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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Ward 3:  Janney, with Mann as a close second.[/quote]

I would disagree with this.

My opinion (in order):
ward 1: Bancroft, Tubman
ward 2: Ross, Hyde
ward 3: Mann, Stoddert, Murch, Eaton, Oyster, Janney, Key, Hearst (can't go wrong in this ward)
ward 4: [b]Lafayette, Shepherd[/b]
ward 5: slim pickings as this is charter central but I'd say Burroughs
ward 6: Brent, Maury
wards 7&8 are pretty tough as they are also areas where good charters attract a lot of the high achievers[/quote]

I'd potentially switch that order around.  Maybe not for most people, but there are a subset who want a smaller and/or more diverse school (Shepherd is pretty diverse in the lower grades).  Shepherd has somewhere between 325-350 students, vs. like 700 kids at Lafayette, right?  Of course, I know families at Lafayette who have no interest in Shepherd.  I guess it's sort of like the Deal vs. Hardy comparison.[/quote]

You say Shepherd is diverse in the lower grades. [b]What about the upper grades? OP's kid is in second grade.[/b][/quote]

PP here.  I don't know about second grade in particular, but overall the school is listed as being 78% AA.  The upper grades are less diverse, and the early grades (esp. PK3/4) are extremely diverse, so I'd guess 2nd grade is somewhere in the middle of that distribution.[/quote]

Get real for a moment. There is no comparison. 
They are both equally un-diverse, though Shepherd is LESS diverse than Lafayette:

Shepherd is 78% black
Lafayette is 70% white

However, Lafayette's 2016 average passing PARCC score was[b] 75%[/b] while Shepherd's is [b]47%[/b].

If you want a smaller school, Shepherd holds appeal. But let's not presume that the school is "best" by any stretch of the imagination.

[/quote]

PP here.  It really depends on what metric you're using to define "best."  If looking only at test scores, yes, Lafayette "wins" by all means.  However, as another poster said, 1/3 of Shepherd's population is FARMs, vs. 4% FARMs at Lafayette.  So it's not really an apples to apples comparison when considering test scores.

Also, there are a subset of families who look beyond test scores and prefer a smaller, more diverse school.  Again, not a majority by any stretch, but some families.  One of my neighbors interviewed principals at several different schools, including WOTP, and settled on buying in-boundary for Shepherd.  So it's sort of a niche school for people who want specific things that Shepherd offers, whether re: the curriculum or the demographics. Lots of black middle class families, multiracial families, families with adopted kids of a different race, etc.

Finally, while Shepherd is definitely a majority black school, there is a significant amount of international diversity.  My kid's class is majority black, but at least 1/3 of the class speaks another language at home.  Among them, francophone families, a few that speak African languages, and a couple that speak European languages.  Shepherd has sometimes advertised school events in Spanish, French, and Amharic.  So simply focusing on the 78% statistic belies the level of diversity actually present.
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