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

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[quote=Anonymous][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]

But the DCPS philosophy was at the time and continues to be -- for now -- that kids are best served by neighborhood schools.  Neighborhood schools were the norm, magnet schools the exception.

A magnet school can be located anywhere in the city.  However, a neighborhood school has to be located, well, in the neighborhood.  Hardy could not serve as a neighborhood school if the vast majority (about 90%) of its kids were OOB.  That is what IB parents recognized then and OOB families refused to accept.

The very same issue hinders Hardy's transformation back into a  neighborhood school today.

Unfortunately, whenever low IB enrollment at Hardy is mentioned, the answer always seems to be that it is the responsibility of IB parents to organize and enroll their kids in sufficient numbers that the school becomes majority IB.  If they are unable to succeed at this Herculean task, then they have "abandoned Hardy" to OOB families and have lost their claim on the school.

I propose that the right approach to transforming Hardy back into a neighborhood school is simply not to accept any more OOB kids, except siblings of current OOB kids and OOB kids who are already enrolled in one of its feeder schools.  If enrollment in next year's 6th grade drops from 130 to 30, so be it.  IB enrollment at Mann is 87% and at Key and Soddert it is 84%  Once those families see IB enrollment at Hardy approach 85%, they will flock to Hardy and enrollment will swell.

Would enrollment at Hardy return to its current level of 400 without admitting OOB students?  It probably would given the total 3rd grade enrollment of 250 at its feeder schools.  If Hardy captured only 50% of its feeder school 3rd graders, enrollment at Hardy would quickly hit 375, not counting OOB siblings.  Even if enrollment peaked at only, say, 275 kids, who cares.  What's wrong with a 90% IB MS in Georgetown with only 275 kids.  Several DCPS MSs are of similar size, e.g., Elliot-Hine, Johnson, Kramer.  During Pope's reign, enrollment at Hardy was much lower than it is now.  Even the current enrollment of 400 is somewhat arbitrary as the building is said to have the capacity for 650.
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