Reply to Is Latin really all that and a bag of chips?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Here is a crazy idea, what if all the Capitol Hill families committed to their IB middle school and  worked to improve the middle school situation? Jefferson, SH or EH could be the next Deal or Latin. I am actually very impressed witH SH and the efforts toward attracting CH students/families. [/quote]

This has been floated and talked about many, many times, but it doesn't seem to happen.  It's not my neighborhood, nor are those my zoned schools, so i can't speak to why.[/quote]

I think it actually is happening at SH, albeit slower than most would like. If I had to hazard a guess as to why it hasn't happened in the same was it has for Deal and Hardy, I think it's housing stock. Homes on the Hill are mostly small. People outgrow them as their kids hit MS and HS. There are very limited options for upsizing in the same area. There's also some built in transiency to the Hill as people move in and out for work (it's a popular destination for people in DC for just a few years, moving to DC from overseas, etc.). [b]All of this makes it hard to build a consistent group of parents that moves from the elementaries to the MS and HS.[/b]

I say this as someone who is contributing to the problem -- we are happy here now at our elementary, but already have plans to move in MS. We aren't moving because of MS (though the school situation on the Hill is a factor that contributes to the desire to move). We're mostly moving because we feel we are outgrowing our home and the area. It seems like that happens less in NW, I don't really know why. I've lived on CH for nearly 20 years now.[/quote]

No, that's not it. What happens is that by the time you get to middle school on the Hill, you're burned out on all you had to do to ensure your DCPS ES worked for your family. By 5th grade, we were paying almost as much for ELA tutoring, foreign language instruction (non-existent at our DCPS) and Mathnasium as we would have for St. Peters (for kids who work above grade level).  We were fed up with fundraising and long PTA meetings.  We were weary of our school's not so great leadership.  We couldn't face a middle school where we had to do more heavy lifting and we'd faced the reality that even the most "consistent" group of parents couldn't change the bone-headed DCPS policy preventing academic tracking in middle school science and social studies. We went charter (although we'd struck out in the 4th grade lottery).  [/quote]

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