Reply to Opinions about Bancroft

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
"There has to be an English-only middle school option for IB Oyster-Adams families since O-A does not have an English only track. Students can't be forced to be in a bilingual program. "

Agreed that there should be an English only option for all Oyster Adams in boundary students but it should be at Oyster Adams. Remember, O-A is a PUBLIC school which by law must provide a "free and appropriate education" (FAPE), if that means English only, then they need to provide it. O-A also needs to serve IEP's for special needs students.

O-A has it's own middle school, that is their feeder pattern.

Why this special status has gone on for so many years is a mystery.

[/quote]

Not to hijack this further from Bancroft, but Oyster-Adams itself is not responsible for FAPE. DCPS is responsible for FAPE under IDEA and they can  use whatever schools are in the portfolio to provide it.

The special status of a dual-language model that produces bi-literate and bilingual children is not a mystery. Oyster has been doing it for 40 years. The demographics and real estate values have changed over that time. Why it expanded through 8th grade more than 5 years ago and took over an elementary are the subject many, many, many a DCUM post and intense melodrama across several communities with various interests, financial and otherwise.

Why Bancroft hasn't been the subject for more DCPS scrutiny and investment, given its density of local population and proximity to competing charters, is the more mysterious of the two situations.

In the past, proactive elementary parents IB for Bancroft could lobby to get OOB for Oyster for elementary and be assured an option at Deal if they didn't want bilingual past 5th. In theory, I'm fine with that since Bancroft is also Deal currently.

So why not give Bancroft kids priority at Oyster-Adams middle school grades? Why not feed dually to Oyster-Adams as a continued bilingual track and Deal as a legacy English track?

CHEC Lincoln is not a truly dual-immersion program. No matter what the principal is trying to pawn off on folks. It feeds from further east and, let's assume, further south when Francis-Stevens consolidates to Marie Reed. There are plenty of families there who want English-only past elementary. And since CHEC Bell high school is not bilingual, what's the point of having Lincoln bilingual when there's an established bilingual middle school a mile away at the Adams building on 19th?

Given the option of Oyster-Adams or Deal for middle school, which would Bancroft IB parents pick?[/quote]

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