Best public school in DC itself (not DMV)
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Anonymous
ITS is too small, doesn’t offer large variety classes, and lacking in sports and extracurriculars. What exactly is your definition of best overall to say ITS? |
Anonymous
When we were at ITS, they had a great soccer team, dance team, choir, award-winning debate, robotics, and basketball team. I think flag football too. |
Anonymous
I think the extracurriculars are reasonable given the size of the school, and there are plenty of other opportunities to do sports. In pre-pandemic times, my kids did pottery, Lego robotics, choir, dance, and various other things. Best overall doesn't mean best for every child. If your DC would enjoy a larger school and wants to do sports through the school system, by all means choose a bigger school. If you like a small, nurturing, progressive school and get your extracurriculars elsewhere, I believe ITS is the best one in the DC public system. My DCs' passion activities are not things they would be able to do at really any big middle school anyway. Here's what I find impressive about ITS: *Personalized approach where every child is well-known to the faculty. No kid can slide by or fall through the cracks. Things like portfolio defense in 8th grade are really valuable experiences. Opportunity to pursue more individualized projects. *Friendly to special needs and non-NT kids. Progressive approach makes it a welcoming place for LGBTQIA+ kids as well. *Strong elementary academics produces a well-prepared cohort for middle school. To be sure, some of the incoming kids are from lovely schools like Seaton and Ludlow-Taylor, others have not been well-served by their elementary schools. *ITS middle school has pretty good test scores overall DESPITE taking a lot of new kids in 5th and 6th and being more economically diverse in the middle school. Schools such as Latin and DCI have good scores too, but they don't take on very many new kids after the entry year-- in the case of Latin almost zero. To have good results while also folding in new students who may be less prepared is impressive. *Behavior isn't perfect, but it's not as bad as at some schools. *Admissions to selective high schools have been strong-- I believe 7 to Walls this year out of 40-ish kids total. *Other perks: Nice rec center adjacent, building is pretty good, the ability to have your preschool, elementary, and middle school children together in one school. *If the goal is to identify a middle school *where your child might actually be admitted*, ITS is a strong contender. Latin and DCI are very good schools, to be sure, but they (like ITS) are not a good fit for every child and if you're looking to place a 7th or 8th grader or have a bad lottery number, it's simply not going to happen. |
Anonymous
Oh and also, many of the classrooms have student teachers, who are typically Masters-degree students doing a full school year residency. This makes for a very high adult-child ratio and you seldom have a substitute teacher that you don't know. |
Anonymous
It offers fewer options for what, exactly? Unlike you, I expect my children's school to provide things that I cannot. In this case, it's a small-ish dual immersion program with ALL native speaking teachers. It's a student body that's 54% Hispanic and represents every Spanish speaking country in the world (including Equatorial Guinea). It's a school that offers all 8th graders the opportunity to take an AP Spanish exam (which the majority of students have passed--many with 4s and 5s). I can provide outside math enrichment (AoPS, Kumon, CTY, summer classes at local privates, etc.) or other specialized classes, if necessary. My children can play on travel teams if OA doesn't offer their preferred sport. What more do your children need that you can't provide on your own? |
Anonymous
DP you do you. Supplementing is costly and time consuming. Dealing with transportation and logistics for extracurriculars and sports outside of school is time consuming. Both things are also exhausting to juggle. I’ll take a school that provides most of the things my kid needs at the school so all I have to do is pick up after their extracurriculars or sports or they can easily take public transportation home. |
Anonymous
ITS loses a lot of kids after elementary. Most families don’t stay. That is not good and why there are spots. |
Anonymous
Exactly. I don’t want to have to supplement things a school could/should offer. And some kids just do better in a bigger environment. A quirky kid may not find their tribe in a small school. |
Anonymous
For sure, it's not for everyone. But many families who come in, come in because they very much want what ITS is offering. What EOTP middle school that has more than a slight chance of admission would you recommend? |
Anonymous
If you expect any school (public or private) to fully educate your child, without any outside work from you—the parent, your child will not be well educated. No one should care more about your children’s education than you. Perhaps I’m just an outlier in that I don’t consider CTY, a private tutor, and one outside travel team sport to be an undue burden. I guess I just have different standards than most parents posting here [shrug]. |
Anonymous
You are right, families choose it because they don’t have options and want to stay in the city. It’s unlikely they want very much what ITS offers. We toured ITS and talked to the teachers. Facilities is bare bone. 40 kids is way too small for graduating class. We specifically asked how a high performing kid will be challenged. Answer was harder questions, problems. Extracurriculars is minimum. We passed. If you don’t have options and want to stay in the city, you can look at ITS. If things don’t work out for MS for us, we would rather move to the burbs for a good known middle and high school track with a large selection of academic classes that comprises of a large peer group of high performing kids. |
Anonymous
No, lots of schools adequately prepare kids and middle and high school sports, clubs, and extracurriculars are enough. You just don’t realize it and have not found it for your child. Try again. |
Anonymous
Families value different things. We have an elementary kid at a Hill elementary and ITS might be our first choice for middle. This kid has been at a large, traditional elementary and down well academically, but is still pretty shy and sometimes feels a bit lost. I know ITS is small but we increasingly think that could be beneficial for DD. She's also very artistic and a sensitive kid, so the artsy, progressive bent of the school would suit her personality. I LOVE what the PP said about about all the teachers getting to know all the kids. And DD's main activities are dance, piano, and art -- she's not looking for a volleyball team or marching band. In other words, ITS could be a perfect fit. Literally the only thing that would make us choose another school would be if we got into a MS we also liked but had a locked in HS option we liked (so basically -- Latin). Her feeder is Stuart-Hobson, which I actually like a lot, but I think could be too similar to elementary. Not everyone is looking for the exact same things you are in a MS. The whole point is that different kids need different things. That's why charters exist. |
Anonymous
Welcome, neighbor! There are many folks at ITS who opted out of Stuart-Hobson. I hope your DD loves it. See, PP, just because it's not what you want for your particular child doesn't mean it isn't a good school. For the kind of school it is, it's good. Can you think of another small middle school that you like better? And FYI there are different math classes for advanced students, it's not just in-class differentiation. |
Anonymous
Poster above is just a helicopter parent who will spend probably at least 150-200k in MS/HS for their kid with CTY (very expensive), private tutoring (even more expensive), and get sucked into travel sports (most expensive). |