where admission is entirely based on the lottery is crazy high. Also I disagree that the increase in apartments in the neighborhood has led to greater socioeconomic variety -- it's the opposite. All the new apartments in Capitol Hill are higher end, and housing costs have only increased in the time period your are talking about. $4000/mo 2 bedroom apartments along H street are not helping to diversify SWS. Agree that more people on the Hill are choosing IB schools, but I would assume the school has also made a concerted effort to do outreach to non-white parents. I see they started doing equitable access a few years ago as well, resulting in 10 or so PK seats a year going to EA applicants. That likely helps a lot, especially at a school as small as SWS.

As a black family, seeing a lottery-based DCPS with more than 60% white students in a fairly diverse neighborhood was really jarring. We live in Ward 5 with a really weak IB school, but with an easy commute through the Hill so we were looking at lots of Hill and Hill-adjacent schools in the lottery. SWS was the only school where the percentage of white students was that high and it didn't make sense to me given the demographics of the city and the lottery. I'm glad to see it's more balanced now.

The "luxury" apartments in my neighborhood have a bunch of families on Section 8 vouchers.

They offered 6 equitable access seats in SY23-24, 8 in SY24-25, and 10 in SY25-26. That's ~6% of the total school population, not enough to be the sole source of the demographic shifts you're seeing.

Well I live near Capitol Hill and I don't think the luxury apartment buildings near SWS have a lot of people on Section 8 vouchers. The neighborhood has gentrified over the last 20 years and is more expensive to live in, not less. In addition to luxury building going up, you also see a lot of older row houses that used to be owned by middle class families getting bought by developers and turned into high end condos. I should also note that if apartment projects in Capitol Hill were bring in a large influx of lower income families, you'd be seeing more diversity at other schools as well. That's not the case. Schools like Payne, JOW, Chisolm, Van Ness, are all getting whiter over this time period. I think L-T is over 50% white this year for the first time ever (SWS is in L-T's boundary). The neighborhood is not getting more diverse -- it's getting whiter and wealthier with each passing year.

Agree it's not just EA families changing the numbers. But that's definitely helping. I would also assume that the school has just done a better job reaching out to middle class black families like mine, and perhaps making them feel more welcome within the community. A drop from 68% to under 50% indicates that a lot more black families are ranking SWS and choosing it over other lottery options. That indicates a shift in culture rather than a shift in demographics, especially for a school that is 100% lottery.

PP. I also live near Capitol Hill. You're making some sweeping generalizations about a bunch of schools without actually looking at the actual demographic changes or factors driving those changes.

Everything I hear about SWS seems very geared toward to the ethos of a certain subset of UMC families who have a stay-at-home parent or a lot of job flexibility. It's possible they're doing things differently these days, but if so, news of that hasn't reached this forum.

My point was that SWS isn't becoming more diverse due to an influx of apartment buildings on Capitol Hill populated by Section 8 residents. This is just a bizarre perception of the housing situation on the Hill right now. A major reason why my family lives "Hill adjacent" rather than on the Hill is that it only gets more expensive to live there. And we'd happily live in an apartment (we live in a condo now). You simply cannot explain the increased diversity at SWS based on a shift in demographics of the surrounding neighborhood.

Also my kids attend a DCPS on the Hill and I can assure that school is not getting more diverse. The opposite.

You came in here asserting something completely false about neighborhood demographics and, after it has been explained why you are incorrect, are digging your heels in for some reason.

DP. You have strong opinions but might want to consider

It’s not the city wide race percentages that matter. It’s the percentages within ES commuting range, which for little kids isn’t that far (esp for lower SES and without great proximity to public transit). So, there are different populations in the school and a non neighborhood kid who lotteries in may not stay as many years, which can skew overall percentages.

It hasn’t been that long since the administration rules changed. Probably long enough to cover the current population but sib preference may still cast a shadow that influences numbers

SH was much preferred to EH until pretty recently and that skewed 5th grades at both.

I have no idea what you are arguing with me about.

Do you think the reason SWS has more black students in recent years is because there are more Section 8 housing units in the neighborhood near SWS now than there used to be? I don't think that because it's not true and is a weird thing to assert.

Some of y'all are acting really weird about this.

My guess would be that SWS has more Black kids because they implemented an EA preference and because sibling preference stopped bringing in sibs who got preference because they were IB for the Cluster back in the day. As that has happened, and every new class gets more diverse, probably more Black kids lotteried for it because they were no longer creeped out by it's super whiteness.

It is 1000% not because the neighborhood it's in got more Black. L-T is now majority white for the first time ever.

Can you explain more about how the cluster preference worked and when it went away?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't have a preference here, but was following the discussion and looked at school profiles and wow SWS has made great strides in diversifying their student population in the last 5 years ago! I remember when we were doing the lottery,the one thing about SWS that gave me pause was that it was like 80% white. That is really strange for a DCPS school that fills all seats via lottery, as it means that very few black families were choosing to lottery for SWS despite the good test scores. We still ranked it, but way lower than I would have otherwise because I saw this as a potential red flag that it wasn't a very welcoming community.

Well that's really different now. Less than 50% white and nearly 30% black. I assume there are some geographic reasons for it to still be more white than most charters and all city schools (it's not super accessible by public transit) but this is still a big improvement and indicates the school is working to be inclusive. Good for them.

I think you're misremembering. Farthest back I can find is 2018-2019 at 68% white. By 2020-2021 that was down to 59%. And 47% last year.

I think driven by 1) more apartments built up around that area, so more accessible to people who don't live in expensive Capitol Hill row houses, 2) more people in the Capitol Hill row houses opting into their IB school.

PP here and yes, I guess I misremembered the exact number. Still -- 68% white for an all-city school where admission is entirely based on the lottery is crazy high. Also I disagree that the increase in apartments in the neighborhood has led to greater socioeconomic variety -- it's the opposite. All the new apartments in Capitol Hill are higher end, and housing costs have only increased in the time period your are talking about. $4000/mo 2 bedroom apartments along H street are not helping to diversify SWS. Agree that more people on the Hill are choosing IB schools, but I would assume the school has also made a concerted effort to do outreach to non-white parents. I see they started doing equitable access a few years ago as well, resulting in 10 or so PK seats a year going to EA applicants. That likely helps a lot, especially at a school as small as SWS.

As a black family, seeing a lottery-based DCPS with more than 60% white students in a fairly diverse neighborhood was really jarring. We live in Ward 5 with a really weak IB school, but with an easy commute through the Hill so we were looking at lots of Hill and Hill-adjacent schools in the lottery. SWS was the only school where the percentage of white students was that high and it didn't make sense to me given the demographics of the city and the lottery. I'm glad to see it's more balanced now.

The "luxury" apartments in my neighborhood have a bunch of families on Section 8 vouchers.

They offered 6 equitable access seats in SY23-24, 8 in SY24-25, and 10 in SY25-26. That's ~6% of the total school population, not enough to be the sole source of the demographic shifts you're seeing.

Well I live near Capitol Hill and I don't think the luxury apartment buildings near SWS have a lot of people on Section 8 vouchers. The neighborhood has gentrified over the last 20 years and is more expensive to live in, not less. In addition to luxury building going up, you also see a lot of older row houses that used to be owned by middle class families getting bought by developers and turned into high end condos. I should also note that if apartment projects in Capitol Hill were bring in a large influx of lower income families, you'd be seeing more diversity at other schools as well. That's not the case. Schools like Payne, JOW, Chisolm, Van Ness, are all getting whiter over this time period. I think L-T is over 50% white this year for the first time ever (SWS is in L-T's boundary). The neighborhood is not getting more diverse -- it's getting whiter and wealthier with each passing year.

Agree it's not just EA families changing the numbers. But that's definitely helping. I would also assume that the school has just done a better job reaching out to middle class black families like mine, and perhaps making them feel more welcome within the community. A drop from 68% to under 50% indicates that a lot more black families are ranking SWS and choosing it over other lottery options. That indicates a shift in culture rather than a shift in demographics, especially for a school that is 100% lottery.

PP. I also live near Capitol Hill. You're making some sweeping generalizations about a bunch of schools without actually looking at the actual demographic changes or factors driving those changes.

Everything I hear about SWS seems very geared toward to the ethos of a certain subset of UMC families who have a stay-at-home parent or a lot of job flexibility. It's possible they're doing things differently these days, but if so, news of that hasn't reached this forum.

My point was that SWS isn't becoming more diverse due to an influx of apartment buildings on Capitol Hill populated by Section 8 residents. This is just a bizarre perception of the housing situation on the Hill right now. A major reason why my family lives "Hill adjacent" rather than on the Hill is that it only gets more expensive to live there. And we'd happily live in an apartment (we live in a condo now). You simply cannot explain the increased diversity at SWS based on a shift in demographics of the surrounding neighborhood.

Also my kids attend a DCPS on the Hill and I can assure that school is not getting more diverse. The opposite.

You came in here asserting something completely false about neighborhood demographics and, after it has been explained why you are incorrect, are digging your heels in for some reason.

PP. I'm not digging in my heels. I'm describing what has happened at our IB school, which happens to be one of the schools you falsely listed as "getting whiter."

The schools mentioned were Payne, JOW, Chisolm, and Van Ness. Payne and JOW are definitely getting "whiter". Chisolm has a large Hispanic contingent due to the immersion program, though the surrounding neighborhood is definitely getting whiter and people really seem to like the school, so my guess is that it's also moving that direction as IB percentage increases. I have no first hand knowledge of Van Ness -- Navy Yard is kind of a weird neighborhood demographically and definitely has a ton of apartment buildings, but also many if not most of them are high end luxury buildings that I doubt have a lot of Section 8 residents.

Overall the Hill, and definitely Hill DCPS schools, have gentrified a lot over the last 20 years and continue to do so. The housing situation does not facilitate socioeconomic diversity at all, and most of the socioeconomic diversity at schools on the Hill comes from OOB students, not IB or nearby families.

This is a lot of guesswork for someone who is so sure they're right.

You can see number of housing vouchers by census tract here: https://hudgis-hud.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/HUD::housing-choice-vouchers-by-tract/about

By school, from SY20-21 to SY24-25:

Payne: 102 white students (32%) to 144 white students (36%). Note the number of black and latino students also increased over this time, though not as quickly as the white students.

