Ludlow-Taylor getting a new a new Principal

[Anonymous]

Why doesn't somebody start a chess club and hold a gala to raise money for a great AV system? Better yet, raise money for pullout groups and organize a system for upper grades kids who excel at math to loop up a grade or two. Brent didn't have those perks until very recently. If you build it, they will come.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread had scared me quite a bit, but now that school has started (my DC is in preK), and we have been to a few school's functions, I see that a lot of what's said here is almost hallucinatory.

Principal is nice, although not particularly warm (just my feeling, might be she is just reasonably stressed out).
Parents volunteered to set up a new website. There will be a new grow your vegetables/cook your meal program, for which parents have volunteered appliances and cookware.
There is an active listserv and active parents community that cares about the school and the teachers.

All the kids I have seen ( black and white, young and older) seem nice and well behaved. The classroom we are in was spotless and very well organized. I really can not yet see one thing wrong with the school.

For the skeptics worried about IB white V OOB black issues: it is true that preK is almost all white/Probably IB, and later grades almost all AA (IB or OOB not sure). But that goes only to show that *if* white high SES IB patents are so eager to exclude the "unwanted", all they have to do is enroll and there won't be one spot left for "the others".

Honestly, I love walking DC to school and hate a commute to school so much, that unless something really bad happens, we will be there for at least 5-6 years. I think short commute to school trumps absence of chess club or great AV system.

There were some weird sockpuppets targeting this thread for unknown reasons; just identify them when you see 'em and ignore. The only thing LT needs is a re-hab of the playground and a Maury-type paint job in the main entry - make it yellow and lively! Classrooms are impeccable. Good luck and good choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why doesn't somebody start a chess club and hold a gala to raise money for a great AV system? Better yet, raise money for pullout groups and organize a system for upper grades kids who excel at math to loop up a grade or two. Brent didn't have those perks until very recently. If you build it, they will come.

W/r/t the impact of new programs at LT, I must agree. The potential of the school is incredible.

[Anonymous]

Be the change you want to see in Ludlow Taylor.

[Anonymous]

Some LT parents (myself among them) prefer the skilled differentiation the school currently offers to the pull-out groups desired by non-LT parents.

[Anonymous]

Yea but pull out groups make people feel special.

[Anonymous]

I think Ludlow's master building plan includes a Playground rehab in the next couple of years....From what I remember it was to have an outdoor classroom, safe turf, arboretum, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some LT parents (myself among them) prefer the skilled differentiation the school currently offers to the pull-out groups desired by non-LT parents.

Skilled differentiation is OK for the lower grades with a good teacher, but by 3rd grades pullout groups with more staff involved help retain high SES families. Bigtime. Just ask the Watkins parents who flee the school between 2nd and 4th. Almost all the high SES kids at LT are still little.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some LT parents (myself among them) prefer the skilled differentiation the school currently offers to the pull-out groups desired by non-LT parents.

Skilled differentiation is OK for the lower grades with a good teacher, but by 3rd grades pullout groups with more staff involved help retain high SES families. Bigtime. Just ask the Watkins parents who flee the school between 2nd and 4th. Almost all the high SES kids at LT are still little.

Again it's more about perception than reality. Differentiation can work and teachers are trained to do it. But the perception is that pullouts are somehow better.

Are there in fact any eotp schools doing pullouts? It seems unfair to judge a school for not adopting pullouts esp since a principal would have to divert funds to pay for a special gited and talented teacher plus DC doesn't even have an advanced curriculum. It's a big thing to demand especially from parents of preschool erstwhile who have no proof that their kid is going to need those services in 4 or 5 years.

[Anonymous]

People want pull-outs because there becomes an acute learning curve distinction and some kids act out a lot (behavioral issues become more of an issue as some kids get older). It's awfully hard to "differentiate" when the spectrums are so wide and there are behavioral issues. That's common sense.

[Anonymous]

+100. Perception or not, many high SES neighborhood parents want pullouts. So a school's leadership should give them pullouts to help them and the school. No skin off the school's back if the parents raise the money to pay for pullout instruction, as they do at Brent. Differentiated learning isn't as good because there aren't as many instructors involved. More good teachers means more learning, helping explain why private schools in this area rarely place more than 16 or 17 kids in an elementary class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:+100. Perception or not, many high SES neighborhood parents want pullouts. So a school's leadership should give them pullouts to help them and the school. No skin off the school's back if the parents raise the money to pay for pullout instruction, as they do at Brent. Differentiated learning isn't as good because there aren't as many instructors involved. More good teachers means more learning, helping explain why private schools in this area rarely place more than 16 or 17 kids in an elementary class.

