DC Begins School Boundary Study

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
They should absolutely get rid of OOB feeder rights. There's no reason lottering into a school in K should give you an automatic path to that school's feeders till 12th.


I disagree. The bonds formed in cohorts and communities are valuable and it would be harmful to pull a child out of their cohort and community once established. If feeder rights were removed, there would be mass exodus from DCPS.

and there is a faction of DCPS who would not mind that. DCPS only cares about "equity" and "achievement gaps". They do not care about creating and sustaining a school system that is used by the vast majority of the school age population of the District of Columbia like in Arlington, Fairfax or Montgomery County. Their version of "let them eat cake" is "let them pay for private". Close to 50% of the DCPS population is "at risk" while less than 25% of school age children in the District are. That statistic means that there is extremely large number of families (and not all of them wealthy, or white) who do not believe that DCPS will do a good job educating their children. The first priority in boundary/feeder patters should be to try to create another feeder pattern that is deemed rigorous enough by middle class families. The best way to do that would be to have all the Hill ES feed to one middle school, and to install a principal at Eastern who is dedicated to creating another JR in the eastern end of the city.

This.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We need a single consolidated middle school on the Hill. There are many families who want to stay on the Hill. That would also help improve the feeder patterns into Eastern High.

This. It's so stupid that this hasn't happened yet.

It's not that easy to do it. There are three current schools, and the boundary covers a wide geographic area. If it were just two schools, maybe you could make one 5-6 and one 7-8 but then what do you do with the third? Jefferson is furthest away, but it's performing pretty well (better than Eliot-Hine, certainly) and has stable leadership so why would you mess that up. Do you make one for 6th, one for 7th, and one for 8th? Then everyone's traveling all around and nobody's with siblings and it's harder to do sports and stuff. Do you convert one of them to an elementary school, but which? Do you make one of them a magnet of some sort? Maybe take 6-8 out of CHML and make Eliot-Hine a city-wide Montessori, then do 5-6 at SH and 7-8 at Jefferson? Or extend SWS to 8th grade and have its middle school campus at EH? Convert one of them to an citywide arts magnet (still have admission by lottery though--focus on behavior and desire to learn arts, not pre-existing talent or training) and let the Ellington folks run it to help kids get what they need to apply to DESA?

Why not have SWS, Watkins, Maury and Brent all feed into SH for example?

Because that would crowd out JO Wilson and Ludlow-Taylor, and they would not tolerate that.

I assume they meant in addition to L-T and JOW (which are already zoned to SH), because otherwise you're just moving people around... and how does that solve any problem? Not least of all because L-T is like 3 blocks from SH (SH is in L-T's IB), so how could you possibly zone it elsewhere? I personally don't think you need to have SWS feed anywhere if you eliminate the lottery rights to future schools system, since no one is IB for SWS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
They should absolutely get rid of OOB feeder rights. There's no reason lottering into a school in K should give you an automatic path to that school's feeders till 12th.


I disagree. The bonds formed in cohorts and communities are valuable and it would be harmful to pull a child out of their cohort and community once established. If feeder rights were removed, there would be mass exodus from DCPS.

and there is a faction of DCPS who would not mind that. DCPS only cares about "equity" and "achievement gaps". They do not care about creating and sustaining a school system that is used by the vast majority of the school age population of the District of Columbia like in Arlington, Fairfax or Montgomery County. Their version of "let them eat cake" is "let them pay for private". Close to 50% of the DCPS population is "at risk" while less than 25% of school age children in the District are. That statistic means that there is extremely large number of families (and not all of them wealthy, or white) who do not believe that DCPS will do a good job educating their children. The first priority in boundary/feeder patters should be to try to create another feeder pattern that is deemed rigorous enough by middle class families. The best way to do that would be to have all the Hill ES feed to one middle school, and to install a principal at Eastern who is dedicated to creating another JR in the eastern end of the city.

This.

Where do you locate a single middle school that is big enough to serve all the Eastern feeders? What do you do with the other two middle school buildings? How do you keep this middle school (which would likely have far more students than Deal, with a lot more economic and racial diversity and range of academic skills) functioning? How do you avoid the problem Deal has of having too many students for certain sports teams and other extracurriculars?

[Anonymous]

us



Anonymous wrote:


This.


Where do you locate a single middle school that is big enough to serve all the Eastern feeders? What do you do with the other two middle school buildings? How do you keep this middle school (which would likely have far more students than Deal, with a lot more economic and racial diversity and range of academic skills) functioning? How do you avoid the problem Deal has of having too many students for certain sports teams and other extracurriculars?

