Middle school IB percentage low but few lottery spots offered?

[Anonymous]

I'm confused why middle schools like Hardy and Stuart-Hobson have fairly low percentage of in boundary students (30 percent or so) but they also don't offer many if any lottery spots. Can anyone explain?

[Anonymous]

Not sure where you're getting information about the percentage of in-boundary students, but the answer is that there are lots of OOB kids at schools that feed to Hardy and S-H. Those kids get preference to the middle schools just as IB kids in the feeder pattern do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm confused why middle schools like Hardy and Stuart-Hobson have fairly low percentage of in boundary students (30 percent or so) but they also don't offer many if any lottery spots. Can anyone explain?

Simple reason. Back in 2010, Michelle Rhee unilaterally, and controversially, elevated enrollment in a feeder school to the same status as in-boundary vis a vis lottery preferences.

Before Rhee, in-boundary had the higher preference. So what you have at both Hobson and Hardy are lots of students in feeder school who do not live in-boundary pinning down 6th grade middle school spots, leaving few to be auctioned off.

Some of us love would see the preferences rolled back to the pre 2010 arrangement to support true neighborhood middle schools. No such luck - DCPS isn't interested.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm confused why middle schools like Hardy and Stuart-Hobson have fairly low percentage of in boundary students (30 percent or so) but they also don't offer many if any lottery spots. Can anyone explain?

Simple reason. Back in 2010, Michelle Rhee unilaterally, and controversially, elevated enrollment in a feeder school to the same status as in-boundary vis a vis lottery preferences.

Before Rhee, in-boundary had the higher preference. So what you have at both Hobson and Hardy are lots of students in feeder school who do not live in-boundary pinning down 6th grade middle school spots, leaving few to be auctioned off.

Some of us love would see the preferences rolled back to the pre 2010 arrangement to support true neighborhood middle schools. No such luck - DCPS isn't interested.

Whut? If you mean to just kick OOB kids out of the feeder pattern, say so out loud.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not sure where you're getting information about the percentage of in-boundary students, but the answer is that there are lots of OOB kids at schools that feed to Hardy and S-H. Those kids get preference to the middle schools just as IB kids in the feeder pattern do.

Ok, that doesn't make sense either. For example, Peabody is very difficult to get into for PK3 and PK4, even for in boundary. Peabody then offered 0 seats for K last year in the lottery. Watkins offered 3 seats grade 1, 0 seats grade 2, 0 seats grade 3, 0 seats grade 4, and 0 seats grade 5. Where are out of boundary students entering Peabody/Watkins?
.
I'm sure I'm stupid, just wondering what is happening? Is the Stuart-Hobson boundary different than the boundaries of the schools that are in the feeder pattern for it?

Here are DCPS lottery results data: http://enrolldcps.dc.gov/node/61
Here is the demographic data for Stuart Hobson reporting 31% in-boundary: http://profiles.dcps.dc.gov/Stuart-Hobson+Middle+School+(Capitol+Hill+Cluster)
Here is the demographic data for Watkins reporting 34% in-boundary http://profiles.dcps.dc.gov/333

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not sure where you're getting information about the percentage of in-boundary students, but the answer is that there are lots of OOB kids at schools that feed to Hardy and S-H. Those kids get preference to the middle schools just as IB kids in the feeder pattern do.

Ok, that doesn't make sense either. For example, Peabody is very difficult to get into for PK3 and PK4, even for in boundary. Peabody then offered 0 seats for K last year in the lottery. Watkins offered 3 seats grade 1, 0 seats grade 2, 0 seats grade 3, 0 seats grade 4, and 0 seats grade 5. Where are out of boundary students entering Peabody/Watkins?
.
I'm sure I'm stupid, just wondering what is happening? Is the Stuart-Hobson boundary different than the boundaries of the schools that are in the feeder pattern for it?

Here are DCPS lottery results data: http://enrolldcps.dc.gov/node/61
Here is the demographic data for Stuart Hobson reporting 31% in-boundary: http://profiles.dcps.dc.gov/Stuart-Hobson+Middle+School+(Capitol+Hill+Cluster)
Here is the demographic data for Watkins reporting 34% in-boundary http://profiles.dcps.dc.gov/333

You're missing that although they offered few seats in the intial lottery, they made many waitlist offers. Watkins made 47 offers for 1st grade, all to OOB kids (obviously). https://public.tableau.com/profile/aaron2446#!/vizhome/MSDCSeatsandWaitlistOfferData/MSDCPublicDisplay

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm confused why middle schools like Hardy and Stuart-Hobson have fairly low percentage of in boundary students (30 percent or so) but they also don't offer many if any lottery spots. Can anyone explain?

