HARDY MIDDLE SCHOOL: Record numbers from feeder schools for 2014-2015

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We're IB for Hardy too and are happy to see more IB families signing up. But that does not make us "scared whitey" racists. Please folks. We could care less if a large portion of the school is made up of motivated, respectful OOB students. But we are indeed cheered that our DS may be able to move on to a neighborhood middle school with a group of elementary peers who have grown up together. Who wouldn't want that? That hope does not exclude other students from OOB. Might there be a tipping point at which time there won't be OOB seats available? Sure. But I do think that IB students should be the priority as a quality of life issue for all, commute-wise and neighborhood cohesiveness- wise. Are there racially-segregated neighborhoods, however unfortunate that may be? Yes. But let's integrate though housing policies rather than by shipping kids all around town every day. And let's work toward strong schools in every neighborhood.

As with your post, the effort toward strong schools in every neighborhood, is just an afterthought. It should be the main objective. I don't think anyone would disagree with anything you've said here, but for the majority of the city, there's no Hardy to fight over. There's no council member, no DCPS administrator, no mayor nor mayoral candidate promising anything even close to it anywhere else. My neighborhood middle school has been closed with hardly a peep about re-opening--not even a "hey, we'll think about it if we can get X-Number of families to commit"--let alone private home meetings with concerned parents. And there are maaaany inbound families, with the same hopes and high expectations that you have--but no one who seems to be listening to our needs.

So we have no choice but to consider other schools in other parts of the city. And that will continue to happen until this city moves beyond lip service and starts making a real effort at strong schools in every neighborhood.

It's not an issue of housing policies, because the high number of gentrifiers in wards 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6 have really made integration a non-issue. The issue is that the schools in these areas is still pretty much an afterthought. If DCPS and the education committee are making concentrated efforts and promises in your neighborhood, then they need to make room for people coming from mine.

Which DCPS MS once served your neighborhood, PP?

Was it shut down due to under-enrollment? What were the enrollment and the enrollment target for the last few years of operation? Did IB families flee for charters and OOB spots at other MSs or where there simply not enough families with middle schoolers? Has gentrification solved the problems that likely led to under-enrollment and closure of your neighborhood school in the first place?

If your IB school reopened this fall and all of the IB middle schoolers enrolled, would you send your DC? Which would be the likely feeder schools? What is the OOB rate at those feeder schools? What would the likely FARMs rate be? What would the DC CAS scores likely be?

Would you still send your DC if, in order to meet a high DCPS enrollment target, 60%, 70% or 80% of the kids were OOB? Which schools would those OOB kids be fleeing?

You talk of building good neighborhood schools across the city as if all that is required is for DCPS to provide a building, a principal and a few teachers. The missing ingredient is a critical mass of neighborhood families willing to send their kids to school with the kids of other neighborhood families. It looks as if the neighborhood families at Hardy are approaching that critical mass, and they deserve the opportunity to be successful.

You'll still have the opportunity to lottery into many other DCPS and charter middle schools. Better yet, you could rally your neighbors, lobby your ANC and council member, and put pressure on DCPS to re-open your neighborhood school. Wouldn't you and your neighbors prefer the certainty and cohesion of a strong neighborhood school over taking your chances in the lottery?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
As with your post, the effort toward strong schools in every neighborhood, is just an afterthought. It should be the main objective. I don't think anyone would disagree with anything you've said here, but for the majority of the city, there's no Hardy to fight over. There's no council member, no DCPS administrator, no mayor nor mayoral candidate promising anything even close to it anywhere else. My neighborhood middle school has been closed with hardly a peep about re-opening--not even a "hey, we'll think about it if we can get X-Number of families to commit"--let alone private home meetings with concerned parents. And there are maaaany inbound families, with the same hopes and high expectations that you have--but no one who seems to be listening to our needs.

So we have no choice but to consider other schools in other parts of the city. And that will continue to happen until this city moves beyond lip service and starts making a real effort at strong schools in every neighborhood.

It's not an issue of housing policies, because the high number of gentrifiers in wards 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6 have really made integration a non-issue. The issue is that the schools in these areas is still pretty much an afterthought. If DCPS and the education committee are making concentrated efforts and promises in your neighborhood, then they need to make room for people coming from mine.

