Maury Capitol Hill

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look, I think the cluster idea is half-baked at best and also that at the proposed timeline for it is insane, but the way people are talking about an at-risk set aside as an alternative on this thread is, IMO, worse.

Like when you say "let's shrink the boundary" to make room for more OOB kids, consider that will have a real impact on actual families who will suddenly no longer be IB for Maury. If they are now zoned for Miner, but nothing is done to improve Miner, this plan instantly makes their education options significantly worse. If instead they shrink the zone on the western edge, presumably those families would go to LT. I'm sure a lot of families would be fine with that, but this then causes issues for LT, in terms of crowding and diversity.

Additionally, as people have pointed out, there's no guarantee that the OOB spots designated for at-risk kids would come from the Miner boundary, unless there was some kind of preference there, and I think that would be hard to accomplish because the proximity of Maury and Miner means that very few families would qualify for proximity preference, which means a new, special preference would have to be created for Miner-zoned families. That is not going to happen.

Finally, since this means that the OOB students could come from anywhere in the city (many would likely come from across the river because of the appeal of having a school that is generally on a commuting route into downtown), this proposal actually undermines one of the things many parents like most about Maury, which is that it is a true neighborhood school. If the school is going bring in more at-risk kids, I feel they should ideally come from the many at-risk kids who already live in the surrounding neighborhood. Both because it preserves the neighborhood feel of the school, a huge asset, and because I think the school would do a better job of meeting the needs of at risk children when their families are part of the same community -- I truly think this can help with issues like truancy and communication between the school and families that often become issues for at risk kids. You would also get more participation in community events from at risk families who live nearby, and the community events on weeknights and weekends is a major part of how Maury builds that neighborhood feel.

So if you asked me right now to choose between the cluster and what y'all are proposing with an at risk preference for OOB spots, my response would be "maybe we can do the cluster but with a longer lead time to implementation, more actual planning to address community concerns about issues like facilities, family and teacher retention, split commutes, and how best to serve the needs of a more diverse student body, especially in upper grades?"

I mean, if the goal is more diversity and to better serve the needs of at risk students, without compromising the quality of education of current Maury families, I think the cluster proposal actually makes more sense than this at-risk preference idea.

Why can't a Miner boundary set aside for Maury be created specific to at-risk kids? Surely that is easier to implement than a half baked cluster?

Also, Miner has a significant OOB population already. Is there any data to show the split between IB and OOB at-risk kids at Miner?

Because it would not be equitable, because the same set aside does not exist for at risk kids in other parts of the city to access successful nearby DCPS schools. There are at-risk set asides (I think mostly, if not entirely, at charters) but any at-risk student in the city can apply for them in the lottery. If they created a special set aside for at risk kids in the Miner boundary just for access to Maury, that's a special benefit that those kids get that no other similarly situation student in the city gets.

I can't speak to what percent of Miner's OOB students are at risk, but I do know the neighborhood well enough to know there are a significant number of at-risk kids living IB for Miner because I used to provide services to some of the low-income housing units in the neighborhood. But I also don't know what percent of these kids go to Miner -- those families also play the lottery and plenty send their kids to other schools.

Advisory Committee member here - All of this back and forth is reason to log on next week, this will all be discussed. We previewed the web tools last night at our meeting and there will be lots of ways to interact and give feedback . As was said at previous meetings, the reason Miner and Maury were chosen for this potential idea was not out of a hat. Of all of the schools shared boundaries that had a large disparity between student populations, this was the only school pair that was not separated by either a river, a park, or a large traffic artery. (Ex Payne and Kimball ES or Ludlow and Walker Jones) for all of the parents on here complaining about commute and disruptions with drop off, the other school pairs would be much more difficult.

