Ludlow-Taylor getting a new a new Principal

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ Trouble is, they don't care about politely phrased constructive criticism from neighborhood parents either. I'm in-boundary and privately relieved to be avoiding LT's upper grades. By our family's definition, far too many of the students there are bogged down by depressing home lives (unlike most of the neighborhood kids).

Anybody IB who sticks with LT past prek, you have my respect and best wishes.

This is so sad. I am in bounds for Watkins but I live way closer to LT, and think that LT (unlike Watkins) could be a great school if there was enough buy-in from neighborhood families. It is such a small school compared to Watkins and could be flipped so easily if people would just stick around. I am even thinking of trying to lottery in for PK and trying to get a cohort of parents together to stick it out.

Not to pick on you particularly, but this is the attitude that drives me bonkers. LT already IS a great school. It doesn't need to be "flipped"!

It's really not a great school. It did well last year when compared to other neighborhood schools, but you are deluding yourself if you think it's "great."

Is it the best school in DC? No. It's certainly a top school in Ward 6 -- comparable to Brent and Maury, which are two schools no one nowadays says could be "flipped."

Look, I get the argument that neighborhood buy-in is important. (It's not as important to me as it is to some, but I do get it.) And I am sympathetic to white parents who don't want their child to be an only.

But I really feel like many people in this forum, and perhaps in the neighborhood, are undervaluing what LT has achieved -- look at the number of kids scoring advanced! In a title 1 school! -- and talking about it like this poor pitiful thing that sorely needs an infusion of high-SES white kids if it's going to get anywhere.

So I have to wonder what their definition of anywhere is. If success, by definition, equals having a lot of IB (=white, high-SES kids), then yeah, I guess LT does need more of those kids to meet that definition of success.

But if success is determined by something other than the school's demographics, then what is the standard that LT needs to meet that Brent and Maury have already met?

Thank you!

[Anonymous]

This is so tired. All of the people I know that went there, and wanted to stay, but were met with little more than an eye roll from Cobbs have long since left this discussion.

Cobbs gave the people attending the school from OOB what they wanted. She didn't placate the people in the neighborhood that wanted to see changes. You can kvetch all you want about that one way or another, she/they taught these OOB kids as well as can be expected, but whatever she did/didn't do didn't make it a neighborhood school.

Pp - good luck with that "getting a group of parents" together to stick it out. They'll be made to feel welcome by the new principal or they won't. That defines what happens to LT over the next few years. It becomes the next Brent, or it stats what it is and nails down the basics for a group of kids that need it. Both meet a DCPS need - now let's all see what happens...

[Anonymous]

So let me get this straight... No matter how successful LT is in teaching it's students and achieving goals, it's completely discounted because the children there are predominately brown?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So let me get this straight... No matter how successful LT is in teaching it's students and achieving goals, it's completely discounted because the children there are predominately brown?

no -- it should be discounted because LT has 3x as many IEPs as any other well performing ES in Cap Hill. Nearly 1/5 of students have IEPs. That's not a bad thing unto itself (it's good that they're serving kids with special needs and doing it well), but students with IEPs are tested differently than students without. It doesn't dismiss performance outright, but it does impact comparison to other schools. It's reductionist to assume that race is the only factor here.

and before you compare it to SWS 1/8 you should first factor in the medically fragile classrooms. but SWS hasn't hit testing grades yet

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ Trouble is, they don't care about politely phrased constructive criticism from neighborhood parents either. I'm in-boundary and privately relieved to be avoiding LT's upper grades. By our family's definition, far too many of the students there are bogged down by depressing home lives (unlike most of the neighborhood kids).

Anybody IB who sticks with LT past prek, you have my respect and best wishes.

This is so sad. I am in bounds for Watkins but I live way closer to LT, and think that LT (unlike Watkins) could be a great school if there was enough buy-in from neighborhood families. It is such a small school compared to Watkins and could be flipped so easily if people would just stick around. I am even thinking of trying to lottery in for PK and trying to get a cohort of parents together to stick it out.

I am ready to make the deal; now we need 22 more families to do the same and we are set.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So let me get this straight... No matter how successful LT is in teaching it's students and achieving goals, it's completely discounted because the children there are predominately brown?