But many of the people asking for pullouts at LT aren't parents willing to raise money to pay for the instruction -- they're people whose kids don't even attend the school, basically saying "we won't send our kids there until you offer pullouts," which is very different from what you're describing.

I'm the LT parent who posted earlier that I prefer the differentiation LT currently offers. I would be more supportive of requests for pullouts if they came from parents of 3rd/4th/5th graders at LT, as opposed to parents of ECE kids who live IB but don't attend LT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread had scared me quite a bit, but now that school has started (my DC is in preK), and we have been to a few school's functions, I see that a lot of what's said here is almost hallucinatory.

Principal is nice, although not particularly warm (just my feeling, might be she is just reasonably stressed out).
Parents volunteered to set up a new website. There will be a new grow your vegetables/cook your meal program, for which parents have volunteered appliances and cookware.
There is an active listserv and active parents community that cares about the school and the teachers.

All the kids I have seen ( black and white, young and older) seem nice and well behaved. The classroom we are in was spotless and very well organized. I really can not yet see one thing wrong with the school.

For the skeptics worried about IB white V OOB black issues: it is true that preK is almost all white/Probably IB, and later grades almost all AA (IB or OOB not sure). But that goes only to show that *if* white high SES IB patents are so eager to exclude the "unwanted", all they have to do is enroll and there won't be one spot left for "the others".

Honestly, I love walking DC to school and hate a commute to school so much, that unless something really bad happens, we will be there for at least 5-6 years. I think short commute to school trumps absence of chess club or great AV system.

Your way of thinking is so ugly that you need to have it spelled out for you. It's one thing to want to retain IB families, or those who start from the early years (one of the secrets of the high-performing immersion schools is that they get their kids in young and educate them so that by the time they get to the testing years they know their students have a solid background). That's not what you're talking about though. It's something else entirely to see AA students as "unwanted" and "the others."

You're a really awful human being.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+100. Perception or not, many high SES neighborhood parents want pullouts. So a school's leadership should give them pullouts to help them and the school. No skin off the school's back if the parents raise the money to pay for pullout instruction, as they do at Brent. Differentiated learning isn't as good because there aren't as many instructors involved. More good teachers means more learning, helping explain why private schools in this area rarely place more than 16 or 17 kids in an elementary class.

But many of the people asking for pullouts at LT aren't parents willing to raise money to pay for the instruction -- they're people whose kids don't even attend the school, basically saying "we won't send our kids there until you offer pullouts," which is very different from what you're describing.

I'm the LT parent who posted earlier that I prefer the differentiation LT currently offers. I would be more supportive of requests for pullouts if they came from parents of 3rd/4th/5th graders at LT, as opposed to parents of ECE kids who live IB but don't attend LT.

It's a chicken and egg scenario of course. The parents of current 3rd/4th/5th graders are almost entirely low SES. Not the sorts likely to send their kids to pricey summer math camps, pay for tutors, and put them on Kumon, Alexs, Khan Academy etc. on-line after hours.

If LT moved in the direction of creating pullouts and opportunities to "loop up" a grade or two for math and other subjects, far more neighborhood parents who come, and stay. Since LT is supposed to be a neighborhood school but supports a population that is overwhelmingly OOB, who could argue with that approach? If differentiated instruction at LT were a draw for neighborhood parents, the school wouldn't be around 90% OOB from K on up.

High SES parents want more than differentiated instruction, particularly for math, even if their own kids won't make the cut to benefit. Time to serve the neighborhood LT, times they are a changin'.

[Anonymous]

The high-SES parents want to send their kids to school with their own. As neighbors send their kids to LT, the differentiation vs. pullouts problem will resolve itself--either there will be less need for pull-outs because the kids themselves are performing better overall, or the parents who actually send their kids to the school will make the pull-outs happen.

Posting incessantly on DCUM about the ways that LT might make itself more attractive to resistant IB families is one of the least effective ways to make those changes a reality.