What are the differences between the JLKMs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In the near future, Jefferson Academy, Elliott/Hine, and Stuart Hobson middle schools will become stellar schools and will be competitive with strong reputations. That will lure some students from Deal. Jefferson used to have a stellar math-science program. All these schools are in walking distance from Metro Stations. And it’s OK to have minority children in abundance. Their families want successful schools and children too.

All the Upper Northwest elementary schools appear to be quite good, but there are other good ones in D.C. Looking forward to a rise in schools in other neighborhoods with diverse socioeconomic demographics.

This!! ^^ We hocked our future vacations and savings to buy a house in boundary for a JKLM that feeds into Deal and Wilson, and honestly, nothing would make me happier than in five years to wish we had paid less money since there are other great options. Rising tide! I want ALL DCPS students to have kick-ass options and futures. It's good for everyone!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Traditional and charter schools need to both start middle school at the same grade. When do private schools start middle schools? Across the nation, at what grade do most middle schools start? What was the reason for changing from junior high to middle schools? All middle schools that receive any public funding need to start at the same grade. This would provide uniformity and stop brain drain and confusion in certain grades. What are the plans to improve all middle schools and make them competitive so that parents won’t chase certain schools just for the feeder school path and won’t abandon traditional schools?

Elementary school crowding. There is no room to put 4-6 classrooms of sixth graders in each of the Deal feeder elementary schools.

What makes a school "competitive" is a cohort of strong students. Chicken and egg problem.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for that laugh! I can attest that Lafayette has no chickens.

Yet! There's room in the beautiful garden perhaps for a coop, and someone could order some heritage breed chicks! :p

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tier I Schools (Very involved PTA, Extremely High Fundraising, Motivated Students, High PARCC Test Scores)
===================================================================
Janney Elementary School
Lafayette Elementary School
Brent Elementary School
Murch Elementary School
Mann Elementary School
Key Elementary School
Hearst Elementary School
Ross Elementary School
Eaton Elementary School
Stoddert Elementary School

Tier II Schools (Very Involved PTA, High Fundraising, Motivated Students, Decent PARCC Test Scores)
===============================================================
Capitol Hill Montessori School
Hyde ? Addison Elementary School
Van Ness Elementary School * (No Test Scores yet)
Maury Elementary School
Oyster ? Adams Bilingual School
Shepherd Elementary School
Watkins Elementary School
Peabody Elementary School * (No Test Scores)
Ludlow -Taylor Elementary School

No SWS? Higher performer on PARCC and fundraising $s than a number of your "Tier I" list

If the poster who compiled the list used the Empower PARCC dashboard, SWS doesn't show up for some reason so they may not have realized the relatively high PARCC scores (given it's demographics, I'd expect the scores to be higher).

no whiter than most of that "Tier I" and less affluent . Scores objectively among the tops in the city including higher SN population

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Traditional and charter schools need to both start middle school at the same grade. When do private schools start middle schools? Across the nation, at what grade do most middle schools start? What was the reason for changing from junior high to middle schools? All middle schools that receive any public funding need to start at the same grade. This would provide uniformity and stop brain drain and confusion in certain grades. What are the plans to improve all middle schools and make them competitive so that parents won’t chase certain schools just for the feeder school path and won’t abandon traditional schools?

Elementary school crowding. There is no room to put 4-6 classrooms of sixth graders in each of the Deal feeder elementary schools.

What makes a school "competitive" is a cohort of strong students. Chicken and egg problem.

Chickens, again!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Eaton has the strongest PARCC results for students of color. Although note that the data set includes multiple schools that didn’t have enough students of color to be statistically significant.

Sorry, but Eaton is still pretty second-highest tier compared to JKLM. It baffling that it still can't even draw a majority of its enrollment from the local neighborhood, which shows that it needs more improvement before it gets real traction locally. For now, Eaton's really an EOTP school that happens to be WOTP.

I'll never understand why people need to bash other schools.

1.) Eaton had 54% IB in SY 2016/2017. No data released yet for SY 2017/108.

2.) Even if every single child in the Eaton boundary attended Eaton, at its current over capacity stuffed size, the school could still not be fully IB, there are simply not enough children IB. Perhaps that wouldn't be an issue if the school population was right-sized to its building, but politics preempts reason.

Can someone answer the simple question as to why, if Eaton is 46% OOB, the school is quite overcrowded today? Isn't the solution to manage the OOB student population down rigorously, to right-size the population to the site, as the PP suggests?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tier I Schools (Very involved PTA, Extremely High Fundraising, Motivated Students, High PARCC Test Scores)
===================================================================
Janney Elementary School
Lafayette Elementary School
Brent Elementary School
Murch Elementary School
Mann Elementary School
Key Elementary School
Hearst Elementary School
Ross Elementary School
Eaton Elementary School
Stoddert Elementary School

Tier II Schools (Very Involved PTA, High Fundraising, Motivated Students, Decent PARCC Test Scores)
===============================================================
Capitol Hill Montessori School
Hyde ? Addison Elementary School
Van Ness Elementary School * (No Test Scores yet)
Maury Elementary School
Oyster ? Adams Bilingual School
Shepherd Elementary School
Watkins Elementary School
Peabody Elementary School * (No Test Scores)
Ludlow -Taylor Elementary School

No SWS? Higher performer on PARCC and fundraising $s than a number of your "Tier I" list

If the poster who compiled the list used the Empower PARCC dashboard, SWS doesn't show up for some reason so they may not have realized the relatively high PARCC scores (given it's demographics, I'd expect the scores to be higher).

no whiter than most of that "Tier I" and less affluent . Scores objectively among the tops in the city including higher SN population