Winnowing the Capitol Hill schools to feed to two middle schools (as opposed to three) would be a start.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We need a single consolidated middle school on the Hill. There are many families who want to stay on the Hill. That would also help improve the feeder patterns into Eastern High.

This. It's so stupid that this hasn't happened yet.

It's not that easy to do it. There are three current schools, and the boundary covers a wide geographic area. If it were just two schools, maybe you could make one 5-6 and one 7-8 but then what do you do with the third? Jefferson is furthest away, but it's performing pretty well (better than Eliot-Hine, certainly) and has stable leadership so why would you mess that up. Do you make one for 6th, one for 7th, and one for 8th? Then everyone's traveling all around and nobody's with siblings and it's harder to do sports and stuff. Do you convert one of them to an elementary school, but which? Do you make one of them a magnet of some sort? Maybe take 6-8 out of CHML and make Eliot-Hine a city-wide Montessori, then do 5-6 at SH and 7-8 at Jefferson? Or extend SWS to 8th grade and have its middle school campus at EH? Convert one of them to an citywide arts magnet (still have admission by lottery though--focus on behavior and desire to learn arts, not pre-existing talent or training) and let the Ellington folks run it to help kids get what they need to apply to DESA?

Why not have SWS, Watkins, Maury and Brent all feed into SH for example?

Because that would crowd out JO Wilson and Ludlow-Taylor, and they would not tolerate that.

I assume they meant in addition to L-T and JOW (which are already zoned to SH), because otherwise you're just moving people around... and how does that solve any problem? Not least of all because L-T is like 3 blocks from SH (SH is in L-T's IB), so how could you possibly zone it elsewhere? I personally don't think you need to have SWS feed anywhere if you eliminate the lottery rights to future schools system, since no one is IB for SWS.

How would all those kids even fit in the building?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Cluster zone on the Hill looks dramatically gerrymandered for a simple reason: it encompassed the residents of amalgamations of parents who joined hands in the early 80s to lobby for the creation of the three-school group.

I highly doubt that DCPS will so much as tweak Hill elementary school boundaries in the forthcoming review, or any boundaries for that matter. Some of got burned in organizing to lobby for common sense CH boundary changes back in 2013.

I'm the Watkins poster who asked about this - how do you know that? was there local media coverage of this in the 80s? Anyone on the board who had parents part of that group? Would love to hear more about why people wanted that three school group.

Because, at the time, that was the most gentrified school/area on CH. The weird structure was intended to preserve control over SH as well; Watkins parents fought to keep other schools from feeding in (so ridiculously short sighted looking back that they thought LT would decrease the gentrification of the school). Really they should break up the Cluster (which they already kind of have with respect to SH, which now has two other feeders) and then rezone sensibly. Send some of the area around Peabody to LT, some to Brent, some to Tyler, etc. Turn Peabody into a citywide PK lottery. Right size Watkins and have it be a full PK3-5.

Super interesting. I would love someone to write a book about the history here...or maybe a podcast? Any takers?

Cluster school was basically the UMC parents way of creating a K - 8 charter school ( specialized/experimental programming included: Montessori and Reggio ) before charters were lawful. And DCPS went for it. Provided city buses and everything. Capturing the feeds from Peabody—->Watkins—->Stuart Hobson was the way those families felt they could avoid Hine and Eliot middle schools and keep their cohort together through 8th. Then off to private high schools. Simply drew the boundaries around themselves. But goodness you should have heard those same families scream when 1st Two Rivers started ( lawsuit and everything ) and then during the last boundary review when parents from other Hill elementary schools tried to figure out their middle school feeds in a way they could stay with DCPS. The hypocrisy was loud.

[Anonymous]

Pages 7 - 21 of this oral history covers how the Cluster Schools began through one founder's perspective:

https://www.capitolhillhistory.org/interviews/sharon-raimo

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
They should absolutely get rid of OOB feeder rights. There's no reason lottering into a school in K should give you an automatic path to that school's feeders till 12th.


I disagree. The bonds formed in cohorts and communities are valuable and it would be harmful to pull a child out of their cohort and community once established. If feeder rights were removed, there would be mass exodus from DCPS.

and there is a faction of DCPS who would not mind that. DCPS only cares about "equity" and "achievement gaps". They do not care about creating and sustaining a school system that is used by the vast majority of the school age population of the District of Columbia like in Arlington, Fairfax or Montgomery County. Their version of "let them eat cake" is "let them pay for private". Close to 50% of the DCPS population is "at risk" while less than 25% of school age children in the District are. That statistic means that there is extremely large number of families (and not all of them wealthy, or white) who do not believe that DCPS will do a good job educating their children. The first priority in boundary/feeder patters should be to try to create another feeder pattern that is deemed rigorous enough by middle class families. The best way to do that would be to have all the Hill ES feed to one middle school, and to install a principal at Eastern who is dedicated to creating another JR in the eastern end of the city.