JO: 48 white students (11%) to 41 white students (9%).

Chisholm: 87 white students (16%) to 122 white students (23%). The percent of latino students also increased over this time.

Van Ness: 96 white students (26%) to 71 white students (18%).

I would guess that the JO numbers are a temporary blip related to the swing space. I bet that number goes way up over the next 5 years. It is definitely not because NOMA got less white.

Van Ness is definitely un-gentrifying. I don't know if this is neighborhood related, school related or something else, but this 100% seems to be the trend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't have a preference here, but was following the discussion and looked at school profiles and wow SWS has made great strides in diversifying their student population in the last 5 years ago! I remember when we were doing the lottery,the one thing about SWS that gave me pause was that it was like 80% white. That is really strange for a DCPS school that fills all seats via lottery, as it means that very few black families were choosing to lottery for SWS despite the good test scores. We still ranked it, but way lower than I would have otherwise because I saw this as a potential red flag that it wasn't a very welcoming community.

Well that's really different now. Less than 50% white and nearly 30% black. I assume there are some geographic reasons for it to still be more white than most charters and all city schools (it's not super accessible by public transit) but this is still a big improvement and indicates the school is working to be inclusive. Good for them.

I think you're misremembering. Farthest back I can find is 2018-2019 at 68% white. By 2020-2021 that was down to 59%. And 47% last year.

I think driven by 1) more apartments built up around that area, so more accessible to people who don't live in expensive Capitol Hill row houses, 2) more people in the Capitol Hill row houses opting into their IB school.

PP here and yes, I guess I misremembered the exact number. Still -- 68% white for an all-city school where admission is entirely based on the lottery is crazy high. Also I disagree that the increase in apartments in the neighborhood has led to greater socioeconomic variety -- it's the opposite. All the new apartments in Capitol Hill are higher end, and housing costs have only increased in the time period your are talking about. $4000/mo 2 bedroom apartments along H street are not helping to diversify SWS. Agree that more people on the Hill are choosing IB schools, but I would assume the school has also made a concerted effort to do outreach to non-white parents. I see they started doing equitable access a few years ago as well, resulting in 10 or so PK seats a year going to EA applicants. That likely helps a lot, especially at a school as small as SWS.

As a black family, seeing a lottery-based DCPS with more than 60% white students in a fairly diverse neighborhood was really jarring. We live in Ward 5 with a really weak IB school, but with an easy commute through the Hill so we were looking at lots of Hill and Hill-adjacent schools in the lottery. SWS was the only school where the percentage of white students was that high and it didn't make sense to me given the demographics of the city and the lottery. I'm glad to see it's more balanced now.

The "luxury" apartments in my neighborhood have a bunch of families on Section 8 vouchers.

They offered 6 equitable access seats in SY23-24, 8 in SY24-25, and 10 in SY25-26. That's ~6% of the total school population, not enough to be the sole source of the demographic shifts you're seeing.

Well I live near Capitol Hill and I don't think the luxury apartment buildings near SWS have a lot of people on Section 8 vouchers. The neighborhood has gentrified over the last 20 years and is more expensive to live in, not less. In addition to luxury building going up, you also see a lot of older row houses that used to be owned by middle class families getting bought by developers and turned into high end condos. I should also note that if apartment projects in Capitol Hill were bring in a large influx of lower income families, you'd be seeing more diversity at other schools as well. That's not the case. Schools like Payne, JOW, Chisolm, Van Ness, are all getting whiter over this time period. I think L-T is over 50% white this year for the first time ever (SWS is in L-T's boundary). The neighborhood is not getting more diverse -- it's getting whiter and wealthier with each passing year.

Agree it's not just EA families changing the numbers. But that's definitely helping. I would also assume that the school has just done a better job reaching out to middle class black families like mine, and perhaps making them feel more welcome within the community. A drop from 68% to under 50% indicates that a lot more black families are ranking SWS and choosing it over other lottery options. That indicates a shift in culture rather than a shift in demographics, especially for a school that is 100% lottery.

PP. I also live near Capitol Hill. You're making some sweeping generalizations about a bunch of schools without actually looking at the actual demographic changes or factors driving those changes.

Everything I hear about SWS seems very geared toward to the ethos of a certain subset of UMC families who have a stay-at-home parent or a lot of job flexibility. It's possible they're doing things differently these days, but if so, news of that hasn't reached this forum.

My point was that SWS isn't becoming more diverse due to an influx of apartment buildings on Capitol Hill populated by Section 8 residents. This is just a bizarre perception of the housing situation on the Hill right now. A major reason why my family lives "Hill adjacent" rather than on the Hill is that it only gets more expensive to live there. And we'd happily live in an apartment (we live in a condo now). You simply cannot explain the increased diversity at SWS based on a shift in demographics of the surrounding neighborhood.

Also my kids attend a DCPS on the Hill and I can assure that school is not getting more diverse. The opposite.

You came in here asserting something completely false about neighborhood demographics and, after it has been explained why you are incorrect, are digging your heels in for some reason.

DP. You have strong opinions but might want to consider

It’s not the city wide race percentages that matter. It’s the percentages within ES commuting range, which for little kids isn’t that far (esp for lower SES and without great proximity to public transit). So, there are different populations in the school and a non neighborhood kid who lotteries in may not stay as many years, which can skew overall percentages.

It hasn’t been that long since the administration rules changed. Probably long enough to cover the current population but sib preference may still cast a shadow that influences numbers

SH was much preferred to EH until pretty recently and that skewed 5th grades at both.

I have no idea what you are arguing with me about.

Do you think the reason SWS has more black students in recent years is because there are more Section 8 housing units in the neighborhood near SWS now than there used to be? I don't think that because it's not true and is a weird thing to assert.

Some of y'all are acting really weird about this.

My guess would be that SWS has more Black kids because they implemented an EA preference and because sibling preference stopped bringing in sibs who got preference because they were IB for the Cluster back in the day. As that has happened, and every new class gets more diverse, probably more Black kids lotteried for it because they were no longer creeped out by it's super whiteness.

It is 1000% not because the neighborhood it's in got more Black. L-T is now majority white for the first time ever.

Can you explain more about how the cluster preference worked and when it went away?

SWS moved into its current site in 2013-14, I believe. Before that, it was part of the Cluster (so full of kids IB to Peabody/Watkins, back when it was the most gentrified school on the Hill by far... and the most gentrified part of that IB chose SWS over CHML (also part of the Cluster) or the "normal" Cluster ECE). The whole school was based around SAHMs because that's who that option catered to among the three ECE choices. When it moved, it became a citywide lottery -- there were lots of discussions up to the 2014/2015 range on whether to give proximity preference, so it seemed like not everything had been fully settled yet even by then. When it moved, anyone enrolled went with it and their siblings got preference.... and those kids skewed heavily white. When the first citywide lottery happened around 2014-2015, there were lots of spots being filled by kids who were siblings of enrollees and that still had a measurable impact on new classes until maybe 2018-2019? Classes that were heavily sibling based are only just graduating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't have a preference here, but was following the discussion and looked at school profiles and wow SWS has made great strides in diversifying their student population in the last 5 years ago! I remember when we were doing the lottery,the one thing about SWS that gave me pause was that it was like 80% white. That is really strange for a DCPS school that fills all seats via lottery, as it means that very few black families were choosing to lottery for SWS despite the good test scores. We still ranked it, but way lower than I would have otherwise because I saw this as a potential red flag that it wasn't a very welcoming community.

Well that's really different now. Less than 50% white and nearly 30% black. I assume there are some geographic reasons for it to still be more white than most charters and all city schools (it's not super accessible by public transit) but this is still a big improvement and indicates the school is working to be inclusive. Good for them.

I think you're misremembering. Farthest back I can find is 2018-2019 at 68% white. By 2020-2021 that was down to 59%. And 47% last year.

I think driven by 1) more apartments built up around that area, so more accessible to people who don't live in expensive Capitol Hill row houses, 2) more people in the Capitol Hill row houses opting into their IB school.

PP here and yes, I guess I misremembered the exact number. Still -- 68% white for an all-city school where admission is entirely based on the lottery is crazy high. Also I disagree that the increase in apartments in the neighborhood has led to greater socioeconomic variety -- it's the opposite. All the new apartments in Capitol Hill are higher end, and housing costs have only increased in the time period your are talking about. $4000/mo 2 bedroom apartments along H street are not helping to diversify SWS. Agree that more people on the Hill are choosing IB schools, but I would assume the school has also made a concerted effort to do outreach to non-white parents. I see they started doing equitable access a few years ago as well, resulting in 10 or so PK seats a year going to EA applicants. That likely helps a lot, especially at a school as small as SWS.

As a black family, seeing a lottery-based DCPS with more than 60% white students in a fairly diverse neighborhood was really jarring. We live in Ward 5 with a really weak IB school, but with an easy commute through the Hill so we were looking at lots of Hill and Hill-adjacent schools in the lottery. SWS was the only school where the percentage of white students was that high and it didn't make sense to me given the demographics of the city and the lottery. I'm glad to see it's more balanced now.

The "luxury" apartments in my neighborhood have a bunch of families on Section 8 vouchers.

They offered 6 equitable access seats in SY23-24, 8 in SY24-25, and 10 in SY25-26. That's ~6% of the total school population, not enough to be the sole source of the demographic shifts you're seeing.

Well I live near Capitol Hill and I don't think the luxury apartment buildings near SWS have a lot of people on Section 8 vouchers. The neighborhood has gentrified over the last 20 years and is more expensive to live in, not less. In addition to luxury building going up, you also see a lot of older row houses that used to be owned by middle class families getting bought by developers and turned into high end condos. I should also note that if apartment projects in Capitol Hill were bring in a large influx of lower income families, you'd be seeing more diversity at other schools as well. That's not the case. Schools like Payne, JOW, Chisolm, Van Ness, are all getting whiter over this time period. I think L-T is over 50% white this year for the first time ever (SWS is in L-T's boundary). The neighborhood is not getting more diverse -- it's getting whiter and wealthier with each passing year.

Agree it's not just EA families changing the numbers. But that's definitely helping. I would also assume that the school has just done a better job reaching out to middle class black families like mine, and perhaps making them feel more welcome within the community. A drop from 68% to under 50% indicates that a lot more black families are ranking SWS and choosing it over other lottery options. That indicates a shift in culture rather than a shift in demographics, especially for a school that is 100% lottery.

