Forum Index
»
DC Public and Public Charter Schools
Maury Capitol Hill
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
Ice cream for lunch, attending school with children from a lower socioeconomic background or who have higher academic needs. Yes, these are the same. |
Anonymous
Hey you live in a nice area with a nice school. Why don’t you spend more time in shitty areas with a worse school? Is that your argument? |
Anonymous
|
I attended both meetings and have been trying to stay on top of comments in the community (both public ones and ones here).
I haven’t liked some of the discussion around Miner and agree that it is offensive. We live near Maury and love Rosedale. I’d have no problem walking my kids to Miner. We were going to do Miner pre-k until we got extremely lucky in the lottery. I liked the facilities and teachers (at least the ECE ones). Let’s not forget that Maury had a high profile carjacking nearby last week, and another dramatic attempted one a few months ago. The perceived “safety differences” don’t matter at all to me because I truly can’t see many differences at this point. But what I’m getting extremely frustrated about is having any opposition turned into just: “they are scared of Miner, they live in a bubble.” It’s obscuring the real drawbacks to this plan. There have been dozens of great questions with no answers from the DME. The majority of opposition (the great majority; people love to pick out a few offensive remarks and ignore the rest) has nothing to do with safety. It’s: what are the details? How do you know this is practicable? (They actually said they won’t work out details until after making recommendations…what?!) When is this happening? What do the teachers think? How do you know this will achieve your goals? How does this compare to the at risk set aside idea? No answers. It’s easy to attack the “safety” argument, because it’s not a good one, and it’s offensive to Miner’s community. I am sorry for that and want absolutely nothing to do with those arguments or line of thinking. But there are many other completely unrelated reasons people are against this or at least skeptical, and those reasons have not been addressed. |
Anonymous
More to the point, it’s not that Maury parents were concerned about their kids attending the schools with kids as you’re describing. It’s that they have zero confidence that DC will provide the proper supports for those students, to ensure their success. Based on everything we all know about DCPS, this is a totally valid concern. The kids will notice the difference in their learning environment. They’ll articulate it as something like “the teachers spend a lot of time working with a few of my friends who are having a bad day, and I end up working on handouts.” |
Anonymous
Brent has 3 trailers on the grounds meaning there is very little space to play and no teacher parking. It is overcrowded. |
Anonymous
I agree and thought it was odd it was included on the DME’s slides. |
Anonymous
The fact that you are lumping in RFK shows you really don’t know the neighborhoods at all. I don’t take my kid often to H st - it can be very unpleasant even during the day. Miner is steps away from one of the worse crime areas in DC, and where parents would have to transit for the bus or streetcar at night to do pickup at Miner. I don’t want to do that. I don’t think anyone should have to deal with that. |
Anonymous
How are the homicides irrelevant? Parents don’t want to have to deal with worrying about getting shot on the way to pickup in the evenings. That’s what you’re asking Maury parents to do. Maury parents don’t want it. Neither do Miner parents. |
Anonymous
I can assure you that it is not Maury, but DME, who is “rejecting” Miner parents. DME people are the ones who haven’t even deigned to have a meeting with Miner. (Incidentally, one person who *has* hosted a meeting about this with Miner PTA leadership is Maury’s PTA president!) It cannot be unfair for Maury parents to even ask how educational outcomes would be impacted by the combination. 8% of Miner students “meet” ELA expectations in PARCC, and 0% “exceed” them. At Maury, 74% meet or exceed. How would you be doing your job as a parent if you don’t at least ask, “will combining these two cohorts impact my child?” If the answer is, “it won’t negatively impact learning for kids who are meeting or exceeding expectations,” then fantastic! I’m all ears for data that supports that answer. But DME and the people on this thread haven’t provided it. If the answer is “yes, it will negatively impact learning for kids who are already meeting or exceeding expectations because teachers will have to devote more resources to the kids who need more help, but you as a community member should accept that trade-off because the underperforming kids will benefit even more,” then that is a fine argument, too—make it, and see if it persuades. But what you cannot do is put your hands over your ears and say that it’s unfair or offensive for people to even ask the question of how a combination will impact students. Same goes for commutes and safety. If you want to argue that there are no safety issues near Miner as compared to Maury, go for it, show the data. If you want to argue that parents shouldn’t be bothered by an additional 30 minutes a day of traveling to and from drop-offs when they have kids in both schools, have at it. But please do not try to censor the discussion by saying it’s unfair to even talk about this stuff. |
