Reply to Ranking Ludlow-Taylor vs SWS

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I don't have a preference here, but was following the discussion and looked at school profiles and wow SWS has made great strides in diversifying their student population in the last 5 years ago! I remember when we were doing the lottery,the one thing about SWS that gave me pause was that it was like 80% white. That is really strange for a DCPS school that fills all seats via lottery, as it means that very few black families were choosing to lottery for SWS despite the good test scores. We still ranked it, but way lower than I would have otherwise because I saw this as a potential red flag that it wasn't a very welcoming community.

Well that's really different now. Less than 50% white and nearly 30% black. I assume there are some geographic reasons for it to still be more white than most charters and all city schools (it's not super accessible by public transit) but this is still a big improvement and indicates the school is working to be inclusive. Good for them.[/quote]

I think you're misremembering. Farthest back I can find is 2018-2019 at 68% white. By 2020-2021 that was down to 59%. And 47% last year.

I think driven by 1) more apartments built up around that area, so more accessible to people who don't live in expensive Capitol Hill row houses, 2) more people in the Capitol Hill row houses opting into their IB school.[/quote]

PP here and yes, I guess I misremembered the exact number. Still -- 68% white for an all-city school where admission is entirely based on the lottery is crazy high. Also I disagree that the increase in apartments in the neighborhood has led to greater socioeconomic variety -- it's the opposite. All the new apartments in Capitol Hill are higher end, and housing costs have only increased in the time period your are talking about. $4000/mo 2 bedroom apartments along H street are not helping to diversify SWS. Agree that more people on the Hill are choosing IB schools, but I would assume the school has also made a concerted effort to do outreach to non-white parents. I see they started doing equitable access a few years ago as well, resulting in 10 or so PK seats a year going to EA applicants. That likely helps a lot, especially at a school as small as SWS.

As a black family, seeing a lottery-based DCPS with more than 60% white students in a fairly diverse neighborhood was really jarring. We live in Ward 5 with a really weak IB school, but with an easy commute through the Hill so we were looking at lots of Hill and Hill-adjacent schools in the lottery. SWS was the only school where the percentage of white students was that high and it didn't make sense to me given the demographics of the city and the lottery. I'm glad to see it's more balanced now.[/quote]

The "luxury" apartments in my neighborhood have a bunch of families on Section 8 vouchers.

They offered 6 equitable access seats in SY23-24, 8 in SY24-25, and 10 in SY25-26. That's ~6% of the total school population, not enough to be the sole source of the demographic shifts you're seeing.[/quote]

Well I live near Capitol Hill and I don't think the luxury apartment buildings near SWS have a lot of people on Section 8 vouchers. The neighborhood has gentrified over the last 20 years and is more expensive to live in, not less. In addition to luxury building going up, you also see a lot of older row houses that used to be owned by middle class families getting bought by developers and turned into high end condos. I should also note that if apartment projects in Capitol Hill were bring in a large influx of lower income families, you'd be seeing more diversity at other schools as well. That's not the case. Schools like Payne, JOW, Chisolm, Van Ness, are all getting whiter over this time period. I think L-T is over 50% white this year for the first time ever (SWS is in L-T's boundary). The neighborhood is not getting more diverse -- it's getting whiter and wealthier with each passing year.

Agree it's not just EA families changing the numbers. But that's definitely helping. I would also assume that the school has just done a better job reaching out to middle class black families like mine, and perhaps making them feel more welcome within the community. A drop from 68% to under 50% indicates that a lot more black families are ranking SWS and choosing it over other lottery options. That indicates a shift in culture rather than a shift in demographics, especially for a school that is 100% lottery.[/quote]

PP. I also live near Capitol Hill. You're making some sweeping generalizations about a bunch of schools without actually looking at the actual demographic changes or factors driving those changes.

Everything I hear about SWS seems very geared toward to the ethos of a certain subset of UMC families who have a stay-at-home parent or a lot of job flexibility. It's possible they're doing things differently these days, but if so, news of that hasn't reached this forum.[/quote]

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