PP. I also live near Capitol Hill. You're making some sweeping generalizations about a bunch of schools without actually looking at the actual demographic changes or factors driving those changes.

Everything I hear about SWS seems very geared toward to the ethos of a certain subset of UMC families who have a stay-at-home parent or a lot of job flexibility. It's possible they're doing things differently these days, but if so, news of that hasn't reached this forum.

My point was that SWS isn't becoming more diverse due to an influx of apartment buildings on Capitol Hill populated by Section 8 residents. This is just a bizarre perception of the housing situation on the Hill right now. A major reason why my family lives "Hill adjacent" rather than on the Hill is that it only gets more expensive to live there. And we'd happily live in an apartment (we live in a condo now). You simply cannot explain the increased diversity at SWS based on a shift in demographics of the surrounding neighborhood.

Also my kids attend a DCPS on the Hill and I can assure that school is not getting more diverse. The opposite.

You came in here asserting something completely false about neighborhood demographics and, after it has been explained why you are incorrect, are digging your heels in for some reason.

DP. You have strong opinions but might want to consider

It’s not the city wide race percentages that matter. It’s the percentages within ES commuting range, which for little kids isn’t that far (esp for lower SES and without great proximity to public transit). So, there are different populations in the school and a non neighborhood kid who lotteries in may not stay as many years, which can skew overall percentages.

It hasn’t been that long since the administration rules changed. Probably long enough to cover the current population but sib preference may still cast a shadow that influences numbers

SH was much preferred to EH until pretty recently and that skewed 5th grades at both.

I have no idea what you are arguing with me about.

Do you think the reason SWS has more black students in recent years is because there are more Section 8 housing units in the neighborhood near SWS now than there used to be? I don't think that because it's not true and is a weird thing to assert.

Some of y'all are acting really weird about this.

My guess would be that SWS has more Black kids because they implemented an EA preference and because sibling preference stopped bringing in sibs who got preference because they were IB for the Cluster back in the day. As that has happened, and every new class gets more diverse, probably more Black kids lotteried for it because they were no longer creeped out by it's super whiteness.

It is 1000% not because the neighborhood it's in got more Black. L-T is now majority white for the first time ever.

This is correct. The poster suggesting there is suddenly more Section 8 housing around SWS is nuts. You don't need statistics to know that's wrong if you actually live in the neighborhood. It's clearly untrue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't have a preference here, but was following the discussion and looked at school profiles and wow SWS has made great strides in diversifying their student population in the last 5 years ago! I remember when we were doing the lottery,the one thing about SWS that gave me pause was that it was like 80% white. That is really strange for a DCPS school that fills all seats via lottery, as it means that very few black families were choosing to lottery for SWS despite the good test scores. We still ranked it, but way lower than I would have otherwise because I saw this as a potential red flag that it wasn't a very welcoming community.

Well that's really different now. Less than 50% white and nearly 30% black. I assume there are some geographic reasons for it to still be more white than most charters and all city schools (it's not super accessible by public transit) but this is still a big improvement and indicates the school is working to be inclusive. Good for them.

I think you're misremembering. Farthest back I can find is 2018-2019 at 68% white. By 2020-2021 that was down to 59%. And 47% last year.

I think driven by 1) more apartments built up around that area, so more accessible to people who don't live in expensive Capitol Hill row houses, 2) more people in the Capitol Hill row houses opting into their IB school.

PP here and yes, I guess I misremembered the exact number. Still -- 68% white for an all-city school where admission is entirely based on the lottery is crazy high. Also I disagree that the increase in apartments in the neighborhood has led to greater socioeconomic variety -- it's the opposite. All the new apartments in Capitol Hill are higher end, and housing costs have only increased in the time period your are talking about. $4000/mo 2 bedroom apartments along H street are not helping to diversify SWS. Agree that more people on the Hill are choosing IB schools, but I would assume the school has also made a concerted effort to do outreach to non-white parents. I see they started doing equitable access a few years ago as well, resulting in 10 or so PK seats a year going to EA applicants. That likely helps a lot, especially at a school as small as SWS.

As a black family, seeing a lottery-based DCPS with more than 60% white students in a fairly diverse neighborhood was really jarring. We live in Ward 5 with a really weak IB school, but with an easy commute through the Hill so we were looking at lots of Hill and Hill-adjacent schools in the lottery. SWS was the only school where the percentage of white students was that high and it didn't make sense to me given the demographics of the city and the lottery. I'm glad to see it's more balanced now.

The "luxury" apartments in my neighborhood have a bunch of families on Section 8 vouchers.

They offered 6 equitable access seats in SY23-24, 8 in SY24-25, and 10 in SY25-26. That's ~6% of the total school population, not enough to be the sole source of the demographic shifts you're seeing.

Well I live near Capitol Hill and I don't think the luxury apartment buildings near SWS have a lot of people on Section 8 vouchers. The neighborhood has gentrified over the last 20 years and is more expensive to live in, not less. In addition to luxury building going up, you also see a lot of older row houses that used to be owned by middle class families getting bought by developers and turned into high end condos. I should also note that if apartment projects in Capitol Hill were bring in a large influx of lower income families, you'd be seeing more diversity at other schools as well. That's not the case. Schools like Payne, JOW, Chisolm, Van Ness, are all getting whiter over this time period. I think L-T is over 50% white this year for the first time ever (SWS is in L-T's boundary). The neighborhood is not getting more diverse -- it's getting whiter and wealthier with each passing year.

Agree it's not just EA families changing the numbers. But that's definitely helping. I would also assume that the school has just done a better job reaching out to middle class black families like mine, and perhaps making them feel more welcome within the community. A drop from 68% to under 50% indicates that a lot more black families are ranking SWS and choosing it over other lottery options. That indicates a shift in culture rather than a shift in demographics, especially for a school that is 100% lottery.

PP. I also live near Capitol Hill. You're making some sweeping generalizations about a bunch of schools without actually looking at the actual demographic changes or factors driving those changes.

Everything I hear about SWS seems very geared toward to the ethos of a certain subset of UMC families who have a stay-at-home parent or a lot of job flexibility. It's possible they're doing things differently these days, but if so, news of that hasn't reached this forum.

My point was that SWS isn't becoming more diverse due to an influx of apartment buildings on Capitol Hill populated by Section 8 residents. This is just a bizarre perception of the housing situation on the Hill right now. A major reason why my family lives "Hill adjacent" rather than on the Hill is that it only gets more expensive to live there. And we'd happily live in an apartment (we live in a condo now). You simply cannot explain the increased diversity at SWS based on a shift in demographics of the surrounding neighborhood.

Also my kids attend a DCPS on the Hill and I can assure that school is not getting more diverse. The opposite.

You came in here asserting something completely false about neighborhood demographics and, after it has been explained why you are incorrect, are digging your heels in for some reason.

PP. I'm not digging in my heels. I'm describing what has happened at our IB school, which happens to be one of the schools you falsely listed as "getting whiter."

The schools mentioned were Payne, JOW, Chisolm, and Van Ness. Payne and JOW are definitely getting "whiter". Chisolm has a large Hispanic contingent due to the immersion program, though the surrounding neighborhood is definitely getting whiter and people really seem to like the school, so my guess is that it's also moving that direction as IB percentage increases. I have no first hand knowledge of Van Ness -- Navy Yard is kind of a weird neighborhood demographically and definitely has a ton of apartment buildings, but also many if not most of them are high end luxury buildings that I doubt have a lot of Section 8 residents.

Overall the Hill, and definitely Hill DCPS schools, have gentrified a lot over the last 20 years and continue to do so. The housing situation does not facilitate socioeconomic diversity at all, and most of the socioeconomic diversity at schools on the Hill comes from OOB students, not IB or nearby families.

This is a lot of guesswork for someone who is so sure they're right.

You can see number of housing vouchers by census tract here: https://hudgis-hud.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/HUD::housing-choice-vouchers-by-tract/about

By school, from SY20-21 to SY24-25:

Payne: 102 white students (32%) to 144 white students (36%). Note the number of black and latino students also increased over this time, though not as quickly as the white students.

JO: 48 white students (11%) to 41 white students (9%).

Chisholm: 87 white students (16%) to 122 white students (23%). The percent of latino students also increased over this time.

Van Ness: 96 white students (26%) to 71 white students (18%).

I would guess that the JO numbers are a temporary blip related to the swing space. I bet that number goes way up over the next 5 years. It is definitely not because NOMA got less white.

Van Ness is definitely un-gentrifying. I don't know if this is neighborhood related, school related or something else, but this 100% seems to be the trend.

Agree on JOW.

Regarding Van Ness, I think a major issue there is that the development around the school has primarily attracted childless people. Yes, it's a lot of huge apartment buildings, but Navy Yard is lots of single professionals without kids, and DINKs. It just doesn't seem like a very family-centric neighborhood at this point. I'd be curious to find out what percentage of residents in that boundary have kids and how it has changed over time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I don't have a preference here, but was following the discussion and looked at school profiles and wow SWS has made great strides in diversifying their student population in the last 5 years ago! I remember when we were doing the lottery,the one thing about SWS that gave me pause was that it was like 80% white. That is really strange for a DCPS school that fills all seats via lottery, as it means that very few black families were choosing to lottery for SWS despite the good test scores. We still ranked it, but way lower than I would have otherwise because I saw this as a potential red flag that it wasn't a very welcoming community.

Well that's really different now. Less than 50% white and nearly 30% black. I assume there are some geographic reasons for it to still be more white than most charters and all city schools (it's not super accessible by public transit) but this is still a big improvement and indicates the school is working to be inclusive. Good for them.

I think you're misremembering. Farthest back I can find is 2018-2019 at 68% white. By 2020-2021 that was down to 59%. And 47% last year.

I think driven by 1) more apartments built up around that area, so more accessible to people who don't live in expensive Capitol Hill row houses, 2) more people in the Capitol Hill row houses opting into their IB school.

