This is OP, we did Basis shadow day this week and the kid loved it and wants to go there and now i'm really not sure what to do. I feel for everyone - this is hard! |
Same. Kid ❤️ BASIS! |
So glad he tried it! This week in 6th grade English, they had to write three poems, then read The Veldt by Ray Bradbury, then discussed survivalism after reading Hatchet. In math, they learned probability. My kid is so happy there. The lottery is hard because making predictions based on limited information is hard (and questionable opinions on the forum are confusing). But if your kid liked the shadow day, that's a good sign. |
(I'll also add that you wanted art and books and sports and low tech -- I hope you have realized by now that BASIS has all of these things.) |
DCI parent here and no public or charter middle school in this town is going to track in all subjects. None. If you want that, then it’s the burbs. But what I will say is that DCI tracks the most. Officially they track math and language. But unofficially they also track English and Social studies. So these 4 subjects, you don’t have kids 3 or 4 grade levels apart. In fact, shortly after school starts in 6th, all the kids take the MAP test and based on those results, the school will actively shift kids to appropriate math and english class if they are not in the right one. All families get an email about this and how some kids will be changing classes. Social studies is tracked by language so higher performing kids will take it in the language. Kids also take science MAP and school has that data. I suspect kids are placed in classes together with similar ability but cannot confirm that. Above is why DCI does well with the higher performers and has such a high retention rate. A number of kids who get into Walls decline the spot. The school is not perfect. No school is but if you want a school in the city that does try to place kids in the appropriate class, DCI is one if the best ones. Lastly OP, since you have a mathy kid, the only school EOTP who has the most advance math offerings that I would recommend are DCI and Basis. So I wish you well and hope you get Basis in the lottery. |
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It's a stretch to say that social studies is tracked by language at DCI. The truth is that few DCI students coming up from the ES feeders have experienced true language immersion. What they got down the chain was one-way immersion, with kids learning the language only from teachers, not from peers (particularly for French and Chinese).
A school system can't do language immersion well without good cohorts of native speakers. Tracked DCI immersion social studies model sounds fantastic, but it's not. DCI does track for MS English, but only to weed out students who work far behind grade level. English instruction in the DCI MS tends to be weak, and it's not great in the HS either. Come on, DCI has such a high retention rate because other options are worse. DCI has done well in adding math challenge in the last few years; I'll give you that. |
Come on, you know very well that I’m speaking about spanish track where there are tons of native speakers from the feeders and yes, it does immersion well and the track social studies is good. Nope, know of 5 families whose kids all declined Walls. They had options and are staying. Plus easy enough to move to the burbs or go private. |
Sure but CAPE scores are really low. |
OP already said DCI and feeders are not of interest. Stop taking over every thread with DCI boostering. |
Wait - isn’t MacFarland the programming feeder for the bilingual schools also? DCPS is a hot mess. |
Yes, but 6-8 at CHEC doesn't have an English only option and MacFarland does. But I really don't understand why CHEC's geographic feeders are two English only schools and one strand dual language school. |
Digging a little ... looks like Powell and Bruce Monroe, also dual language, used to feed to CHEC before they opened MacFarland MS. Still doesn't totally make sense but guessing it's something complicated about underlying populations and geography. |
PP above offers a distorted picture. We know more than 5 DCI families, all from Ward 6, who would have leapt on Walls last year if they'd got a spot. A major reason that these kids would have left DCI is that they commute an hour one-way on public transportation to get to Walter Read. The commute to Walls is half as long and doesn't involve as many steps. The DCI schlep isn't uncommon for Cap Hill families shut out of BASIs and the Latins. No way is it easy to move to the burbs or go private, far from it. It's not easy to pick up and leave if you've put down roots in DC over man years. We got into privates for HS but didn't get anywhere near the aid we needed, with one of us DOGE'd. Our story isn't uncommon. |
Assuming you are in SE, if so you should look into the shuttle near Eastern market. It’s much easier if you are in NE in CH, esp near Union market. Metro/bus about 20-25 minutes. We drop our kid off at the metro and it’s a 5 minute car ride at best. A number of kids take it from Union Station. |
+1. Just because there are kids that stayed doesn’t mean there weren’t kids that would have chosen Walls but didn’t get in. |