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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I haven't read this whole thread, but my kids are both in middle school at Capital City PCS and we have been happy with it so far (last year and this year). They have had open seats for 5th grade for the last several years, too, so it has not been hard to get in for MS. CCPCS is not discussed on DCUM as a "desirable" school, but we have found that the administration has their sh*t together, the teachers are great, there is good social and emotional support and special education services, and there are lots of extracurricular activities and a good sense of community. I think it doesn't get much love or attention on DCUM in part b/c the student body is fairly high poverty and there aren't that many white kids, and also b/c families were upset that the school stayed closed for longer than other places during the pandemic. 
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DP. thank you for sharing. We had not looked at this school before just based on test scores. Can you speak to the extracurriculars and the academic offerings? [/quote]

Re CCPCS: For extracurriculars in middle school there were a bunch of offerings: school play (Wonka Jr.), soccer, running, studio art, volleyball, improv, chess, cheerleading, a mentoring program, I think others I can't remember.

Academically, their model is EL Learning (which originally stood for Expeditionary Learning and I don't know why they changed it)--they learn in units about a specific topic, and have student-led projects and field trips based on that topic. They seem to differentiate pretty well in middle school, and I know in high school there are AP classes and a lot of focus on college applications.

Re standardized test scores, I feel like there is such a direct correspondence between that and family income that it's not totally fair to judge a school based on scores alone. I wish there was some meaningful and accessible measure of whether a school's test scores are higher or lower than what you would expect given the socioeconomic status of the student body, b/c that would get closer to being meaningful. Also, CCPCS had higher test scores pre-pandemic, I think there has been a lot of student body turnover and also just learning loss nation-wide which impacted their scores for the last few years. Admittedly, if we get to high school and I feel like my kid is one of the only ones in her grade who's well above grade level, we would probably look for a different school, but that's a lot of "ifs" so I'm not worrying about it now.[/quote]

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