Jefferson Houston school district - administrative transfer?

[Anonymous]

That JH's boundaries didn't move does not mean the above statement is incorrect. There is a large chunk of Del Ray that is literally 50% closer to Maury than it is to JH. These kids have been historically (like for 20 years) been granted transfers to Maury. The detractors will tell you it's rich white people scared of poor black kids. Those who actually live here will tell you its about sending your kid to the neighborhood school. There is no arguing that Maury makes more sense fr Del Ray than JH does.

Those transfers have now ended. The reason the board took this direction is to force those 'Maury ' kids to attend JH. That's the skewing the numbers point the PP made, I'd bet.

People can scream "but JH is your school and has been all along!!" but that means what? That parents shouldn't do all they can to get their kids the better education?

Parents SHOULD do all they can to get their kids a better education. Ideally, parents would also give a sh*t about the education of their neighbors' kids as well. So, for those families who bought a home in-bounds for JH, your choice is clear. Pay for private, move, or work with parents already at JH to improve the school. There's no magic solution here - it will take hard work on all fronts, but it starts with opting into the school, encouraging your neighbors to do the same, and working with people already in the school community to improve the school for all of your child's classmates.

[Anonymous]

So, for those families who bought a home in-bounds for JH, your choice is clear. Pay for private, move, or work with parents already at JH to improve the school.

JH has started offering some nice afterschool programs, which is a good thing. But the reason JH isn't performing well is not that it has bad teachers, guidance counselors, or a bad facility - it's because many of its students have a lack of support at home, and are facing huge obstacles outside of school. That's something that parents of other students can do some small amount to change (e.g., blessings in a backpack to send food home) but don't have that much control over.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is exactly us - or DD isn't in school yet, but we live in the section of Del Ray this is mysteriously zoned for J-H, even though Maury is 1/4 mile away. Then there's a random section near the Braddock Road Metro (Parker Gray?) that is zone for Maury. This makes no sense.

What can Del Ray parents DO about this? I want my DD to go to a school with diversity, but I want her to go to a public school that is actually in her neighborhood.

Your chance to do anything about was last year when the school board had several community meetings on redistricting. Did you show up?

You took the words right out of my mouth! There were a number of community meetings and school board meetings on redistricting, not that any of it mattered. The school board will never invite the wrath of Maury and Lyles-Crouch parents by moving more low-income and minority students into those schools from Jefferson Houston. Maury and Lyles Crouch parents like the numbers just as they are--they can claim they send their kids to a "diverse" school, but it's not too "diverse" to be scary to them. Heaven forbid the majority of students are African-American!

I have no concerns about my own kid going to J-H. He'll be fine wherever he goes. My concern is for those 70% or more FARMS kids at J-H. A significant body of academic research shows that there is a tipping point (somewhere around 50%) where having such a high concentration of poverty in a school essentially outweighs all other well-intentioned efforts to improve academic performance. There are simply too many students with too many needs. This issue at J-H could have been addressed during redistricting by making J-H, Maury, and Lyles Crouch more equal demographically. But again, those Maury (especially) parents were not having any of that. I know--I went to many of those community meetings and school board meetings.

Any chance they would consider a School-Within-a-School at J-H for high achieving kids? I come from a high/low income district (in another state), and I just went to the SWS for elementary, middle and high school.

There's a TAG program for high-achieving kids.

[Anonymous]

There's a TAG program for high-achieving kids.

Right, but that program doesn't do much until 4th grade. The general GIA pullout sessions for 1st through 3rd grade are fun for the kids, but don't occur that often or teach much. 4th grade is when TAG is specific to subjects and offers a truly different curriculum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

There's a TAG program for high-achieving kids.

Right, but that program doesn't do much until 4th grade. The general GIA pullout sessions for 1st through 3rd grade are fun for the kids, but don't occur that often or teach much. 4th grade is when TAG is specific to subjects and offers a truly different curriculum.

I'm okay with that. Can't speak for J-H, but our ACPS elementary does differentiation well enough in the regular classroom that my DS is getting instruction above his grade level anyway.

[Anonymous]

ACPS elementary does differentiation well enough in the regular classroom that my DS is getting instruction above his grade level anyway.

It really depends on the teacher. My son has had some years that he got differentiation and some that he was really bored. You can't count on it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

ACPS elementary does differentiation well enough in the regular classroom that my DS is getting instruction above his grade level anyway.

It really depends on the teacher. My son has had some years that he got differentiation and some that he was really bored. You can't count on it.

