SWS moving to Prospect LC building?

[Anonymous]

To respond to two PPs... my DC was at LT this year and we had the requisite documents but not exactly in the right format so LT did a home visit (so I'm not sure I would agree that LT condones a culture of address cheating - they enforce the rules but if people are presenting false info, it is difficult (and unfair to put admin into such a position) to challenge that info without evidence.

Also, my understanding is that the only busing that is done in DC is for SN. So SWS, Logan, and any other school that attracts families from outside its proximity have no bus options available. Parents are responsible. Some charters have parents who have mobilized to help form carpools and/or provide a parent-organized/run van/bus service. Also options although the key is to have a mass of families in one location to facilitate this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To respond to two PPs... my DC was at LT this year and we had the requisite documents but not exactly in the right format so LT did a home visit (so I'm not sure I would agree that LT condones a culture of address cheating - they enforce the rules but if people are presenting false info, it is difficult (and unfair to put admin into such a position) to challenge that info without evidence.

Also, my understanding is that the only busing that is done in DC is for SN. So SWS, Logan, and any other school that attracts families from outside its proximity have no bus options available. Parents are responsible. Some charters have parents who have mobilized to help form carpools and/or provide a parent-organized/run van/bus service. Also options although the key is to have a mass of families in one location to facilitate this.

We left LT for Maury partly because of rampant address cheating - it didn't feel like a neighborhood program after PreS3. The idiot principal and many teachers turned a blind eye to obvious, wide-scale PG Country enrollment - not sure if that constitutes "condoning" but we didn't appreciate it. If SWS can compete with Maury for neighborhood families from their new location, great; the more appealing Hill ES options the merrier as the small fry population climbs.

The parent-organized bus services are not without controversy due both to cost and their exclusive feel. A kid I used to tutor at Miner got into Latin but his family couldn't afford the $1,000/year van service, couldn't get him there, his bus/Metro pass didn't cover the whole cost of transportatin and he was too young to wait for buses alone safely. He's at Eliot-Hine and no longer wants anything to do with me.

[Anonymous]

I did forget one thing about SWS that makes me think the administrators would like the idea of being citywide lottery -- if you aren't an IB school, you CAN get rid of problem children. It may take a while, but they have made things uncomfortable for families in the past and had it work out or them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I did forget one thing about SWS that makes me think the administrators would like the idea of being citywide lottery -- if you aren't an IB school, you CAN get rid of problem children. It may take a while, but they have made things uncomfortable for families in the past and had it work out or them.

In the past? you mean all the non-existent problem children who comprised their PK4 and K? Maybe that's plausible for a nonresident address cheat whose parents get caught. The more likely future scenario -- a parents with disregard for attendance or excessive tardiness could get returned to IB option.

[Anonymous]

I favored a citywide lottery with a proximity preference but it is very cleear that DCPS did not want to go down that path because it did not want to undermine LT. But what DCPS does not realize is that LT (and the absurd principal) undermines itself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I favored a citywide lottery with a proximity preference but it is very cleear that DCPS did not want to go down that path because it did not want to undermine LT. But what DCPS does not realize is that LT (and the absurd principal) undermines itself.

How can we of the stanton park universe convice dcps to undermine away?!

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately Tommy Wells has left this building. . .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately Tommy Wells has left this building. . .

Sounds to me like concerned IB LT parents of tiny tots ought to get up a petition before the SWS feeder is set in stone.

I don't care enough about the issues to spearhead pushback over the city-wide draw decision for SWS, but I'd certainly be glad to sign a petition pushing for neighborhood preference. I suspect that most of my middle-class neighbors on the blocks just east of Stanton Park feel the same way. In the fall, many of us happily signed a petition to try to save LT's librarian, although we didn't have a dog in the fight.

There would be some awkwardness with die hard LT IB parents in Pres3-K over a petition, but not much. There aren't many of them, they know the issues and have their property values to think about.

[Anonymous]

Dear DCPS, please keep adding more citywide lottery-based schools to the Ludlow-Taylor neighborhood, because we love salt in our wounds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Dear DCPS, please keep adding more citywide lottery-based schools to the Ludlow-Taylor neighborhood, because we love salt in our wounds.