Until two or three years ago the description you give would have fit Hardy as well. Remember, from 2005 to 2008 it was moved to the Hamilton Education Campus over by Gallaudet. That was an insane idea -- really tantamount to closing -- but there was "hardly a peep" about that either. "There's no council member, no DCPS administrator, no mayor nor mayoral candidate promising anything even close to it anywhere else. " That would describe Hardy circa 2010. It's not well-remembered, but Mary Cheh was part of the group of councilmembers who voted for a resolution calling on Michelle Rhee to reinstate Principal Pope. I met with her several times in 2010 and 2011, and she had absolutely no interest in doing anything about Hardy (or schools in general). In her mind, DCPS just wasn't a Ward 3 issue.

[Anonymous]

Which DCPS MS once served your neighborhood, PP?

Was it shut down due to under-enrollment? What were the enrollment and the enrollment target for the last few years of operation? Did IB families flee for charters and OOB spots at other MSs or where there simply not enough families with middle schoolers? Has gentrification solved the problems that likely led to under-enrollment and closure of your neighborhood school in the first place?

If your IB school reopened this fall and all of the IB middle schoolers enrolled, would you send your DC? Which would be the likely feeder schools? What is the OOB rate at those feeder schools? What would the likely FARMs rate be? What would the DC CAS scores likely be?

Would you still send your DC if, in order to meet a high DCPS enrollment target, 60%, 70% or 80% of the kids were OOB? Which schools would those OOB kids be fleeing?

You talk of building good neighborhood schools across the city as if all that is required is for DCPS to provide a building, a principal and a few teachers. The missing ingredient is a critical mass of neighborhood families willing to send their kids to school with the kids of other neighborhood families. It looks as if the neighborhood families at Hardy are approaching that critical mass, and they deserve the opportunity to be successful.

You'll still have the opportunity to lottery into many other DCPS and charter middle schools. Better yet, you could rally your neighbors, lobby your ANC and council member, and put pressure on DCPS to re-open your neighborhood school. Wouldn't you and your neighbors prefer the certainty and cohesion of a strong neighborhood school over taking your chances in the lottery?

Hey, thanks for your interest. According to this map, low quality in other neighborhoods obviously has an impact on yours: http://edu.codefordc.org/#!/school/246

The middle school that once served my neighborhood is MacFarland. It's been combined with Roosevelt High School. Yes, both were/are under-enrolled. The reason for under-enrollment is not low number of students in the neighborhood, it's the low quality of the school/s. Families go to one of several PS3 thru 8 "education campuses" where early education absorbs most of the funds and programming; or they go elsewhere--Deal, Hardy, charters. You can see the number of middle school kids in my cluster and where they go to MS on this map:http://edu.codefordc.org/#!/neighborhood/18

Options for high school are even more grim, so the families who make education a priority are seeking other options well before grade 9. Again, that's elsewhere.

And that's the situation all over the city.

You talk of a "critical mass of neighborhood families willing to send their kids to school with the kids of other neighborhood families." We've got the mass, but what's really critical is a school they're willing to attend. The projected growth of school aged children in this cluster for the next 20 years is among the highest in the city. Parents are flocking to the IB elementary schools in droves for PS/PK and K, but the question of what happens after 5th grade dissipates that critical mass. Every parent I've talked to would be thrilled to have an in-boundary, stand alone middle school option. They're already going to schools with high numbers of FARMS, ELL and OOB--at charters--so that's not the worry here. The charters show that the "low SES" argument is a straw man up in flames.

So my argument stands and I'll ask you in reply: if all the OOB families at Hardy were happy enough to stick with their neighborhood schools, would there be enough IB middle schoolers to keep Hardy open? It's already under capacity and the map I linked to above doesn't show a lot of students coming out of the Georgetown/Burleith/Hillandale cluster.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
So my argument stands and I'll ask you in reply: if all the OOB families at Hardy were happy enough to stick with their neighborhood schools, would there be enough IB middle schoolers to keep Hardy open? It's already under capacity and the map I linked to above doesn't show a lot of students coming out of the Georgetown/Burleith/Hillandale cluster.

So here's the context to view that question in: DCPS currently has about 44,000 students and operates schools with an aggregate capacity of about 66,000 students. Just about every school in the system -- even Deal and Wilson, by far the two largest schools -- would be under-enrolled if everyone went to neighborhood schools, there's maybe four elementary schools in upper NW that are at capacity solely with in-boundary kids.