Simple reason. Back in 2010, Michelle Rhee unilaterally, and controversially, elevated enrollment in a feeder school to the same status as in-boundary vis a vis lottery preferences.

Before Rhee, in-boundary had the higher preference. So what you have at both Hobson and Hardy are lots of students in feeder school who do not live in-boundary pinning down 6th grade middle school spots, leaving few to be auctioned off.

Some of us love would see the preferences rolled back to the pre 2010 arrangement to support true neighborhood middle schools. No such luck - DCPS isn't interested.

Back in 2010 when everything was so great and high-SES IB students all attended? Come on. You still wouldn't go there if they didn't have the OOB feeder alumni. Lots of the low-income and low-performing kids are IB in affordable housing or legacy family homes or fake addresses.

[Anonymous]

All 3 feeders for Stuart-Hobson, for example, have <45% in boundary, per the DCPS profiles. If feeder rights ended, there would be tons of seats available at S-H.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All 3 feeders for Stuart-Hobson, for example, have <45% in boundary, per the DCPS profiles. If feeder rights ended, there would be tons of seats available at S-H.

If feeder rights ended, it might not be even as good a school as it currently is. At least the feeder graduates have attended a decent elementary school for a year or more. If you opened it up to everyone, the OOB kids would probably be a lot less prepared.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm confused why middle schools like Hardy and Stuart-Hobson have fairly low percentage of in boundary students (30 percent or so) but they also don't offer many if any lottery spots. Can anyone explain?

Simple reason. Back in 2010, Michelle Rhee unilaterally, and controversially, elevated enrollment in a feeder school to the same status as in-boundary vis a vis lottery preferences.

Before Rhee, in-boundary had the higher preference. So what you have at both Hobson and Hardy are lots of students in feeder school who do not live in-boundary pinning down 6th grade middle school spots, leaving few to be auctioned off.

Some of us love would see the preferences rolled back to the pre 2010 arrangement to support true neighborhood middle schools. No such luck - DCPS isn't interested.

Back in 2010 when everything was so great and high-SES IB students all attended? Come on. You still wouldn't go there if they didn't have the OOB feeder alumni. Lots of the low-income and low-performing kids are IB in affordable housing or legacy family homes or fake addresses.

I would have agreed with this statement a decade back, not anymore. Many of the elderly relatives who served as address anchors are gone, with their renovated and houses sold to young families. Without feeder rights enjoying the same preference as IB status, you wouldn't see such crowding at Deal, and momentum for Hobson and Hardy to become majority to in-boundary would have picked up. Call me whatever names you want, many of us feel this way. PS. I'm not white and didn't grow up middle-class.

[Anonymous]

The organizing principle of DCPS schools is neighborhoods, and then we don't preserve that quality? Just slowly expand the boundary to get more kids if there are losses after the lottery.

Look, I grew up as the poor kid with an alcoholic single mom in the shitty apartments despised by the neighbors. Ended up valedictorian at my public high school and then crushed the private school kids at the Ivy League school I attended. I'm happy to include everyone in boundary including housing projects that others might be snobby about. But why not preserve neighborhoods? It is so weird that neighborhoods aren't all in behind their neighborhood schools. Even Northwest is constantly hedging their local schools against fancy private schools.

[Anonymous]

So you don't have the right to attend your in boundary middle school if you don't attend a feeder school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So you don't have the right to attend your in boundary middle school if you don't attend a feeder school?

You do, they just don't want to because they don't want to go to a school with a lot of low-income kids and accordingly low test scores and a lot of resources devoted to high-needs kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So you don't have the right to attend your in boundary middle school if you don't attend a feeder school?

Yes, of course you do. You can move in boundary for Deal right now and enroll your kid. PPs are not in boundary and want there to be more seats available to OOB kids who aren’t going to feeder schools.

[Anonymous]

And, with Stuart Hobson, DCPS has gerrymandered the boundary (to within a few blocks of the school) so that there are very few IB kids. That way there is plenty of room for all the OOB kids from the feeder elementary schools. We live about .75 miles from SH, but are not in bounds for the school. Instead, our "neighborhood school" is Jefferson - almost two miles away. Ridiculous - and of course my kid is not at Jefferson, but at a charter - but if SH had a properly drawn boundary, we would likely be there.