Reply to 26-27 Lottery data up

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

The Brent families did not help the cause. I'm white and even I bristled at the stuff coming out of Brent families' mouths. They were preternaturally focused on what was "really the Hill". A concept no one but 75 year old, double knit wearing real estate agents cared about. Somewhere along the way someone told Brent families it was a winning argument to try and isolate "those people" north of H Street. Go look at the threads. Brent families argued proximity to SH but didn't want to hear that JOW was actually closer. Their argument was that JOW wasn't actually part of the neighborhood so even though it was closer to SH than Brent, it wasn't culturally close. It was icky.
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That's VERY different from "make one giant middle school with all the Eastern feeders"

I think you could make the case for consolidating into two middle schools, but [b]it's really hard to do in a geographically logical way with the gerrymandered Peabody/Watkins boundary.[/b][/quote]

I know breaking up the Cluster is probably a total non-starter, but reviewing the Hill elementary boundaries and not having Peabody/Watkins zig zag from from Congressional Cemetery to Union Station would be a good start. There's one spot where the boundary is a mere 2 blocks wide! Although Watkins, Payne, and Chisholm all being so close together is a whole different set of challenges when it comes to drawing boundaries.[/quote]

My dream is that Jefferson become a 6th grade academy for all Eastern feeders. A ton of electives, field trips, extracurriculars, social-emotional learning...but also tracked classes and a focus on developing study skills and executive function. Make it a really special, exciting year that bonds the kids and gets them excited about the next 6 years of their education. Grand Rapids has 6th grade academies that are a good model of this.

Then have SH and EH each teach 7th and 8th grade, with kids coming out of Jefferson given the option to express a preference but only guaranteed that they will get one or the other. SH could be an arts integration model, capitalizing on its existing theater program but doing a bunch of other art forms too (writing, visual arts, music, etc.) and tying in to the Eastern arts pathway. EH would be pre-EPIC with close ties to the EPIC and IB programs at Eastern.

People might complain a bit about getting their kids across to schools that are a bit more distant for a year or two, but I think it would help with the issue of retaining kids for grades 5-12 in the Eastern pyramid, and overall provide a better education. [/quote]

That's a nice idea *except* that Jefferson is really far away from people in the northern and easternmost parts of the Eastern feeder pattern. Like people zoned especially for Miner and Maury are reeeeeally far away and one of the main arguments for staying in DCPS for middle school is that most middles are walkable/bikable from homes IB.

If you were going to do a "6th grade academy" it would make more sense to make it SH, which is smack in the middle of the Eastern boundary, more or less, and then everyone would feed to Jefferson and E-H for 7th and 8th. But that won't work because SH is the one school of the three with the most traction with IB families so there won't be any interest in changing up what they are doing (and this would destroy some programming that is dearly valued, like their theater program).

The geographic logistics have always been the weak spot for any efforts to change up the MS feeder patterns on the hill. Like when people suggest feeding Maury, Brent, and L-T into the same school, this makes zero geographic sense and would result in bizarre feeder patterns that are so obviously gerrymandered to feed the most expensive real estate into one middle, while weirdly cutting off schools like Amidon Bowen, JOW, and Miner from whatever school they would ultimately be zoned for (kids would wind up crossing the "good school" boundary to reach their middle school). Like it's just insane and ignores common sense.

The truth is you just have to wait/hope the middle schools get IB buy in and this builds up to the high school. You have to do it the hard way. No one likes this. It is just how it is.[/quote]

You can wait/hope or you can have one year where the kids shlep to Jefferson (which isn't that bad from parts of the Maury/Miner area because you can take the metro from Stadium-Armory to L'Enfant; Jefferson is 4 blocks from the metro). I would say that DCPS chose the wait/hope method but I don't even think that's true; having IB buyin to Eastern is not their priority in the slightest, and to the extent that it could cut off OOB access to Eastern to kids who live in-bounds for Anacostia, Ballou, Dunbar, etc. they probably see it as a negative.[/quote]

No chance. The problem is that 6th grade is the worst year for this. I would not let my 6th grader commute alone to Jefferson from our house in the LT boundary. It is actually weirdly difficult to get to. A 40ish minute bus+metro or 2 metro ride when walking is only 50 minutes. Maybe by 8th I'd be comfortable with her doing it, but it's still a real schlep. The whole reason I am willing to give SH a try is because it's a 5 minute walk.[/quote]

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