Reply to DC Begins School Boundary Study

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The Cluster zone on the Hill looks dramatically gerrymandered for a simple reason: it encompassed the residents of amalgamations of parents who joined hands in the early 80s to lobby for the creation of the three-school group.

I highly doubt that DCPS will so much as tweak Hill elementary school boundaries in the forthcoming review, or any boundaries for that matter. Some of got burned in organizing to lobby for common sense CH boundary changes back in 2013.

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I'm the Watkins poster who asked about this - how do you know that? was there local media coverage of this in the 80s? Anyone on the board who had parents part of that group? Would love to hear more about why people wanted that three school group.[/quote]

Because, at the time, that was the most gentrified school/area on CH. The weird structure was intended to preserve control over SH as well; Watkins parents fought to keep other schools from feeding in (so ridiculously short sighted looking back that they thought LT would decrease the gentrification of the school). Really they should break up the Cluster (which they already kind of have with respect to SH, which now has two other feeders) and then rezone sensibly. Send some of the area around Peabody to LT, some to Brent, some to Tyler, etc. Turn Peabody into a citywide PK lottery. Right size Watkins and have it be a full PK3-5. [/quote]

Super interesting. I would love someone to write a book about the history here...or maybe a podcast? Any takers? :)[/quote]

Cluster school was basically the UMC parents way of creating a K - 8 charter school ( specialized/experimental  programming included: Montessori and Reggio ) before charters were lawful.  And DCPS went for it. Provided city buses and everything.  Capturing the feeds from Peabody—-&gt;Watkins—-&gt;Stuart Hobson was the way those families felt they could avoid Hine  and Eliot middle schools and keep their cohort together through 8th. Then off to private high schools.  Simply drew the boundaries around themselves.   But goodness you should have heard those same families scream when 1st Two Rivers started ( lawsuit and everything ) and then during the last boundary review when parents from other Hill elementary schools tried to figure out their middle school feeds in a way they could stay with DCPS.  The hypocrisy was loud.[/quote]

Basically the same thing happened with Hardy and the Seven School Cluster, and Ellington. Not sure about Walls, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if it was the same way. In the 70's and 80's DCPS was so dysfunctional that anybody who had a semi-plausible plan could get a school to experiment with. [/quote]

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