It it not like JR is that great but it will take more than a new principal to turn Eastern into a JR.

Just look at the PARCC results. These are the proficiency percentages:

Eastern:

ELA 14.96%
Math 2.79%

JR:

ELA 54.43%
Math 18.37%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Cluster zone on the Hill looks dramatically gerrymandered for a simple reason: it encompassed the residents of amalgamations of parents who joined hands in the early 80s to lobby for the creation of the three-school group.

I highly doubt that DCPS will so much as tweak Hill elementary school boundaries in the forthcoming review, or any boundaries for that matter. Some of got burned in organizing to lobby for common sense CH boundary changes back in 2013.

I'm the Watkins poster who asked about this - how do you know that? was there local media coverage of this in the 80s? Anyone on the board who had parents part of that group? Would love to hear more about why people wanted that three school group.

Because, at the time, that was the most gentrified school/area on CH. The weird structure was intended to preserve control over SH as well; Watkins parents fought to keep other schools from feeding in (so ridiculously short sighted looking back that they thought LT would decrease the gentrification of the school). Really they should break up the Cluster (which they already kind of have with respect to SH, which now has two other feeders) and then rezone sensibly. Send some of the area around Peabody to LT, some to Brent, some to Tyler, etc. Turn Peabody into a citywide PK lottery. Right size Watkins and have it be a full PK3-5.

Super interesting. I would love someone to write a book about the history here...or maybe a podcast? Any takers?

Cluster school was basically the UMC parents way of creating a K - 8 charter school ( specialized/experimental programming included: Montessori and Reggio ) before charters were lawful. And DCPS went for it. Provided city buses and everything. Capturing the feeds from Peabody—->Watkins—->Stuart Hobson was the way those families felt they could avoid Hine and Eliot middle schools and keep their cohort together through 8th. Then off to private high schools. Simply drew the boundaries around themselves. But goodness you should have heard those same families scream when 1st Two Rivers started ( lawsuit and everything ) and then during the last boundary review when parents from other Hill elementary schools tried to figure out their middle school feeds in a way they could stay with DCPS. The hypocrisy was loud.

Basically the same thing happened with Hardy and the Seven School Cluster, and Ellington. Not sure about Walls, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if it was the same way. In the 70's and 80's DCPS was so dysfunctional that anybody who had a semi-plausible plan could get a school to experiment with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
They should absolutely get rid of OOB feeder rights. There's no reason lottering into a school in K should give you an automatic path to that school's feeders till 12th.


I disagree. The bonds formed in cohorts and communities are valuable and it would be harmful to pull a child out of their cohort and community once established. If feeder rights were removed, there would be mass exodus from DCPS.

and there is a faction of DCPS who would not mind that. DCPS only cares about "equity" and "achievement gaps". They do not care about creating and sustaining a school system that is used by the vast majority of the school age population of the District of Columbia like in Arlington, Fairfax or Montgomery County. Their version of "let them eat cake" is "let them pay for private". Close to 50% of the DCPS population is "at risk" while less than 25% of school age children in the District are. That statistic means that there is extremely large number of families (and not all of them wealthy, or white) who do not believe that DCPS will do a good job educating their children. The first priority in boundary/feeder patters should be to try to create another feeder pattern that is deemed rigorous enough by middle class families. The best way to do that would be to have all the Hill ES feed to one middle school, and to install a principal at Eastern who is dedicated to creating another JR in the eastern end of the city.

It it not like JR is that great but it will take more than a new principal to turn Eastern into a JR.

Just look at the PARCC results. These are the proficiency percentages:

Eastern:

ELA 14.96%
Math 2.79%

JR:

ELA 54.43%
Math 18.37%

Wow.

At Eastern, 85% of kids are below grade level in reading and writing and 97% are below grade level in math.

At JR, 45% of kids are below grade level in reading and writing and 81% are below grade level in math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Pages 7 - 21 of this oral history covers how the Cluster Schools began through one founder's perspective:

https://www.capitolhillhistory.org/interviews/sharon-raimo

Amazing how much is the same. Weird almost

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The funny thing is that a decade after fighting tooth and nail to preserve Peabody (and then 50% of those families don’t stay on for Watkins, so they don’t care what happens there), I bet families zoned for Peabody/Watkins would now happily allow themselves to be split between LT, Brent & Tyler soon to be full immersion.

yes, and to have actually walkable schools!

the time has come for the end of “the cluster.”

