Ward 3 - Wilson feeders meeting last night: did anyone attend?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Make a different MS a true high achieving school with REAL admissions standards.

Thats all it would take.

You mean essentially the TJ model, but for a middle school somewhere in DC, right? Agree that would voluntarily "pull" a lot of students out of Deal. But unless you create a similar test-in magnet for high school, you would run into even more capacity problems at Wilson, wouldn't you?

Also, I'd be concerned a true test-in magnet option won't get political traction because it will be accused of leading to a racially segregated school, just like TJ is.

Thoughts?

ST

[Anonymous]

ST again. Just to be clear, I'm not criticizing or rejecting the test-in magnet idea. I think it's got lots of upside: a way to voluntarily "pull" students out of Deal, a point of pride/bragging for DCPS just like TJ is for Virginia, real benefits for advanced students, perhaps a way for DCPS to take advantage of underutilized building capacity, etc.

I worry it may face political headwinds, but I think it's a good example of the creative solutions Brian challenged people to offer.

ST

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Make a different MS a true high achieving school with REAL admissions standards.

Thats all it would take.

You mean essentially the TJ model, but for a middle school somewhere in DC, right? Agree that would voluntarily "pull" a lot of students out of Deal. But unless you create a similar test-in magnet for high school, you would run into even more capacity problems at Wilson, wouldn't you?

Also, I'd be concerned a true test-in magnet option won't get political traction because it will be accused of leading to a racially segregated school, just like TJ is.

Thoughts?

ST

How is TJ a "racially segregated school"? On a racial basis, it's extremely diverse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Make a different MS a true high achieving school with REAL admissions standards.

Thats all it would take.

You mean essentially the TJ model, but for a middle school somewhere in DC, right? Agree that would voluntarily "pull" a lot of students out of Deal. But unless you create a similar test-in magnet for high school, you would run into even more capacity problems at Wilson, wouldn't you?

Also, I'd be concerned a true test-in magnet option won't get political traction because it will be accused of leading to a racially segregated school, just like TJ is.

Thoughts?

ST

How is TJ a "racially segregated school"? On a racial basis, it's extremely diverse.

Some minorities - especially black and latino students - are underrepresented at TJ and in the AAP program for younger students.

Montgomery County's HGCs and magnets have same issue.

[Anonymous]

At the heart of it is a need for more classroom space. Once you take re-drawing boundaries off the table, all solutions involve more classroom space: either through renovation, new construction, renting, or re-purposing an available building (such as the old Hardy school).

My suggestion would be to take an available building (find it somewhere) and create a "lower school" out of it. Classes would be for pre-K through third or something like that. Draw the boundaries so the most overcrowded elementary schools would feed there for the lower grades. That would at least solve the capacity problems for the elementary schools and for Deal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is TJ a "racially segregated school"? On a racial basis, it's extremely diverse.

Some minorities - especially black and latino students - are underrepresented at TJ and in the AAP program for younger students.

Montgomery County's HGCs and magnets have same issue.

TJ demographics
Asian =1140 (63%)
white = 457 (25%)
Hispanic = 40 (2%)
black = 27 (1.5%)

http://schoolprofiles.fcps.edu/schlprfl/f?p=108:13:::NO:0_CURRENT_SCHOOL_ID,P0_EDSL:300,0

I think those ratios might be challenging for DCPS to stomach.

[Anonymous]

Link to TJ demographics - https://goo.gl/qjMLsE

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Taking Oyster out of the feeder pattern makes as much, if not more, sense than removing Bancroft and Shepherd.

Let them continue their dual language programs at CHEC or Roosevelt.

Why does that make more sense?

That

Because it protects their kid, obviously!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:9:52 again, adding to my point #3. I don't have a sense of where the OOB students at Deal and its feeders are coming from. As I think about it, I could see a disproportionate number of them being families that live in Ward 4 and know the tricks of which elementary schools to use as OOB access points for Deal. If that's the case, then perhaps Bowser will want to protect the OOB community because it's mostly made up of her core supporters.

WTH are you talking about? The lottery and feeder process is published. Under the rules they have as much a right to those schools as people like you who think you have some god given right. Theirs was no more a trick than you moving into a neighborhood that is currently zoned IB.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is TJ a "racially segregated school"? On a racial basis, it's extremely diverse.

Some minorities - especially black and latino students - are underrepresented at TJ and in the AAP program for younger students.