PP here and yes, I guess I misremembered the exact number. Still -- 68% white for an all-city school where admission is entirely based on the lottery is crazy high. Also I disagree that the increase in apartments in the neighborhood has led to greater socioeconomic variety -- it's the opposite. All the new apartments in Capitol Hill are higher end, and housing costs have only increased in the time period your are talking about. $4000/mo 2 bedroom apartments along H street are not helping to diversify SWS. Agree that more people on the Hill are choosing IB schools, but I would assume the school has also made a concerted effort to do outreach to non-white parents. I see they started doing equitable access a few years ago as well, resulting in 10 or so PK seats a year going to EA applicants. That likely helps a lot, especially at a school as small as SWS.

As a black family, seeing a lottery-based DCPS with more than 60% white students in a fairly diverse neighborhood was really jarring. We live in Ward 5 with a really weak IB school, but with an easy commute through the Hill so we were looking at lots of Hill and Hill-adjacent schools in the lottery. SWS was the only school where the percentage of white students was that high and it didn't make sense to me given the demographics of the city and the lottery. I'm glad to see it's more balanced now.

The "luxury" apartments in my neighborhood have a bunch of families on Section 8 vouchers.

They offered 6 equitable access seats in SY23-24, 8 in SY24-25, and 10 in SY25-26. That's ~6% of the total school population, not enough to be the sole source of the demographic shifts you're seeing.

Well I live near Capitol Hill and I don't think the luxury apartment buildings near SWS have a lot of people on Section 8 vouchers. The neighborhood has gentrified over the last 20 years and is more expensive to live in, not less. In addition to luxury building going up, you also see a lot of older row houses that used to be owned by middle class families getting bought by developers and turned into high end condos. I should also note that if apartment projects in Capitol Hill were bring in a large influx of lower income families, you'd be seeing more diversity at other schools as well. That's not the case. Schools like Payne, JOW, Chisolm, Van Ness, are all getting whiter over this time period. I think L-T is over 50% white this year for the first time ever (SWS is in L-T's boundary). The neighborhood is not getting more diverse -- it's getting whiter and wealthier with each passing year.

Agree it's not just EA families changing the numbers. But that's definitely helping. I would also assume that the school has just done a better job reaching out to middle class black families like mine, and perhaps making them feel more welcome within the community. A drop from 68% to under 50% indicates that a lot more black families are ranking SWS and choosing it over other lottery options. That indicates a shift in culture rather than a shift in demographics, especially for a school that is 100% lottery.

PP. I also live near Capitol Hill. You're making some sweeping generalizations about a bunch of schools without actually looking at the actual demographic changes or factors driving those changes.

Everything I hear about SWS seems very geared toward to the ethos of a certain subset of UMC families who have a stay-at-home parent or a lot of job flexibility. It's possible they're doing things differently these days, but if so, news of that hasn't reached this forum.

My point was that SWS isn't becoming more diverse due to an influx of apartment buildings on Capitol Hill populated by Section 8 residents. This is just a bizarre perception of the housing situation on the Hill right now. A major reason why my family lives "Hill adjacent" rather than on the Hill is that it only gets more expensive to live there. And we'd happily live in an apartment (we live in a condo now). You simply cannot explain the increased diversity at SWS based on a shift in demographics of the surrounding neighborhood.

Also my kids attend a DCPS on the Hill and I can assure that school is not getting more diverse. The opposite.

You came in here asserting something completely false about neighborhood demographics and, after it has been explained why you are incorrect, are digging your heels in for some reason.

PP. I'm not digging in my heels. I'm describing what has happened at our IB school, which happens to be one of the schools you falsely listed as "getting whiter."

The schools mentioned were Payne, JOW, Chisolm, and Van Ness. Payne and JOW are definitely getting "whiter". Chisolm has a large Hispanic contingent due to the immersion program, though the surrounding neighborhood is definitely getting whiter and people really seem to like the school, so my guess is that it's also moving that direction as IB percentage increases. I have no first hand knowledge of Van Ness -- Navy Yard is kind of a weird neighborhood demographically and definitely has a ton of apartment buildings, but also many if not most of them are high end luxury buildings that I doubt have a lot of Section 8 residents.

Overall the Hill, and definitely Hill DCPS schools, have gentrified a lot over the last 20 years and continue to do so. The housing situation does not facilitate socioeconomic diversity at all, and most of the socioeconomic diversity at schools on the Hill comes from OOB students, not IB or nearby families.

This is a lot of guesswork for someone who is so sure they're right.

You can see number of housing vouchers by census tract here: https://hudgis-hud.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/HUD::housing-choice-vouchers-by-tract/about

By school, from SY20-21 to SY24-25:

Payne: 102 white students (32%) to 144 white students (36%). Note the number of black and latino students also increased over this time, though not as quickly as the white students.

JO: 48 white students (11%) to 41 white students (9%).

Chisholm: 87 white students (16%) to 122 white students (23%). The percent of latino students also increased over this time.

Van Ness: 96 white students (26%) to 71 white students (18%).

I would guess that the JO numbers are a temporary blip related to the swing space. I bet that number goes way up over the next 5 years. It is definitely not because NOMA got less white.

Van Ness is definitely un-gentrifying. I don't know if this is neighborhood related, school related or something else, but this 100% seems to be the trend.

Agree on JOW.

Regarding Van Ness, I think a major issue there is that the development around the school has primarily attracted childless people. Yes, it's a lot of huge apartment buildings, but Navy Yard is lots of single professionals without kids, and DINKs. It just doesn't seem like a very family-centric neighborhood at this point. I'd be curious to find out what percentage of residents in that boundary have kids and how it has changed over time.

Meant to say that this situation may mean that the school is taking in more OOB students because there just aren't that many families with young kids moving to the neighborhood. This is an issue that has effected certain schools in NW as well -- a neighborhood will gentrify but largely with young, childless people, and thus the gentrification actually has the reverse effect on the schools as you would expect. We used to live near U street and it happened to some schools in that neighborhood when U Street started heavily gentrifying with these huge luxury buildings along U and down to Logan Circle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't have a preference here, but was following the discussion and looked at school profiles and wow SWS has made great strides in diversifying their student population in the last 5 years ago! I remember when we were doing the lottery,the one thing about SWS that gave me pause was that it was like 80% white. That is really strange for a DCPS school that fills all seats via lottery, as it means that very few black families were choosing to lottery for SWS despite the good test scores. We still ranked it, but way lower than I would have otherwise because I saw this as a potential red flag that it wasn't a very welcoming community.

Well that's really different now. Less than 50% white and nearly 30% black. I assume there are some geographic reasons for it to still be more white than most charters and all city schools (it's not super accessible by public transit) but this is still a big improvement and indicates the school is working to be inclusive. Good for them.

I think you're misremembering. Farthest back I can find is 2018-2019 at 68% white. By 2020-2021 that was down to 59%. And 47% last year.

I think driven by 1) more apartments built up around that area, so more accessible to people who don't live in expensive Capitol Hill row houses, 2) more people in the Capitol Hill row houses opting into their IB school.

PP here and yes, I guess I misremembered the exact number. Still -- 68% white for an all-city school where admission is entirely based on the lottery is crazy high. Also I disagree that the increase in apartments in the neighborhood has led to greater socioeconomic variety -- it's the opposite. All the new apartments in Capitol Hill are higher end, and housing costs have only increased in the time period your are talking about. $4000/mo 2 bedroom apartments along H street are not helping to diversify SWS. Agree that more people on the Hill are choosing IB schools, but I would assume the school has also made a concerted effort to do outreach to non-white parents. I see they started doing equitable access a few years ago as well, resulting in 10 or so PK seats a year going to EA applicants. That likely helps a lot, especially at a school as small as SWS.

As a black family, seeing a lottery-based DCPS with more than 60% white students in a fairly diverse neighborhood was really jarring. We live in Ward 5 with a really weak IB school, but with an easy commute through the Hill so we were looking at lots of Hill and Hill-adjacent schools in the lottery. SWS was the only school where the percentage of white students was that high and it didn't make sense to me given the demographics of the city and the lottery. I'm glad to see it's more balanced now.

The "luxury" apartments in my neighborhood have a bunch of families on Section 8 vouchers.

They offered 6 equitable access seats in SY23-24, 8 in SY24-25, and 10 in SY25-26. That's ~6% of the total school population, not enough to be the sole source of the demographic shifts you're seeing.

Well I live near Capitol Hill and I don't think the luxury apartment buildings near SWS have a lot of people on Section 8 vouchers. The neighborhood has gentrified over the last 20 years and is more expensive to live in, not less. In addition to luxury building going up, you also see a lot of older row houses that used to be owned by middle class families getting bought by developers and turned into high end condos. I should also note that if apartment projects in Capitol Hill were bring in a large influx of lower income families, you'd be seeing more diversity at other schools as well. That's not the case. Schools like Payne, JOW, Chisolm, Van Ness, are all getting whiter over this time period. I think L-T is over 50% white this year for the first time ever (SWS is in L-T's boundary). The neighborhood is not getting more diverse -- it's getting whiter and wealthier with each passing year.

Agree it's not just EA families changing the numbers. But that's definitely helping. I would also assume that the school has just done a better job reaching out to middle class black families like mine, and perhaps making them feel more welcome within the community. A drop from 68% to under 50% indicates that a lot more black families are ranking SWS and choosing it over other lottery options. That indicates a shift in culture rather than a shift in demographics, especially for a school that is 100% lottery.

PP. I also live near Capitol Hill. You're making some sweeping generalizations about a bunch of schools without actually looking at the actual demographic changes or factors driving those changes.

Everything I hear about SWS seems very geared toward to the ethos of a certain subset of UMC families who have a stay-at-home parent or a lot of job flexibility. It's possible they're doing things differently these days, but if so, news of that hasn't reached this forum.

My point was that SWS isn't becoming more diverse due to an influx of apartment buildings on Capitol Hill populated by Section 8 residents. This is just a bizarre perception of the housing situation on the Hill right now. A major reason why my family lives "Hill adjacent" rather than on the Hill is that it only gets more expensive to live there. And we'd happily live in an apartment (we live in a condo now). You simply cannot explain the increased diversity at SWS based on a shift in demographics of the surrounding neighborhood.

Also my kids attend a DCPS on the Hill and I can assure that school is not getting more diverse. The opposite.

You came in here asserting something completely false about neighborhood demographics and, after it has been explained why you are incorrect, are digging your heels in for some reason.