Anonymous
Save your outrage for actually addressing crime - which would actually help Rosedale/Benning Rd. Not your performative nonsense. I don’t go to that area because *it is dangerous.* |
Anonymous
I agree with this comment. I posted a bunch of pages back about the fact that I felt some of the opposition that I seeing on this thread was really starting to sound petty and small, and that I would encourage people who oppose the cluster plan to instead focus on the practical and substantive objections to what is obviously a half-baked plan, and stop engaging in petty and sometimes offensive complaints that really do make Maury families come off as entitled. So enough complaints about how Miner is simply too far away (it's .5 miles) or how Miner is in a "war zone" and Maury is in a crime-free utopia (again, it's .5 miles). I think these complaints are especially tone deaf in a city where many, many families make much longer commutes simply to send their child to a halfway decent school, and where we are all dealing with rising crime and it's impact on our quality of life. If dealing with crime or walking a half mile are dealbreakers for you, I would gently suggest that living in DC in 2023 is not a great fit. But yes, there are genuine objections to this plan! Make them! How much would it cost to retro-fit two schools, one of which was very recently completely remodeled to suit it's PK3-5th community, in order to make one an ECE+ center and the other upper school only. Is that the best way to spend money that could instead be invested in improving outcomes for all students at Miner?How would DCPS support the new combined school regarding disparate learning outcomes in a way that actually served the needs of both populations? Would teachers and administration be retained? Also, much earlier in the thread I asked whether the demographic model the DME has run for this plan are working from the population of families who live IB for each school, or from each schools current actual demographics. The DME made clear they looked only at the current demographics. I have serious questions about that approach, because boundary rights means that if a cluster were created, the many high-SES white families who currently live IB for Miner but have opted out of the school, could suddenly get by-right access to Maury. If those families then opted into the cluster, this would instantly push out OOB families. Since most of those families are coming from across the river and currently very poorly served by their own IB schools, all this does is displace them from an option they deemed as preferable to their current IB option, and leave them with even fewer options. Does that actually improve equity in the district? No. THESE are the kinds of arguments that should be made. The plan sucks. But every time I see a comment about how a Maury parent couldn't possibly walk 4 extra blocks for drop off, or how Miner, a nearby elementary school, is apparently ground zero for the current DC crime wave, I feel like the cluster becomes more likely. Because those arguments are lazy, entitled, and bad. Stop making them. Take your racist dogwhistles somewhere else (also Rosedale pool and library are great, give them a try, weirdos). |
Anonymous
Maybe! Would be great to see data about this -- you make some interesting points here, but it could go either way. For example, if kids end up splintering off into different schools at the point of transition to the upper school (as they do at Peabody/Watkins), that could fracture community ties instead of create/strengthen them. Of course the vast majority of families at Miner are not committing crimes and actively want the crime to stop. I have not seen anyone ever even suggest otherwise, though I think you edge toward suggesting Maury families (or PP) have. I'm also not sure it's accurate or fair to say that "Maury parents currently avoid" areas that most Maury parents frankly don't live *that* close to. It would help the discourse if people weren't so quick to suspect people's motives (though I recognize the irony that I'm reading a little bit into your comment). |
Anonymous
| Oh look, a bunch of parents who would never send their kids to Miner (or akkkkshually, really considered it but of course didn’t go there) have joined the chat to get butt hurt and offended on somebody else’s behalf over made up offenses that ignore the actual concerns of parents. |
Anonymous
Dying to hear more about this -- I didn't know this at all. |
Anonymous
Maybe Miner parents don't want to have to intervene in a carjacking while picking their kids up from their first day of school: https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/on-video-neighbors-stop-attempted-carjacking-in-northeast-dc/3413466/ Or maybe they don't want to have to encounter a woman dying of a gunshot wound on the ground outside an apartment building while walking Maury: https://www.hillrag.com/2023/09/11/woman-dies-in-duncan-place-shooting/ The crime arguments don't work, you need to cut it out. That is not a viable objection to the cluster plan, and it's also got "racist dogwhistle" overtones that are really unhelpful in this conversation. |