This is true anywhere in the world, isn't it? Not just ACPS.

[Anonymous]

ACPS elementary does differentiation well enough in the regular classroom that my DS is getting instruction above his grade level anyway.


It really depends on the teacher. My son has had some years that he got differentiation and some that he was really bored. You can't count on it.

This is true anywhere in the world, isn't it? Not just ACPS.

I disagree. It's not true in schools that offer actual advanced classes in various subjects prior to fourth grade. In those classes, it doesn't "depend on the teacher" offering differentiation, because the whole class is advanced/accelerated. I'm not familiar with what other VA school districts offer, but in the state that we moved here from, such classes were certainly offered.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

ACPS elementary does differentiation well enough in the regular classroom that my DS is getting instruction above his grade level anyway.


It really depends on the teacher. My son has had some years that he got differentiation and some that he was really bored. You can't count on it.

This is true anywhere in the world, isn't it? Not just ACPS.

I disagree. It's not true in schools that offer actual advanced classes in various subjects prior to fourth grade. In those classes, it doesn't "depend on the teacher" offering differentiation, because the whole class is advanced/accelerated. I'm not familiar with what other VA school districts offer, but in the state that we moved here from, such classes were certainly offered.

The teacher is critical, regardless of whether it's a regular program or an advanced one. A crappy teacher in an advanced program is problematic. Especially in the early years, there isn't enough student-to-student learning to make up for a bad teacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is exactly us - or DD isn't in school yet, but we live in the section of Del Ray this is mysteriously zoned for J-H, even though Maury is 1/4 mile away. Then there's a random section near the Braddock Road Metro (Parker Gray?) that is zone for Maury. This makes no sense.

What can Del Ray parents DO about this? I want my DD to go to a school with diversity, but I want her to go to a public school that is actually in her neighborhood.

Your chance to do anything about was last year when the school board had several community meetings on redistricting. Did you show up?

You took the words right out of my mouth! There were a number of community meetings and school board meetings on redistricting, not that any of it mattered. The school board will never invite the wrath of Maury and Lyles-Crouch parents by moving more low-income and minority students into those schools from Jefferson Houston. Maury and Lyles Crouch parents like the numbers just as they are--they can claim they send their kids to a "diverse" school, but it's not too "diverse" to be scary to them. Heaven forbid the majority of students are African-American!

I have no concerns about my own kid going to J-H. He'll be fine wherever he goes. My concern is for those 70% or more FARMS kids at J-H. A significant body of academic research shows that there is a tipping point (somewhere around 50%) where having such a high concentration of poverty in a school essentially outweighs all other well-intentioned efforts to improve academic performance. There are simply too many students with too many needs. This issue at J-H could have been addressed during redistricting by making J-H, Maury, and Lyles Crouch more equal demographically. But again, those Maury (especially) parents were not having any of that. I know--I went to many of those community meetings and school board meetings.

I was at those meetings too, and when they moved part of Del Ray into Maury, it would have made the school over 90 percent white. The in-bound demographics for Maury are more diverse and higher FARMS than the current school makeup because of wealthy white kids coming in from Del Ray. Enforcing the existing boundaries will start to address the difference in demographics between J-H and Maury (less so Lyles Crouch). The part of Parker Gray that the PP objects to was added to the Maury district originally (and kept there in this round) because there is a lot of public housing in those few blocks and shifting it all to J-H would have put even more poor kids there while making Maury an enclave for white, wealthy kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

So, for those families who bought a home in-bounds for JH, your choice is clear. Pay for private, move, or work with parents already at JH to improve the school.

JH has started offering some nice afterschool programs, which is a good thing. But the reason JH isn't performing well is not that it has bad teachers, guidance counselors, or a bad facility - it's because many of its students have a lack of support at home, and are facing huge obstacles outside of school. That's something that parents of other students can do some small amount to change (e.g., blessings in a backpack to send food home) but don't have that much control over.

Actually the reason kids aren't preforming well is poor teaching methods and lack of any consistency in teaching core subject.

for example, last year they had outside consultants from UVA review their reading program and the report was terrible. I mean really bad. It even said the school reading specialist didn't know exactly what their role was. And decent reading instruction depended entirely on the teacher a kid got.

I believe they also had an audit for math a few years back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

So, for those families who bought a home in-bounds for JH, your choice is clear. Pay for private, move, or work with parents already at JH to improve the school.

