Stuart Hobson Middle School?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What a breeze to say, "Well, you see, I'm planning to send my child to SH." If I had a $20 bill for every time I've heard that when I arrived in the neighborhood 25 years ago when it didn't come to pass, at least not through 8th grade, I could afford a private for almost middle schooler.

No, Hardy isn't madly flipping. The school is still struggling mightily to attract in-boundary families. At this rate, Hobson won't attain the current Hardy buy-in rate for another decade. Maybe the Deal rate in 20 years.

Yeah, cause DC in 2017 (and especially the Hill) is exactly the same as it was 25 years ago. Go away.

P.S. Any opinion on DCUM referring to the "Cluster" should be taken with a massive salt lick. That's outmoded language reflecting a dated understanding of DCPS/Charters.

[Anonymous]

OH yes, anyone who has lived on the Hill for more than 10 years and might have children who are older than 8 should have their opinions disregarded due to their memory of the Cluster that was repeatedly mentioned in the neighborhood before some of the PPs were out of college and didn’t even live in DC.

SMH - you are all welcome to reinvent the wheel, AGAIN.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OH yes, anyone who has lived on the Hill for more than 10 years and might have children who are older than 8 should have their opinions disregarded due to their memory of the Cluster that was repeatedly mentioned in the neighborhood before some of the PPs were out of college and didn’t even live in DC.

SMH - you are all welcome to reinvent the wheel, AGAIN.

+100! Exactly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OH yes, anyone who has lived on the Hill for more than 10 years and might have children who are older than 8 should have their opinions disregarded due to their memory of the Cluster that was repeatedly mentioned in the neighborhood before some of the PPs were out of college and didn’t even live in DC.

SMH - you are all welcome to reinvent the wheel, AGAIN.

Huh? Is the fact that your info is dated (see, 25 years specifically mentioned by the PPP) supposed to be mitigated by the relative youth of some people? I'm confused by your argument. Would someone have to have lived here in 1998 to understand the landscape of the schools their kids attend now? Neither the housing market, economy nor schools of CH remotely reflect the state of affairs from 25 years ago, or 10 years ago. And I say that as someone who has live here for close to two decades. That is simply a fact. So if your perspective of schools, or their reputations, or safety of your neighborhood is rooted in information from a decade ago, it isn't really valid for people making decisions today.

The population of was falling into the 2000 census and increased from there. DC is 31% whiter from 2000-2010. Housing prices in 20002 and 20003 increased dramatically and significantly more than in the rest of DC as a whole. Charter schools didn't exist, etc. No one is saying that your experience isn't without some merit, but what I am saying is that your experience from the cluster wars and DC schools from 10-20 years is not particularly relevant. Your defensiveness and poor use of sarcasm doesn't make you any more relevant.

[Anonymous]

Not the PP you responded to here.

I'd agree with you if Brent, Maury and SWS were feeding into SH. Fact is, the two or three strongest, most upper middle class, most white, and most in-boundary Hill DCPS elementary schools don't lead to SH. This means that SH will limp along fed by comparatively weaker JO Wilson, Ludlow Taylor and Watkins for a good decade. Yes, many SWS parents live in-boundary for SH, which will help the school pick up, but not a lot and not rapidly.

Wish things were different. Calling PPs who've been around long enough to have a good feel for what I just described can't advance your magical thinking about Hobson.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not the PP you responded to here.

I'd agree with you if Brent, Maury and SWS were feeding into SH. Fact is, the two or three strongest, most upper middle class, most white, and most in-boundary Hill DCPS elementary schools don't lead to SH. This means that SH will limp along fed by comparatively weaker JO Wilson, Ludlow Taylor and Watkins for a good decade. Yes, many SWS parents live in-boundary for SH, which will help the school pick up, but not a lot and not rapidly.

Wish things were different. Calling PPs who've been around long enough to have a good feel for what I just described can't advance your magical thinking about Hobson.

Not OPP - Long time resident here and I don't think you really do. There's a strain of commentators here that seems to live for dumping on the evil "Cluster".

I get a different vibe. Yes there are public school parents who are either pro-charter or aren't ideologically opposed to charters and will pursue that option, but I talk to others who will not consider any charter school on principle. There's also a scarcity of decent MS charter options for the non-ideological who would consider either charters or DCPS. Even for our advanced student BASIS is a bridge too far, probably as much as SH is to some PPs above.

