Reply to HARDY: Anyone know how many feeder school kids attending next yr?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]While I would love to see a turn-around at Hardy, I am not optimistic that it will happen in the near term.

The kids at the feeders are much better prepared for MS than the OOB kids are.  Since Hardy offers no meaningful differentiation (sorry, SEM does not cut it), the kids from the feeders will be decelerated while the OOB kids are given a chance to catch up by HS.  Sadly, many of OOB kids still won't catch up by HS, but the feeder kids will certainly fall behind where they might otherwise have been and where their peers at Deal MS will end up.

A Hardy turn-around would require the school to admit no OOB kids into the 6th grade, except perhaps for a handful of siblings of current OOB kids.  Hardy is funded based on an enrollment of 400 kids.  DCPS will not cut the funding until enrollment drops below 370.  I don't know the enrollment numbers for the current 6th and 7th grades, but let's suppose it's suppose it's 250 (about 2/3 of 370) and all of those kids return next year.  Hardy would need 120 new kids next year to keep its funding.

If, say, 80 kids from feeder schools enroll in the 6th grade next year, a turn-around might be possible by admitting 40 OOB kids into the 7th and 8th grades or by giving up some funding.

That's highly unlikely, though.  A more realistic 6th grade enrollment from feeder schools next year is 20 to 30 kids, which is 90 to 100 kids short of what is needed to keep the school funded at present levels.  Hardy can't admit 90 to 100 kids to its 7th and 8th grades without damaging those grades and having an adverse impact on Wilson HS.  So, at least half and probably 2/3 of next year's 6th grade will consist of OOB kids.  Furthermore, those kids won't be admitted until this school year is almost over, or perhaps even during the summer.  My suspicion is that the delay will further reduce the caliber of the incoming OOB kids.

I fear that the Hardy turn-around plan is actually, and perhaps unintentionally, a multi-year bait-and-switch.  Each winter & spring, the principal will visit feeder schools and promise low OOB enrollment in the 6th grade the next year based on conversations with activist feeder parents and signed, but non-binding, intent to enroll letters.  Each fall, the actual OOB enrollment will be revealed to be much, much higher than promised.  By then, however, the enrolled feeder families will have no meaningful options and will probably tough it out at Hardy.

Ultimately, I think that the multi-year bait-and-switch will succeed.  The Hardy program is "good enough" for many people and confirmation bias will win over the others.  Each year, the early pioneers will return to their feeder schools to recruit new families, and the feeder enrollment in the Hardy 6th grade will grow over time.  Eventually, the feeder enrollment will hit a critical point -- the point at which it makes more sense to run an under-funded neighborhood school than a well-funded city-wide school.  At that point, the turn-around at Hardy will be truly remarkable.

The big question is how long that process will take.  My guess is 5 years.[/quote]

Five years is actually pretty quick.  In the meantime, if you've been paying attention to Hardy, you'll see that there will be separate classes in different subjects for higher-performing kids.  That's pretty good.[/quote]

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