PP. I'm not digging in my heels. I'm describing what has happened at our IB school, which happens to be one of the schools you falsely listed as "getting whiter."

The schools mentioned were Payne, JOW, Chisolm, and Van Ness. Payne and JOW are definitely getting "whiter". Chisolm has a large Hispanic contingent due to the immersion program, though the surrounding neighborhood is definitely getting whiter and people really seem to like the school, so my guess is that it's also moving that direction as IB percentage increases. I have no first hand knowledge of Van Ness -- Navy Yard is kind of a weird neighborhood demographically and definitely has a ton of apartment buildings, but also many if not most of them are high end luxury buildings that I doubt have a lot of Section 8 residents.

Overall the Hill, and definitely Hill DCPS schools, have gentrified a lot over the last 20 years and continue to do so. The housing situation does not facilitate socioeconomic diversity at all, and most of the socioeconomic diversity at schools on the Hill comes from OOB students, not IB or nearby families.

This is a lot of guesswork for someone who is so sure they're right.

You can see number of housing vouchers by census tract here: https://hudgis-hud.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/HUD::housing-choice-vouchers-by-tract/about

By school, from SY20-21 to SY24-25:

Payne: 102 white students (32%) to 144 white students (36%). Note the number of black and latino students also increased over this time, though not as quickly as the white students.

JO: 48 white students (11%) to 41 white students (9%).

Chisholm: 87 white students (16%) to 122 white students (23%). The percent of latino students also increased over this time.

Van Ness: 96 white students (26%) to 71 white students (18%).

I would guess that the JO numbers are a temporary blip related to the swing space. I bet that number goes way up over the next 5 years. It is definitely not because NOMA got less white.

Van Ness is definitely un-gentrifying. I don't know if this is neighborhood related, school related or something else, but this 100% seems to be the trend.

Agree on JOW.

Regarding Van Ness, I think a major issue there is that the development around the school has primarily attracted childless people. Yes, it's a lot of huge apartment buildings, but Navy Yard is lots of single professionals without kids, and DINKs. It just doesn't seem like a very family-centric neighborhood at this point. I'd be curious to find out what percentage of residents in that boundary have kids and how it has changed over time.

Meant to say that this situation may mean that the school is taking in more OOB students because there just aren't that many families with young kids moving to the neighborhood. This is an issue that has effected certain schools in NW as well -- a neighborhood will gentrify but largely with young, childless people, and thus the gentrification actually has the reverse effect on the schools as you would expect. We used to live near U street and it happened to some schools in that neighborhood when U Street started heavily gentrifying with these huge luxury buildings along U and down to Logan Circle.

The school is 81% in-boundary, and that is the highest it’s ever been. There were little to no lottery seats for the school at all last year-it’s full. A lot of the growth has been kids in apartment buildings—a mix of section 8, other income set-asides and market rate. I think some of the families in the townhouses around there left due to the crime spike 2-3 years ago. It’s still a relatively new neighborhood, and it will never be like a Capitol Hill neighborhood because of the mix of apartments and affordable housing built in. But, the school has a lot of diversity and Navy Yard (despite its reputation as being a place for young adults) is a nice place to have kids—Yards Park, Canal Park, Randall Pool, trails, etc.

[Anonymous]

All of the new construction in DC by law has inclusionary units/workforce housing. Is that the only reason SWS might now have more diversity? No. But there is a large amount of newer apartment construction in the Noma area and not that many nearby school options for that same area. JOW was recently over in a swing space. A lot of people in these increasingly higher density and socioeconomically diverse areas of the city may be listing SWS in the lottery.

[Anonymous]

rank the school that is closer to you higher. seriously. the lottery will work the rest out. Ludlow is going to have an advantage for nearby friends that a citywide cannot replicate. but flipside if you are IB to Ludlow you can always switch from SWS if you dont love it starting in K.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't have a preference here, but was following the discussion and looked at school profiles and wow SWS has made great strides in diversifying their student population in the last 5 years ago! I remember when we were doing the lottery,the one thing about SWS that gave me pause was that it was like 80% white. That is really strange for a DCPS school that fills all seats via lottery, as it means that very few black families were choosing to lottery for SWS despite the good test scores. We still ranked it, but way lower than I would have otherwise because I saw this as a potential red flag that it wasn't a very welcoming community.

Well that's really different now. Less than 50% white and nearly 30% black. I assume there are some geographic reasons for it to still be more white than most charters and all city schools (it's not super accessible by public transit) but this is still a big improvement and indicates the school is working to be inclusive. Good for them.

I think you're misremembering. Farthest back I can find is 2018-2019 at 68% white. By 2020-2021 that was down to 59%. And 47% last year.

I think driven by 1) more apartments built up around that area, so more accessible to people who don't live in expensive Capitol Hill row houses, 2) more people in the Capitol Hill row houses opting into their IB school.

PP here and yes, I guess I misremembered the exact number. Still -- 68% white for an all-city school where admission is entirely based on the lottery is crazy high. Also I disagree that the increase in apartments in the neighborhood has led to greater socioeconomic variety -- it's the opposite. All the new apartments in Capitol Hill are higher end, and housing costs have only increased in the time period your are talking about. $4000/mo 2 bedroom apartments along H street are not helping to diversify SWS. Agree that more people on the Hill are choosing IB schools, but I would assume the school has also made a concerted effort to do outreach to non-white parents. I see they started doing equitable access a few years ago as well, resulting in 10 or so PK seats a year going to EA applicants. That likely helps a lot, especially at a school as small as SWS.

As a black family, seeing a lottery-based DCPS with more than 60% white students in a fairly diverse neighborhood was really jarring. We live in Ward 5 with a really weak IB school, but with an easy commute through the Hill so we were looking at lots of Hill and Hill-adjacent schools in the lottery. SWS was the only school where the percentage of white students was that high and it didn't make sense to me given the demographics of the city and the lottery. I'm glad to see it's more balanced now.

The "luxury" apartments in my neighborhood have a bunch of families on Section 8 vouchers.

They offered 6 equitable access seats in SY23-24, 8 in SY24-25, and 10 in SY25-26. That's ~6% of the total school population, not enough to be the sole source of the demographic shifts you're seeing.

Well I live near Capitol Hill and I don't think the luxury apartment buildings near SWS have a lot of people on Section 8 vouchers. The neighborhood has gentrified over the last 20 years and is more expensive to live in, not less. In addition to luxury building going up, you also see a lot of older row houses that used to be owned by middle class families getting bought by developers and turned into high end condos. I should also note that if apartment projects in Capitol Hill were bring in a large influx of lower income families, you'd be seeing more diversity at other schools as well. That's not the case. Schools like Payne, JOW, Chisolm, Van Ness, are all getting whiter over this time period. I think L-T is over 50% white this year for the first time ever (SWS is in L-T's boundary). The neighborhood is not getting more diverse -- it's getting whiter and wealthier with each passing year.

Agree it's not just EA families changing the numbers. But that's definitely helping. I would also assume that the school has just done a better job reaching out to middle class black families like mine, and perhaps making them feel more welcome within the community. A drop from 68% to under 50% indicates that a lot more black families are ranking SWS and choosing it over other lottery options. That indicates a shift in culture rather than a shift in demographics, especially for a school that is 100% lottery.

PP. I also live near Capitol Hill. You're making some sweeping generalizations about a bunch of schools without actually looking at the actual demographic changes or factors driving those changes.

Everything I hear about SWS seems very geared toward to the ethos of a certain subset of UMC families who have a stay-at-home parent or a lot of job flexibility. It's possible they're doing things differently these days, but if so, news of that hasn't reached this forum.

My point was that SWS isn't becoming more diverse due to an influx of apartment buildings on Capitol Hill populated by Section 8 residents. This is just a bizarre perception of the housing situation on the Hill right now. A major reason why my family lives "Hill adjacent" rather than on the Hill is that it only gets more expensive to live there. And we'd happily live in an apartment (we live in a condo now). You simply cannot explain the increased diversity at SWS based on a shift in demographics of the surrounding neighborhood.

Also my kids attend a DCPS on the Hill and I can assure that school is not getting more diverse. The opposite.

You came in here asserting something completely false about neighborhood demographics and, after it has been explained why you are incorrect, are digging your heels in for some reason.

PP. I'm not digging in my heels. I'm describing what has happened at our IB school, which happens to be one of the schools you falsely listed as "getting whiter."

The schools mentioned were Payne, JOW, Chisolm, and Van Ness. Payne and JOW are definitely getting "whiter". Chisolm has a large Hispanic contingent due to the immersion program, though the surrounding neighborhood is definitely getting whiter and people really seem to like the school, so my guess is that it's also moving that direction as IB percentage increases. I have no first hand knowledge of Van Ness -- Navy Yard is kind of a weird neighborhood demographically and definitely has a ton of apartment buildings, but also many if not most of them are high end luxury buildings that I doubt have a lot of Section 8 residents.

Overall the Hill, and definitely Hill DCPS schools, have gentrified a lot over the last 20 years and continue to do so. The housing situation does not facilitate socioeconomic diversity at all, and most of the socioeconomic diversity at schools on the Hill comes from OOB students, not IB or nearby families.

This is a lot of guesswork for someone who is so sure they're right.

You can see number of housing vouchers by census tract here: https://hudgis-hud.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/HUD::housing-choice-vouchers-by-tract/about

By school, from SY20-21 to SY24-25:

Payne: 102 white students (32%) to 144 white students (36%). Note the number of black and latino students also increased over this time, though not as quickly as the white students.

JO: 48 white students (11%) to 41 white students (9%).

Chisholm: 87 white students (16%) to 122 white students (23%). The percent of latino students also increased over this time.

Van Ness: 96 white students (26%) to 71 white students (18%).

I would guess that the JO numbers are a temporary blip related to the swing space. I bet that number goes way up over the next 5 years. It is definitely not because NOMA got less white.

Van Ness is definitely un-gentrifying. I don't know if this is neighborhood related, school related or something else, but this 100% seems to be the trend.

JO fluctuated between 39-49 white students during that five year time frame. So no, the school has not gotten whiter, even if it might in the future.

Van Ness IB percentage and IB participation rate have been steady over this time. IB percentage was 79% in SY20-21 and 81% in SY24-25. IB participation rate from 49% to 46%.

