Reply to SWS - as an IB School? L-T prospects?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
I'm not sure what your count reflects but I can tell you that in the three city blocks around us (and we would have proximity preference under the current measurements) there are far more than 20 children in the newborn to 7 year old age range. I know of 14 kids just on our block and at least two of the families are expecting additional siblings within the next six months.

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Yes, anyone who pretends that proximity is not going to suck up all the seats is absolutely fooling themselves. It's hard for me to understand why anyone would support this unless they were a direct beneficiary or an existing family who wants to fill the school with Hill residents and friends.[/quote]

I'm 16:06 and I posted at the same time as you.  I won't benefit personally from proximity preference, but my post is one answer to your question.  I support not making SWS a city-wide school because I don't think that it is good for the system as a whole to go in this direction. [/quote]

Interesting point. I agree in principle, but DCPS has already shown that they are trying to embrace alternative models to the neighborhood school (see today's announcement about the hybrid charter at Malcom X).

But I definitely don't support DCPS plunking down new "neighborhood" schools in a way that I feel will be destabilizing to the neighborhood, both in terms of rising property values and the gut-punch to the Ludlow Taylor IB families who are working so hard to make it a decent neighborhood option.[/quote]

If DCPS is going to embrace real alternative models for school organization, that's great.  But a school like what is being structured at the new location of SWS, which is a very nice but standard elementary school in every way except its unusual admissions pattern, is not what we should be advocating for as parents in this city. It doesn't do anything to push the whole system toward new and better school models.

By letting this debate become about one neighborhood and a desire not to disrupt one particular school's catchment area, especially when school catchment areas in this city are constantly changing and the challenges of today will be totally different for each school in five years, distracts from the more important broader view of how DCPS is going to respond to the reality of charter school competition.  Copying the charter school model without improving on it or using the legal differences between what DCPS is allowed to do and what the charters are allowed to do is short-sighted and fairly lazy as a response to the current school environment.  Don't get so caught in the weeds that you miss the forest on this one. [/quote]
Well, sorry, but I live in the weeds, so I need to advocate for what I think is best for my neighborhood. This debate i[i]s[/i] about one neighborhood, and the proposed proximity model would [i]also[/i] reflect a new and unusual admissions pattern: proximity preference for a school with no in-bounds population. Admissions criteria vary for citywide programs, from lotteries like Logan to selective admissions like SWW and Banneker, but I don't believe any of those programs have proximity preference.[/quote]

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