This is a disingenuous bases for the clustering to begin with. If we are going to discuss shared boundaries, especially in the context of SES and at-risk populations, we need to look at IB Miner and Maury attending and non-attending public school students. Miner's student population is 74% OB and skew the data heavily away from the actual IB community. So much so that the 52pp (12%-64%) difference, the red boundary adjacency map that is used to rationalize the cluster, is actually a 45pp (15%-60%) difference when looking at IB students, whether attending Miner/Maury or not. It is reasonable to conclude that had the color difference between Miner and Maury been green we wouldn't be exploring a cluster.

After listening to the Advisory Committee meeting last night, I am concerned that the Miner/Maury cluster is too 'baked in' to the data set of 'Scenario 3' for the system wide strategies. I hope there is an option to toggle on/off the Miner/Maury cluster in order to validate the at-risk set aside impact system wide. Then to view any additional impact of a Miner/Maury cluster separately.

Had no idea about this. The whole premise of their list was that they were looking at differences of 50% and up. That's crazy.

I am someone who thinks it's wrong to look just at school populations instead of boundary populations, but I ALSO think it's wrong to just look at boundary populations and not school populations.

There are kids who live in boundary for both schools whose families simply are not stakeholders because they either don't go to public school or were always going to choose a charter or non-neighborhood option. For instance, I know families IB for Maury who are at CHMs because they really wanted Montessori. Also a number of private school families. Including them in an analysis of demographics for Maury and Miner just doesn't make sense.

And on the other side, I do think OOB families are stakeholders, especially any family that has been attending Miner or Maury for multiple years. You can't just totally disregard them.

There are mathematical ways to address this problem by running models that could compare current school populations to "likely" populations for a cluster school, factoring likely attrition as well as likely additional IB enrollment. It would be imperfect but you could get some idea.

My preference would be to show people both -- what are the demographics of the cluster if you assume no change in enrollment patterns from now, and what are some possible demographic results based on models that include some shifts? You can make it clear these are guesses. But that would at least indicate that the DME recognizes that the populations are unlikely to have no reaction to a cluster transition, and that they are considering how those reactions might impact the goals of the cluster.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Miner’s ece is attached to the building, but in separate wing. There is a separate playground. The wing is closed to the older students, the pre-k students leave the wing for gym.
The pre-k students arrive and leave from their wing, separate from the older students.
Pre-k students take spanish and art, the teachers come to the classrooms. They eat breakfast and lunch in classroom.
The classrooms for the older students are located on the 2nd level, downstairs has gym/library/caf etc

Thanks, that's useful.

Obviously the daycare kids wouldn't use the gym, so it sounds like they could pretty easily wall that off and covert it to a daycare center. I don't totally understand why they decided to build the separate building for ECE instead of making THAT the daycare center and upgrading the existing ECE wing, but I'm guessing it had to do with space and also the fact that they'd need somewhere to put ECE kids while renovating. School renovations are always a challenge for that reason.

It really does sound like Miner lends itself pretty well to becoming an ECE+ school -- PK and K-1st or 2nd. So from that angle I understand the thinking of the cluster plan a bit more.

Looking at Maury, the facilities plan is much fuzzier.

What's sort of weird to me is that, with the field space and frankly better facility layout (i.e., separate gym and cafeteria, cafeteria with stage for performances, etc.), Miner seems to be the better location of the two for older kids.

I see it both ways. I get what you are saying about field space and some of the community spaces, but PK-2 grades use that stuff too. But the main reason Miner seems a much better fit for the lower school is the construction of the new ECE building plus the fact that they are adding this daycare center. It would be pretty easy to convert the school to a lower school with very minimal changes to the physical plant, whereas Maury would need significant renovation of existing classrooms in order to accommodate the need for additional ECE classrooms. And if you put the lower school at Maury, you either have to scrap the daycare our you wind up with Miner housing both a daycare and the 3-5 grades, which while not a giant problem, makes less sense. Especially since the families utilizing the daycare center are more likely to have kids in PK3-2nd at the same time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Miner’s ece is attached to the building, but in separate wing. There is a separate playground. The wing is closed to the older students, the pre-k students leave the wing for gym.
The pre-k students arrive and leave from their wing, separate from the older students.
Pre-k students take spanish and art, the teachers come to the classrooms. They eat breakfast and lunch in classroom.
The classrooms for the older students are located on the 2nd level, downstairs has gym/library/caf etc

Thanks, that's useful.

