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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]+1.  The Hill is in dire need of a new forum for parents to provide input on how to address the brewing neighborhood middle school crisis. The simple fact is that many families with kids currently in Hill DCPS elementary schools are going to wind up moving to the burbs if nothing changes. Brent, Maury and SWS parents have already lost access to Stuart Hobson short spectacular lottery luck, and many [b]Cluster and Ludlow-Taylor parents won't use the school going forward[/b]. Jefferson is going to be a non-starter for families already at Brent, Tyler SI and Van Ness, other than perhaps a few die hards.

Few Hill families can afford private school from 6th grade up, and there aren't nearly enough spots in independent middle schools within easy reach of the Hill even for those who can. I don't like how the Brent PTA middle school committee is lobbying hard to gin up a massive investment in Jefferson without soliciting input from the broader school community first, to determine whether or not this is what most parents want.  If I had a chance to respond to a survey on MS development options, or to vote in a PTA sponsored referendum on MS, I'd vote no on the Jefferson plan, with many others. This is the inconvenient truth school leaders must face at some point. The democratic process hasn't been subverted here; there has been no democratic process to avoiding the messiness of one. As a result, you're going to see a backlash over time, as the optimists crank up their PR machine to push the magical-thinking in Tues News, Brent neighbors, at PTA meetings etc.

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I don't understand this line of reasoning.  You can refer to families IB for Cluster/LT who eschew IB for alternatives, but the families who remain at Watkins and LT mostly comprise the feeders to SH.  Watkins, LT, and JO Wilson offer very few lottery 5th grade seats and SH offers very few, all of which speaks to demand for SH.  There may be OOB students in that mix but it's trending more towards IB in lower grades with current demographic shifts and the numbers of younger ES students in both DC and within those boundaries.

Some of SH IB families opt for ES charters and some leave for MS charters but that's no easier for SH IB students than anyone else.[/quote]

Most of the high SES/white/in-boundary parents currently at Ludlow, Peabody/Watkins and JO Wilson in the lower grades are unlikely to stay the course for the upper grades, let alone chose SH.  Even Brent and Maury, schools at least five years ahead of Ludlow in their development trajectories still lose many upper grades families to the burbs and privates.  You'll see a slow steady uptick in the percentages of white and high SES families at SH in the next ten years, not a rush on a school without above grade-level offerings, particularly for math. SH is a mediocre school in an increasingly nice facility, no more. If SH is at 1/3 white ten years from now in a catchment area that's close to 80% white, I'll be surprised.  [/quote]

You speak anecdotally but [b]the data paints a very different picture[/b]. Most schools have some attrition.  There has been less scarcity of alternatives in the past 5 years in DC than the next 5 years will have.  You just have to look at the numbers of rising 5th graders and the greater numbers behind them to see this trend.  DCPS sees it, which is why they're betting more families will try to make the currently weak options better because they won't have a ton of alternatives for public school short of moving, which is a big expensive step in its own right.

Most of they suburbs worth moving to are just as expensive as DC and families committed to city living aren't a given to decamp.  Families I know on the Hill would just as soon live in Fairfax as NW and don't really like either -- they'd already be there if they did.

SH already offers more honor courses than any DCPS MS other than Deal and Hardy.  I don't care if SH is 1% white.  It's not a factor. 1/3 white would be comparable to where Deal was about 3-4 years ago if you like perspective.[/quote]

The most interesting picture that the data paints is that the number of young children in upper NW is projected to shrink.  Young families with young children are priced out, older families with teenagers aren't moving, because they're using the MS & HS.  The fastest growing wards in terms of population of young children are EOTR (as always) and Wards 4 & 5 in gentrifying neighborhoods.

Those Ward 3 ESs will begin to have empty spaces for OOB students.  Again - residents aren't moving, but they're too old to have babies.  Once again, Ward 3 will become an escape hatch for low-performing DCPS schools EOTP.[/quote]

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