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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OK, so why isn't Jefferson a lot more popular with UMC in-boundary families and families with children in the several feeder elementary schools?  Mainly a question of poor public relations?

At a Jefferson open house I attended this spring, admins were more than a little cagey about what sort of "honors classes" were offered and how students tested into these classes. I couldn't get a straight answer out of them, couldn't make sense of how the placement system worked.  By contrast, at Stuart Hobson, I was told exactly how students were evaluated for/admitted to honors English and math classes.  I was also told that there weren't any honors science or social studies classes, or any planned.  [/quote]

Brent parents considering Jefferson Academy have complained about this issue repeatedly on DCUM in the last several years. Brent parents who send their children to JA invariably respond with assurances that appropriate rigor is ensured across the board, never mind what the test-in-to-honors-classes-system might be (if there is indeed a system). Needless to say, UMC buy-in at JA from Brent, Tyler and Van Ness remains low and has a desperate feel (as in, we're all for JA, never mind the fact that we were shut out of BASIS and Latin, lack access to Hobson, and can't handle the commute to DCI).[/quote]

We're IB for Jefferson and toured/had a shadow day last Friday with our current 5th grader. The school is currently on track to have 100 out of their 120 6th grade slots go to IB kids coming from all of their feeders. [b]We were told about the advanced placement classes in their subjects and how students are evaluated for that track. We were also told that 6th grade teachers speak with all of the IB 5th grade teachers to get a feel for each IB student who will be attending. We got into a charger that went though HS but are choosing JA over it due to these personalized factors for our student. My kid had a great experience during the shadow and is excited to go next year.[/b][/quote]

I am the parent of a current student at Jefferson. And I can attest that, at least from my perspective, the school does a very good job of placing kids with similar aptitudes in the same core classes together. In addition, there is an advanced track for math (with certain sixth-graders placed in seventh-grade math and so on), as well as an advanced writing class that some kids take on top of their regular ELA class.

In light of all of this differentiation, the overall PARCC scores of the school are largely irrelevant to the experience of an individual kid. If your kid is a high performer, he or she is going to be in classes with the other high performers and not with those who need additional help. And the stats cited several posts back indicate that upper-income kids at Jefferson have outcomes that are on par with those of their peers at richer schools.

My advice is that you ignore the posts of those who have no experience with school but nonetheless feel qualified to opine on it ("Look at me -- I know how to look up PARCC scores!"). My guess is that these are folks who chose a different path -- which of course is totally fine -- but who can't seem to just move on and accept the fact there are people who chose Jefferson and are happy there.

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What counts as a "core" class? Science and social studies?  Or just math/english? [/quote]

There is no tracking for anything other than math or English.[/quote]

That is not correct, not from our experience anyway.

All kids at Jefferson are assigned to a cohort (“homeroom”) to take the same core classes (math, ELA, science, and social studies) together. So high performers at the school take all of these classes together. The exception is that some take math a grade level above their assigned grade (e.g., some sixth graders take seventh-grade math), in which case they are not with their regular cohort for math.

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