Obviously the daycare kids wouldn't use the gym, so it sounds like they could pretty easily wall that off and covert it to a daycare center. I don't totally understand why they decided to build the separate building for ECE instead of making THAT the daycare center and upgrading the existing ECE wing, but I'm guessing it had to do with space and also the fact that they'd need somewhere to put ECE kids while renovating. School renovations are always a challenge for that reason.

It really does sound like Miner lends itself pretty well to becoming an ECE+ school -- PK and K-1st or 2nd. So from that angle I understand the thinking of the cluster plan a bit more.

Looking at Maury, the facilities plan is much fuzzier.

What's sort of weird to me is that, with the field space and frankly better facility layout (i.e., separate gym and cafeteria, cafeteria with stage for performances, etc.), Miner seems to be the better location of the two for older kids.

I see it both ways. I get what you are saying about field space and some of the community spaces, but PK-2 grades use that stuff too. But the main reason Miner seems a much better fit for the lower school is the construction of the new ECE building plus the fact that they are adding this daycare center. It would be pretty easy to convert the school to a lower school with very minimal changes to the physical plant, whereas Maury would need significant renovation of existing classrooms in order to accommodate the need for additional ECE classrooms. And if you put the lower school at Maury, you either have to scrap the daycare our you wind up with Miner housing both a daycare and the 3-5 grades, which while not a giant problem, makes less sense. Especially since the families utilizing the daycare center are more likely to have kids in PK3-2nd at the same time.

Anyone know the capacity of the new ECE building? Was it designed to hold the 9 (I think?) Miner ECE classes + the 4 (or 5?) Maury ECE classes?

[Anonymous]

This proposal is both so insane to me and so on brand for DCPS. Take something that is working well, and try to ruin it in an effort to close the achievement gap. It’s Wilson’s “honors for all” at the elementary school level.

[Anonymous]

Isn't the boundary committee itself also totally stacked against Maury and Ward 6 more generally? I feel like there are so many people from other parts of DC who hate W6/Capitol Hill for some weird reason.

[Anonymous]

This thread has become a, well, cluster. As a Maury parent, I can say that I’m struggling with these few things:

(1) Speed of the roll-out and DME’s management of the process. It feels like this proposal came out of nowhere and that there’s no runway left for discussion. It hasn’t been, “here’s a possibility, here’s all the information, here’s plenty of time to discuss it,” rather, it feels like DME is saying, “here’s what we’ve decided, we are hosting a couple meetings, but realistically this needs to be finalized next month.” And they STILL have not even scheduled a meeting with Miner!

(2) No community discussion of the problem before throwing out one and only one solution. I truly believe that the Hill community writ large and Maury specifically is interested in the kinds of problems — socioeconomic and racial integration — that DME claims to want to solve. We live in NE DC and send kids to DCPS. But there’s been no effort of education and discussion of the extent and nature of what DME views as the problem. Just a sole proposed solution from DME that we are supposed to accept without complaint.

(3) No data. Will this actually improve everyone’s educational outcomes? Will it help some and hurt others? If so, who? By how much? Will it impact the Title I status of the combined school? Does data from the Peabody Watkins cluster suggest that we should be considering second-order effects of how this will impact enrollment at the combined school? How will IB percentages be affected? Has any such modeling been done?

(4) Dismissal of parents’ practical concerns. The practical hurdles of an additional drop-off and a longer distance to another school are very real, but DME and people in this thread seem to ignore them. “Oh, it’s just an extra half-mile, no big deal.” (How fast do you walk a mile with a 3-year old?) Personally, I metro to work, and have kids in ages that guarantee many years of two drop-offs and pick-ups at both schools, so this is a big deal. It’s either wall the extra mile twice a day and add the streetcar and Red Line to my commute, or hop in the car, do the drop offs, come back and park the car, then out the door to EM metro. That’s a lot of time and it’s frustrating to be told that this isn’t a valid concern.

