Reply to The time has come. Walls versus Jackson Reed

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Can anyone outline pros and cons of each? TIA![/quote]

I will take a shot:

Walls Pros
- Academically motivated kids and smaller overall school size
- Far fewer disruptive kids (close to none)
- Ability to do the Associates Degree with GW, though that is the only way to get DCPS credit at GW (i.e., if you want Dual Enrollment DCPS credit, you have to go elsewhere)...if you don't care about DCPS credit, then the convenience of GW is high
- Seems like very good college outcomes...though as you would expect fairly anecdotal
- If your kid just wants to play Varsity on a sports team (but doesn't really care if the team is good/great and no expectation of athletic recruiting), Walls allows that opportunity in many sports
- Offers Multivariable Calc at Walls vs. JR that stops at BC and then you have to do DE

Walls Cons
- Sports facilities are many times quite far away from the school...baseball practices at Banneker field, Soccer at RFK stadium fields, etc. and the teams are not top sports teams
- Walls has far fewer AP classes compared to JR...I think maybe 40% - 50% less...many of these are non-core APs, but probably big ones are AP CS Principles, AP CSA, AP Physics C (both sections...believe Walls only offers one of the sections).  Walls does offer AP World History which JR eliminated
- If you are very interested in STEM, JR offers a ton more if you want to take engineering classes at the HS, participate in a range of STEM activities, etc.
- This is true for JR too...understand it is still a DCPS school, not a charter school...Walls sometimes has missing teachers (I believe they were missing a Biology teacher last year) with little to no back-up since it is a smaller school

JR Pros
- Lots of STEM classes and activities...more than McKinley Tech which is supposed to be the STEM Magnet school in DC
- 29 AP classes...most of any DCPS school
- The top 20-30% of kids at JR are the equivalent of Walls kids...highly motivated, 10+ APs, getting top college acceptances, etc.
- Good to great Sports teams, but quite competitive in a number (i.e., there are cuts)...Crew team is National champion, basketball team is often nationally ranked, baseball team is strong, Ultimate Frisbee team actually nationally ranked, etc.  A number of D1 recruits across these different sports, including a number of Top 20 academic college recruits.  They also offer football which Walls does not (if you care).
- Sports facilities are on-site...they have their own baseball field, football / soccer field, etc.
- Lots of EC opportunities in general...Beacon newspaper is well regarded, Model UN, Debate, etc....dozens

JR Cons
- Grade level classes are essentially a joke...you have to take a ton of APs because you either take AP USHistory or grade level US History (as an example)...no Honors or other accelerated classes that sit in between grade level and AP
- Had teacher issues...didn't have an AP Physics I teacher for Fall of 2021 (when school was on a semester system)...believe AP Environmental Science has had teacher problems...seems like it is getting corrected and a result of Covid teacher attrition
- Sure, there are more behavior problems and fights compared to Walls...although my kids in the top 20% says they don't even really know it is happening and  doesn't seem to impact them

I am sure I missed things for both schools...but this gives you an idea I hope.
[/quote]

It's really unnecessary, but also quite expected that someone would bring other schools (other than the ones on this post) into the discussion. McKinley Tech IS the STEM Magnet in the city, but with 1362 less students, of course they would have less offerings.

Jackson Reed does offer the highest number of AP classes, why? Again, they have 2062 students. A smaller school can't just offer a class for 1 kid at a time.

Not to mention the fact that if you don't go to a Jackson-Reed feeder, you have 0 chance of getting into Jackson Reed. 0. The times of this ended years ago. So you, can be happy that your kid gets those two choices and let it be. [/quote]

Completely disagree.  If you consider yourself the STEM Magnet school then....I don't know...you should have the most STEM offerings of any school in DC.  Seems fairly obvious.  The size of the school should not matter much at all...and at 1362 students that supposedly are focuses on STEM...that is a lot of kids.

Go look at what Blair STEM Magnet offers with only 400 kids in that program...incredible offerings in terms of Post-AP college-level math, STEM activities, post-AP CS classes, etc.  Don't even bother looking at what TJ offers...that is next level amazing in terms of their STEM stuff.  Granted they have 1700 students.

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