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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]What about DCI?[/quote]

Brent parent here - DCI...

Hardly offers any spots for students who aren't in charter language immersion elementary schools and won't offer any at all within 2 or 3 years.
Is a heck of a commute from the Hill SE (around 45 minutes one way). Walter Reed isn't Metro accessible.
Doesn't offer much rigor - no tracking for ELA, social studies or science in a program with a high low SES population (more than half).  
Enrolls no native speakers for Chinese and few for French (not immersion).[/quote]

Yes it will be very difficult to get into DCI because of preference for immersion school students but not impossible yet. Put it down in your lottery list, you still have a chance but low.  In a few years, that will likely approach zero.

It is not that far of a commute.  We live just north of Capital Hill in H St NE.  Our child is in K at a language immersion so we have a ways to middle school but from the NOMA station to Takoma on the red line is 11 minutes.  5 minute bus ride from Takoma to the school, probably a 15 minute walk from metro to the school.  Kids who grow up in the city are very comfortable riding metro with friends in middle school.  BTW there is a good cohort of kids from the Capital Hill area at our school.

It has a much, much higher performing peer group than all the other DCPS middle schools in the city except for Deal and is higher (55%/48%) than even at SH (45%/22%).  In fact, it has a much lower at risk than SH if you do the comparison.

Spanish is the strongest immersion at all the elementary immersion schools and what our DS is in, for of course that is overwhelmingly by far the largest percentage of native speaking families in the city.  Your child doesn’t have to be fluent in the foreign language and can take the language as an elective.  For strong students who are fluent, there is the option of taking other core subjects in the language.

Lastly, it’s a continuous IB program from middle to high school.  IB programs tend to focus more on writing skills which is a weak point at many schools. There are a few diploma options offered but the IB diploma is the most difficult and rigorous.  
[/quote]

Everything looks rosy at DCI when your kid is just in K in a feeder. We bailed on DCI after burning out on the long commute from the the Hill SE, along with lack of rigor and good discipline.

The reason that DCI feeders and DCI itself attract few (or no) native speakers for any language but Spanish isn't just because there aren't a lot of French and Chinese native-speaking families in DC, it's because DCI isn't a very good school. IB Diploma isn't more rigorous than AP classes in HS if the Diploma program isn't done right, which is to say as a GT program. Without tracking for humanities at DCI, the school isn't on track to produce a cohort of students who can score high in IB Diploma subject exams. For the next decade or so, DCI seems destined to produce a bunch of students who scrape by earning the Diploma with minimal pass points. That's what happens in the IB Diploma programs at Eastern HS and Banneker HS.

If you're shut out of DCI from the Hill for lack of spots, don't sweat it. The school is a real schlep and nothing like the strongest IB Diploma programs in the burbs.[/quote]

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