(5) Hand-waving and magical thinking about how the process would play out. Which campus would serve which grades? Do the facilities need to be changed? How would teachers be impacted? Have they been consulted? How would the process of “combining” work? How long would it take? We were told by DME that they don’t care and it will all be worked out later—they need to make this decision first and THEN work out the details. That’s contrary to how all of us work and live and make decisions in our lives. You need to think through the plan first and then make the decision.

(6) Ignoring alternatives and ignoring this proposed solution for other similarly-situated schools. Cluster Brent and Tyler? Not even considering it. Cluster JO and LT, which are demonstrably closer to one another than Maury and Miner? Nope, couldn’t possibly have people cross a street. And won’t this just create the very problem they are now trying to solve at Watkins-Peabody, where they are looking to tinker with the boundaries of Brent and Payne so that the farthest corners of the boundary don’t have to go so far to their IB school? No answers.

I personally am sympathetic to DME’s stated goals. But I cannot blindly trust DME or DCPS, and DME has failed to provide the data and information we need to make an informed decision. So if confronted with providing input ASAP, which is what DME is demanding, I don’t see how they could expect most Maury parents to support this.

And the sad postscript is that DME’s mess of a process has only managed to create immense distrust and hurt feelings, not to mention pure distraction of resources and efforts in both school communities, who both already have more than enough problems that they’ve been trying to work on. It’s just a shame and it didn’t have to be this way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Isn't the boundary committee itself also totally stacked against Maury and Ward 6 more generally? I feel like there are so many people from other parts of DC who hate W6/Capitol Hill for some weird reason.

Just one, the Mayor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread has become a, well, cluster. As a Maury parent, I can say that I’m struggling with these few things:

(1) Speed of the roll-out and DME’s management of the process. It feels like this proposal came out of nowhere and that there’s no runway left for discussion. It hasn’t been, “here’s a possibility, here’s all the information, here’s plenty of time to discuss it,” rather, it feels like DME is saying, “here’s what we’ve decided, we are hosting a couple meetings, but realistically this needs to be finalized next month.” And they STILL have not even scheduled a meeting with Miner!

(2) No community discussion of the problem before throwing out one and only one solution. I truly believe that the Hill community writ large and Maury specifically is interested in the kinds of problems — socioeconomic and racial integration — that DME claims to want to solve. We live in NE DC and send kids to DCPS. But there’s been no effort of education and discussion of the extent and nature of what DME views as the problem. Just a sole proposed solution from DME that we are supposed to accept without complaint.

(3) No data. Will this actually improve everyone’s educational outcomes? Will it help some and hurt others? If so, who? By how much? Will it impact the Title I status of the combined school? Does data from the Peabody Watkins cluster suggest that we should be considering second-order effects of how this will impact enrollment at the combined school? How will IB percentages be affected? Has any such modeling been done?

(4) Dismissal of parents’ practical concerns. The practical hurdles of an additional drop-off and a longer distance to another school are very real, but DME and people in this thread seem to ignore them. “Oh, it’s just an extra half-mile, no big deal.” (How fast do you walk a mile with a 3-year old?) Personally, I metro to work, and have kids in ages that guarantee many years of two drop-offs and pick-ups at both schools, so this is a big deal. It’s either wall the extra mile twice a day and add the streetcar and Red Line to my commute, or hop in the car, do the drop offs, come back and park the car, then out the door to EM metro. That’s a lot of time and it’s frustrating to be told that this isn’t a valid concern.

(5) Hand-waving and magical thinking about how the process would play out. Which campus would serve which grades? Do the facilities need to be changed? How would teachers be impacted? Have they been consulted? How would the process of “combining” work? How long would it take? We were told by DME that they don’t care and it will all be worked out later—they need to make this decision first and THEN work out the details. That’s contrary to how all of us work and live and make decisions in our lives. You need to think through the plan first and then make the decision.