SWS doesn't show up on the Empower PARCC dashboard because it has too few students who are categorized as at-risk students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tier I Schools (Very involved PTA, Extremely High Fundraising, Motivated Students, High PARCC Test Scores)
===================================================================
Janney Elementary School
Lafayette Elementary School
Brent Elementary School
Murch Elementary School
Mann Elementary School
Key Elementary School
Hearst Elementary School
Ross Elementary School
Eaton Elementary School
Stoddert Elementary School

Tier II Schools (Very Involved PTA, High Fundraising, Motivated Students, Decent PARCC Test Scores)
===============================================================
Capitol Hill Montessori School
Hyde ? Addison Elementary School
Van Ness Elementary School * (No Test Scores yet)
Maury Elementary School
Oyster ? Adams Bilingual School
Shepherd Elementary School
Watkins Elementary School
Peabody Elementary School * (No Test Scores)
Ludlow -Taylor Elementary School

No SWS? Higher performer on PARCC and fundraising $s than a number of your "Tier I" list

If the poster who compiled the list used the Empower PARCC dashboard, SWS doesn't show up for some reason so they may not have realized the relatively high PARCC scores (given it's demographics, I'd expect the scores to be higher).

no whiter than most of that "Tier I" and less affluent . Scores objectively among the tops in the city including higher SN population

I get it - you're an SWS defender. But how are you measuring less affluent? FARMS rate? Household income? And for those who may not know, SWS has medically-fragile classrooms which make up a large part of the SN population so not entirely clear that is at play with scores the way that it may be for other schools; these classrooms also play a large role in the school's non-white population.

[Anonymous]

Whatever, SWS should be included wherever Brent is listed. Like the school and it’s demographics or not, it is up and comping with a few tweaks and the citywide school is on par with Brent. The Upper Northwest communities could use a citywide school. Which one could handle that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:JKLMs aren't really a thing anymore. Lots of elementary schools in DC are great now.

Dream on. Sorry that you can't afford to buy in AU Park. But you can pretend.

You're gross and, honestly, the reason we didn't consider AU Park. That and the buried toxic waste nearby.

--Sitting here crying in my million dollar house.

[Anonymous]

All of them are “good” but Mann is hands-down excellent because of consistent dedicated leadership

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd say there's not a lot of difference at the top level of the tier. Janney and Mann are quite similar, although Mann unfortunately feeds to Hardy while Janney is in Deal. Lafayette is very strong. Murch is strong, but it's not exactly in the top drawer with Janney and Mann.

Why do people (or a person) have to keep repeating this - there is nothing unfortunate about being fed to Hardy. Given some of the downsides of larger schools some might actually prefer Hardy which is not even half as large as Deal.

I laugh when people boost Hardy, knowing that if they had the choice of Deal vs. Hardy, they would choose Deal 98 out of 100 times.

We just made that choice, and we chose Hardy. Sorry you're uninformed and probably a little bit racist. Enjoy your upper NW suburb!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are there distinct differences between Janney and Murch? Lafayette and Key? The PARCC scores are within 5-10 points at these schools, and I would assume they have to follow the same core curriculum. What are the differences?

Thanks!

Size - number of students
Feeder - those in the Hardy Zone are less likely to move with their cohort to middle school
After school care - some are more available than othesr
Neighborhood - some have richer families, some more multi-family housing, etc.
Staffing/Resources - can differ here, depending on size, PTA $$, etc.

We are at Janney so I can only speak to it...
Size - large! Five classes per grade (other than Pre-K which they shrunk to allow five 5th grade classes this year)
Feeder - Deal, most kids we know are going to Deal this fall, a couple left for Washington Latin, a few are going to private next year
After school care - large program, can drop-in, space isn't an issue
Neighborhood - mainly boxy colonials with additions and small/no yard, lots of families (Janney went from 500 to 700 in five years)
Staffing/Resources - lots of staff; assistant teachers, co-teachers (with master's), lots of enrichment classes, language classes (even Mandarin), lots of support staff

This isn't true anymore, but tell yourself whatever you have to tell yourself to feel okay with your choices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In the near future, Jefferson Academy, Elliott/Hine, and Stuart Hobson middle schools will become stellar schools and will be competitive with strong reputations. That will lure some students from Deal. Jefferson used to have a stellar math-science program. All these schools are in walking distance from Metro Stations. And it’s OK to have minority children in abundance. Their families want successful schools and children too.

All the Upper Northwest elementary schools appear to be quite good, but there are other good ones in D.C. Looking forward to a rise in schools in other neighborhoods with diverse socioeconomic demographics.

This!! ^^ We hocked our future vacations and savings to buy a house in boundary for a JKLM that feeds into Deal and Wilson, and honestly, nothing would make me happier than in five years to wish we had paid less money since there are other great options. Rising tide! I want ALL DCPS students to have kick-ass options and futures. It's good for everyone!

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In the near future, Jefferson Academy, Elliott/Hine, and Stuart Hobson middle schools will become stellar schools and will be competitive with strong reputations. That will lure some students from Deal. Jefferson used to have a stellar math-science program. All these schools are in walking distance from Metro Stations. And it’s OK to have minority children in abundance. Their families want successful schools and children too.

All the Upper Northwest elementary schools appear to be quite good, but there are other good ones in D.C. Looking forward to a rise in schools in other neighborhoods with diverse socioeconomic demographics.

This!! ^^ We hocked our future vacations and savings to buy a house in boundary for a JKLM that feeds into Deal and Wilson, and honestly, nothing would make me happier than in five years to wish we had paid less money since there are other great options. Rising tide! I want ALL DCPS students to have kick-ass options and futures. It's good for everyone!

+1

There *are* other great options. Sorry you went house poor to send your kid to an overcrowded middle school.