Much of the Van Ness zone sits on the former site of the Arthur Capper housing project. DC got a HOPE VI grant to redevelop the land into mixed-income housing, with a promise of a one-to-one replacement for each public housing unit. From what I understand, they've slowly made progress toward the total number of low income units promised as new apartment buildings have opened, but are still not quite there. Some more info here: https://www.urban-atlantic.com/case-study-arthur-cappercarrollsburg-redevelopment

Beyond this, since 2009 all new construction of 10+ units anywhere in the city is required to have a set aside of 8-10% of floor space for affordable units.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't have a preference here, but was following the discussion and looked at school profiles and wow SWS has made great strides in diversifying their student population in the last 5 years ago! I remember when we were doing the lottery,the one thing about SWS that gave me pause was that it was like 80% white. That is really strange for a DCPS school that fills all seats via lottery, as it means that very few black families were choosing to lottery for SWS despite the good test scores. We still ranked it, but way lower than I would have otherwise because I saw this as a potential red flag that it wasn't a very welcoming community.

Well that's really different now. Less than 50% white and nearly 30% black. I assume there are some geographic reasons for it to still be more white than most charters and all city schools (it's not super accessible by public transit) but this is still a big improvement and indicates the school is working to be inclusive. Good for them.

I think you're misremembering. Farthest back I can find is 2018-2019 at 68% white. By 2020-2021 that was down to 59%. And 47% last year.

I think driven by 1) more apartments built up around that area, so more accessible to people who don't live in expensive Capitol Hill row houses, 2) more people in the Capitol Hill row houses opting into their IB school.

PP here and yes, I guess I misremembered the exact number. Still -- 68% white for an all-city school where admission is entirely based on the lottery is crazy high. Also I disagree that the increase in apartments in the neighborhood has led to greater socioeconomic variety -- it's the opposite. All the new apartments in Capitol Hill are higher end, and housing costs have only increased in the time period your are talking about. $4000/mo 2 bedroom apartments along H street are not helping to diversify SWS. Agree that more people on the Hill are choosing IB schools, but I would assume the school has also made a concerted effort to do outreach to non-white parents. I see they started doing equitable access a few years ago as well, resulting in 10 or so PK seats a year going to EA applicants. That likely helps a lot, especially at a school as small as SWS.

As a black family, seeing a lottery-based DCPS with more than 60% white students in a fairly diverse neighborhood was really jarring. We live in Ward 5 with a really weak IB school, but with an easy commute through the Hill so we were looking at lots of Hill and Hill-adjacent schools in the lottery. SWS was the only school where the percentage of white students was that high and it didn't make sense to me given the demographics of the city and the lottery. I'm glad to see it's more balanced now.

The "luxury" apartments in my neighborhood have a bunch of families on Section 8 vouchers.

They offered 6 equitable access seats in SY23-24, 8 in SY24-25, and 10 in SY25-26. That's ~6% of the total school population, not enough to be the sole source of the demographic shifts you're seeing.

Well I live near Capitol Hill and I don't think the luxury apartment buildings near SWS have a lot of people on Section 8 vouchers. The neighborhood has gentrified over the last 20 years and is more expensive to live in, not less. In addition to luxury building going up, you also see a lot of older row houses that used to be owned by middle class families getting bought by developers and turned into high end condos. I should also note that if apartment projects in Capitol Hill were bring in a large influx of lower income families, you'd be seeing more diversity at other schools as well. That's not the case. Schools like Payne, JOW, Chisolm, Van Ness, are all getting whiter over this time period. I think L-T is over 50% white this year for the first time ever (SWS is in L-T's boundary). The neighborhood is not getting more diverse -- it's getting whiter and wealthier with each passing year.

Agree it's not just EA families changing the numbers. But that's definitely helping. I would also assume that the school has just done a better job reaching out to middle class black families like mine, and perhaps making them feel more welcome within the community. A drop from 68% to under 50% indicates that a lot more black families are ranking SWS and choosing it over other lottery options. That indicates a shift in culture rather than a shift in demographics, especially for a school that is 100% lottery.

PP. I also live near Capitol Hill. You're making some sweeping generalizations about a bunch of schools without actually looking at the actual demographic changes or factors driving those changes.

Everything I hear about SWS seems very geared toward to the ethos of a certain subset of UMC families who have a stay-at-home parent or a lot of job flexibility. It's possible they're doing things differently these days, but if so, news of that hasn't reached this forum.

My point was that SWS isn't becoming more diverse due to an influx of apartment buildings on Capitol Hill populated by Section 8 residents. This is just a bizarre perception of the housing situation on the Hill right now. A major reason why my family lives "Hill adjacent" rather than on the Hill is that it only gets more expensive to live there. And we'd happily live in an apartment (we live in a condo now). You simply cannot explain the increased diversity at SWS based on a shift in demographics of the surrounding neighborhood.

Also my kids attend a DCPS on the Hill and I can assure that school is not getting more diverse. The opposite.

You came in here asserting something completely false about neighborhood demographics and, after it has been explained why you are incorrect, are digging your heels in for some reason.

PP. I'm not digging in my heels. I'm describing what has happened at our IB school, which happens to be one of the schools you falsely listed as "getting whiter."

The schools mentioned were Payne, JOW, Chisolm, and Van Ness. Payne and JOW are definitely getting "whiter". Chisolm has a large Hispanic contingent due to the immersion program, though the surrounding neighborhood is definitely getting whiter and people really seem to like the school, so my guess is that it's also moving that direction as IB percentage increases. I have no first hand knowledge of Van Ness -- Navy Yard is kind of a weird neighborhood demographically and definitely has a ton of apartment buildings, but also many if not most of them are high end luxury buildings that I doubt have a lot of Section 8 residents.

Overall the Hill, and definitely Hill DCPS schools, have gentrified a lot over the last 20 years and continue to do so. The housing situation does not facilitate socioeconomic diversity at all, and most of the socioeconomic diversity at schools on the Hill comes from OOB students, not IB or nearby families.

This is a lot of guesswork for someone who is so sure they're right.

You can see number of housing vouchers by census tract here: https://hudgis-hud.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/HUD::housing-choice-vouchers-by-tract/about

By school, from SY20-21 to SY24-25:

Payne: 102 white students (32%) to 144 white students (36%). Note the number of black and latino students also increased over this time, though not as quickly as the white students.

JO: 48 white students (11%) to 41 white students (9%).

Chisholm: 87 white students (16%) to 122 white students (23%). The percent of latino students also increased over this time.

Van Ness: 96 white students (26%) to 71 white students (18%).

I would guess that the JO numbers are a temporary blip related to the swing space. I bet that number goes way up over the next 5 years. It is definitely not because NOMA got less white.

Van Ness is definitely un-gentrifying. I don't know if this is neighborhood related, school related or something else, but this 100% seems to be the trend.

Agree on JOW.

Regarding Van Ness, I think a major issue there is that the development around the school has primarily attracted childless people. Yes, it's a lot of huge apartment buildings, but Navy Yard is lots of single professionals without kids, and DINKs. It just doesn't seem like a very family-centric neighborhood at this point. I'd be curious to find out what percentage of residents in that boundary have kids and how it has changed over time.

Nope. Totally wrong. The school's enrollment and IB% has only increased over time. Van Ness IB% is actually one of the highest in the entire city, below only Murch, Janney, Lafayette, Stoddert, Maury, and Thomas. And enrollment grew 9% in the last five years.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I don't have a preference here, but was following the discussion and looked at school profiles and wow SWS has made great strides in diversifying their student population in the last 5 years ago! I remember when we were doing the lottery,the one thing about SWS that gave me pause was that it was like 80% white. That is really strange for a DCPS school that fills all seats via lottery, as it means that very few black families were choosing to lottery for SWS despite the good test scores. We still ranked it, but way lower than I would have otherwise because I saw this as a potential red flag that it wasn't a very welcoming community.

Well that's really different now. Less than 50% white and nearly 30% black. I assume there are some geographic reasons for it to still be more white than most charters and all city schools (it's not super accessible by public transit) but this is still a big improvement and indicates the school is working to be inclusive. Good for them.

I think you're misremembering. Farthest back I can find is 2018-2019 at 68% white. By 2020-2021 that was down to 59%. And 47% last year.

I think driven by 1) more apartments built up around that area, so more accessible to people who don't live in expensive Capitol Hill row houses, 2) more people in the Capitol Hill row houses opting into their IB school.

PP here and yes, I guess I misremembered the exact number. Still -- 68% white for an all-city school where admission is entirely based on the lottery is crazy high. Also I disagree that the increase in apartments in the neighborhood has led to greater socioeconomic variety -- it's the opposite. All the new apartments in Capitol Hill are higher end, and housing costs have only increased in the time period your are talking about. $4000/mo 2 bedroom apartments along H street are not helping to diversify SWS. Agree that more people on the Hill are choosing IB schools, but I would assume the school has also made a concerted effort to do outreach to non-white parents. I see they started doing equitable access a few years ago as well, resulting in 10 or so PK seats a year going to EA applicants. That likely helps a lot, especially at a school as small as SWS.

As a black family, seeing a lottery-based DCPS with more than 60% white students in a fairly diverse neighborhood was really jarring. We live in Ward 5 with a really weak IB school, but with an easy commute through the Hill so we were looking at lots of Hill and Hill-adjacent schools in the lottery. SWS was the only school where the percentage of white students was that high and it didn't make sense to me given the demographics of the city and the lottery. I'm glad to see it's more balanced now.

The "luxury" apartments in my neighborhood have a bunch of families on Section 8 vouchers.

They offered 6 equitable access seats in SY23-24, 8 in SY24-25, and 10 in SY25-26. That's ~6% of the total school population, not enough to be the sole source of the demographic shifts you're seeing.

Well I live near Capitol Hill and I don't think the luxury apartment buildings near SWS have a lot of people on Section 8 vouchers. The neighborhood has gentrified over the last 20 years and is more expensive to live in, not less. In addition to luxury building going up, you also see a lot of older row houses that used to be owned by middle class families getting bought by developers and turned into high end condos. I should also note that if apartment projects in Capitol Hill were bring in a large influx of lower income families, you'd be seeing more diversity at other schools as well. That's not the case. Schools like Payne, JOW, Chisolm, Van Ness, are all getting whiter over this time period. I think L-T is over 50% white this year for the first time ever (SWS is in L-T's boundary). The neighborhood is not getting more diverse -- it's getting whiter and wealthier with each passing year.

