Ward 6 Needs to Boot Joe Weedon

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+100. DCPS and PPs give parents who simply want a neighborhood MS school serving the actual neighborhood when having one shouldn't be a tall order. Your bleeding hearts hurt the poor kids most.

What do you expect? They're going to completely do away with the OOB structure for Ward 6 just for you? I agree that your desire for a school you find acceptable is legitimate. What I disagree with is your privileged, spoiled, and yes, insenstive and borderline racist, approach to advocacy. DCPS is not going to create a school you feel comfortable going to if comfort means all white or all high SES. DCPS is a poor, urban, minority school district. But you seem to think that because you're a gentrifier in Ward 6 you deserve a gentrified school. What *could* happen is something like what happened with Brent and Maury - groups of parents getting together to advocate together and decide to send their kids en masse, and be a little brave about it.

+1. OOB percentages will go down if and when IB students enroll. Otherwise the schools would close due to low enrollment.

[Anonymous]

These angry responses are so unhelpful You know what would help? If DCPS would publicly acknowledge that this whole mixing of high and low achieving students at the same neighborhood middle school ( with high achieving students being greatly outnumbered ) is a real, difficult and complicated situation that is not faced in the course of most school districts. The gap in ward 6 middle schools in terms of preparation of inching 6th graders is objectively huge.

When DCPS officials can acknowledge this fact, and give forthright and well researched solutions to this problem that can inspire confidence. AND when these solutions are given proud and loud publicity and fully funded, then perhaps high achieving students of all races ( yes indeed, black parents are also giving the cold shoulder to these schools in large numbers ) will give it a go.

Right now, DCPS is all hush, hush about the truth of the problem and the truth of how they do and will approach solving it for fear of coming of as politically incorrect or being accused of pandering to the wrong community. ( Thanks posters who come on here screaming about horrible gentrification, spoiled parents, racist interlopers ).

A little truth goes a long way.

[Anonymous]

inching=incoming 6th graders

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These angry responses are so unhelpful You know what would help? If DCPS would publicly acknowledge that this whole mixing of high and low achieving students at the same neighborhood middle school ( with high achieving students being greatly outnumbered ) is a real, difficult and complicated situation that is not faced in the course of most school districts. The gap in ward 6 middle schools in terms of preparation of inching 6th graders is objectively huge.

When DCPS officials can acknowledge this fact, and give forthright and well researched solutions to this problem that can inspire confidence. AND when these solutions are given proud and loud publicity and fully funded, then perhaps high achieving students of all races ( yes indeed, black parents are also giving the cold shoulder to these schools in large numbers ) will give it a go.

Right now, DCPS is all hush, hush about the truth of the problem and the truth of how they do and will approach solving it for fear of coming of as politically incorrect or being accused of pandering to the wrong community. ( Thanks posters who come on here screaming about horrible gentrification, spoiled parents, racist interlopers ).

A little truth goes a long way.

Honestly, you come here suggesting that DCPS should make some sort of statement of acknowledging how hard rich parents have it when they have to mix with poor kids? You think that's going to fly? YOU moved to DC as is. The burden is on you to work with the schools. If you expect a school district to cater to you you need to go private, or move where the "demographics" are more to your liking.

[Anonymous]

ˆˆˆ exhibit A. I expect DCPS to be clear and honest about how they will educate all students who come through their doors ( and pay taxes, by the way )--actually and potentially.

I expect a public school system to educate my kids and let me know how they will do that. I don't expect catering.

Sheesh. Some people are seriously messed up from living in DC.

[Anonymous]

By the way, you can't have it both ways. Calling me a horrible person for asking these questions and then telling me to go away if I don't like the answers. And then calling me a horrible person when I DO go away to charter, private or suburb. Can't win unless we do it your way and only your way which......by most measures, isn;t working

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:By the way, you can't have it both ways. Calling me a horrible person for asking these questions and then telling me to go away if I don't like the answers. And then calling me a horrible person when I DO go away to charter, private or suburb. Can't win unless we do it your way and only your way which......by most measures, isn;t working

I don't really care where you send your kid. Just don't make ridiculously entitled arguments and expect not to be called out on it.

[Anonymous]

Okay, multiply your reaction to me times hundreds or so 4th graders around ward 6 and there you have your problem with severely under enrolled schools. Most families don't want anything to do with the push pull circus of this kind.

marketing campaign: Come to ward 6 middle schools! They're OK, especially if you work with DCPS to make them better! Just be careful what you say and don't ask for too much because entitlement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These angry responses are so unhelpful You know what would help? If DCPS would publicly acknowledge that this whole mixing of high and low achieving students at the same neighborhood middle school ( with high achieving students being greatly outnumbered ) is a real, difficult and complicated situation that is not faced in the course of most school districts. The gap in ward 6 middle schools in terms of preparation of inching 6th graders is objectively huge.

