Why is Murch accepting so many OOB students?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:IF DCPS ACROSS THE CITY WERE LIKE JLKM, WE WOULDN'T BE HAVING THESE DISCUSSIONS BUT UNFORTUNATELY AND SAD THEY'RE NOT OFFERED THE SAME QUALITY OF EDUCATION. MODERN DAY SEGREGATION LOL, ,PARENTS OF COLOR WOULD ALSO LOVE A GREAT EDUCATION FOR THEIR CHILDREN EVEN IF MEANS CROWDING YOUR SCHOOLS. SORRY, EVERYTHING YOU TOUCH DOESN'T BELONG TO YOU PEOPLE. DIVERSITY IS GREAT, SINCE ALL OF OUR CHILDREN ARE THE FUTURE. OUR ANCESTORS BUILT ALL THIS DAMN SCHOOLS ANYWAY WHY SHOULDN'T THEIR GENERATION BENEFIT FROM THEM.

Diversity is the icing, not the cake (the cake being academic excellence). DCPS sometimes forgets that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And just how does adding more oob kids at an already overly full Murch help to solve overcrowding at Deal?
Sorry, my logical brain just does not get it.
Eaton parents, where are you?

I don't know where the vast majority of Murch OOB families are coming from. However, the majority of Eaton and Hearst families are from Crestwood, 16th Street Heights, and Mt. Pleasant, or just across the park and already zoned for Deal. People always forget to factor this in.

Right, i keep forgetting to factor that in from my in-boundary Eaton address, thanks for reminding me.
such nonsense.

Which means that they will be skipping right over to Deal and yet those with an inbounds Eaton address will be stuck with -- gulp -- Hardy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:has anyone done the math to see if the current 3rd graders will even fit into Deal? i doubt the boundaries will last ten years as written. sorry bancroft and shepherd.

As much as you want to kick out the brown kids, ANY change will grandfather just like Crestwood (i.e., 2022).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So who is stuffing Murch, then? DCPS? If that is so, this feeder right thing Rhee instituted to fill under enrolled Deal has gotten out of control

Yes, DCPS. Who else? You think the school wants trailers? You act as if Murch has a choice. They don't.

Wait. We'd be way over capacity even if we didn't have a single OOB kid. I don't understand what DCPS is forcing Murch to do, specifically. There's a lot of vague implication, but the reality is that Murch is way overcrowded, regardless, and would have a ton of trailers, regardless.

Is the idea that DCPS called up the principal and told him to accept a certain number of new OOB students? ANd that he was resistant but was forced? What's the specific charge? And what is the specific result, other than more kids in the school? Are we getting more trailers? Are more classes now being added?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:has anyone done the math to see if the current 3rd graders will even fit into Deal? i doubt the boundaries will last ten years as written. sorry bancroft and shepherd.

As much as you want to kick out the brown kids, ANY change will grandfather just like Crestwood (i.e., 2022).

And it definitely would not happen while Bowser is in office. "Rock Creek will not be a boarder for access to Deal"...or something like that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are at Murch and constantly hear about how overcrowded the school is. Anyone have insight into why Murch is accepting 10 OOB per grade next year, whereas Janney/Lafayette/etc. each have 0 to 2 OOB spots for each grade? I certainly understand the impulse to increase diversity and how OOB student do (and have traditionally) enriched the student body, but how can the crumbling and full to the gills facilities accept 60 more students?

OP, where did you get this information? Is it published somewhere?

OP here. It's available on myschooldc.org. Gaming the system or not, this seems like a ridiculous result. You still have to put those extra classes somewhere (i.e., more trailers.) And there are other issues -- stresses on specials, getting into extracurricular classes, sense of community -- that a larger student body certainly impacts. Besides the fact that it really seems to undercut the constant moaning about how overcrowded our school is if we are offering 10% of our spaces each year to OOB students. I agree with other posters, if my home was in the portion of the former Murch boundary that was rezoned to Hearst, I would be livid. Not that Hearst is not a great school -- it is -- but that the impetus behind the boundary reconfiguration is a complete fallacy when this many OOB kids are added every year.

To repeat: THIS WILL NOT RESULT IN THE ADDITION OF CLASSES OR THE NEED FOR MORE TRAILERS. These kids are filling spaces in classes that already exist. If these kids didn't attend, Murch would have fewer classes at each grade level with more kids per class than they have this year.

And I've personally seen no stress on extracurriculars or specials. Or the sense of community. THe last one, at least, is purely subjective--I don't really understand how the additional kids and their families have a negative impact here, but maybe "sense of community" is code for something else, OP?

Really, you are the first Murch parent I've heard complain about this. I certainly understand the argument others are making that bringing more kids into the Deal/Wilson path creates overcrowding down the line (assuming the kids come from areas that don't feed Deal and Wilson otherwise), but in terms of impact on Murch, specifically, I don't see evidence of an actual problem.

