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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Seems short sighted on the part of the Murch and Janney parents.  [b]All it would take is another 100 IB kids and Hearst would be then envy of the city[/b].  Small classes and brand new facilities.[/quote]

It's extremely short sighted.  Hearst's population is similar to Eaton and Stoddert--solidly middle/upper middle class across all races.  Score wise, Hearst should be on par with these schools, but in the last five years went through an expansion from an early childhood center to a PK-5 and simultaneously suffered through multiple principal changes.  The consistent rise in test scores is evidence that the dust is finally settling. If the DCCAS were continuing, the school was on track to hit Reward status next year. It's clear that Hearst is going to follow the same pattern as Eaton and Stoddert, whether it is majority IB or not.  It's a good little school.  Always has been.  It just had to work through some growing pains.

Bottom line: In two years, I doubt if even the Murch and Janney families will be anti-Hearst.[/quote]

In fact Hearst may surpass Eaton in popularity and performance because Hearst will remain part of the Deal cluster, while Eaton will go to Hardy.[/quote]

Perhaps, but sadly many folks on this forum and in NW equate IB percentage will success and that will never happen with a too small boundary.  But more to the point, why is that?  If the school is well performing, is a warm and welcoming community of involved parents, has a dynamic new principal and wonderful staff (including an amazing new music teacher, a native-speaking Spanish teacher, and the coolest ful-time librarian around), is soon opening a beautiful new building with full gym, stage, new turfed soccer field, etc., then why isn't the "envy of the city" already?[/quote]

Outside observer to the particular community here: I suppose that's because a low in bound percentage means your neighbors' kids are going to a different school because your neighbors don't think the school was good enough for their kids. Or in the case of Hearst, they can afford private school, got in, and chose it over Hearst. That is something to pay attention to, right? People gauge school quality in part by what the people around them who went before them chose. If your neighbors uniformly said, no way, and put their money where their mouths are, then choosing the school is harder. When a school has changed as much as Hearst has, perhaps you can't use your older neighbors' opinions and experiences anymore, and you have to do your own digging and take a leap of faith. Some people are not willing to do that with their kids; some are. If you chose Hearst from OOB, didn't you make the same sort of analysis about your IB school relative to your neighbors and your children? [/quote]

If there are not already the kids in the neighborhood to potentially go to the school, then that calculation is largely meaningless.  (And I would argue that the public/private choice probably is not as relevant.)  But even if it is not, I think for many schools there is a chicken and egg problem.  Why not go?  Because the IB percentage is low.  Why is the IB percentage low?  Because people don't go.[/quote]

There are kids in the neighborhood to potentially go to the school; they just aren't. The 104/140 number is ONLY counting kids already in PUBLIC school. It leaves out the school age kids who are in private school/homeschool. That was pointed out up thread; the person who originally posted this stat did not read the header on the spreadsheet correctly. The boundary participation number is measuring what percentage of students who choose public school choose their neighborhood public school, as opposed to charter or OOB public schools. No private school children are in these numbers anywhere (except perhaps in the columns measuring population growth by age in the clusters -- which is also a misleading figure because the so-called clusters are not even remotely aligned to the actual school boundaries past or present).[/quote]

Yup understand exactly what is in the spreadsheet.  But I just don't think that the numbers that will switch between private and public are all that large.  Certainly some, but not enough to make any really difference.  So then you just have 104.  And even if every single one of those children went to the school, the IB would be 33 percent.  That's a pretty low ceiling.[/quote]

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