(6) Ignoring alternatives and ignoring this proposed solution for other similarly-situated schools. Cluster Brent and Tyler? Not even considering it. Cluster JO and LT, which are demonstrably closer to one another than Maury and Miner? Nope, couldn’t possibly have people cross a street. And won’t this just create the very problem they are now trying to solve at Watkins-Peabody, where they are looking to tinker with the boundaries of Brent and Payne so that the farthest corners of the boundary don’t have to go so far to their IB school? No answers.

I personally am sympathetic to DME’s stated goals. But I cannot blindly trust DME or DCPS, and DME has failed to provide the data and information we need to make an informed decision. So if confronted with providing input ASAP, which is what DME is demanding, I don’t see how they could expect most Maury parents to support this.

And the sad postscript is that DME’s mess of a process has only managed to create immense distrust and hurt feelings, not to mention pure distraction of resources and efforts in both school communities, who both already have more than enough problems that they’ve been trying to work on. It’s just a shame and it didn’t have to be this way.

For what it is worth. I know a Brent/Tyler cluster was considered at some point (pre-COVID). I think the language program was a big sticking point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread has become a, well, cluster. As a Maury parent, I can say that I’m struggling with these few things:

(1) Speed of the roll-out and DME’s management of the process. It feels like this proposal came out of nowhere and that there’s no runway left for discussion. It hasn’t been, “here’s a possibility, here’s all the information, here’s plenty of time to discuss it,” rather, it feels like DME is saying, “here’s what we’ve decided, we are hosting a couple meetings, but realistically this needs to be finalized next month.” And they STILL have not even scheduled a meeting with Miner!

(2) No community discussion of the problem before throwing out one and only one solution. I truly believe that the Hill community writ large and Maury specifically is interested in the kinds of problems — socioeconomic and racial integration — that DME claims to want to solve. We live in NE DC and send kids to DCPS. But there’s been no effort of education and discussion of the extent and nature of what DME views as the problem. Just a sole proposed solution from DME that we are supposed to accept without complaint.

(3) No data. Will this actually improve everyone’s educational outcomes? Will it help some and hurt others? If so, who? By how much? Will it impact the Title I status of the combined school? Does data from the Peabody Watkins cluster suggest that we should be considering second-order effects of how this will impact enrollment at the combined school? How will IB percentages be affected? Has any such modeling been done?

(4) Dismissal of parents’ practical concerns. The practical hurdles of an additional drop-off and a longer distance to another school are very real, but DME and people in this thread seem to ignore them. “Oh, it’s just an extra half-mile, no big deal.” (How fast do you walk a mile with a 3-year old?) Personally, I metro to work, and have kids in ages that guarantee many years of two drop-offs and pick-ups at both schools, so this is a big deal. It’s either wall the extra mile twice a day and add the streetcar and Red Line to my commute, or hop in the car, do the drop offs, come back and park the car, then out the door to EM metro. That’s a lot of time and it’s frustrating to be told that this isn’t a valid concern.

(5) Hand-waving and magical thinking about how the process would play out. Which campus would serve which grades? Do the facilities need to be changed? How would teachers be impacted? Have they been consulted? How would the process of “combining” work? How long would it take? We were told by DME that they don’t care and it will all be worked out later—they need to make this decision first and THEN work out the details. That’s contrary to how all of us work and live and make decisions in our lives. You need to think through the plan first and then make the decision.

(6) Ignoring alternatives and ignoring this proposed solution for other similarly-situated schools. Cluster Brent and Tyler? Not even considering it. Cluster JO and LT, which are demonstrably closer to one another than Maury and Miner? Nope, couldn’t possibly have people cross a street. And won’t this just create the very problem they are now trying to solve at Watkins-Peabody, where they are looking to tinker with the boundaries of Brent and Payne so that the farthest corners of the boundary don’t have to go so far to their IB school? No answers.

