Reply to New opposition petition to the Maury-Miner boundary proposal from DME

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Reply to "New opposition petition to the Maury-Miner boundary proposal from DME"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Is there anybody on DCUM who lives in bounds for Miner and has spoken up?

We're in bounds for Miner and so we support.[/quote]

Do your kids go to Miner? We are currently enrolled in prek at Miner, inbounds for Maury.

My observations are that those who are supporting this are inbounds to Miner and are either not enrolled there yet, have enrolled their kids elsewhere or are just in the beginning of their Miner journey (ECE). I have found it notable that none of the "booster" Miner parents I know who have kids in the older grades are supporting this proposal. [/quote]

They're probably hoping to lottery into the existing Maury.[/quote]

The Miner "booster" parents I know aren't on either list. They may also feel like their views are represented by the joint Miner-Maury PTO letter & that taking a "side" would undermine that (which it would). I don't see most of the Maury leadership on the con-list either.

There are quite a few parents who are IB for Miner and have lotteried their kids in elsewhere on the pro-list. [b]But lots of them are parents who stuck with Miner longer than most (parents with kids now in 2nd-5th grade, who left in/after COVID year). Those parents' kids are too old to benefit from a combined school anyway, so I think they are actually just voting out of experience with how broken Miner is in the hopes of helping future families.[/b][/quote]

Not at either school (or IB for either) but we have several friends who fall into the group described by the bolded (I corrected the typo of Maury to Miner because I know that's what you meant).

There is general frustration among Miner IB parents because I know many who enrolled in PK thinking that with involvement and dedication, they could do for Miner what other families have done for Maury or L-T. They met road blocks that didn't exist at those other schools, and wound up leaving by 2nd/3rd grade. We know multiple families who were at Miner for 4-5 years but ultimately left because they saw zero improvement at the school in that time. That's a significant effort. They are supporting the merger because they do not think there are better options available to Miner, and I'm inclined to defer to them because I think they would know.

I totally get why Maury families are opposed, I probably would be too. But I've had enough conversations with former Miner families that I can really see the argument in favor. Unless there is some other way to turn things around at Miner, it really seems like the school needs something drastic.[/quote]

This is wishful thinking.  There is no reason to believe that outcomes of a paired school will be better, or that people will stick around in the upper grades.  Look at Billingsville-Cotswold (the Charlotte school pairing that is the DME's current model) or Peabody-Watkins. 
 [/quote]

The issue is two-fold. First, the data shows that the combined school *is better* than the worse of the two paired schools, so it still makes sense for Miner families to support. Second, Miner isn't going to get some magical extra money investment from DCPS that no other bad/failed school gets. Miner isn't uniquely bad, it's just uniquely bad next to a very good school; it's the side-by-side pairing with a neighborhood that isn't distinct for those on the borders of the two schools that's unique. So unless Miner families leverage what *is* unique (their proximity to Maury), they aren't going to get anything better from DCPS. I think this plan is horrendously unfair to Maury families and bad precedent. It would also 100% support it if I were IB for Miner.[/quote]

Why is it on Maury to improve Miner? Miner also shares a boundary border with Ludlow Taylor. Have they looked at Ludlow's boundaries? Shouldn't there be more done to improve Miner than simply combine it with the higher performing nearby school? [/quote]

It's not "on Maury." They are part of the same school system. Maury is much closer to Miner than L-T is. That's it. Why would you combine Miner with L-T when Maury is so much closer? It makes no sense.[/quote]

The point is that they should consider something beyond just simply combing two nearby schools and assuming it'll work out. [/quote]

What specifically should they consider? You are the one who raised the shared boundary between Ludlow and Miner. How would shifting that boundary improve the situation at Miner?[/quote]

Well for one, I think they should consider more than one solution, which the community has repeatedly asked DME to analyze and they have yet to come back with. I think they could increase the at-risk set asides at Maury and either eliminate Prek or shrink the Maury boundary. I think they should simultaneously also find a way to create more buy-in from the IB Miner families. That could be through specialized programming like dual-language, or Montessori. And DCPS should find a way to send one of its strongest administrators to Miner who can actually provide the leadership that school and community deserves.

And Ludlow Taylor isn't that much further from Miner than Maury.[/quote]

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