...substitute brown with predominantly low-SES. And the answer is yes.
IB parents don't want their kids to go to school with too many poor children. A few ok, but not the majority.
They are afraid they won't learn as much/as well as they would in a class full of more privileged kids.

I can understand that. What I don't get is how one would prefer Watkins over L-T.

[Anonymous]

We're rehashing old topics, but the issue is not just what the high SES kids would and wouldn't learn. I'm not convinced that it's mainly this.

Few in-bounds parents have the patience and stamina to battle to enjoy being a part of the L-T community year after year. You're never sure who to believe. White parents swear that they're in it for the long haul, then, suddenly, they stop turning up. You're walking on egg shells culturally after prek, under pressure to pay lip service to BS "diversity" (translation, lots of low SES AA kids from K, and a handful of others).

I've seen how neighborhood parents grow quietly demoralized, eager to head to a school where they can kick back and be themselves. It's a lot more fun to be part of a joyful school where fund raising galas, a serious music room, a garden, and dynamic and inclusive school musicals are the norm than not. Just listen to the many pps scolding well-intentioned in-bound parents for being honest about what they want at LT, ordering them to take a hike if the ghetto-influenced school culture isn't for them. Who needs it; you go if you can.

This new principal is going to need to be tough to keep the ossified old guard from tipping the balance over and over again.

[Anonymous]

Pp. Do you understand that Brent didn't always have the bells and whistles you describe above? Parents enrolled kids despite that. When I visited the school the spring before I enrolled, the School looked horrible, the AP had is feet up on the desk just chilling, the office staff was surly and as I waited to speak to the principal a sobbing 2nd grade girl wandered into the office with a bloody nose because another girl had punched her and sat on her and her teacher wouldn't help so she came to the office for help. No nurses, no joy, certainly no outfitted band room or brand new playground. Test scores in the tank. But I trusted the principal and her vision for moving the school forward: for BOTH the families who were already there and the neighborhood parents who were enrolling kids and starting to fundraise and build gardens.

Fair enough everyone who started at LT and didn't trust or feel included in the vision and priorities of the principal.

But for those of you looking for all the bells and whistles to happen BEFORE you invest your blood sweat and tears, it ain't gonna happen.

The leadership is key and I hope this new leader is a true professional who can bridge the divide.

[Anonymous]

^^ I'm so tired of hearing the Brent story. Brent got better because they do not have housing projects in their IB and because with the recession people could not afford private for a few years. It was not forward thinking parents/field of dreams shit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^ I'm so tired of hearing the Brent story. Brent got better because they do not have housing projects in their IB and because with the recession people could not afford private for a few years. It was not forward thinking parents/field of dreams shit.

If you bought a house whose school zone includes the housing projects, why are you bitching? If you didn't know that before you bought, then you should have. Those kids have just as much a right to attend LT as your child does. If you want to avoid low SES (or for some-- black kids), then you should move to the burbs or Ward 3. Otherwise, go private or charter. If those options aren't available to you then, STFU, enroll your kids in what is already apparently a good school, and somehow try to bridge the culture gap. It won't be easy, but when you signed those mortgage papers, you made the bed you're now lying in. (And spare me the uber-entitled, I pay more taxes line). Disparaging the school, the students and the previous administration does nothing.

[Anonymous]

Calm the f down. I'm not disparaging L-T, but telling these Brent types to stop acting like they have the holy grail of school turn around. You don't. I don't give a hoot who goes to LT. They are kicking butt on tests and folks seem happy. But don't peddle this BTDT urban school reformer BS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ Trouble is, they don't care about politely phrased constructive criticism from neighborhood parents either. I'm in-boundary and privately relieved to be avoiding LT's upper grades. By our family's definition, far too many of the students there are bogged down by depressing home lives (unlike most of the neighborhood kids).

Anybody IB who sticks with LT past prek, you have my respect and best wishes.

This is so sad. I am in bounds for Watkins but I live way closer to LT, and think that LT (unlike Watkins) could be a great school if there was enough buy-in from neighborhood families. It is such a small school compared to Watkins and could be flipped so easily if people would just stick around. I am even thinking of trying to lottery in for PK and trying to get a cohort of parents together to stick it out.