Agree it's not just EA families changing the numbers. But that's definitely helping. I would also assume that the school has just done a better job reaching out to middle class black families like mine, and perhaps making them feel more welcome within the community. A drop from 68% to under 50% indicates that a lot more black families are ranking SWS and choosing it over other lottery options. That indicates a shift in culture rather than a shift in demographics, especially for a school that is 100% lottery.

PP. I also live near Capitol Hill. You're making some sweeping generalizations about a bunch of schools without actually looking at the actual demographic changes or factors driving those changes.

Everything I hear about SWS seems very geared toward to the ethos of a certain subset of UMC families who have a stay-at-home parent or a lot of job flexibility. It's possible they're doing things differently these days, but if so, news of that hasn't reached this forum.

My point was that SWS isn't becoming more diverse due to an influx of apartment buildings on Capitol Hill populated by Section 8 residents. This is just a bizarre perception of the housing situation on the Hill right now. A major reason why my family lives "Hill adjacent" rather than on the Hill is that it only gets more expensive to live there. And we'd happily live in an apartment (we live in a condo now). You simply cannot explain the increased diversity at SWS based on a shift in demographics of the surrounding neighborhood.

Also my kids attend a DCPS on the Hill and I can assure that school is not getting more diverse. The opposite.

You came in here asserting something completely false about neighborhood demographics and, after it has been explained why you are incorrect, are digging your heels in for some reason.

PP. I'm not digging in my heels. I'm describing what has happened at our IB school, which happens to be one of the schools you falsely listed as "getting whiter."

The schools mentioned were Payne, JOW, Chisolm, and Van Ness. Payne and JOW are definitely getting "whiter". Chisolm has a large Hispanic contingent due to the immersion program, though the surrounding neighborhood is definitely getting whiter and people really seem to like the school, so my guess is that it's also moving that direction as IB percentage increases. I have no first hand knowledge of Van Ness -- Navy Yard is kind of a weird neighborhood demographically and definitely has a ton of apartment buildings, but also many if not most of them are high end luxury buildings that I doubt have a lot of Section 8 residents.

Overall the Hill, and definitely Hill DCPS schools, have gentrified a lot over the last 20 years and continue to do so. The housing situation does not facilitate socioeconomic diversity at all, and most of the socioeconomic diversity at schools on the Hill comes from OOB students, not IB or nearby families.

This is a lot of guesswork for someone who is so sure they're right.

You can see number of housing vouchers by census tract here: https://hudgis-hud.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/HUD::housing-choice-vouchers-by-tract/about

By school, from SY20-21 to SY24-25:

Payne: 102 white students (32%) to 144 white students (36%). Note the number of black and latino students also increased over this time, though not as quickly as the white students.

JO: 48 white students (11%) to 41 white students (9%).

Chisholm: 87 white students (16%) to 122 white students (23%). The percent of latino students also increased over this time.

Van Ness: 96 white students (26%) to 71 white students (18%).

I would guess that the JO numbers are a temporary blip related to the swing space. I bet that number goes way up over the next 5 years. It is definitely not because NOMA got less white.

Van Ness is definitely un-gentrifying. I don't know if this is neighborhood related, school related or something else, but this 100% seems to be the trend.

Agree on JOW.

Regarding Van Ness, I think a major issue there is that the development around the school has primarily attracted childless people. Yes, it's a lot of huge apartment buildings, but Navy Yard is lots of single professionals without kids, and DINKs. It just doesn't seem like a very family-centric neighborhood at this point. I'd be curious to find out what percentage of residents in that boundary have kids and how it has changed over time.

Nope. Totally wrong. The school's enrollment and IB% has only increased over time. Van Ness IB% is actually one of the highest in the entire city, below only Murch, Janney, Lafayette, Stoddert, Maury, and Thomas. And enrollment grew 9% in the last five years.

The VN IB% is a little misleading, because it’s mostly because the school is so undersized for the catchment area. So the school is 80% IB drawing mostly from the poorer half of the IB, because the IB participation rate is under 50%.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I don't have a preference here, but was following the discussion and looked at school profiles and wow SWS has made great strides in diversifying their student population in the last 5 years ago! I remember when we were doing the lottery,the one thing about SWS that gave me pause was that it was like 80% white. That is really strange for a DCPS school that fills all seats via lottery, as it means that very few black families were choosing to lottery for SWS despite the good test scores. We still ranked it, but way lower than I would have otherwise because I saw this as a potential red flag that it wasn't a very welcoming community.

Well that's really different now. Less than 50% white and nearly 30% black. I assume there are some geographic reasons for it to still be more white than most charters and all city schools (it's not super accessible by public transit) but this is still a big improvement and indicates the school is working to be inclusive. Good for them.

I think you're misremembering. Farthest back I can find is 2018-2019 at 68% white. By 2020-2021 that was down to 59%. And 47% last year.

I think driven by 1) more apartments built up around that area, so more accessible to people who don't live in expensive Capitol Hill row houses, 2) more people in the Capitol Hill row houses opting into their IB school.

PP here and yes, I guess I misremembered the exact number. Still -- 68% white for an all-city school where admission is entirely based on the lottery is crazy high. Also I disagree that the increase in apartments in the neighborhood has led to greater socioeconomic variety -- it's the opposite. All the new apartments in Capitol Hill are higher end, and housing costs have only increased in the time period your are talking about. $4000/mo 2 bedroom apartments along H street are not helping to diversify SWS. Agree that more people on the Hill are choosing IB schools, but I would assume the school has also made a concerted effort to do outreach to non-white parents. I see they started doing equitable access a few years ago as well, resulting in 10 or so PK seats a year going to EA applicants. That likely helps a lot, especially at a school as small as SWS.

As a black family, seeing a lottery-based DCPS with more than 60% white students in a fairly diverse neighborhood was really jarring. We live in Ward 5 with a really weak IB school, but with an easy commute through the Hill so we were looking at lots of Hill and Hill-adjacent schools in the lottery. SWS was the only school where the percentage of white students was that high and it didn't make sense to me given the demographics of the city and the lottery. I'm glad to see it's more balanced now.

The "luxury" apartments in my neighborhood have a bunch of families on Section 8 vouchers.

They offered 6 equitable access seats in SY23-24, 8 in SY24-25, and 10 in SY25-26. That's ~6% of the total school population, not enough to be the sole source of the demographic shifts you're seeing.

Well I live near Capitol Hill and I don't think the luxury apartment buildings near SWS have a lot of people on Section 8 vouchers. The neighborhood has gentrified over the last 20 years and is more expensive to live in, not less. In addition to luxury building going up, you also see a lot of older row houses that used to be owned by middle class families getting bought by developers and turned into high end condos. I should also note that if apartment projects in Capitol Hill were bring in a large influx of lower income families, you'd be seeing more diversity at other schools as well. That's not the case. Schools like Payne, JOW, Chisolm, Van Ness, are all getting whiter over this time period. I think L-T is over 50% white this year for the first time ever (SWS is in L-T's boundary). The neighborhood is not getting more diverse -- it's getting whiter and wealthier with each passing year.

Agree it's not just EA families changing the numbers. But that's definitely helping. I would also assume that the school has just done a better job reaching out to middle class black families like mine, and perhaps making them feel more welcome within the community. A drop from 68% to under 50% indicates that a lot more black families are ranking SWS and choosing it over other lottery options. That indicates a shift in culture rather than a shift in demographics, especially for a school that is 100% lottery.

PP. I also live near Capitol Hill. You're making some sweeping generalizations about a bunch of schools without actually looking at the actual demographic changes or factors driving those changes.

Everything I hear about SWS seems very geared toward to the ethos of a certain subset of UMC families who have a stay-at-home parent or a lot of job flexibility. It's possible they're doing things differently these days, but if so, news of that hasn't reached this forum.

My point was that SWS isn't becoming more diverse due to an influx of apartment buildings on Capitol Hill populated by Section 8 residents. This is just a bizarre perception of the housing situation on the Hill right now. A major reason why my family lives "Hill adjacent" rather than on the Hill is that it only gets more expensive to live there. And we'd happily live in an apartment (we live in a condo now). You simply cannot explain the increased diversity at SWS based on a shift in demographics of the surrounding neighborhood.

Also my kids attend a DCPS on the Hill and I can assure that school is not getting more diverse. The opposite.

You came in here asserting something completely false about neighborhood demographics and, after it has been explained why you are incorrect, are digging your heels in for some reason.

PP. I'm not digging in my heels. I'm describing what has happened at our IB school, which happens to be one of the schools you falsely listed as "getting whiter."

The schools mentioned were Payne, JOW, Chisolm, and Van Ness. Payne and JOW are definitely getting "whiter". Chisolm has a large Hispanic contingent due to the immersion program, though the surrounding neighborhood is definitely getting whiter and people really seem to like the school, so my guess is that it's also moving that direction as IB percentage increases. I have no first hand knowledge of Van Ness -- Navy Yard is kind of a weird neighborhood demographically and definitely has a ton of apartment buildings, but also many if not most of them are high end luxury buildings that I doubt have a lot of Section 8 residents.

Overall the Hill, and definitely Hill DCPS schools, have gentrified a lot over the last 20 years and continue to do so. The housing situation does not facilitate socioeconomic diversity at all, and most of the socioeconomic diversity at schools on the Hill comes from OOB students, not IB or nearby families.

This is a lot of guesswork for someone who is so sure they're right.

You can see number of housing vouchers by census tract here: https://hudgis-hud.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/HUD::housing-choice-vouchers-by-tract/about

By school, from SY20-21 to SY24-25:

Payne: 102 white students (32%) to 144 white students (36%). Note the number of black and latino students also increased over this time, though not as quickly as the white students.

JO: 48 white students (11%) to 41 white students (9%).

Chisholm: 87 white students (16%) to 122 white students (23%). The percent of latino students also increased over this time.

Van Ness: 96 white students (26%) to 71 white students (18%).

I would guess that the JO numbers are a temporary blip related to the swing space. I bet that number goes way up over the next 5 years. It is definitely not because NOMA got less white.