I personally am sympathetic to DME’s stated goals. But I cannot blindly trust DME or DCPS, and DME has failed to provide the data and information we need to make an informed decision. So if confronted with providing input ASAP, which is what DME is demanding, I don’t see how they could expect most Maury parents to support this.

And the sad postscript is that DME’s mess of a process has only managed to create immense distrust and hurt feelings, not to mention pure distraction of resources and efforts in both school communities, who both already have more than enough problems that they’ve been trying to work on. It’s just a shame and it didn’t have to be this way.

For what it is worth. I know a Brent/Tyler cluster was considered at some point (pre-COVID). I think the language program was a big sticking point.

It sounds like the advisory committee specifically looked at Brent/Tyler and LT/Walker-Jones and believed Miner/Maury to be a better fit. I don't think LT/JOW was considered because I don't think the demographic disparities were as stark, even though the schools are very close together (potentially the demographic disparities aren't as stark specifically because they are so close together?).

I do think it's frustrating that Ward 6 is being targeted for these plans because of the uneven quality of schools in this area, which is not the fault of Ward 6 but actually the result of a bunch of factors over the course of many years. A lot of the weirdness and unevenness on the Hill has to do with the fact that schools here were pretty universally terrible until families on the Hill got fed up and started advocating for alternatives. Ward 6 has a very weird collection of experiments, from the original cluster to SWS (originally an offshoot of the cluster school) to the all-city CHMS, and then the development of several charters, including Two Rivers, which was I think also started by Hill families. Then you have a handful of strong DCPS neighborhood schools developed through a combination of very hard work by neighborhood families and some favorable demographic factors (the truth is that you need a certain threshold of MC and UMC in-boundary families who are committed to public schools to make it work, and some neighborhoods lend themselves to that more than others, as the Maury/Miner disparities make clear).

At the same time, Ward 6 has long been where families across the river have sought lottery spots when their neighborhood schools were failing, because of the convenience factor of being able to drop kids at these schools on the way to jobs downtown, with a preference for schools located close to major arteries like H Street/Benning or Penn Ave.

And then you also have a frustrating MS and HS situation in Ward 6 as well, with several competing factors working against improvement of DCPS programs as well.

All of these issues can be traced back to one thing: crappy DCPS schools on the East side of town. We're looking at the result of a 20 years+ of efforts by families in Ward 6 to jerry-rig some kind of decent school system for their kids, and yes -- it's incredibly uneven and inequitable, and not all Ward 6 kids are served well by it. But this is not the fault of families on the Hill who have worked to create a handful of decent elementary programs, and it's weird to try and dismantle one such program in the name of equity, when the the whole problem from the start was underinvestment by DCPS and the Mayor in schools on this side of town. No, we don't have a whole school triangle of quality schools like the do in Ward 3, but it's not for lack of trying on our part.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Miner’s ece is attached to the building, but in separate wing. There is a separate playground. The wing is closed to the older students, the pre-k students leave the wing for gym.
The pre-k students arrive and leave from their wing, separate from the older students.
Pre-k students take spanish and art, the teachers come to the classrooms. They eat breakfast and lunch in classroom.
The classrooms for the older students are located on the 2nd level, downstairs has gym/library/caf etc

Thanks, that's useful.

Obviously the daycare kids wouldn't use the gym, so it sounds like they could pretty easily wall that off and covert it to a daycare center. I don't totally understand why they decided to build the separate building for ECE instead of making THAT the daycare center and upgrading the existing ECE wing, but I'm guessing it had to do with space and also the fact that they'd need somewhere to put ECE kids while renovating. School renovations are always a challenge for that reason.

It really does sound like Miner lends itself pretty well to becoming an ECE+ school -- PK and K-1st or 2nd. So from that angle I understand the thinking of the cluster plan a bit more.

Looking at Maury, the facilities plan is much fuzzier.

The reason the daycare has to be in the (current) ECE wing is because in the case of a fire, staff need to be able to roll cribs of babies out the door quickly. They can’t do that in a building with multiple levels/stairs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tyler parents won’t even know what’s going on until January!