There are plenty of white parents who don't judge schools based on some acceptable level of whiteness, even those with kids currently enrolled in overly white schools. It's actually a weakness in the Hill ES landscape. DCPS is 20% Hispanic in 2017 and there are Hill schools with virtually no Latino (or ELL) students despite having the only two citywide enrollment ES options in DCPS. All of the Hill schools would benefit from greater real diversity and not just whiting out from lower ES grades upward.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not the PP you responded to here.

I'd agree with you if Brent, Maury and SWS were feeding into SH. Fact is, the two or three strongest, most upper middle class, most white, and most in-boundary Hill DCPS elementary schools don't lead to SH. This means that SH will limp along fed by comparatively weaker JO Wilson, Ludlow Taylor and Watkins for a good decade. Yes, many SWS parents live in-boundary for SH, which will help the school pick up, but not a lot and not rapidly.

Wish things were different. Calling PPs who've been around long enough to have a good feel for what I just described can't advance your magical thinking about Hobson.

You just made my point for me AGAIN. Look at LT's scores. You are so stuck in the past that you don't actually know what's happening at the SH feeders.

P.S. Should have known this was coming from bitter Brent/Maury/SWS parents who are SOOOOOO convinced of their superiority that they can't imagine anything could improve without them. It's almost like you and your buddies are invested in perpetuating the narrative of "SH failing" because you hope that maybe Brent can come to the rescue. You go ahead and enjoy your ES without a MS feeder and howl at the moon. The IB SH feeder families will be here laughing at your bitterness and conceit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not the PP you responded to here.

I'd agree with you if Brent, Maury and SWS were feeding into SH. Fact is, the two or three strongest, most upper middle class, most white, and most in-boundary Hill DCPS elementary schools don't lead to SH. This means that SH will limp along fed by comparatively weaker JO Wilson, Ludlow Taylor and Watkins for a good decade. Yes, many SWS parents live in-boundary for SH, which will help the school pick up, but not a lot and not rapidly.

Wish things were different. Calling PPs who've been around long enough to have a good feel for what I just described can't advance your magical thinking about Hobson.

Not OPP - Long time resident here and I don't think you really do. There's a strain of commentators here that seems to live for dumping on the evil "Cluster".

I get a different vibe. Yes there are public school parents who are either pro-charter or aren't ideologically opposed to charters and will pursue that option, but I talk to others who will not consider any charter school on principle. There's also a scarcity of decent MS charter options for the non-ideological who would consider either charters or DCPS. Even for our advanced student BASIS is a bridge too far, probably as much as SH is to some PPs above.

There are plenty of white parents who don't judge schools based on some acceptable level of whiteness, even those with kids currently enrolled in overly white schools. It's actually a weakness in the Hill ES landscape. DCPS is 20% Hispanic in 2017 and there are Hill schools with virtually no Latino (or ELL) students despite having the only two citywide enrollment ES options in DCPS. All of the Hill schools would benefit from greater real diversity and not just whiting out from lower ES grades upward.

You're misreading the vibe. Hill parents dearly want high-performing, diverse neighborhood middle schools, however they're packaged, but DC has staunchly refused to work with them to create any for the last quarter century.

Boston and San Fran boldly dumped neighborhood elementary schools in the 70s. DC didn't. If the whiteness of the Hill ES landscape is a "weakness," it's also a function of DC Home Rule-based policy decisions coming out of the 70s, decisions made by AA city leaders (with few exceptions). I'm not thrilled that my bilingual kids' DCPS has so few ELL students (1%) that money for an ELL coordinator was diverted to support other support staff long ago. But I accept that the real estate market is calling the demographic shots at the school because that's what hard-won Home Rule has brought DC. I bought a home for my strong in-bound DCPS, like hundreds of other parents, and don't come her to slam "overly white schools" resulting from real estate transactions guided by both market forces and policy decisions made by democratically-elected DC City Council Members and their mayors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not the PP you responded to here.

I'd agree with you if Brent, Maury and SWS were feeding into SH. Fact is, the two or three strongest, most upper middle class, most white, and most in-boundary Hill DCPS elementary schools don't lead to SH. This means that SH will limp along fed by comparatively weaker JO Wilson, Ludlow Taylor and Watkins for a good decade. Yes, many SWS parents live in-boundary for SH, which will help the school pick up, but not a lot and not rapidly.

Wish things were different. Calling PPs who've been around long enough to have a good feel for what I just described can't advance your magical thinking about Hobson.

You just made my point for me AGAIN. Look at LT's scores. You are so stuck in the past that you don't actually know what's happening at the SH feeders.