Not to pick on you particularly, but this is the attitude that drives me bonkers. LT already IS a great school. It doesn't need to be "flipped"!

It's really not a great school. It did well last year when compared to other neighborhood schools, but you are deluding yourself if you think it's "great."

Is it the best school in DC? No. It's certainly a top school in Ward 6 -- comparable to Brent and Maury, which are two schools no one nowadays says could be "flipped."

Look, I get the argument that neighborhood buy-in is important. (It's not as important to me as it is to some, but I do get it.) And I am sympathetic to white parents who don't want their child to be an only.

But I really feel like many people in this forum, and perhaps in the neighborhood, are undervaluing what LT has achieved -- look at the number of kids scoring advanced! In a title 1 school! -- and talking about it like this poor pitiful thing that sorely needs an infusion of high-SES white kids if it's going to get anywhere.

So I have to wonder what their definition of anywhere is. If success, by definition, equals having a lot of IB (=white, high-SES kids), then yeah, I guess LT does need more of those kids to meet that definition of success.

But if success is determined by something other than the school's demographics, then what is the standard that LT needs to meet that Brent and Maury have already met?

+1,000!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ I'm so tired of hearing the Brent story. Brent got better because they do not have housing projects in their IB and because with the recession people could not afford private for a few years. It was not forward thinking parents/field of dreams shit.

If you bought a house whose school zone includes the housing projects, why are you bitching? If you didn't know that before you bought, then you should have. Those kids have just as much a right to attend LT as your child does. If you want to avoid low SES (or for some-- black kids), then you should move to the burbs or Ward 3. Otherwise, go private or charter. If those options aren't available to you then, STFU, enroll your kids in what is already apparently a good school, and somehow try to bridge the culture gap. It won't be easy, but when you signed those mortgage papers, you made the bed you're now lying in. (And spare me the uber-entitled, I pay more taxes line). Disparaging the school, the students and the previous administration does nothing.

Can somebody tell me where the housing projects near LT are? Because they're nowhere near the school itself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ I'm so tired of hearing the Brent story. Brent got better because they do not have housing projects in their IB and because with the recession people could not afford private for a few years. It was not forward thinking parents/field of dreams shit.

If you bought a house whose school zone includes the housing projects, why are you bitching? If you didn't know that before you bought, then you should have. Those kids have just as much a right to attend LT as your child does. If you want to avoid low SES (or for some-- black kids), then you should move to the burbs or Ward 3. Otherwise, go private or charter. If those options aren't available to you then, STFU, enroll your kids in what is already apparently a good school, and somehow try to bridge the culture gap. It won't be easy, but when you signed those mortgage papers, you made the bed you're now lying in. (And spare me the uber-entitled, I pay more taxes line). Disparaging the school, the students and the previous administration does nothing.

How on earth would you avoid that in charters where the % of both AA and FARM are both higher?

http://www.dcpcsb.org/data/files/fast%20facts%20-%20october%202013[1].pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ I'm so tired of hearing the Brent story. Brent got better because they do not have housing projects in their IB and because with the recession people could not afford private for a few years. It was not forward thinking parents/field of dreams shit.

If you bought a house whose school zone includes the housing projects, why are you bitching? If you didn't know that before you bought, then you should have. Those kids have just as much a right to attend LT as your child does. If you want to avoid low SES (or for some-- black kids), then you should move to the burbs or Ward 3. Otherwise, go private or charter. If those options aren't available to you then, STFU, enroll your kids in what is already apparently a good school, and somehow try to bridge the culture gap. It won't be easy, but when you signed those mortgage papers, you made the bed you're now lying in. (And spare me the uber-entitled, I pay more taxes line). Disparaging the school, the students and the previous administration does nothing.

Can somebody tell me where the housing projects near LT are? Because they're nowhere near the school itself.

wish the haters could make up their minds. first it's OOB student (really Ward 9, and that's apparently an entirely separate issue with so-called failings of the administration) . . . now it's the boogey man of IB project kids.