Reply to DC Begins School Boundary Study

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’m always amused by y’all trying to kick Shepherd out in the name of overcrowding. Shepherd is such a tiny school. [/quote]

Shepherd + 1/2 Lafayette would create a stronger cohort at Wells/Coolidge. I am always amused by the entitled Chevy Chase and Shepherd Park families who think it's too challenging to take Military/Piney Branch in the morning, and then want to restrict equity access at OOB at Deal/J-R. We see you. [/quote]

UMC Takoma Elem family here.  I support Shepard being zoned to Wells because I thing it makes sense geographically but I hate the narrative that we need students from other schools to come to Well’s to save us.  I have been paying close attention to Wells and am looking forward to send my kid there without any new boundaries needed.  I’m far more curious to see how many kids wind up in the new Walter reed developments and where they wind up.[/quote]

Cool story. Not sending my (non-white, minority religion) DD to Wells unless the number of IB students goes up. Have toured school, met principal (seems great), but MS is fairly universally the worst time in a kid's life, and unless we improve Coolidge (which has been bad for 20+ years and where a kid was stabbed last week) you will not get IB participation in large numbers for Wells. Ward 4 is the most diverse ward in the city - so increasing IB buy-in will keep the school diverse by most metrics - but getting a critical cohort of Lafayette/Shepherd families is going to save Coolidge which will ensure Well's future. [/quote]

What is large percentage to you.  It is 68% inbound  so far?  Also curious why you assume that oob students are necessarily worse than in bound?[/quote]

The boundary participation rate for Wells is 25%, Coolidge is 21%; Takoma is 35%. In contrast, Lafayette has a boundary participation of 92%; Deal is 74%; and J/R is 68%.  Ward-wide, Ward 4 has a high level of education for women - the education level of the mother is the single biggest predictor of academic success for any student. There are also benefits in terms of community building when there is buy-in into the school. [/quote]

I’m confused by these boundary participation rates.  Why not look at the % of the students at the school who also live in bounds.  From the school profiles on the DCPS website the percent of kids enrolled in schools who are in bounds for the school are:
78% Deal
64% Jackson-Reed
62% Wells
62% Hardy

92% Janney
88% Murch
88% Lafayette 
78% Mann
77% Hearst
74% Brightwood
72% Eaton 
70% Takoma
63% Shepard 
58% Whittier

So yes.  The West of the park schools do have somewhat higher percentages of the students at the school being from within their boundary but not outrageously so.  I bet if there were as many charter options as close to Lafayette and Deal as there are to Takoma and Wells the numbers would be even closer.  I’m sure a good number of Lafayette families would choose Language immersion or Montessori charter if given the option and Deal families might choose charters like Latin or DCI more frequently if they were closer.

So my question remains.  Why is a cohort of 60-70% of the students being from the in-bounds area not a large enough cohort of in-bound students to consider the school?  
[/quote]

DCI and Latin have plenty have families from Lafayette. Boundary participation is a more significant rate over time - but even by your culled stats. Coolidge is 44% inbound and almost 60% at-risk. When you can show that Wells actually feeds into Coolidge - the in-school participation arguably is more important - but then again, the in-school numbers are much higher in Wards 1-3;6. Wells is also not a diverse school - which is supposed to be an objective. Compare to Hardy, Deal, S-H. [/quote]

I don't disagree with you, but if DCI, Latin or Basis were located at say the former Whittle School in Van Ness...then those schools would see a massive amount of lottery applicants from Ward 3.  Likely a factor of 5x+ compared to what they see now.  Similarly, if a school like McKinley was located in that location, it would also see a massive increase in Ward 3 demand.  There is some talk about having DCPS somehow take over the Whittle space, though not sure if that will go anywhere.[/quote]

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