Wilson enrollment numbers increasing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would not be surprised if Hardy is taken out as a feeder then to Wilson then.

Then Hardy's IB population would go from 13% to about zero!

Not if the Hardy kids are slotted for Ellington. Just make room for them there (Ellington's got plenty of room after the renovation!). That, or D.C. would be forced to build a new high school to serve the Hardy neighborhood. Or, as others have said, re-route some of the feeders away from Deal. Something will have to give one way or the other.

Ellington is a selective high school with an application process involving an audition/creation of a portfolio, a family interview, and more. It's designed to find those who would enjoy and be good at spending 4 years in a performing arts school with a 9-hour school day. You can't just move all Hardy 8th graders to Ellington; many might prefer a more traditional high school experience.

Your suggestion is roughly as useful as mine, which is: let's just slice off the parts of DC that feed into Janney and Murch and give them to Mont Co. Then Hardy and Oyster can have Wilson all to themselves. Work for you?

That would work for me, if they were to slice off AU Park and some other neighborhoods and give them to MoCo. My kids would go to Westland, which is not too much farther than Deal, and to BCC. Both schools would be at least a slight buno up in quality. I'd get to vote for two senators and a real congressman. As the closest MoCo neighborhoods to downtown, my property values would probably increase significantly. I wouldn't have to put up with the 3Cs (cronyism, corruption and clownishness) of DC politics. Basically, we'd get all the benefits of our present close-in location, with more services and less hassle. What's not to like about that?

[Anonymous]

We live in Wilson boundary and have one child there now. Sibling wants to join next year but our boundaries change to feed in to Cordozo. May we trust the DCPS web site that says 2015-16 families with siblings may opt for current school OR Wilson? Even Wilson admin aren't going to say with 100% positivity this can happen, so does anyone know if the new boundaries are a done deal?

[Anonymous]

Too bad the mayor can't even say herself apparently.

[Anonymous]

Seriously? They will leave families guessing for how long?

[Anonymous]

It's city management like this that runs middle class families out of DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents who send their children to charter school for middle school should lose their IB rights to Wilson. Those IB rights should go preferentially to students that attend Wilson feeder schools - Deal and Hardy.

Why? If they live in the IB district, they should have the right to go, whether they are returning from charters, privates or the moon. DCPS should be doing everything it can to encourage students to attend schools closer to where they live. DCPS especially should be encouraging walking and biking to school. If we want a more green, environmentally sustainable city, that' should be a priority, rather than the helter-skelter commuting (much of it by car) that characterizes DC education today.

Exactly. And the way to do this is to make sure that once people leave a coveted DCPS slot, they leave it. If you want to leave Hardy to attend a charter school, that's fine. But now you lose your feeder rights to Wilson.

This kills two birds with one stone. One reason for Wilson overcrowding is that tons of parents leave spots open in 5th grades in WOTP elementary schools that are then filled by OOB students that then have feeder rights all the way to Wilson. If those OOB kids go to Wilson, and the IB students return to Wilson after going to charter middle schools, you get overcrowding.

So this policy would encourage parents to stay in DCPS schools near their home, and help reduce Wilson overcrowding.

[Anonymous]

That will never happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would not be surprised if Hardy is taken out as a feeder then to Wilson then.

Then Hardy's IB population would go from 13% to about zero!

Not if the Hardy kids are slotted for Ellington. Just make room for them there (Ellington's got plenty of room after the renovation!). That, or D.C. would be forced to build a new high school to serve the Hardy neighborhood. Or, as others have said, re-route some of the feeders away from Deal. Something will have to give one way or the other.

Ellington is a selective high school with an application process involving an audition/creation of a portfolio, a family interview, and more. It's designed to find those who would enjoy and be good at spending 4 years in a performing arts school with a 9-hour school day. You can't just move all Hardy 8th graders to Ellington; many might prefer a more traditional high school experience.

Your suggestion is roughly as useful as mine, which is: let's just slice off the parts of DC that feed into Janney and Murch and give them to Mont Co. Then Hardy and Oyster can have Wilson all to themselves. Work for you?