Nobody argued to end the cluster in 2014 except on this website. Once the got rid of the bus (which had existed for decades), I agree it is time to end the Cluster. I know I couldn’t have sent my kids through the Cluster without the bus.

I have long maintained there is no longer a "cluster". The original cluster was designed to create fixed feeder patterns and nd shared principals within schools. That is no longer the case. Other than the ridiculousness of only Watkins kids participating in theater, Watkins feeds there just the same as LT and JO.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They should absolutely get rid of OOB feeder rights. There's no reason lottering into a school in K should give you an automatic path to that school's feeders till 12th.

I disagree. The bonds formed in cohorts and communities are valuable and it would be harmful to pull a child out of their cohort and community once established. If feeder rights were removed, there would be mass exodus from DCPS.

Luckily, nobody would be forced to do so. Kids would still have rights to their IB schools, in their communities, from K-12, and more of their entering cohort would stay with them. Those whose families chose to enter the OOB elementary lottery could get a preference for their destination middle and high school if they did want to stay.

There is so much mixing and transition at 6th and 9th grades anyway that those are natural points for kids to make new friends. The current situation, where lottery winners peel off in each of the upper elementary grades (often not because they have a problem with their current school, but for the feeder pattern) is worse for cohorts than this change would be.

This change would actually be a reversion to the status quo ante--Michelle Rhee was the chancellor when PK-12 feeder rights were granted. It's not something that always existed.

In a theory, yes, but in reality families will leave DCPS rather than send their kids to less successful IB schools.

Some will. But in the past few years, there are a lot of elementary schools that I hear more people on here willing to try--and stay with for longer. If you look at the boundary study from 2013-14, there are a ton of schools that have increased enrollment, test scores, and economic diversity since then. Look at Amidon-Bowen (and note that Van Ness didn't exist at the time, took some of the Amidon boundary, and is now also full), Seaton, Garrison, Langley, Bunker Hill, Bruce-Monroe, Marie Reed, Cooke, Lewis (then called West), Payne, Miner, Ludlow-Taylor, etc.

But we are talking about feeder pattern. The problem is MS/HS, not ES

And compare Stuart-Hobson, Hardy, Jefferson, Wells, and others now to the 2013 boundary study. More IB families are using them. More families overall are using them--enrollment is up. It does not take long for a school's reputation to change.

SH - 28% of enrolled IB
Hardy - 62% of enrolled IB
Jefferson - 44% of enrolled IB
Wells - 62% of enrolled IB
Deal - 78% of enrolled IB
EH - 41% of enrolled IB

Now let's look at the % of kids at Latin or BASIS IB for these schools as a percentage of enrollment at those schools
SH - 19%
Hardy - 28
Jefferson - 20% + 6% of kids enrolled there that are IB for SH
Wells - 7%
Deal - 5%
EH - 21% + 12% of kids enrolled there that are IB for SH

We are IB for SH and we would LOVE to believe things are changing. The numbers tell a different story.

[Anonymous]

Foxhall starts to make sense if you get rid of SFH zoning,l. Which is what happened in Arlington this evening:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/03/22/arlington-missing-middle-vote-zoning/

This will definitely be Bowser’s parting gift to developers while she enrolls her spawn in private Catholic schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Leaving Lafayette in its current feeder pattern and just moving Shepherd makes sense in that it would give Deal and Wells equal number of feeder schools, and not require Lafayette kids to cross the park. But I think it's politically infeasible to remove only Bancroft and Shepherd from the Deal/JR feeder patterns because those schools have the highest populations of Black and Hispanic students.

Two things that would make the boundary reassignments more palatable would be a commitment to working with DDOT and WMATA on the buses required to get kids where they need to go, and a promise to offer honors English and math...the 6th grade classes would be for kids who score 4s and 5s on the 5th grade PARCC, and 7th and 8th would be based on the previous year's performance and teacher recommendations.

Kids have been crossing west across the park to attend Deal/JR for decades. Why can't Lafayette kids cross it east (apart from the unsaid reasons)?

Because the homes inbound for Shepherd and inbound for Bancroft are closer to Wells than the homes inbound for Lafayette. Remember: bussing emphatically did not work in the 1970s. It's not going to work now (with free WMATA busses) no matter what the In This House We Believe yard signs say. They'll move to MoCo, to safe Deal homes, or reconsider 2nd-tier private and parochial schools that don't appeal to them today or five years ago. See, e.g., Bullis and SJC and WES.