Reply to Capitol Hill Middle School and High School situation

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We are IB for Van Ness (and have been attending for many years) and are excited for Jefferson. Greg Dohmann is inspiring and the renovation that was just completed is gorgeous. They have a strong robotics team that competes which my older son especially is very excited about. Unsure what our plan for HS is at the moment.[/quote]
[b]
Now that Van Ness is graduating classes, maybe it can be the bridge that eventually gets Brent kids to Jefferson.[/b] Van Ness at least has geography working in its favor (its somewhat closer to Jefferson than Brent & since VN isn't on the Hill, parents probably don't have the same psychic trouble thinking of Jefferson as a neighborhood school for them). Also Van Ness parents, by and large, don't have the same $$ as Brent parents and so don't have quite as many options. (I don't mean that in any negative way, just that Brent IB folks almost all have enough $$ that they don't *have* to make Jefferson work even if they strike out in the lottery; that is less true at Van Ness, where there is more economic diversity.)[/quote]

From the Brent end, parents have watched in-boundary participation decline at Jefferson decline in recent years. Back in 2018, around 15 in-boundary high SES, mostly white families headed to Jefferson. Last year and this year, just a handful. The crux of the problem problem isn't "psychic trouble." The issue is that Jefferson is a tough school catering to students who lack basic academic skills, albeit one in a nicely renovated facility with fine leadership.  It's a lot to ask for more than a small number of Brent families to brush aside their concerns about the multi-generational poverty in the big public housing projects in SW that are home to many Jefferson students.  If DCPS would only create permanent test-in honors classes in core subjects that would endure regardless, things might change faster than at a snail's pace.[/quote]

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