reviews on langdon

[Anonymous]

Anyone with kids at Langdon have any thoughts they would like to share? We live in Brookland and Langdon sounds like a great school and close by, but I am concerned that it lacks diversity. Any input would be greatly appreciated!

[Anonymous]

Why not Stokes?

[Anonymous]

Langdon and Stokes are totally different models. Langdon is DCPS. Stokes is charter and bilingual French/Spanish. Langdon is Montesorri (partly). I know a mom who has her kids there (Mont program) and really likes it. I would ask on the Brookland_kids yahoo group if I were you.

[Anonymous]

I pulled my child out this year along with a few other families I know. This was my child's first year at Langdon. The other families that pulled there children (I personally know 3 families but have heard of others) have children in PreS, K, K and 3rd.

Personally, I would NOT recommend this school.

[Anonymous]

Okay, we now need to know why. What happened?

Anonymous wrote:I pulled my child out this year along with a few other families I know. This was my child's first year at Langdon. The other families that pulled there children (I personally know 3 families but have heard of others) have children in PreS, K, K and 3rd.

Personally, I would NOT recommend this school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Okay, we now need to know why. What happened?

Anonymous wrote:I pulled my child out this year along with a few other families I know. This was my child's first year at Langdon. The other families that pulled there children (I personally know 3 families but have heard of others) have children in PreS, K, K and 3rd.

Personally, I would NOT recommend this school.

You know the answer. Don't make her admit it. There were too many poor black people. Isn't that basically the undercurrent of every conversation on this forum.

[Anonymous]

I went to an open house there about a month ago.

As we toured the school, I was very impressed (although the Montessori teaching and tools seemed to be more Montessori inspired than other Montessori programs). The teachers seemed great, the kids looked engaged. Although the school itself seemed quite old and a little rundown, I was very excited.

And then the principal came in to speak with us. She seemed like a very strong-willed person, probably something needed at a strong performing school like Langdon. What alarmed me were 2 things: 1) She said that the 3 year olds did not take naps because she "doesn't want to pay two teachers $100,000 to sit around while the children slept" and 2) She handed out paper applications for the school and basically said that the parents there did not need to go though the DCPS application process.

I know for one that my 3 year old needs a nap. I can understand not forcing children to nap, and making it a quiet time rather than an enforced nap, but I cannot see how my daughter could go to a day long program and then to after-care without a nap at some point.

And I found it disturbing that she was willing to circumvent the entire lottery system. It was very troubling to me.

That said, as much as I was impressed with the school, after speaking with the principal, I decided that Langdon would not be one of my top schools to apply for.

[Anonymous]

PLEASE DO NOT SPEAK FOR ME.

Here are some of the reasons why the school was not for me.

Let me first say that my child's teacher was awesome-maybe because she hasn't been teaching at that school for a long time. My child learned a lot from her teacher-I would recommend as a teacher in a heart beat.

The school is dirty and not well kept...being old is not a big deal to me...but large roaches in the cafeteria and bathrooms and dead mice in the classroom are a problem.

The schools store sells junk to the children-hot dogs, hot chips(whatever they are) Chico sticks, now-n-laters, soda, huggies, ice cream etc. I never saw anything that was healthy, not even water. Several staff members made it a point to tell the children to tell their mom/dad to give them a dollar so that they can get some candy from the school store.

Several staff members are unprofessional-discussing children’s grades and laughing, yelling at the children.

Before and aftercare was awful-it is ran by the principal’s daughter. It's held in the cafeteria. They provided potato chips, candy, popsicles and huggies/Kool-Aid for snacks. I often saw the security guard helping the older kids with their homework.
One toilet in the children’s cafeteria bathroom was inoperable for 2 months. Ok, that is not a big deal since there were 2 other working toilets...BUT it becomes a problem when no thought to clean the blue plastic covering the toilet (their way of telling the kids not to use the toilet) after someone decided to defecated on it-the toilet was like that for 1 month.
There was no language class for the children (I have heard that they are getting a teacher next year for the 7 and 8th graders.)
The principal lied in one of the chat-n-chew.
The school is ran like an "old girls club"
I can go on and on.
This was just not the school for my child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went to an open house there about a month ago.

As we toured the school, I was very impressed (although the Montessori teaching and tools seemed to be more Montessori inspired than other Montessori programs). The teachers seemed great, the kids looked engaged. Although the school itself seemed quite old and a little rundown, I was very excited.

And then the principal came in to speak with us. She seemed like a very strong-willed person, probably something needed at a strong performing school like Langdon. What alarmed me were 2 things: 1) She said that the 3 year olds did not take naps because she "doesn't want to pay two teachers $100,000 to sit around while the children slept" and 2) She handed out paper applications for the school and basically said that the parents there did not need to go though the DCPS application process.

I know for one that my 3 year old needs a nap. I can understand not forcing children to nap, and making it a quiet time rather than an enforced nap, but I cannot see how my daughter could go to a day long program and then to after-care without a nap at some point.

And I found it disturbing that she was willing to circumvent the entire lottery system. It was very troubling to me.

That said, as much as I was impressed with the school, after speaking with the principal, I decided that Langdon would not be one of my top schools to apply for.

WOW! this is craaaazy. i wonder if the central dcps knows about what she is doing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PLEASE DO NOT SPEAK FOR ME.

Here are some of the reasons why the school was not for me.

Let me first say that my child's teacher was awesome-maybe because she hasn't been teaching at that school for a long time. My child learned a lot from her teacher-I would recommend as a teacher in a heart beat.