OP here. If you truly don't think it's a perverse result when a school that has 25% of its student body in trailers, that, when advocating for funding for its renovations, crowed to everyone who who listen that a building made for 488 students now is almost 200 students over capacity, that had its boundaries reduced due to overcrowding but now adds ~60 OOB kids, I really don't know what to say. I appreciate the small class size my child has experienced in K this year, but the school is HUGE. As a new family, it can be hard to get to know people. That's what I meant by sense of community -- not sure what code you are trying to read, but it sounds like you have your own issues to deal with.

And I have heard other parents complain about not getting into Xday, not getting a spot on a Murch Stoddert team, etc. I also assume it's hard it on the specials teachers -- there is one art, one PE teacher, etc. for the entire school. The bigger the school, the more kids they have to get to know and manage. I'm not trying to blame the OOB families at all, I'm just saying that there is an impact when you add more kids to an already very overcrowded and large school.

[Anonymous]

Ok, now you conform you are a bit looney. XDay and Stoddert are the extra curriculars you are talking about? And the specials teachers having trouble remembering names? Come on OP, those are really random "stressors" to focus on. I think most telling is your community concern. You are a K family and are having trouble meeting people. You haven't mentioned one stressor which affects your child. I can promise you the specials teachers (most of whom have been there a number of years. Geography teacher is new only because the previous one couldn't renew her visa renewed another time) don't share your concern. XDay has always had a limit on the number of kids it can take in pk and k. It is limited by staff to kid ratio dictated by law. Even when the school was smaller there were limits and people didn't get in. Stoddert-- do I really need to address this? Better yet, please find me a child who was denied playing Stoddert because their school let in a limited number of OOB students in the lottery.

You will meet people as your kid continues at Murch. Why not offer to host the class potluck in the fall? How about volunteer to be a room parent? Why not volunteer to sell pizza before a school event? Have you attended a principal coffee in the playground? I am sure you went to all the HSA meetings, did you introduce yourself to Martha or Maggie? They are really great at welcoming new families and immediately getting them involved with the school and other parents.

[Anonymous]

Murch has a geography teacher ?? Is that common in WOTP dcps elementary schools?

[Anonymous]

Remember two years ago when DCPS did the language push on schools? The Murch principal asked parents and the Deal principal what was most useful for the kids as a special, language or geography? Geography it was which is now in the rotation with music, art, library and gym on the specials schedule.

[Anonymous]

So which is it? The principal cleverly added the 60 kids to keep the number of classes per grade? Or did DCPS inform Murch it was adding 60 kids, and the principal did what he could do to spread them around? Either way, if the school is considered overcrowded (let's be honest here - there would be no boundary review process if schools like Murch were NOT overcrowded), it really shouldn't be adding kids that don't even live near the school. Is anyone pumping up Bancroft or Shepherd? They feed into Deal, too. Or is it just Murch?

[Anonymous]

Every one of those 60 OOB kids just bailed on their own neighborhood school. If nothing else, DCPS should consider why that is.

[Anonymous]

I personally think the other issue coming into play is the renovation. Some current kids will choose to go elsewhere for those years. They are hedging their bets on enrollment numbers.

[Anonymous]

The major issue has to be that Murch had k classes this year as small as 16. Oops! But last year they were as large as 27 (you try hiring a fifth teacher in September). With volatile IB enrollment because of apartments and embassies, OOB enrollment is the only way to plan ahead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ok, now you conform you are a bit looney. XDay and Stoddert are the extra curriculars you are talking about? And the specials teachers having trouble remembering names? Come on OP, those are really random "stressors" to focus on. I think most telling is your community concern. You are a K family and are having trouble meeting people. You haven't mentioned one stressor which affects your child. I can promise you the specials teachers (most of whom have been there a number of years. Geography teacher is new only because the previous one couldn't renew her visa renewed another time) don't share your concern. XDay has always had a limit on the number of kids it can take in pk and k. It is limited by staff to kid ratio dictated by law. Even when the school was smaller there were limits and people didn't get in. Stoddert-- do I really need to address this? Better yet, please find me a child who was denied playing Stoddert because their school let in a limited number of OOB students in the lottery.

You will meet people as your kid continues at Murch. Why not offer to host the class potluck in the fall? How about volunteer to be a room parent? Why not volunteer to sell pizza before a school event? Have you attended a principal coffee in the playground? I am sure you went to all the HSA meetings, did you introduce yourself to Martha or Maggie? They are really great at welcoming new families and immediately getting them involved with the school and other parents.

Exactly. There are plenty of opportunities to meet people and get involved. You don't seem like a shrinking violet, OP. And you clearly have strong opinions. Get involved.

(And as for the specials teachers, there's one who will never remember all of the kids names, no matter how many she has. She just calls them all "sweetie," even the ones she's had since she started teaching at Murch. But that's a different issue.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Every one of those 60 OOB kids just bailed on their own neighborhood school. If nothing else, DCPS should consider why that is.

OOB enrollment was designed to utilize surplus slots at desirable schools that had capacity. When a school is enrolled over capacity, to the point where they are needing to shrink its IB area, there shouldn't be any new OOB kids enrolled. Period.