Reply to Bridges Families - What have you been told about the new Taylor Street location next door?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]If DCPS would release the 20+ empty school buildings, this wouldn't be an issue.  Hopefully, Harmony will force the closure of Langley and there will be one more.  OTOH, what do Catania and Bowser intend to do to help?[/quote]

As a charter school parent, I agree with this.

While we parents (DCPS/Charter) bicker for scraps and hurt our children in the process - let's figure out what our proposed leadership would intend to do.

I'd like to know what any future Mayor plans to do about the facilities issue in Washington.[/quote]

It is one thing to want DCPS to release building for use by charter schools.  It is quite another to hope that a charter school forces the closure of a public school.  [/quote]

It's also exceptionally far fetched to suggest that Harmony will have sufficient impact on Langley for it to close.  Langley is rapidly improving and has a great team.  Harmony is a for profit with an odd Texan background that is not supported in the neighborhood.[/quote]

Speaking as someone who lives in the neighborhood, Langley is [i]not[/i] supported by the neighborhood.  If Langley had a great team, then its scores wouldn't be below the (already lowest in the nation) DC average.  Harmony's are above the Texas average, which is far above DC's.  They have a 100% college acceptance rate.  If that's the kind of background you call odd, then DC needs to get a lot more odd.

[/quote]

And speaking as someone who also lives in the neighborhood (and has almost certainly lived there significantly longer than you have), I can tell you that Langley is MUCH more supported (even by those who don't send their kids there, like me) than Harmony whose stated goal has been to "become" the neighborhood school.  If you were aware of the neighborhood schooling options you'd also realize that Langley's statistics are for Langley Education Campus which no longer exists.  Langley ES has only been in existence for one year, with a brand new team and an excellent Principal and you will certainly see changes when this year's results are published.  Sure, it will take a little while, but I have to ask - have you actually toured the school?  Met the principal?  Spoken to parents?  Thought not.[/quote]

No, most families in the neighborhood are more interested in Seaton than in Langley.[/quote]

The interest in Seaton in Bloomingdale is VERY recent so your concept of "most families" is myopic.  You just proved my point that you haven't been living here long.  Even earlier this year when it looked as if Bloomingdale was going to become out of boundary for Langley there were a lot of concerned neighbors who lobbied hard for that not to be the case.  They were successful and current plans indicate that Bloomingdale will stay inbound for Langley and no longer be in bound for Seaton.  While I know several people who are sending their kids to Seaton this year, this is the very first time that I've heard anyone in the neighborhood mention it, yet Langley has been on the collective radar screen for years and I know many families that have sent or considered sending their kids to Langley since it was created (as an education campus, formerly Emery) about 4 years ago.  This is completely off topic, but it pisses me off when people come in and trash neighborhood schools that they know nothing about, especially when they are doing good things.  They DO have a great team - and one that is heavily supported by DCPS and a principal who is regarded as a high flyer within DCPS - but it is a brand new team starting in 2013, so their work is not yet reflected in the stats which haven't even been released for the first year.

So, Langley may not be a popular school, but it has a lot more community support than Harmony which has just parachuted in and has created very little goodwill so far.[/quote]

How long have you been here?  Exactly?  I didn't say my family was interested in Seaton, I said that most families in the neighborhood (based on the Bloomingdale listserve) are interested in Seaton.  When I moved to Bloomingdale, you could still hear gunshots across Florida Ave., and every mid-to-high SES family was enrolled in private schools.  I'm pretty sure I don't need to prove my bona fides to you or anyone else.

J.F. Cook was terrible.  Then Emery was terrible.  Now Langley is terrible.  It's easy to cheer-lead for shitty schools you'd never actually send your own children to - after all, it boosts your property value.

[/quote]

I would send my kids there, and I moved to Bloomingdale in 1999.  I've been on the Bloomingdale listserv since that time and the Bloomingdale kids listserv since is started (2008, I think).  Seaton has NEVER been mentioned on either list serv until THIS year (by one person, primarily - and I think Seaton is a great school, what we're discussing here is whether Langley has more community support than Harmony, which has virtually none and has only been mentioned on the kids list serv once by a long term resident who was very disturbed by their plan to "become" the neighborhood school and who also said great things about Langley).  (Go look at the archives).  "Still hear gunshots across Florida ave"?  That could be any time in the past 15 years or before, including last weekend when there were two shootings and two dead within a few blocks of each other.

My bet, you're like one of our new neighbors who claims that they were in the "first wave of gentrification" because they've now been here almost a year![/quote]

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