That would work for me, if they were to slice off AU Park and some other neighborhoods and give them to MoCo. My kids would go to Westland, which is not too much farther than Deal, and to BCC. Both schools would be at least a slight buno up in quality. I'd get to vote for two senators and a real congressman. As the closest MoCo neighborhoods to downtown, my property values would probably increase significantly. I wouldn't have to put up with the 3Cs (cronyism, corruption and clownishness) of DC politics. Basically, we'd get all the benefits of our present close-in location, with more services and less hassle. What's not to like about that?

Sounds good, don't let the door hit you...!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We live in Wilson boundary and have one child there now. Sibling wants to join next year but our boundaries change to feed in to Cordozo. May we trust the DCPS web site that says 2015-16 families with siblings may opt for current school OR Wilson? Even Wilson admin aren't going to say with 100% positivity this can happen, so does anyone know if the new boundaries are a done deal?

Really??? It's possible your child may not be able to go to Wilson even with a current sibling? For real or are you just being paranoid? I understand that your boundaries changed, but still.

[Anonymous]

They are being paranoid

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Exactly. And the way to do this is to make sure that once people leave a coveted DCPS slot, they leave it. If you want to leave Hardy to attend a charter school, that's fine. But now you lose your feeder rights to Wilson.

This kills two birds with one stone. One reason for Wilson overcrowding is that tons of parents leave spots open in 5th grades in WOTP elementary schools that are then filled by OOB students that then have feeder rights all the way to Wilson. If those OOB kids go to Wilson, and the IB students return to Wilson after going to charter middle schools, you get overcrowding.

So this policy would encourage parents to stay in DCPS schools near their home, and help reduce Wilson overcrowding.

This is the kind of upside-down thinking that got DCPS into the mess it is today. Why not just limit OOB slots to the number of available seats instead? Because somehow kids who won a slot in a lottery in pre-k are "more deserving" than kids who "abandoned" DCPS for charter schools? Please.

DCPS needs to make up its mind whether it's a neighborhood school system or not. If it's not going to be a neighborhood school system, it needs to figure out a way of assigning students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We live in Wilson boundary and have one child there now. Sibling wants to join next year but our boundaries change to feed in to Cordozo. May we trust the DCPS web site that says 2015-16 families with siblings may opt for current school OR Wilson? Even Wilson admin aren't going to say with 100% positivity this can happen, so does anyone know if the new boundaries are a done deal?

I would get a printout of that web site and keep it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Exactly. And the way to do this is to make sure that once people leave a coveted DCPS slot, they leave it. If you want to leave Hardy to attend a charter school, that's fine. But now you lose your feeder rights to Wilson.

This kills two birds with one stone. One reason for Wilson overcrowding is that tons of parents leave spots open in 5th grades in WOTP elementary schools that are then filled by OOB students that then have feeder rights all the way to Wilson. If those OOB kids go to Wilson, and the IB students return to Wilson after going to charter middle schools, you get overcrowding.

So this policy would encourage parents to stay in DCPS schools near their home, and help reduce Wilson overcrowding.

This is the kind of upside-down thinking that got DCPS into the mess it is today. Why not just limit OOB slots to the number of available seats instead? Because somehow kids who won a slot in a lottery in pre-k are "more deserving" than kids who "abandoned" DCPS for charter schools? Please.

DCPS needs to make up its mind whether it's a neighborhood school system or not. If it's not going to be a neighborhood school system, it needs to figure out a way of assigning students.

Seems to me that the kids that are actually attending the feeder middle schools are the kids that are most deserving of going to the high schools into which those schools feed, regardless of where those kids live.

[Anonymous]

in a public school system, no one kid is "more deserving". that is a ridiculous statement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Seems to me that the kids that are actually attending the feeder middle schools are the kids that are most deserving of going to the high schools into which those schools feed, regardless of where those kids live.

Let's cut to the chase. You're really talking about Hardy, the only Wilson feeder where significant numbers of kids leave DCPS for middle school and return for high school. Most of those kids would attend Deal in a heartbeat, if they had the chance. So the kids who did attend Deal -- many of whom did so only by virtue of having won a lottery spot -- are somehow more deserving?

Please.