Reply to Mundo Verde parents, pls step in

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My kid's mid-elementary teacher is leaving.  She's not the first.  MV has a too big growth, didn't take the time to stabilize problem.[/quote]

Yes, but isn't this happening at schools all around the city? If the teacher is moving to another teaching job, presumably it is because a teacher at that school left. It may be true that MV has grown to quickly, but I don't see the causality between that and the teacher leaving. Teachers leaving seems to be happening everywhere.

And to the PP who mentioned the benefit of having an aide at charter schools - what aide? The random person they rotate out every couple weeks? These jobs pay so poorly no school can keep them staffed right now, and any time one shows an ounce of promise they are promoted to lead teacher to replace a teacher who has left. At least at my kids' school, there is an aide in name only. Not much use if the lead teacher needs to re-train someone new how to do the job and how their classroom works every month.[/quote]

Well, it does happen at other schools, but not to the extent it has been happening at MV.  MV parents are used to it, but other schools have better retention. Not every teacher vacancy is the result of a teacher quitting their job.  Sometimes it is the result of a school expanding, like Stokes EE for example needs to hire new teachers every year.  And sometimes teachers leave for reasons other than being dissatisfied with their school, like reaching retirement age or for medical reasons.  It's really unusual for a school to have several teachers quit mid-year like has been happening at MV.

As for aides, in my experience there is some turnover but definitely not every couple of weeks.  Our school (Langley) has some turnover but many aides stay for years if not decades. It's sad to me that your aides are being promoted to lead teacher-- if they were really qualified to teach they could easily get a teaching job somewhere.  And if your aide turnover is so fast that the aides aren't actually helpful, why do you have aides in the budget at all?  This is a great example of how high turnover and questionable financial decisions combine to put a school on a downward spiral.[/quote]

You are not even at MV but you think you know what the issues are. [/quote]

She is the well known Langley booster.[/quote]

You think there's only one?[/quote]

Yes![/quote]

Sorry nope, it's a team effort.  But back to the main point.  Everyone in the area, regardless of what school they go to, hears complaints about MV from MV parents.  The turnover is alarming.  The enrollment is decreasing.  The test scores are underwhelming.  On and on.[/quote]

MV has almost 900 student and has a decrease of around 30 students in P st. That is 3 % decrease in a very unpredictable year due to COVID. I don’t think it is as alarming as you want to believe. [/quote]

In SY 19-20, the October OSSE count was 606 and in SY21-22 the October OSSE count was 571.  That's a decrease of 35 over two years, and it's 5.7% of P St.'s starting figure of 606.  It seems to be concentrated in the upper grades.  Is it a big deal?  Not really.  Not yet.  But every empty seat is revenue that the school doesn't receive in the UPSFF.  Base elementary funding is about $12,000, so losing 35 kids means losing $420,000 (before any of the weighting for special needs etc.)  Getting in a situation where your classrooms aren't quite full can be expensive if you haven't lost enough kids or the right grade levels of kids to justify reducing the teaching staff.  Loss of revenue makes it harder to maintain staffing, get adequate performance, and keep parents satisfied.  That makes it harder to maintain enrollment.  It's possible to get in a bad spiral of declining funds and declining enrollment.  Is that happening at MV?  I'm not sure.  Maybe COVID relief funding is making up for the loss.  Maybe there's a good reason for the decrease.  But it's never good to lose students, and once this process starts it's very hard to stop. [/quote]

Maybe the > 20% increase at Calle ocho is making up for the 5 % loss at P St. My IB school loss a lot of students. I don’t think 2020-22 are good years to make conclusion. Only time will tell.[/quote]

The increase at Calle Ocho is because they had to add a grade level.  Like they do every year.  So a significant increase is exactly what would be expected.  It doesn't financially make up for anything, because they also have to hire teachers and staff to teach that grade level, so their expenses increase as well.

Here is a list of some of the schools that gained enrollment between SY 19-20 and SY 21-22, chosen for being near MV, HRCS, or a language school.  Sure, the pandemic muddies the data, but not all schools lost students.  Far from it.

CHML
CMI
DC Bilingual
ITS
LAMB
Lee Brookland
Noyes
Sela

[/quote]

Please look at percentage when looking at data, not raw numbers.

- a scientist.[/quote]

I can add the percentage, but the fact remains that MV P St LOST students while the schools listed below GAINED students.  Why?

Sincerely, 
- a number line

CHML +18%
CMI +6%
DC Bilingual +8%
Adding Garrison +14%
ITS +3% (maybe due to filling out the 8th grade cohort, otherwise would have been +0%?)
LAMB +12%
Lee Brookland +12%
Noyes +13%
Sela +13%

Stokes Brookland is only -2%.  YY didn't change at all.  
[/quote]

The fact is they do not lose alot of students in the upper grades at all compared to poorly performing IB DCPS schools.  I know families at these schools and most families abandon ship by 2nd/3rd grade.  By 3rd grade, DCPS schools easily lose 68-80% of middle class families. The achievement gap is real.

I find it so hilarious that the DCPS boosters especially the ECE, K crowd are so desperate to put a negative on charters.  [/quote]

I'm not putting a negative on charters, I'm putting a negative specifically on MV P St by calling out its enrollment decrease and contrasting it with other similar charters that experienced an enrollment increase in the same time period.  Do you have any explanation for the disparity?[/quote]

3% decrease is nothing.  It’s not statistically significant at all.  You are making a big deal out of a mole hole.  The families I know that left and granted it’s anecdotal is because their kid was struggling in the upper grades with the demands expected of Spanish which impacts other subjects since other subjects are also taught in Spanish such as math.  This is from a number of families.

If you are at an immersion or bilingual school that teaches most other subjects in English or focus more on English in the upper grades then it’s easier if your kid is struggling in advance Spanish.

[/quote]

It's 6% from P St.  That could be more than $400,000 in the UPSFF.  Not a molehill.  It's 3% across both campuses but that's netting out the addition of a full grade at Calle Ocho, so I wouldn't calculate it that way.

Funny that LAMB and DCB had increases.[/quote]

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