Care to expand please?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look, I think the cluster idea is half-baked at best and also that at the proposed timeline for it is insane, but the way people are talking about an at-risk set aside as an alternative on this thread is, IMO, worse.

Like when you say "let's shrink the boundary" to make room for more OOB kids, consider that will have a real impact on actual families who will suddenly no longer be IB for Maury. If they are now zoned for Miner, but nothing is done to improve Miner, this plan instantly makes their education options significantly worse. If instead they shrink the zone on the western edge, presumably those families would go to LT. I'm sure a lot of families would be fine with that, but this then causes issues for LT, in terms of crowding and diversity.

Additionally, as people have pointed out, there's no guarantee that the OOB spots designated for at-risk kids would come from the Miner boundary, unless there was some kind of preference there, and I think that would be hard to accomplish because the proximity of Maury and Miner means that very few families would qualify for proximity preference, which means a new, special preference would have to be created for Miner-zoned families. That is not going to happen.

Finally, since this means that the OOB students could come from anywhere in the city (many would likely come from across the river because of the appeal of having a school that is generally on a commuting route into downtown), this proposal actually undermines one of the things many parents like most about Maury, which is that it is a true neighborhood school. If the school is going bring in more at-risk kids, I feel they should ideally come from the many at-risk kids who already live in the surrounding neighborhood. Both because it preserves the neighborhood feel of the school, a huge asset, and because I think the school would do a better job of meeting the needs of at risk children when their families are part of the same community -- I truly think this can help with issues like truancy and communication between the school and families that often become issues for at risk kids. You would also get more participation in community events from at risk families who live nearby, and the community events on weeknights and weekends is a major part of how Maury builds that neighborhood feel.

So if you asked me right now to choose between the cluster and what y'all are proposing with an at risk preference for OOB spots, my response would be "maybe we can do the cluster but with a longer lead time to implementation, more actual planning to address community concerns about issues like facilities, family and teacher retention, split commutes, and how best to serve the needs of a more diverse student body, especially in upper grades?"

I mean, if the goal is more diversity and to better serve the needs of at risk students, without compromising the quality of education of current Maury families, I think the cluster proposal actually makes more sense than this at-risk preference idea.

Why can't a Miner boundary set aside for Maury be created specific to at-risk kids? Surely that is easier to implement than a half baked cluster?

Also, Miner has a significant OOB population already. Is there any data to show the split between IB and OOB at-risk kids at Miner?

Because it would not be equitable, because the same set aside does not exist for at risk kids in other parts of the city to access successful nearby DCPS schools. There are at-risk set asides (I think mostly, if not entirely, at charters) but any at-risk student in the city can apply for them in the lottery. If they created a special set aside for at risk kids in the Miner boundary just for access to Maury, that's a special benefit that those kids get that no other similarly situation student in the city gets.

I can't speak to what percent of Miner's OOB students are at risk, but I do know the neighborhood well enough to know there are a significant number of at-risk kids living IB for Miner because I used to provide services to some of the low-income housing units in the neighborhood. But I also don't know what percent of these kids go to Miner -- those families also play the lottery and plenty send their kids to other schools.

Advisory Committee member here - All of this back and forth is reason to log on next week, this will all be discussed. We previewed the web tools last night at our meeting and there will be lots of ways to interact and give feedback . As was said at previous meetings, the reason Miner and Maury were chosen for this potential idea was not out of a hat. Of all of the schools shared boundaries that had a large disparity between student populations, this was the only school pair that was not separated by either a river, a park, or a large traffic artery. (Ex Payne and Kimball ES or Ludlow and Walker Jones) for all of the parents on here complaining about commute and disruptions with drop off, the other school pairs would be much more difficult.

+1, the argument that Maury is somehow being "targeted" and that there are lots of other school pairs with the same issue doesn't hold water. Maury and Miner are unusually close with a truly shared neighborhood (no natural division between the zones) and it is pretty rare for schools to be that close and have such disparate populations.