P.S. Should have known this was coming from bitter Brent/Maury/SWS parents who are SOOOOOO convinced of their superiority that they can't imagine anything could improve without them. It's almost like you and your buddies are invested in perpetuating the narrative of "SH failing" because you hope that maybe Brent can come to the rescue. You go ahead and enjoy your ES without a MS feeder and howl at the moon. The IB SH feeder families will be here laughing at your bitterness and conceit.

This parent at one of above-mentioned schools who is also magically IB for SH does not send DC to SH, because it is not up to par. Period. Once your child is staring down the reality of high school and college, you realize that there just isn’t enough TIME. Yes, things are improving, but not near fast enough for those of us with children older than 8.

[Anonymous]

THIS. Not improving fast enough for those of us with children over 3 or 4.

We're in-bounds at Ludlow with a very bright child in K and don't see SH in the cards. There just aren't enough strong students in the pipeline from Watkins, LT and JO Wilson, and won't be for a decade plus. I blame DCPs, not Hill parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:THIS. Not improving fast enough for those of us with children over 3 or 4.

We're in-bounds at Ludlow with a very bright child in K and don't see SH in the cards. There just aren't enough strong students in the pipeline from Watkins, LT and JO Wilson, and won't be for a decade plus. I blame DCPs, not Hill parents.

I'm very curious about the "enough strong students". My daughter is in 4th grade and we're trying to learn more. My impression is that there are at least dozens of well behaved, academically inclined, on or above grade level students in each grade. Not necessarily academic superstars, but good peers.

Is your impression different? If so, why?

Or is your standard for "strong students" different, given that you describe your child as "very bright". My child is also pretty bright, even according to her teachers, and I'd expect her to be among the top, say, 5 percent of the SH class academically, but that's ok with me.

I'm not trying to argue with you, just to gather more information to inform our decision. Thanks for anything you (or others) can share.

[Anonymous]

To each her own.

I don't see my kids as being challenged academically in K in a peer group that's overwhelmingly high SES. I don't really mind at this age because she's a shy introvert who's getting strong support for much needed social/emotional development. But I'm having a great deal of trouble imagining her being challenged, let alone pushed, much further down the line after many, if not most of her high SES peers have peeled off from DCPS. This is a city without formal GT programming in public elementary and middle schools. Boosters will tell you that their kids are consistently challenged at SH, on track to gain admission to Walls and Banneker. But when I see tutors trooping in and out of the homes of neighbors with kids at SH, and the kids being shuttled off to academic summer camps, I doubt that we'll still be on board by middle school. Also, I'm with the PPs who don't like the rowdy behavior of some of the SH students we see around the neighborhood. Comportment just isn't the school's strong suit.

[Anonymous]

Thanks. I'm the 4th grade parent. I fully expect that a substantial amount of learning will occur outside of school, and I'm comfortable with that. That would be true at any school, but moreso at SH. With a curious kid, that hopefully will happen mostly naturally, with extracurricular reading, Smithsonian visits, etc., but I also expect it to include online learning, parental tutoring, and things like CHAW and Hill center classes. It sounds like you're both less optimistic about the quality of SH and have higher expectations about the extent to which a middle school should push kids academically.

Thanks for the polite but frank comments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To each her own.

I don't see my kids as being challenged academically in K in a peer group that's overwhelmingly high SES. I don't really mind at this age because she's a shy introvert who's getting strong support for much needed social/emotional development. But I'm having a great deal of trouble imagining her being challenged, let alone pushed, much further down the line after many, if not most of her high SES peers have peeled off from DCPS. This is a city without formal GT programming in public elementary and middle schools. Boosters will tell you that their kids are consistently challenged at SH, on track to gain admission to Walls and Banneker. But when I see tutors trooping in and out of the homes of neighbors with kids at SH, and the kids being shuttled off to academic summer camps, I doubt that we'll still be on board by middle school. Also, I'm with the PPs who don't like the rowdy behavior of some of the SH students we see around the neighborhood. Comportment just isn't the school's strong suit.

ffs just move go fairfax county and go AAP.

I just can't with all the handwringing about your kids not being "academically challenged in K."

[Anonymous]

Sounds like PP will go private.

I don't see how observing the reality that GT programming in DCPS is spotty and informal amounts to "hand-wringing." PP was looking far ahead. More parents should try it.

The reality is that unless you're at a DCPS or charter with particularly favorable demographics (e.g. JKLM, Oyster, Ross, Brent, Maury, ITS, YuYing, Deal), the diminishing returns problem is real as the kids age. Plenty of parents in other schools do "peel off," often after manufacturing a polite reason!