The school is dirty and not well kept...being old is not a big deal to me...but large roaches in the cafeteria and bathrooms and dead mice in the classroom are a problem.

The schools store sells junk to the children-hot dogs, hot chips(whatever they are) Chico sticks, now-n-laters, soda, huggies, ice cream etc. I never saw anything that was healthy, not even water. Several staff members made it a point to tell the children to tell their mom/dad to give them a dollar so that they can get some candy from the school store.

Several staff members are unprofessional-discussing children’s grades and laughing, yelling at the children.

Before and aftercare was awful-it is ran by the principal’s daughter. It's held in the cafeteria. They provided potato chips, candy, popsicles and huggies/Kool-Aid for snacks. I often saw the security guard helping the older kids with their homework.
One toilet in the children’s cafeteria bathroom was inoperable for 2 months. Ok, that is not a big deal since there were 2 other working toilets...BUT it becomes a problem when no thought to clean the blue plastic covering the toilet (their way of telling the kids not to use the toilet) after someone decided to defecated on it-the toilet was like that for 1 month.
There was no language class for the children (I have heard that they are getting a teacher next year for the 7 and 8th graders.)
The principal lied in one of the chat-n-chew.
The school is ran like an "old girls club"
I can go on and on.
This was just not the school for my child.

I forgot the include that I am pp 12:07 ..the one who left Langdon this year.

[Anonymous]

No child should have to go to a school like that. Just horrible. Are there any other schools in such poor condition? I feel so bad for the students who stayed.

Anonymous wrote:PLEASE DO NOT SPEAK FOR ME.

Here are some of the reasons why the school was not for me.

Let me first say that my child's teacher was awesome-maybe because she hasn't been teaching at that school for a long time. My child learned a lot from her teacher-I would recommend as a teacher in a heart beat.

The school is dirty and not well kept...being old is not a big deal to me...but large roaches in the cafeteria and bathrooms and dead mice in the classroom are a problem.

The schools store sells junk to the children-hot dogs, hot chips(whatever they are) Chico sticks, now-n-laters, soda, huggies, ice cream etc. I never saw anything that was healthy, not even water. Several staff members made it a point to tell the children to tell their mom/dad to give them a dollar so that they can get some candy from the school store.

Several staff members are unprofessional-discussing children’s grades and laughing, yelling at the children.

Before and aftercare was awful-it is ran by the principal’s daughter. It's held in the cafeteria. They provided potato chips, candy, popsicles and huggies/Kool-Aid for snacks. I often saw the security guard helping the older kids with their homework.
One toilet in the children’s cafeteria bathroom was inoperable for 2 months. Ok, that is not a big deal since there were 2 other working toilets...BUT it becomes a problem when no thought to clean the blue plastic covering the toilet (their way of telling the kids not to use the toilet) after someone decided to defecated on it-the toilet was like that for 1 month.
There was no language class for the children (I have heard that they are getting a teacher next year for the 7 and 8th graders.)
The principal lied in one of the chat-n-chew.
The school is ran like an "old girls club"
I can go on and on.
This was just not the school for my child.

[Anonymous]

Wow. That is crazy bad. I hope you complained, in writing downtown. And, I'm glad you got your kid out. Either we need to fix places like this, or we need to make sure there is an OOB slot or charter slot (and transportation) for every kid in a school like this.

[Anonymous]

I am the PP who went to the Open House and I did tell someone from the DCPS Administrative Office about what went on and they seemed to form some kind of response to the principal immediately. I have no idea what will come of it, but they are aware of both situations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You know the answer. Don't make her admit it. There were too many poor black people. Isn't that basically the undercurrent of every conversation on this forum.

Not exactly. Langdon is 98% black and 60%+ low-income. So chances are PP who left school is one or both.

Anyway, I am AA parent who met Langdon principal Campbell, and some rude staff, and was also dissuaded from applying to their Montessori. Which is too bad. It would be great to have more Montessori options in DCPS imho. Campbell apparently has a long history of dominating the school from merger with parent-built montessori program in late 90s. The school has had "good enough" scores to avoid full Rhee glare. Principal seems to have some political clout to last as long as she has. Maybe she'll retire in April when principals usually give notice.

Any Langdon families care to comment on potential of Langdon post-Campbell?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went to an open house there about a month ago.

As we toured the school, I was very impressed (although the Montessori teaching and tools seemed to be more Montessori inspired than other Montessori programs). The teachers seemed great, the kids looked engaged. Although the school itself seemed quite old and a little rundown, I was very excited.

And then the principal came in to speak with us. She seemed like a very strong-willed person, probably something needed at a strong performing school like Langdon. What alarmed me were 2 things: 1) She said that the 3 year olds did not take naps because she "doesn't want to pay two teachers $100,000 to sit around while the children slept" and 2) She handed out paper applications for the school and basically said that the parents there did not need to go though the DCPS application process.

I know for one that my 3 year old needs a nap. I can understand not forcing children to nap, and making it a quiet time rather than an enforced nap, but I cannot see how my daughter could go to a day long program and then to after-care without a nap at some point.

And I found it disturbing that she was willing to circumvent the entire lottery system. It was very troubling to me.

That said, as much as I was impressed with the school, after speaking with the principal, I decided that Langdon would not be one of my top schools to apply for.

Children selected to participate in the Montessori school do not go through the DCPS lottery system. It is the same at Watkins ES and Ludlow-Taylor ES. I do believe they have to take inbound students first however.