Anonymous wrote:What's different about the MacFarland that will open in 2017 as a neighborhood option and the MacFarland that closed in 2013 (?) due to underenrollment? Seems like there are even more charter schools now drawing students away from MacFarland.

Finally, some families simply cheat by listing a relative’s address or even renting a basement apartment in boundary for Deal and Wilson, says Jeff Steele, who founded and runs DC Urban Moms and Dads, the leading online discussion forum for local school issues. “Drawing school boundaries isn’t just like drawing voting boundaries,” says Steele, whose lives not far from Roosevelt but whose children attend Deal and a charter school. “If they told me to vote somewhere else, I would. If they told us, ‘Go to Roosevelt,’ we just wouldn’t go.”

The abundance of options for D.C. families highlights “the benefit and the cost of choice,” says Cathy Reilly, a Ward 4 resident and executive director of the Senior High Alliance of Parents, Principals, and Educators, an education advocacy coalition that’s met monthly since 1998. “We’ve adopted a philosophy of, ‘If you don’t like it, leave.’ When I was growing up, it was, ‘If you don’t like it, how can you make it better?’”

She adds, “I have the right to go to Deal and Wilson, and I live less than a mile from Roosevelt.” This system has likely been a boon for neighborhoods like 16th Street Heights, attracting families who wanted to send their kids to those west-of-the-park schools, but a curse for Roosevelt, depriving it of needed students. The area whose residents are entitled to attend Wilson now consumes nearly half the city, and Wilson’s enrollment tops 1,700 students. Roosevelt’s enrollment is barely a quarter of that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's different about the MacFarland that will open in 2017 as a neighborhood option and the MacFarland that closed in 2013 (?) due to underenrollment? Seems like there are even more charter schools now drawing students away from MacFarland.

It's going to have a dual language track -- that didn't exist before.

They are starting the school with that -- 62 6th graders admitted for that next fall, before the rest of the school opens.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's different about the MacFarland that will open in 2017 as a neighborhood option and the MacFarland that closed in 2013 (?) due to underenrollment? Seems like there are even more charter schools now drawing students away from MacFarland.

It's going to have a dual language track -- that didn't exist before.

They are starting the school with that -- 62 6th graders admitted for that next fall, before the rest of the school opens.

So if MacFarland can attract roughly 65 students in 6th, 7th, and 8th to a dual language program, that's a little less than 200 dual language students. How many additional students do people expect to come from the neighborhood feeders? The school's capacity is 610, IIRC. Surely 400 more won't come from the neighborhood feeders, will they?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's different about the MacFarland that will open in 2017 as a neighborhood option and the MacFarland that closed in 2013 (?) due to underenrollment? Seems like there are even more charter schools now drawing students away from MacFarland.

It's going to have a dual language track -- that didn't exist before.

They are starting the school with that -- 62 6th graders admitted for that next fall, before the rest of the school opens.

So if MacFarland can attract roughly 65 students in 6th, 7th, and 8th to a dual language program, that's a little less than 200 dual language students. How many additional students do people expect to come from the neighborhood feeders? The school's capacity is 610, IIRC. Surely 400 more won't come from the neighborhood feeders, will they?

Anonymous wrote:Article on the closing of Roosevelt, with discussion of MacFarland and the surrounding neighborhood -- http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/45392/rough-ride-roosevelt-high-school/

Only 7% of the public school children from MacFarland's boundary were actually attending MacFarland.

Finally, some families simply cheat by listing a relative’s address or even renting a basement apartment in boundary for Deal and Wilson, says Jeff Steele, who founded and runs DC Urban Moms and Dads, the leading online discussion forum for local school issues. “Drawing school boundaries isn’t just like drawing voting boundaries,” says Steele, whose lives not far from Roosevelt but whose children attend Deal and a charter school. “If they told me to vote somewhere else, I would. If they told us, ‘Go to Roosevelt,’ we just wouldn’t go.”

The abundance of options for D.C. families highlights “the benefit and the cost of choice,” says Cathy Reilly, a Ward 4 resident and executive director of the Senior High Alliance of Parents, Principals, and Educators, an education advocacy coalition that’s met monthly since 1998. “We’ve adopted a philosophy of, ‘If you don’t like it, leave.’ When I was growing up, it was, ‘If you don’t like it, how can you make it better?’”

She adds, “I have the right to go to Deal and Wilson, and I live less than a mile from Roosevelt.” This system has likely been a boon for neighborhoods like 16th Street Heights, attracting families who wanted to send their kids to those west-of-the-park schools, but a curse for Roosevelt, depriving it of needed students. The area whose residents are entitled to attend Wilson now consumes nearly half the city, and Wilson’s enrollment tops 1,700 students. Roosevelt’s enrollment is barely a quarter of that.

