Moving to Capitol Hill/2017 PARCC scores
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Anonymous
| We are moving to Capitol Hill with pre-K and Kindergarten age kids this November. We can afford Brent real estate prices but, based on our time in the area, we like the area closer to Union Station/H Street/Whole Foods a little more, so we're faced with a tough decision. This year's PARCC scores show pretty dramatic increases from Maury and Ludlow. Seems like those schools are rising into the Brent tier and leaving Capitol Hill Montessori and Wilson pretty far behind. Do people think this is a trend or a one-off? Are we crazy to equate Ludlow and Maury with Brent academically? Thanks for any thoughts or insight! |
Anonymous
| I'd send my kid to Maury or Ludlow. We were at another hill school and left. |
Anonymous
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You can't get into Capitol Hill Montessori based on where you live anyway--it's a lottery for all of DC. So set that aside.
I think LT and Maury are both likely to be as good as Brent and most of the difference in scores comes from a difference in demographics. JO Wilson is a little further behind on the gentrification curve but I like the principal and AP and the teachers I've met there. Real estate is hard to buy on the Hill so you may not have have much of a choice. If you care about getting the PK kid a space in any of the schools, you'll want to factor that in. Is your kid currently of the age for PK3 (in which case you'll be doing the PK4 lottery next year and won't have a guarantee) or PK4 and the younger kid will have the right to attend K next year? You may also want to do the lottery for School Within School and Two Rivers, though your odds are not great. And if you care about middle school feeder, I'd rank them Stuart-Hobson, Jefferson, Eliot-Hine. None are awesome choices and a lot can change by the time you'll be thinking about this for a kindergartner. |
Anonymous
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If your kid is little, and you don't mind having your kid in a Title 1 school (majority poor minority kids), and classes without full-time teacher aides past K, Ludlow will work for you. Otherwise, if you want to be in NE, I'd buy in the Maury District. If you want a school where the poor kids are in the single digits, and lots of enrichment (strong music and art teachers, PTA raising 300K+ annually to pay for lots of bells and whistles), I'd buy in the Brent District. Know that the Maury students will be housed at Eliot-Hine MS from January 2018, probably through next year during a total gut renovation of their school building.
Faced with the same choice six years back, I attend a PTA meeting at each of the schools you name, then chose to buy in the Brent District partly because I was most impressed with that school's PTA. All three schools seem to have strong principals now (not the case just one or two school years back). Good luck making your choice. |
Anonymous
| Ludlow Taylor and lottery for SWS. Whether you use it or not, the Stuart Hobson feed is a valuable part of your real estate purchase and can help with resale. If you are IB for LT, you are IB for SH. Maury and SWS feed to EH. |
Anonymous
| JO Wilson is a couple years behind Maury or Ludlow-Taylor, but it has amazing promise with a fabulous Principal/Assistant Principal, great teachers, active PTA, outdoor space and neighborhood. The neighborhood has changed dramatically over the last ten years with a major baby boom. There will be limited inbounds spots for PK kids next year (almost everyone in PK3 is inbounds this year). It also feeds into Stuart Hobson, which is where Ludlow Taylor and Watkins kids are mapped for middle school as well. I would definitely keep JO Wilson on your list, if you can find a house that you like! |
Anonymous
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We are Ludlow Taylor (PK3 and 1st grade) and very happy. Planning to stay till 4th/5th grade unless something dramatically changes for the worst.
It's true that there are more poor children there, but I *want* my kids to be exposed to different SES, especially given the current political situation, I feel like it's the right thing to do. The parents, teachers and the new principal (from last year) are doing a great job with the new website, check it out: http://www.ludlowtaylor.org (I personally know all the kids in the home picture =) ) |
Anonymous
Forgot to add: the parents/kids in grade 3 to 5 especially liked the "departmentalization", so now it's going to be implemented for 2nd grade as well. I think it really helps with instruction. From website: 2nd Grade Departmentalization: ... we will be departmentalizing 2nd grade this year, as we have done with Grades 3-5 in years past. With that being said, all students in 2nd Grade will have Mr. Kerrigan for math instruction and Ms. Cooper for reading/writing instruction. Students will rotate with their homerooms to the opposite classroom for the 2nd block of the day. |
Anonymous
Not really. SH is so popular with neighborhood families that its student body is close to 80% OOB (Out of Boundary, not living in the school's catchment area)! There are still more Ward 5, 7 and 8 students at Hobson than Ward 6. The in-boundary % (around 20%) has remained stubbornly low for several decades. Maybe things are looking up how that the school has a new principal, but with a strong sense of ownership from OOB parents who attended the school, but were priced out by gentrification at some point in the last 25 years, doubt it. |
Anonymous
| I would look in-bounds for Watkins too. They have a beautiful new building and they are about to have majority-IB grades hit the testing grades. Their scores will go up for sure. |
Anonymous
| OP here. Thanks, this is all super helpful! I wasn't aware of the demographic distinctions a couple people mentioned. It's extra impressive that Maury and Ludlow have improved so much and reached the Brent levels given those factors. |
Anonymous
| Regarding the SH in bound/out of bounds ratios mentioned by one person, where do you get those numbers? Is there a website where they're publicly available? |
Anonymous
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No demographic or in-boundary-out of boundary info on the DCPS school profiles right now, which must mean that they're updating the site. Look again in a week or two. It's common knowledge on the Hill that the SH student body is around 80% OOB. The % may have dropped a tad this year, to the high 70s or even 75% - too early to tell.
You can also go on the School Digger.com site and click Stuart Hobson and Students to track demographic changes at the school in the last 20 years. Changes are a slow moving train. There were more in-boundary kids at Hobson when I moved to the Hill 15 years ago than now (partly because 5th grade was moved out of SH to Watkins, also because of increasingly untenable leadership challenges brought by the one principal for three Cap Cluster schools arrangement, which ended last year). |
Anonymous
Ludlow and Maury haven't reached Brent level demographics. Brent is around 70% white and in-boundary, with a FARMs percentage that's dropped into the single digits this year (after nearly 15 years of steady change). Maury is more than half white with around 30% FARMs. Ludlow is still majority FARMs and around 25% white this year. You can look at test scores all you want, but changing demographics and FARMs rates probably tell you more about the viability of a school for neighborhood newcomers. You can find high test scores at schools you wouldn't touch, like KIPP, SEED and DC Prep. The real difference between Brent and Maury and Ludlow is PTA bucks. The former have the dough to pay for teachers aides past K, which can make all the difference to parents seeking adequate differentiation in the classroom. Ludlow's PTA will raise six figures eventually, enough to start paying for classroom aides, but not for a few years. Ludlow is still a Title 1 school (40%+ FARMs) getting around 100K a year from the federal government to cover costs. |
Anonymous
 plenty of us would be perfectly happy to send our child to SH. Sorry that you find it so offensive that the parents who actually send their kids to the school feel a sense of ownership ... geez.
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