Montgomery County's HGCs and magnets have same issue.

TJ demographics
Asian =1140 (63%)
white = 457 (25%)
Hispanic = 40 (2%)
black = 27 (1.5%)

http://schoolprofiles.fcps.edu/schlprfl/f?p=108:13:::NO:0_CURRENT_SCHOOL_ID,P0_EDSL:300,0

I think those ratios might be challenging for DCPS to stomach.

Because DC equates "diversity" with African-American, which is still the largest racial group in the city. Chinese-Americans, Indian-Americans, Sri Lankan-Americans just don't count as diversity in the DC model.

I'm all in favor of 'diversity' but not at the expense of lowering standards to achieve quotas. TJ shows that a school can do both.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Make a different MS a true high achieving school with REAL admissions standards.

Thats all it would take.

You mean essentially the TJ model, but for a middle school somewhere in DC, right? Agree that would voluntarily "pull" a lot of students out of Deal. But unless you create a similar test-in magnet for high school, you would run into even more capacity problems at Wilson, wouldn't you?

Also, I'd be concerned a true test-in magnet option won't get political traction because it will be accused of leading to a racially segregated school, just like TJ is.

Thoughts?

ST

How is TJ a "racially segregated school"? On a racial basis, it's extremely diverse.

Some minorities - especially black and latino students - are underrepresented at TJ and in the AAP program for younger students.

Montgomery County's HGCs and magnets have same issue.

Then they need to buckle down and study harder. Pure and simple.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At the heart of it is a need for more classroom space. Once you take re-drawing boundaries off the table, all solutions involve more classroom space: either through renovation, new construction, renting, or re-purposing an available building (such as the old Hardy school).

When Duke Ellington reopens, they will have academic classrooms that are used for only half the day (DE students have an extended school day with their arts programming taking half their time there). I certainly wouldn't want the teaching staff that is in place there now given the abysmal test scores and horrible writing exhibited by one instructor in a syllabus(!!!), and union rules would probably prohibit it anyway. So hire a kick-ass set of core subject and elective instructors and recreate the old "Western HS" school within a school, or move one or more of the Wilson "academies" over there. Of course, this approach requires surmounting the strong political connections of the School's leadership. Right now less than 20% of DE's students come from Wards 2 and 3 combined, and another 20% don't even live in the District (they pay non-resident tuition). It seems incredibly unfair to cram all the students living in these areas into Wilson with that giant building unused half of the day.

Bonus thought: Fillmore could run its arts program for ESs that cannot accommodate arts programming due to lack of spac at Duke Ellington as well if the scheduling can be juggled.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the heart of it is a need for more classroom space. Once you take re-drawing boundaries off the table, all solutions involve more classroom space: either through renovation, new construction, renting, or re-purposing an available building (such as the old Hardy school).

When Duke Ellington reopens, they will have academic classrooms that are used for only half the day (DE students have an extended school day with their arts programming taking half their time there). I certainly wouldn't want the teaching staff that is in place there now given the abysmal test scores and horrible writing exhibited by one instructor in a syllabus(!!!), and union rules would probably prohibit it anyway. So hire a kick-ass set of core subject and elective instructors and recreate the old "Western HS" school within a school, or move one or more of the Wilson "academies" over there. Of course, this approach requires surmounting the strong political connections of the School's leadership. Right now less than 20% of DE's students come from Wards 2 and 3 combined, and another 20% don't even live in the District (they pay non-resident tuition). It seems incredibly unfair to cram all the students living in these areas into Wilson with that giant building unused half of the day.

Bonus thought: Fillmore could run its arts program for ESs that cannot accommodate arts programming due to lack of spac at Duke Ellington as well if the scheduling can be juggled.

As a political matter, Ellington is never going to share its space with anyone other than Ellington students. That's just the way it is. It will always be a quarter-of-a-billion-dollar boondoggle, and that's a shame, but solutions for Ward 3 overcrowding must move on and locate extra classroom space elsewhere.

As a practical matter, DCPS knows from experience (or at least it should know) that you can't mix elementary school students with older students. Look at the K-8th education campus problems as an example: 8th graders sometimes pick on first and second graders, physically. I have seen this happen personally at DCPS. I really doubt DCPS would want to duplicate that risk at Ellington.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the heart of it is a need for more classroom space. Once you take re-drawing boundaries off the table, all solutions involve more classroom space: either through renovation, new construction, renting, or re-purposing an available building (such as the old Hardy school).

