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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Ok.  Read between the lines.  They are doing something with grouping that probably isn’t legal.  Or atvthrvberybkeast would be frowned upon by dcps. “Trust me” means stop asking questions and I will put your Brent student with other Brent students. But please stop calling attention to this or making anyone put it in writing.

Personally I would not feel comfortable with this arrangement.  But it seems like for the former Brent families who want to keep this arrangement they would be best off keeping their mouths shut.  It seems like there is a reason that admin is evasive about how all of this works.  [/quote]

So you are implying that it’s not approved or legit from DCPS standpoint.  If it is even happening which is highly doubtful to begin with, could be pulled and scraped at any notice if central office knew.

Who do you think is the principal’s higher priority - his job or a few demanding parents.  We know how the dice rolls and DCPS is taking away what little tracking with honors courses there is just by seeing what is happening at Wilson.  Their motto is poorly performing kids will do better in classes with highly performing kids. Full stop.[/quote]

I think it's fair to give Jefferson Academy admins credit for trying much harder to differentiate within grade cohorts than they need to. Pretty clearly, they don't have to create levelled homerooms to maintain enrollment numbers acceptable to DCPS. PP above is right in pointing out that they JA isn't in a position to track students via a transparent system, at least not for science and social studies. Apparently, they could track students transparently for English and/or math alone, since this has been done openly at Stuart Hobson for both subjects for more than a decade. Deal and Hardy have both tracked for math for years.

I had a good talk with the former Hobson principal about the barriers DCPS throws up to academic tracking in MS before he quit in 2020. The barriers sounded formidable. He explained that DCPS wouldn't let him track students in social studies or science because these subjects aren't tested on PARCC. This is a long-standing policy decision that comes from the Mayor's Office and the most senior echelons of DCPS. Parents seem as powerless to change it as they were when I moved to CH 20 years ago. Hill families either vote with their feet from DCPS or take advantage of what MS differentiation is offered. Those are your choices.

You could always try lobbying Charles Allen to press for change, but he hasn't shown any interest. If you ask him about MS tracking in DCPS programs--parents occasionally do this at his community meetings--he'll tell you that he leaves decisions on curriculum to the experts. Allen doesn't seem to understand, or care, about the germane policy/political problem, which helps charters like Basis, the Latins and DCI grow their programs with packs of Hill kids. 
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