It's interesting hearing the competing perspectives of the IB Cluster folks vs the IB LT folks. IB Cluster families are losing their existing neighborhood preference for SWS, whereas IB LT families are being denied a neighbohorhood preference to not one but two better public schools inside its current neighborhood boundary (SWS and CH Montessori) and provided an inferior neighborhood option which is largely ignored by the IB community beyond PK. DCPS just can't seem to get past the status quo of underserving its communities. Yet they wonder why most of the Hill families flee DCPS by middle school.

[Anonymous]

PP ^^

. . . or sooner

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dear DCPS, please keep adding more citywide lottery-based schools to the Ludlow-Taylor neighborhood, because we love salt in our wounds.

It's interesting hearing the competing perspectives of the IB Cluster folks vs the IB LT folks. IB Cluster families are losing their existing neighborhood preference for SWS, whereas IB LT families are being denied a neighbohorhood preference to not one but two better public schools inside its current neighborhood boundary (SWS and CH Montessori) and provided an inferior neighborhood option which is largely ignored by the IB community beyond PK. DCPS just can't seem to get past the status quo of underserving its communities. Yet they wonder why most of the Hill families flee DCPS by middle school.

Yup. It's ridiculous.

My two cents -- and I'm a in-bounds Cluster parent with a kid who went to SWS -- is that SWS will move from the fabulous, high-SES community school it is today to a much less desirable city-wide program in relatively short order. SWS should continue to have some sort of neighborhood preference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dear DCPS, please keep adding more citywide lottery-based schools to the Ludlow-Taylor neighborhood, because we love salt in our wounds.

It's interesting hearing the competing perspectives of the IB Cluster folks vs the IB LT folks. IB Cluster families are losing their existing neighborhood preference for SWS, whereas IB LT families are being denied a neighbohorhood preference to not one but two better public schools inside its current neighborhood boundary (SWS and CH Montessori) and provided an inferior neighborhood option which is largely ignored by the IB community beyond PK. DCPS just can't seem to get past the status quo of underserving its communities. Yet they wonder why most of the Hill families flee DCPS by middle school.

Yup. It's ridiculous.

My two cents -- and I'm a in-bounds Cluster parent with a kid who went to SWS -- is that SWS will move from the fabulous, high-SES community school it is today to a much less desirable city-wide program in relatively short order. SWS should continue to have some sort of neighborhood preference.

PP here

You're entitled to your $.02, but I'm a current parent who disagrees. It's not as affluent or exclusive as some make it out to be. The heavy investment is family engagement, not $$. Plus the move to Logan Annex preserved a core of families who value the program and aren't just buying time for other options. The families who committed to a year in a temporary structure built it from practically nothing, and they're highly committed to the school. Lots of younger siblings will join older SWS students over the next few year.

Aside from the quality of teachers and staff at SWS, Reggio is not everyone's cup of tea -- it's neither 'drill and grill' nor a rigid learning environment... SWS may have a more narrow appeal to some families than a citywide option would suggest. Plus the convenience will make it more sought out by CH families than the full district.

[Anonymous]

^^Doesn't change the fact that there are plenty of LT IB families who live tantalizingly close to Logan and/or the new SWS building but who have little chance of getting in to either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My two cents -- and I'm a in-bounds Cluster parent with a kid who went to SWS -- is that SWS will move from the fabulous, high-SES community school it is today to a much less desirable city-wide program in relatively short order. SWS should continue to have some sort of neighborhood preference.

I'd like to second that. And what I actually care more about is that it will feed into Eliot-Hine because that makes complete sense - not kidding, in all seriousness. EH feeders are all already on this track. Miner has Reggio Emilia. Similarly, Maury relies heavily on experiential and some project-based learning, and Payne has a world-cultures/project-based approach (I don't know enough about Tyler). All these mesh very well with the International Baccalaureate emerging at Eliot-Hine. That makes complete sense to me. (I can't speak to what that means or should mean for LT.)