But that's assuming a static school population. However, it's not unreasonable to assume that improving schools would draw more kids into DCPS, both by attracting families that have stayed in DC but left DCPS, and by attracting new families to the city. According to the census, DC has about 112,000 people under the age of 18. Of them, 44,000 are in DCPS, 40,000 are in charters, and about 28,000 are either too young for school or in privates. So there are plenty of kids in DC right now to fill every DCPS school. (What I don't know is the aggregate capacity of all the charter schools currently, plus under construction).

On top of that, currently the DC Office of Planning is predicting a baby boom in the next ten years, with a 45% increase in the school-age population of the city. If DCPS's market share merely remains constant that will basically fill all of the space currently in DCPS.

[Anonymous]

I'm hoping in 3 years Hardy will still take OOB kids. If my DD's personality continues the way it is she would be absolutely lost and overwhelmed by Deal. I'm glad to see IB parents working hard to raise the school. Just please hold a spot for our DD! I promise we will be active and fun and help the school in any way possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We're IB for Hardy too and are happy to see more IB families signing up. But that does not make us "scared whitey" racists. Please folks. We could care less if a large portion of the school is made up of motivated, respectful OOB students. But we are indeed cheered that our DS may be able to move on to a neighborhood middle school with a group of elementary peers who have grown up together. Who wouldn't want that? That hope does not exclude other students from OOB. Might there be a tipping point at which time there won't be OOB seats available? Sure. But I do think that IB students should be the priority as a quality of life issue for all, commute-wise and neighborhood cohesiveness- wise. Are there racially-segregated neighborhoods, however unfortunate that may be? Yes. But let's integrate though housing policies rather than by shipping kids all around town every day. And let's work toward strong schools in every neighborhood.

As with your post, the effort toward strong schools in every neighborhood, is just an afterthought. It should be the main objective. I don't think anyone would disagree with anything you've said here, but for the majority of the city, there's no Hardy to fight over. There's no council member, no DCPS administrator, no mayor nor mayoral candidate promising anything even close to it anywhere else. My neighborhood middle school has been closed with hardly a peep about re-opening--not even a "hey, we'll think about it if we can get X-Number of families to commit"--let alone private home meetings with concerned parents. And there are maaaany inbound families, with the same hopes and high expectations that you have--but no one who seems to be listening to our needs.

So we have no choice but to consider other schools in other parts of the city. And that will continue to happen until this city moves beyond lip service and starts making a real effort at strong schools in every neighborhood.

It's not an issue of housing policies, because the high number of gentrifiers in wards 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6 have really made integration a non-issue. The issue is that the schools in these areas is still pretty much an afterthought. If DCPS and the education committee are 3607 Tupelo Place
Alexandria? VA? 22304
United Statesmaking concentrated efforts and promises in your neighborhood, then they need to make room for people coming from mine.

PP here. I agree and would feel the same way if I lived in a neighborhood lacking in good MS options. My argument about making IB students a priority as a quality of life/reasonable commute/neighborhood cohesion issue does indeed apply to all parts of the city and I'm sorry if it looked like an after thought. ALL boats must rise together or the ones still afloat get overturned too and nobody survives! Perhaps a weird analogy but my point is that nobody wins in time if we don't ALL have good schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does it really matter who goes there or does it matter of you like the program. Sounds like a lot of white scaredy cats to me.

+2

Like it's only acceptable if it's mostly IB. Defeats the purpose and spirit of public school. And if the principal is on a campaign to eliminate OOB, then it's even more undesirable. You can't just say, "this is OUR school-- get out!"

We are not saying that. We are actually saying, "this is our school -- let's get in!".

Fifth grade parent from feeder school (going to Hardy)

Perfect!

[Anonymous]

Again watch for the one year and done I B numbers. Enthusiasm is wonderful.

[Anonymous]

I think the issue of critical mass is real. If enough IB families go, they will largely stay. I doubt numerous families would jump ship.

[Anonymous]

Well maybe this thread headline can produce that result if we keep it going.

[Anonymous]

I think the idea of IB families wanting to go to a school should be seen as a positive. All families should be encouraged to take advantage of their IB school if it is attractive to them. This should be seen as something positive.

[Anonymous]

If the school is good it won't matter where the students live.

[Anonymous]

23:53, that is a bit of a chicken and egg problem. especially in DC.

[Anonymous]

Does anybody have up to date data on IB enrollment at Hardy 6th grade 2014-2015? How can a prospective and interested parent know?

[Anonymous]

i don't know, but am also wondering at least for the 2013 -2014 (Current year) for another school, but didn't see it yet on the DCPS profile.