Van Ness is definitely un-gentrifying. I don't know if this is neighborhood related, school related or something else, but this 100% seems to be the trend.

Agree on JOW.

Regarding Van Ness, I think a major issue there is that the development around the school has primarily attracted childless people. Yes, it's a lot of huge apartment buildings, but Navy Yard is lots of single professionals without kids, and DINKs. It just doesn't seem like a very family-centric neighborhood at this point. I'd be curious to find out what percentage of residents in that boundary have kids and how it has changed over time.

Nope. Totally wrong. The school's enrollment and IB% has only increased over time. Van Ness IB% is actually one of the highest in the entire city, below only Murch, Janney, Lafayette, Stoddert, Maury, and Thomas. And enrollment grew 9% in the last five years.

The VN IB% is a little misleading, because it’s mostly because the school is so undersized for the catchment area. So the school is 80% IB drawing mostly from the poorer half of the IB, because the IB participation rate is under 50%.

Navy Yard is gaining more children over time and VN's student body is largely made up of children who live in the boundary. Participation rate doesn't really have anything to do with that, but in any case the participation rate is in about the top quarter of all elementary schools, on par with the rates at Payne, Chisholm, Garrison.

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Anonymous wrote:Just for the record, SWS is not in that boat. The waitlist remains super long and neighborhood people choose it over other highly sought after schools.

Not really. In-boundary Cap Hill parents almost always choose Brent (at least before this school year/the demolition), Maury and, increasingly, Ludlow and Payne, over SWS. Cluster parents tend to go with SWS over Peabody if they get a spot, true, mainly because Watkins continues to struggle. Same with Miner and JO Wilson parents.

Looking at the enrollments by boundary data doesn't give you a full picture because they don't report when fewer than 10 students attend a given school, but it's still pretty interesting for SWS. For SY19-20 through SY24-25:

Brent never had 10 or more students at SWS.

At its highest, Maury had 17 in SY20-21, but dropped below 10 in SY24-25.

LT has consistently had between 41-44 at SWS. 35 in SY21-22.

Payne had 29 in SY19-20. That number has slowly but steadily dropped to 22 in SY24-25.

Peabody has consistently had between 40-42. Much lower numbers in SY19-20 and SY24-25 but from another thread I'm fairly confident it's a data issue related to how the Peabody/Watkins boundary is defined.

JO has consistently had between 21-28 at SWS. SY24-25 had 32 but thinking that's just a blip related to renovation.

Miner has consistently had between 26-32 at SWS. 23 in SY21-22.

Wheatley has climbed steadily from 11 in SY21-22 to 18 in SY24-25.

Other schools that have had up to 10-12 students over multiple years: Amidon-Bowen, Bunker Hill, Borroughs, Langdon.

It makes sense that the Ludlow IB has a bunch of kids at SWS, because SWS is literally in the Ludlow IB. There's probably 1/3 of the zone who live closer to SWS than Ludlow Same issue at CHML, on the other side of Ludlow's zone. As a complete aside, it has always struck me as crazy that DCPS set up TWO DIFFERENT citywide lottery schools in a zone as small as Ludlow. The conspiracy theorist in me has always wondered if it was intentional, because Ludlow had a history of being an academically rigorous majority AA school that attracted many MC AA families through the lottery (teacher's kids, city employees' kids, etc) and the principal at the time those schools were set up liked it that way. She was actively hostile to white IB families at the open houses and told our neighbors back in 2014 that the school was "not for them." The rapid swing toward IB participation at Ludlow is basically only within the last 10 years and is a true testament to the Ludlow principal from 2015-2020 and just how good the Ludlow teachers are.

Accurate post re the cultural and demographic shift at LT in the last decade. Exactly. Thanks, PP.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I don't have a preference here, but was following the discussion and looked at school profiles and wow SWS has made great strides in diversifying their student population in the last 5 years ago! I remember when we were doing the lottery,the one thing about SWS that gave me pause was that it was like 80% white. That is really strange for a DCPS school that fills all seats via lottery, as it means that very few black families were choosing to lottery for SWS despite the good test scores. We still ranked it, but way lower than I would have otherwise because I saw this as a potential red flag that it wasn't a very welcoming community.

Well that's really different now. Less than 50% white and nearly 30% black. I assume there are some geographic reasons for it to still be more white than most charters and all city schools (it's not super accessible by public transit) but this is still a big improvement and indicates the school is working to be inclusive. Good for them.

I think you're misremembering. Farthest back I can find is 2018-2019 at 68% white. By 2020-2021 that was down to 59%. And 47% last year.

I think driven by 1) more apartments built up around that area, so more accessible to people who don't live in expensive Capitol Hill row houses, 2) more people in the Capitol Hill row houses opting into their IB school.

PP here and yes, I guess I misremembered the exact number. Still -- 68% white for an all-city school where admission is entirely based on the lottery is crazy high. Also I disagree that the increase in apartments in the neighborhood has led to greater socioeconomic variety -- it's the opposite. All the new apartments in Capitol Hill are higher end, and housing costs have only increased in the time period your are talking about. $4000/mo 2 bedroom apartments along H street are not helping to diversify SWS. Agree that more people on the Hill are choosing IB schools, but I would assume the school has also made a concerted effort to do outreach to non-white parents. I see they started doing equitable access a few years ago as well, resulting in 10 or so PK seats a year going to EA applicants. That likely helps a lot, especially at a school as small as SWS.

As a black family, seeing a lottery-based DCPS with more than 60% white students in a fairly diverse neighborhood was really jarring. We live in Ward 5 with a really weak IB school, but with an easy commute through the Hill so we were looking at lots of Hill and Hill-adjacent schools in the lottery. SWS was the only school where the percentage of white students was that high and it didn't make sense to me given the demographics of the city and the lottery. I'm glad to see it's more balanced now.

The "luxury" apartments in my neighborhood have a bunch of families on Section 8 vouchers.

They offered 6 equitable access seats in SY23-24, 8 in SY24-25, and 10 in SY25-26. That's ~6% of the total school population, not enough to be the sole source of the demographic shifts you're seeing.

Well I live near Capitol Hill and I don't think the luxury apartment buildings near SWS have a lot of people on Section 8 vouchers. The neighborhood has gentrified over the last 20 years and is more expensive to live in, not less. In addition to luxury building going up, you also see a lot of older row houses that used to be owned by middle class families getting bought by developers and turned into high end condos. I should also note that if apartment projects in Capitol Hill were bring in a large influx of lower income families, you'd be seeing more diversity at other schools as well. That's not the case. Schools like Payne, JOW, Chisolm, Van Ness, are all getting whiter over this time period. I think L-T is over 50% white this year for the first time ever (SWS is in L-T's boundary). The neighborhood is not getting more diverse -- it's getting whiter and wealthier with each passing year.

Agree it's not just EA families changing the numbers. But that's definitely helping. I would also assume that the school has just done a better job reaching out to middle class black families like mine, and perhaps making them feel more welcome within the community. A drop from 68% to under 50% indicates that a lot more black families are ranking SWS and choosing it over other lottery options. That indicates a shift in culture rather than a shift in demographics, especially for a school that is 100% lottery.

PP. I also live near Capitol Hill. You're making some sweeping generalizations about a bunch of schools without actually looking at the actual demographic changes or factors driving those changes.

Everything I hear about SWS seems very geared toward to the ethos of a certain subset of UMC families who have a stay-at-home parent or a lot of job flexibility. It's possible they're doing things differently these days, but if so, news of that hasn't reached this forum.

My point was that SWS isn't becoming more diverse due to an influx of apartment buildings on Capitol Hill populated by Section 8 residents. This is just a bizarre perception of the housing situation on the Hill right now. A major reason why my family lives "Hill adjacent" rather than on the Hill is that it only gets more expensive to live there. And we'd happily live in an apartment (we live in a condo now). You simply cannot explain the increased diversity at SWS based on a shift in demographics of the surrounding neighborhood.

Also my kids attend a DCPS on the Hill and I can assure that school is not getting more diverse. The opposite.

You came in here asserting something completely false about neighborhood demographics and, after it has been explained why you are incorrect, are digging your heels in for some reason.

DP. You have strong opinions but might want to consider

It’s not the city wide race percentages that matter. It’s the percentages within ES commuting range, which for little kids isn’t that far (esp for lower SES and without great proximity to public transit). So, there are different populations in the school and a non neighborhood kid who lotteries in may not stay as many years, which can skew overall percentages.

It hasn’t been that long since the administration rules changed. Probably long enough to cover the current population but sib preference may still cast a shadow that influences numbers

SH was much preferred to EH until pretty recently and that skewed 5th grades at both.

I have no idea what you are arguing with me about.

Do you think the reason SWS has more black students in recent years is because there are more Section 8 housing units in the neighborhood near SWS now than there used to be? I don't think that because it's not true and is a weird thing to assert.

Some of y'all are acting really weird about this.

My guess would be that SWS has more Black kids because they implemented an EA preference and because sibling preference stopped bringing in sibs who got preference because they were IB for the Cluster back in the day. As that has happened, and every new class gets more diverse, probably more Black kids lotteried for it because they were no longer creeped out by it's super whiteness.

It is 1000% not because the neighborhood it's in got more Black. L-T is now majority white for the first time ever.

Can you explain more about how the cluster preference worked and when it went away?

SWS moved into its current site in 2013-14, I believe. Before that, it was part of the Cluster (so full of kids IB to Peabody/Watkins, back when it was the most gentrified school on the Hill by far... and the most gentrified part of that IB chose SWS over CHML (also part of the Cluster) or the "normal" Cluster ECE). The whole school was based around SAHMs because that's who that option catered to among the three ECE choices. When it moved, it became a citywide lottery -- there were lots of discussions up to the 2014/2015 range on whether to give proximity preference, so it seemed like not everything had been fully settled yet even by then. When it moved, anyone enrolled went with it and their siblings got preference.... and those kids skewed heavily white. When the first citywide lottery happened around 2014-2015, there were lots of spots being filled by kids who were siblings of enrollees and that still had a measurable impact on new classes until maybe 2018-2019? Classes that were heavily sibling based are only just graduating.

It’s still very sibling-based though, yeah? Different set but PK3 looks mostly like siblings and if they’re lucky, kids without an older sibling are entering in PK4 or K