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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]What happened to Jefferson when it went from a junior high to middle school? This is a long time ago when Vera White was principal, but what happened to the math and science within a school program? [b]It was excellent and made Jefferson a really desirable program and alternative to Deal[/b].[/quote]

The now-removed Wilson feed was also a factor.[/quote]

No, I don't think Wilson was as much of an attraction back when Jefferson was considered a desireable middle school.  It had a gifted program that attracted kids from all over the city.  [/quote]

There was never a feed from Jefferson to Wilson. But Jefferson's boundary was also IB for Wilson. If you came from Anacostia to Jefferson, you didn't get to go to Wilson; you got to go to Eastern. But if you lived in SW, your IB middle school was Jefferson and your IB high school was Wilson. Even if you never attended Jefferson, you could go to Wilson.

As for the transition, there were really two transitions--Jefferson under Vera White to a different sort of Jefferson Middle School, and then JMS to Jefferson Academy. When Vera White was in charge, Jefferson was basically an application school--kids had to submit grades and essays and teacher recommendations. It attracted some really smart kids from around the district (one of whom now works for Charles Allen). She ran a tight ship and kicked out kids who didn't behave in a way that really isn't possible in DCPS at this point. After Vera White left, Deal and to a lesser extent Hardy became desirable for OOB kids. Then Deal filled up with IB, the Wilson boundary shrunk, there were fewer spots at Hardy, BASIS and Latin and Two Rivers and other charters showed up, and Capitol Hill (and lots of other neighborhoods) gentrified. Jefferson Academy is trying an IB model (which makes sense given the IB program at Eastern) but it's not accredited yet and many kids show up years behind. The school does a good job raising them up, and seems willing to try hard with the kids who are coming in on grade level, but there aren't enough of them to really see how things will be long-term. But if Van Ness can be successful and have another cohort of kids who have JA as their IB MS, if Amidon and Tyler can hold on to some of their on-grade-level kids through the testing grades (and ideally have more of them), and if some kids from Brent start to think about it, things could change over the next 5-10 years. Of course, there's a renovation planned for the middle of that, and the swing space could be a deterrent for some families. Although if they put it somewhere on Capitol Hill, it would really test the statement of many Brent and Tyler families that "oh, I would totally send my kiddo to JA but it's just so far away and there's no good way to get there" (note: JA is 3 blocks from the L'Enfant Plaza metro).[/quote]

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