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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote]Pope lost IB families due to the move to NE, but he also transformed Hardy from a school with a traditional curriculum to an arts magnet program to which students were admitted by submitting a portfolio, scheduling and interview, etc. [b]Pope appears to be a big believer in arts enrichment as a was to attract and retain at-risk students.[/b] He is doing something similar at his new ES:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/savo...-ae43-cf491b837f7b_story.html

The real issue was this: it was unfair to IB families that Pope transformed their neighborhood school into what was essentially an arts magnet school.

[b]Rhee offered Pope a reasonable compromise[/b]: a different school building to serve as a DCPS-endorsed arts magnet school, allowing Hardy to revert back to a neighborhood MS with a traditional curriculum. Pope refused to compromise. Instead he rallied the support of his OOB parents. Of course, the OOB families were almost all AA, and the IB families were not, so accusations of racism were leveled:[/quote]

But here's the thing:  there are so many assumptions on all sides.  So many references to what [i]appeared [/i]or [i]seemed to be[/i], that anyone could claim their own version credible and/or correct.  Were the IB families upset about their school being a magnet school or about the racial make up of the population?  Seems to be both.  Were the OOB parents concerned that their kids would lose their hard-earned place at the school or that the issues with race were pretty transparent?  Seems to be both.  Did Pope want to maintain the success of his arts magnet school for which he had enormous support from committed families, or did he want to keep the school from reverting to a regular neighborhood school for families that needed to be courted, cajoled and convinced?  It appears to be both.

It's reasonable for [i]any [/i]family to be concerned that their child would be in the unwelcome minority at a school.  Which means that both IB and OOB families had cause for concern.

It's not reasonable for DCPS to choose the concern of one set of parents over another.  Promise of a "compromise" in the form of another building for the magnet program sounds about as realistic and "reasonable" as making the school majority IB in one school year.  How would that work?  The entire population and teachers and programs and resources just go to another building?  To be replaced by what at Hardy?

Again, I don't live IB or have a student at Hardy or know much beyond what I'm reading here, but the accounts from both sides really do make it look as if DCPS has been bending over backwards for IB.  At the very least, they were making decisions too quickly and/or promising too much with little to no foresight to what the changes would bring.

Doesn't instill a lot of confidence.[/quote]

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