In the words of one person from the article, how can we shift from an attitude of "If you don’t like it, leave," back to an attitude of "If you don’t like it, how can you make it better?"? Or have most people just decided it's DCPS's responsibility to make things better, and we'll just abandon DCPS until after the schools somehow transform without us?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's different about the MacFarland that will open in 2017 as a neighborhood option and the MacFarland that closed in 2013 (?) due to underenrollment? Seems like there are even more charter schools now drawing students away from MacFarland.

It's going to have a dual language track -- that didn't exist before.

They are starting the school with that -- 62 6th graders admitted for that next fall, before the rest of the school opens.

So if MacFarland can attract roughly 65 students in 6th, 7th, and 8th to a dual language program, that's a little less than 200 dual language students. How many additional students do people expect to come from the neighborhood feeders? The school's capacity is 610, IIRC. Surely 400 more won't come from the neighborhood feeders, will they?

Anonymous wrote:Article on the closing of Roosevelt, with discussion of MacFarland and the surrounding neighborhood -- http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/45392/rough-ride-roosevelt-high-school/

Only 7% of the public school children from MacFarland's boundary were actually attending MacFarland.

Finally, some families simply cheat by listing a relative’s address or even renting a basement apartment in boundary for Deal and Wilson, says Jeff Steele, who founded and runs DC Urban Moms and Dads, the leading online discussion forum for local school issues. “Drawing school boundaries isn’t just like drawing voting boundaries,” says Steele, whose lives not far from Roosevelt but whose children attend Deal and a charter school. “If they told me to vote somewhere else, I would. If they told us, ‘Go to Roosevelt,’ we just wouldn’t go.”

In the words of one person from the article, how can we shift from an attitude of "If you don’t like it, leave," back to an attitude of "If you don’t like it, how can you make it better?"? Or have most people just decided it's DCPS's responsibility to make things better, and we'll just abandon DCPS until after the schools somehow transform without us?

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Article on the closing of Roosevelt, with discussion of MacFarland and the surrounding neighborhood -- http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/45392/rough-ride-roosevelt-high-school/

Only 7% of the public school children from MacFarland's boundary were actually attending MacFarland.

Finally, some families simply cheat by listing a relative’s address or even renting a basement apartment in boundary for Deal and Wilson, says Jeff Steele, who founded and runs DC Urban Moms and Dads, the leading online discussion forum for local school issues. “Drawing school boundaries isn’t just like drawing voting boundaries,” says Steele, whose lives not far from Roosevelt but whose children attend Deal and a charter school. “If they told me to vote somewhere else, I would. If they told us, ‘Go to Roosevelt,’ we just wouldn’t go.”

In the words of one person from the article, how can we shift from an attitude of "If you don’t like it, leave," back to an attitude of "If you don’t like it, how can you make it better?"? Or have most people just decided it's DCPS's responsibility to make things better, and we'll just abandon DCPS until after the schools somehow transform without us?

That article was published over two years ago. In case anyone is wondering, we were reassigned to Roosevelt and don't have plans for our kids to attend (one is already at Wilson and the other in the Wilson feeder path). I don't think anyone in the neighborhood will be attending for the foreseeable future. MacFarland may fare somewhat better, but that remains to be seen.

Anonymous wrote:

agreed but that high SES PS enrollment is still not evident past 1st grade at these schools. It will take 10-15 years to have a solid high SES cohort of kids from these feeders who would attend McFarland. Minimum 10-15 years. Look at Cap hill and their middle school delimma. They have multiple options and the parents with options get the eff out by 4th grade to find a charter.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What are the schools that would be cut out of MacFarland under this plan?

Why would you feed Shepherd there and not Whittier, Brightwood or Takoma - all of which are closer.

They could all feed there. It would be the Alice Deal for that entire area. They key is that I'm crediting Shepherd Bancroft and Powell with being strong feeder schools based on their reputations. They are the ones that will ensure MacFarland has a good base to start, and isn't treated as a school of last resort. Those neighborhoods have strong spirit and bragging rights to activism and diversity, so I think they have the strength to pull it off. The question is whether they have the courage to do it.

Ain't gonna happen. No matter how much you want the Brown folk out of Deal. Sorry. Leave to deal with colored folks. You do live in DC you know.

Quit trying to make everything about race. Try focusing on building a school.

The 50 kids that go to Deal each year from Shepherd (45 of which are OOB) are not going to build a middle school.

Anonymous wrote:I am confused. What are we branding for those of us who are not in dual language programs? I have yet to hear what programming exists for us. So, what is the community inclusiveness? I think this needs to be figured out first before any branding can happen. Let's not put the cart before the horse.