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Anonymous wrote:Everyone suggesting that an E-H solution would draw kids away from BASIS and Latin ignores the reality of how short the MS years are and how bad the Hill HS situation is. If you don't want and can't leave DC or move for 9th, you have no choice but to take the Latin or BASIS exit if you are lucky enough to be offered it. MS is 3 years, and there's only 2 years of it before you need to have an idea of what your HS plan is. I sincerely hope E-H and all Hill schools get their sh*t together and prosper in the coming years. But I can tell you from experience that families without guaranteed HS options (ability to move, $ to pay for private) are generally not going to be motivated by nonspecific promises of some sort of "tracking light" at E-H. Step one to getting buy-in at E-H or SH is to stand up and offer a formal tracking process. No more of this nonsense where SH doesn't advertise tracking but allows students to take math classes with the year above and pretends it isn't happening.
This. EH is filled with families who struck out in the lottery and are trying to get a few more years in the city / hoping to lottery into Walls. IB families are not “choosing” EH.
There are absolutely EH families that choose EH over one of those charters … I’m under no illusions about having to find a different solution for HS but so far so good.
So you "chose" EH over a spot at Latin? Even though you won't use your IB HS? You are an example of what I described my friend. You feel you have options for HS; private $, move within DC, move out of DC, etc.
This. People will talk about going to EH or SH (or Jefferson) but their plan for HS is Walls, Banneker, private, or move. The plan is never Eastern. So it's tiresome when people talk about increased buy in for SH and EH (and let's get real about how much increased buy-in these schools are getting) without acknowledging that this is just people postponing their Plan Bs a few more years, not actually buying into the Ward 6 high school.
Both of these conversations can be true. The prior poster had the uninformed and inaccurate picture that all families at EH had already tried and struck out lottery. My family and many others never did the lottery and intended ongoing to EH from the get go.
As for high school, we are not ruling out Eastern but plan to learn about other public school options as well. Participating in the city's school choice system, especially for high school when there are very different programs does not mean you cannot be interested in and choose to go to your neighborhood middle school.
Not even entering the lottery is the picture of entitlement. In order to have acted in that manner you must have access to resources that informed that decision. There's nothing wrong with that, by the way. I would love to have mommy/daddy money to pay for private school. I would love to have a job that allows me to cash flow Sidwell in 9th. I would love to be able to move houses at the drop of a hat without regard to financial impact. Good for you.
But here's the thing. People like you ought not lecture people without those options or advantages about what they could or should do. It's the equivalent of having a parachute on under your jacket and encouraging others to get on a plane that is likely to crash, because "what if it doesn't and we reach our destination?"
I stand by my position that no one without HS options chose E-H without at least considering alternatives that solved for HS.
Ok. What’s your point again? The actual EH families’ point is that EH is going fine and we are reasonably happy. Not that we love the HS options or might have taken a spot at Latin. There’s always something potentially better so I struggle to understand why “striking out in the lottery” means EH is bad.
DP, but the point is that when you say lots of Maury families are "choosing EH" without acknowledging that these families often have resources that make them less stressed about HS.
People will lament the families who leave Hill elementaries in 5th for Latin or BASIS and try to argue "what's wrong with EH, SH, and Jefferson?" But the MSs are not the point. The high schools are. The people who lottery for characters in 5th and take those spots are not thrilled about giving up neighborhood schools and taking on long commutes for the next 8 years. They do it because they cannot afford to risk their kid not getting into Walls or Banneker, because they have no other good options. If you absolutely, 100% cannot afford private, and if moving would be a major financial stress (keep in mind that if you don't have a ton of money for private, you will also be limited as to where you can move and will likely not have access to the best suburban high schools either), then EH could be a freaking palace and a lot of parents would still choose a charter with an okay HS feed.
I often hear from Hill families that you have to be "willing to play the game." What this ignores is that some people are playing that game with extra cards. It is much easier to "roll the dice" on EH and the hope of Walls admissions if your back up is, to give a very common example, Gonzaga with with help from grandparents to cover costs. It's also easier to do if you have an HHI of 500k and you bought your Hill row house for 400k 15 years ago, so if you want to bail and move to Bethesda or Northern Virginia at any point, there are few barriers to you doing so.
Some of us cannot afford to do that. I do not ever want to put my kid in the position of having to get a spot in an application high school in DC or attend Eastern. Especially when grabbing spots at those applications schools becomes more and more of a crap shoot every year.
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