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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I don't disagree but it's hard to get into those charters (well, after Stokes got more popular, and now that Yu Ying is through its bumper crop of PreKers). This is why Brookland parents are so stressed out at lottery time!

When is the neighborhood going to come together--like we've seen happen on Cap Hill? Surely Payne is no better a school than Bunker Hill -- yet Hill parents seem to be rallying around it.[/quote]

Hi, my name is Faye and, together with a few other parents, I tried putting together exactly such an effort. Burroughs (the other inbounds brookland school) is another potentially good school. AYP is not there, but I'm not much for testing by itself. Unfortunately, Burroughs was all about reading and math, math and reading. No language teacher, art, gym, etc, other "specials" were a half an hour a week. A week! The principals at both Brookland Bunker Hill and Burroughs were engaged, dedicated and willing to reach out to parents. Unfortunately, the parents group was totally turned off by the direction and the lack of focus on humanities at Burroughs. Most of us cared less about test scores and more about the fact that there was no language teacher at the school, even though there is a middle school within the campus. There was a half time language instructor, but she was let go in order to redirect resources toward reading and math subjects, which is what we learned from current parents. Absolutely everything centered around reading and math with no humanities. It was hard to tell, having just started looking at schools, if this was something systemic across all DCPS or if this was really the direction that one school took. Without attractive charters to lure away parents, we may have had sufficient numbers enrolling at our in-bounds to make a difference, but ultimately parents were turned off by the school's focus and went elsewhere. (Which I don't blame them for!). Thus, we lacked critical mass to help shape the school and help the school grow stronger. We didn't want to make sweeping changes, but the lack of even basic humanities focus was a dealbreaker.

I know this thread is mainly about Brookland Bunker Hill but I wanted to take the time to address the comment above, directly, about parents in our area coming together. Oddly enough, that is closer to my house but not my in-bounds school. I'd be interested in reevaluating the school and learning more about it if some parents were interested in a renewed effort. If you'd like to email me, OP, or others, I'm at fayebird at gmail.

I will say: Bunker Hill is a beautiful school, that's one thing going for it! [/quote]

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