JH has started offering some nice afterschool programs, which is a good thing. But the reason JH isn't performing well is not that it has bad teachers, guidance counselors, or a bad facility - it's because many of its students have a lack of support at home, and are facing huge obstacles outside of school. That's something that parents of other students can do some small amount to change (e.g., blessings in a backpack to send food home) but don't have that much control over.

Actually the reason kids aren't preforming well is poor teaching methods and lack of any consistency in teaching core subject.

for example, last year they had outside consultants from UVA review their reading program and the report was terrible. I mean really bad. It even said the school reading specialist didn't know exactly what their role was. And decent reading instruction depended entirely on the teacher a kid got.

I believe they also had an audit for math a few years back.

The good news is that the principal is leaving at the end of the year. Maybe, just maybe, ACPS can find an outstanding principal who the teachers don't despise, and who will stick around for the long term.

[Anonymous]

ACPS is so compact that it seems like it would be easy to draw the boundaries so each school is less than 50% FARMs. Going a mile to school is not that far. FCPS doesn't even send a bus unless a house is at least over 1 mile away becuase that is considered walking distance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

So, for those families who bought a home in-bounds for JH, your choice is clear. Pay for private, move, or work with parents already at JH to improve the school.

JH has started offering some nice afterschool programs, which is a good thing. But the reason JH isn't performing well is not that it has bad teachers, guidance counselors, or a bad facility - it's because many of its students have a lack of support at home, and are facing huge obstacles outside of school. That's something that parents of other students can do some small amount to change (e.g., blessings in a backpack to send food home) but don't have that much control over.

Actually the reason kids aren't preforming well is poor teaching methods and lack of any consistency in teaching core subject.

for example, last year they had outside consultants from UVA review their reading program and the report was terrible. I mean really bad. It even said the school reading specialist didn't know exactly what their role was. And decent reading instruction depended entirely on the teacher a kid got.

I believe they also had an audit for math a few years back.

The good news is that the principal is leaving at the end of the year. Maybe, just maybe, ACPS can find an outstanding principal who the teachers don't despise, and who will stick around for the long term.

We're also getting a new ACPS superintendent who has elementary-age children, and said he was hoping to live in Old Town. If his kids end up attending Jefferson-Houston it would send a powerful message to everyone to get their act together.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is exactly us - or DD isn't in school yet, but we live in the section of Del Ray this is mysteriously zoned for J-H, even though Maury is 1/4 mile away. Then there's a random section near the Braddock Road Metro (Parker Gray?) that is zone for Maury. This makes no sense.

What can Del Ray parents DO about this? I want my DD to go to a school with diversity, but I want her to go to a public school that is actually in her neighborhood.

Your chance to do anything about was last year when the school board had several community meetings on redistricting. Did you show up?

You took the words right out of my mouth! There were a number of community meetings and school board meetings on redistricting, not that any of it mattered. The school board will never invite the wrath of Maury and Lyles-Crouch parents by moving more low-income and minority students into those schools from Jefferson Houston. Maury and Lyles Crouch parents like the numbers just as they are--they can claim they send their kids to a "diverse" school, but it's not too "diverse" to be scary to them. Heaven forbid the majority of students are African-American!

I have no concerns about my own kid going to J-H. He'll be fine wherever he goes. My concern is for those 70% or more FARMS kids at J-H. A significant body of academic research shows that there is a tipping point (somewhere around 50%) where having such a high concentration of poverty in a school essentially outweighs all other well-intentioned efforts to improve academic performance. There are simply too many students with too many needs. This issue at J-H could have been addressed during redistricting by making J-H, Maury, and Lyles Crouch more equal demographically. But again, those Maury (especially) parents were not having any of that. I know--I went to many of those community meetings and school board meetings.

100% incorrect. You couldn't be more wrong.

The PTA president of Maury even went to bat, multiple times, for the Del Ray kids attending Maury. So did Veronica Nolan, herself a Maury mom. Not only that, but the former went to bat AGAIN when the board came up with that asinine, completely arbitrary grandfathering regulation. Siblings of admins that matriculate are forced to leave, but siblings of programmatic transfers get to stay?

WTF? Little Bobby has ADHD and cant do MVCS so he AND his sister get to go to Maury as long as they please!!?? Despite living in Warwick village TWO MILES away? Holy WTF?

Meanwhile, little Sam gets the boot from Maury because his admin brother graduated to middle school? And they live a 1/4 and have been at the school for 6 years? It's so ridiculously unfair that they will be seeing lots and lots of challenges.

In what world is that fair?