Maury is targeted because it is a good school that makes a bad school look worse. DCPS would much rather have two bad schools. They’ve shown this repeatedly for a decade.

Miner does not need Maury to look bad. It is clear Miner has significant issues at several levels, and I think most people would draw that conclusion regardless of their familiarity with Maury.

I also think it is unfair to compare schools like this. Miner serves a much more high needs population. Their job is harder. That is not to diminish what is great about Maury, but it is much easier to create a successful school when you have few at-risk students and a relatively high-SES family community which has the resources to devote to improving the school.

There are also other good schools in DCPS, and other struggling schools. It is very easy to understand when looking at the numbers that the reason Maury and Miner were selected to explore a cluster was because of their proximity, shared neighborhood, and the extreme disparity in populations. There is no other school pair in DCPS that meets this criteria. The only one that comes close is Ludlow Taylor and JO Wilson, and as a committee member explained, their boundary is more natural as it runs along a major arterial road (H Street) whereas the boundary between Maury and Miner has no obvious natural obstacles.

Object to the proposal on the merits. Getting bogged down in "we're being unfairly targeted" is a dead end.

I mean - refusing to consider an LT-JOW cluster “because of H st” is nonsensical! H st makes transit easier for dual dropoff, not harder, because of better access to buses.

Wut. No it does not. No one wants to walk a bunch of 3-10 year olds across H Street every day. I see what you are saying about parent commutes, but from a student safety perspective, the fact that JOW and LT are very close is undermined by the fact that H Street is super high traffic with tons of commuters, plus multiple bus lines, and the street car. Posting a crossing guard at H and 6th or H and 7th (and probably both) twice daily also sounds like a good way to create gridlock on H Street.

difficulty in crossing the street seems like something wayyy down the list to consider, especially given that access to transit on that street is a counterbalancing positive the fact that *crossing the street* eliminated all consideration of one school pair is totally arbitrary and irrational. but I this whole idea is absurd so 🤷‍♀️

“We will consider totally taking apart 2 schools with no discussion of the practical issues involved! Except if that meant crossing H St. That is obviously unreasonable and the interests of diversity can never overcome the difficulties of … checks notes … crossing at a stoplight.”

PP has the facts wrong here. They didn’t consider LT-JOW because they’re 42% apart demographically not 50%+ and they only considered the latter. They weirdly considered LT-Walker Jones, which would be completely insane logistically; their boundaries are only proximate for a tiny stretch (with JOW mostly in between), the schools are over a mile a part (across H & North Cap), some LT kids live 2 miles from WJ and the neighborhoods are completely different.

[Anonymous]

This a whole process stinks of why folks governing with no skin in the game is a bad idea.

City wide metric improves, high priority goal achieved. High fives all around, job done.

Miner and Maury improving? Not a high priority, wont ever matter for the advisory committee.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This a whole process stinks of why folks governing with no skin in the game is a bad idea.

City wide metric improves, high priority goal achieved. High fives all around, job done.

Miner and Maury improving? Not a high priority, wont ever matter for the advisory committee.

Precisely.

I find it really interesting that instead of looking at how to attract higher SES families to Miner, the only thing they can think of is forcing the schools together. Also that SWS is apparently exempt from the clustering conversation. SWS is a 12 minute walk from Miner down F St. If they turned Miner into SWS at Miner and allowed IB Miner students preference, that would actually almost instantaneously create SES balance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This a whole process stinks of why folks governing with no skin in the game is a bad idea.

City wide metric improves, high priority goal achieved. High fives all around, job done.

Miner and Maury improving? Not a high priority, wont ever matter for the advisory committee.

Precisely.

I find it really interesting that instead of looking at how to attract higher SES families to Miner, the only thing they can think of is forcing the schools together. Also that SWS is apparently exempt from the clustering conversation. SWS is a 12 minute walk from Miner down F St. If they turned Miner into SWS at Miner and allowed IB Miner students preference, that would actually almost instantaneously create SES balance.

Hey, leave SWS out of this mess!