Reply to Does anyone know the status of the Proposed BASIS Expansion

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Disagree.  You overestimate the popularity of the Basis middle school.  Most CH families with 4th graders who enter the 5th grade lottery list both Latins ahead of Basis.  The Basis waitlist also moves 60+ spots every summer; this means that there are 60+ families who listed Basis on their lottery bingo card and then after matching declined the space.  You also underestimate the extent to which some core CH families moved into their current home in part due to the IB elementary school.  They are not likely to give that up in early elementary to commute to Basis simply to lock in the middle school.  Lastly, people will disagree here, SH/EH have some buy-in now where not everyone is likely to know precisely how they feel about that option until they take a harder look at it in the late elementary years.  Shaw is its own different question mark with rights to Francis Stevens and Euclid.[/quote]

SH/EH do both have some buy in now. Enough that it angers me to no end that they didn’t combine them to do a Deal for Ward 6. It would have worked.[/quote]

Yes -- this is the way![/quote]

This never was a good option and never will be. DC will never make a separate magnet Middle School that will somehow magically only take higher achieving students, which I think is a good thing . And if the suggestion is to create one giant Middle School that has a higher number of kids at all levels, there is nowhere within the broader Capitol Hill area to house a school of that size, and as a parent with a child at a Capitol Hill Middle School, I would not want my child to go to a middle school with a thousand children anyway.[/quote]

The thousand children isn't the stumbling block.  We have a bunch of Hill pals and neighbors who've run off to Arlington and Fairfax middle schools with a thousand students, or close, that they like. I'm told that these schools offer a full menu of honors classes for 7th and 8th grades and math as advanced as the most advanced BASIS middle school math track.  They also offer great facilities, an indoor track at one, impressive auditoriums, big playing fields, nicely kept tennis courts, green houses and school vegetable gardens, multiple big practice music rooms, free instrumental music lessons to all who sign up for daily band or orchestra etc.

What we have are so-so or crappy public schools after elementary because most DC voters are fine with the arrangement. [/quote]

[b]Yes. It's because there's no single building on the Hill where it would fit.[/b]

And yes, I don't really care because I know I'd never get in OOB. Our IB middle is way worse than any of the three Hill middles so changing that would be my priority in voting.[/quote]

I suggested during the boundary revision process that they make EH an application, IB-focused school. No minimum grades or test scores but some simple requirements like attending an info session and writing a paragraph about why you're interested. Make it city-wide but with a preference for students who live IB for Eastern or attend an elementary school in the Eastern feeder pattern. If it gets too many applicants, admit via lottery.

Then make JA a 6th grade academy where everyone who's IB for Eastern or attends a school in the feeder pattern has rights to attend. Look at Grand Rapids' 6th grade academies for inspiration. Get the kids into smaller "teams" there, add in a lot of soft-skill training on stuff like executive function (BASIS does this well, actually) and conflict resolution, do some great field trips and other special events, and really bond the kids before sending them all off to SH for 7th and 8th grade. This would work with building capacities, strengthen the momentum for Eastern, make big enough cohorts to provide a range of classes (including tracking for math and ELA), and allow for sports teams and other extracurriculars similar to what kids get at Deal.

I wish they would have considered it. Maybe 10 years from now when they look at boundaries again. [/quote]

PP here--I used IB two different ways here. EH would be an International Baccalaurate-focused program, to go along with Eastern's IB program. In-bounds students would have a preference for admission.[/quote]

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