Reply to ACPS Jefferson Houston I.B. Program Middle School vs. GW open enrollment honors?

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[quote=Anonymous]I am a pp here who has posted some negative things about J-H (but no profanity).  Yes, I do not send my child to J-H, and I really do not believe it was because I was ignorant of what was going on a the school.  A couple of years before my child was due to go to Kindergarten, I signed up for the J-H listserve, and began tracking news about the school.  I did see a small group of parents who were dedicated to making the school better.  At one point, they had several principals come and go in fairly short order, but then Patricia Graves came and seemed to be willing to stay and work on improving the school.  The parent group started talking about trying to shift to the IB program, and I thought that maybe the school was worth a serious look.  However, over time, it became pretty clear that the ACPS administration was willing to do anything it took to improve the school as long as it didn't involve spending money or redrawing attendance lines (which is what it would really take to make things better there).  I saw the parents posting about how they had to hound the school system about making basic repairs to the building and playground (while other schools got brand-new playground equipment).

The final straw was when I went to a "town meeting" with the Superintendent at J-H.  I decided to just go and watch and see what the J-H parents said to the Superintendent about plans for the school. At the end of the meeting, I was shocked.  Here we were, at a school that was not accredited and was failing by every measurable standard, and not one parent asked anything about the school.  There were questions about many other elementary schools, overall district funding, IP classes at the high school, etc.  There was even a discussion about overcrowding at some elementary schools, and the Superintendent made an offhand reference about J-H being under enrolled, and there was absolutely no discussion about why that might be.  At one point, there was a sort of informal hand-raising to indicate what schools were represented in the audience, and it was clear that there were very few J-H parents there.  At the time, there had been a running thread about the J-H parents aborted attempts to get the Superintendent to meet with them.  He apparently kept scheduling and canceling.  One would think that this would be an excellent opportunity to ask some questions, or just make a show of interest.  Instead, very few could even be bothered to show up.  The true final straw was when someone asked a general question about, "What do you think we could do for ACPS to attract those children that are otherwise headed to private school?"  The Superintendent's reply was something along the lines of: "Private schools are a great option for some people, and I don't intend to try to compete for those students."   I got my answer.

I can afford to send my child to private school, and she is very happy there.  However, it makes me angry that ACPS is failing those students who don't have parents who have the savvy or wherewithal to get their kids moved to a better performing school (if you do that, you have to navigate a complex application process, as well as provide transportation to the out of boundary school yourself). I don't think concentrating underprivileged kids into a few schools is good for THEM, and I can't believe that ACPS has gotten away with a blatantly illegal segregated system as long as it has.  [/quote]

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