When Duke Ellington reopens, they will have academic classrooms that are used for only half the day (DE students have an extended school day with their arts programming taking half their time there). I certainly wouldn't want the teaching staff that is in place there now given the abysmal test scores and horrible writing exhibited by one instructor in a syllabus(!!!), and union rules would probably prohibit it anyway. So hire a kick-ass set of core subject and elective instructors and recreate the old "Western HS" school within a school, or move one or more of the Wilson "academies" over there. Of course, this approach requires surmounting the strong political connections of the School's leadership. Right now less than 20% of DE's students come from Wards 2 and 3 combined, and another 20% don't even live in the District (they pay non-resident tuition). It seems incredibly unfair to cram all the students living in these areas into Wilson with that giant building unused half of the day.

Bonus thought: Fillmore could run its arts program for ESs that cannot accommodate arts programming due to lack of spac at Duke Ellington as well if the scheduling can be juggled.

As a political matter, Ellington is never going to share its space with anyone other than Ellington students. That's just the way it is. It will always be a quarter-of-a-billion-dollar boondoggle, and that's a shame, but solutions for Ward 3 overcrowding must move on and locate extra classroom space elsewhere.

As a practical matter, DCPS knows from experience (or at least it should know) that you can't mix elementary school students with older students. Look at the K-8th education campus problems as an example: 8th graders sometimes pick on first and second graders, physically. I have seen this happen personally at DCPS. I really doubt DCPS would want to duplicate that risk at Ellington.

Can someone please explain why this quarter-billion dollar boondoggle Is spending so much to build a Taj Mahal campus on the old Western high school site, when public schools west of Rock Creek Park have become so overcrowded? Ellington, which draws its student population from around DC (and even from MD, but that’s another story), could have built a purpose-planned, state-of-the-art facility in a more central, Metro-accessible location, probably for less money. And the Georgetown/Burleith site could have been repurposed for its original purpose, as a public school to serve an area with a steadily growing student population.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the heart of it is a need for more classroom space. Once you take re-drawing boundaries off the table, all solutions involve more classroom space: either through renovation, new construction, renting, or re-purposing an available building (such as the old Hardy school).

When Duke Ellington reopens, they will have academic classrooms that are used for only half the day (DE students have an extended school day with their arts programming taking half their time there). I certainly wouldn't want the teaching staff that is in place there now given the abysmal test scores and horrible writing exhibited by one instructor in a syllabus(!!!), and union rules would probably prohibit it anyway. So hire a kick-ass set of core subject and elective instructors and recreate the old "Western HS" school within a school, or move one or more of the Wilson "academies" over there. Of course, this approach requires surmounting the strong political connections of the School's leadership. Right now less than 20% of DE's students come from Wards 2 and 3 combined, and another 20% don't even live in the District (they pay non-resident tuition). It seems incredibly unfair to cram all the students living in these areas into Wilson with that giant building unused half of the day.

Bonus thought: Fillmore could run its arts program for ESs that cannot accommodate arts programming due to lack of spac at Duke Ellington as well if the scheduling can be juggled.

As a political matter, Ellington is never going to share its space with anyone other than Ellington students. That's just the way it is. It will always be a quarter-of-a-billion-dollar boondoggle, and that's a shame, but solutions for Ward 3 overcrowding must move on and locate extra classroom space elsewhere.

As a practical matter, DCPS knows from experience (or at least it should know) that you can't mix elementary school students with older students. Look at the K-8th education campus problems as an example: 8th graders sometimes pick on first and second graders, physically. I have seen this happen personally at DCPS. I really doubt DCPS would want to duplicate that risk at Ellington.

Can someone please explain why this quarter-billion dollar boondoggle Is spending so much to build a Taj Mahal campus on the old Western high school site, when public schools west of Rock Creek Park have become so overcrowded? Ellington, which draws its student population from around DC (and even from MD, but that’s another story), could have built a purpose-planned, state-of-the-art facility in a more central, Metro-accessible location, probably for less money. And the Georgetown/Burleith site could have been repurposed for its original purpose, as a public school to serve an area with a steadily growing student population.

You have been asking the same question for about five years. I doubt you will receive a satisfactory answer now -- or even an answer that you haven't heard before.