When DCPS officials can acknowledge this fact, and give forthright and well researched solutions to this problem that can inspire confidence. AND when these solutions are given proud and loud publicity and fully funded, then perhaps high achieving students of all races ( yes indeed, black parents are also giving the cold shoulder to these schools in large numbers ) will give it a go.

Right now, DCPS is all hush, hush about the truth of the problem and the truth of how they do and will approach solving it for fear of coming of as politically incorrect or being accused of pandering to the wrong community. ( Thanks posters who come on here screaming about horrible gentrification, spoiled parents, racist interlopers ).

A little truth goes a long way.

Absolutely yes, you rock PP. You're so logical, you must be a foreigner.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These angry responses are so unhelpful You know what would help? If DCPS would publicly acknowledge that this whole mixing of high and low achieving students at the same neighborhood middle school ( with high achieving students being greatly outnumbered ) is a real, difficult and complicated situation that is not faced in the course of most school districts. The gap in ward 6 middle schools in terms of preparation of inching 6th graders is objectively huge.

When DCPS officials can acknowledge this fact, and give forthright and well researched solutions to this problem that can inspire confidence. AND when these solutions are given proud and loud publicity and fully funded, then perhaps high achieving students of all races ( yes indeed, black parents are also giving the cold shoulder to these schools in large numbers ) will give it a go.

Right now, DCPS is all hush, hush about the truth of the problem and the truth of how they do and will approach solving it for fear of coming of as politically incorrect or being accused of pandering to the wrong community. ( Thanks posters who come on here screaming about horrible gentrification, spoiled parents, racist interlopers ).

A little truth goes a long way.

Honestly, you come here suggesting that DCPS should make some sort of statement of acknowledging how hard rich parents have it when they have to mix with poor kids? You think that's going to fly? YOU moved to DC as is. The burden is on you to work with the schools. If you expect a school district to cater to you you need to go private, or move where the "demographics" are more to your liking.

Moved to DC? I have a secret sweetie, some of us are actually FROM here!

[Anonymous]

The burden is on us? Why? We pay taxes, we vote, and nobody in Ward 6 accrues the benefit of DCPS running several weak middle schools. We can vote Charles Allen out if the Ward 6 MS and HS cluster *@#$ situation doesn't change, and Joe Weedon, too.

[Anonymous]

Joe is now one of the few SBOE member who is not fully owned by the charter sector. You can have issues with his attention and his policies, but he is a huge supporter of the DCPS and building a functional system of neighborhood schools. Ward 6 would dump him at their peril.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The burden is on us? Why? We pay taxes, we vote, and nobody in Ward 6 accrues the benefit of DCPS running several weak middle schools. We can vote Charles Allen out if the Ward 6 MS and HS cluster *@#$ situation doesn't change, and Joe Weedon, too.

Allen and Weedon don't have any real power over DCPS so you can vote them out but it won't change anything.

More important, not everyone in Ward 6 agrees on the problem, much less the solution, and the lack of consensus ensures the status quo.

It is easier to 'flip' schools in Wards 2 and 3 (e.g. Wilson feeders) than on the Hill because the housing stock is more uniform. The "Hill" as broadly defined by real estate brokers is just too mixed -- expensive homes with higher SES families in close proximity to less affluent to poor families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+100. DCPS and PPs give parents who simply want a neighborhood MS school serving the actual neighborhood when having one shouldn't be a tall order. Your bleeding hearts hurt the poor kids most.

What do you expect? They're going to completely do away with the OOB structure for Ward 6 just for you? I agree that your desire for a school you find acceptable is legitimate. What I disagree with is your privileged, spoiled, and yes, insenstive and borderline racist, approach to advocacy. DCPS is not going to create a school you feel comfortable going to if comfort means all white or all high SES. DCPS is a poor, urban, minority school district. But you seem to think that because you're a gentrifier in Ward 6 you deserve a gentrified school. What *could* happen is something like what happened with Brent and Maury - groups of parents getting together to advocate together and decide to send their kids en masse, and be a little brave about it.

It's easy to be brave when you have time and your children are young. It's hard when high school and thus college are on the near horizon. This is where DCPS really fails.

[Anonymous]

Disagree all you like. I can afford privates post ES for my two children, but would much rather send them to strong public middle and high schools here in Ward 6 (having gone to public schools myself all the way through). Yes, it's all too easy to be brave when your kids are little and, in all likelihood, you don't really have your head around how weak most DCPS middle and high schools are. I used to teach in DCPS so no rose colored glasses on my part.

No sure what a "gentrified school" means. But it it's one with strong facilities and a good spirit, where my good students are safe, happy, and appropriately challenged in most subjects and can participate in worthwhile extra curriculars, where most of their classmates live in the catchment area, great, bring it on. It doesn't look to me like we have a chance in hell of such a by-right middle or high school materializing locally in under two decades, so I'm planning accordingly to avoid moving. You can do the brave advocating. Good luck.