Reply to SWS - as an IB School? L-T prospects?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]In truth, the number of quality early childhood spots is basically the same given that Peabody was able to expand.  And the cluster never really had claim to SWS elementary - the Cluster elementary is Watkins.  What is odd to me is that there is no proximity preference for SWS and Logan.  I'm not saying it has to be a huge area, but the idea that the neighbors should deal with the downsides of colocation next to the school without any upside is not a good one.  [b]One point of correction - Prospect was a school for persons with disabilities.  The fact that Prospect was citywide is not a real comparison - students were placed there based on their IEP.  The only other citywide elementary school is Logan. [/b]

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+1.  Prospect is a school that requires a student to qualify for services by having a qualifying IEP.  It is not a city-wide school in the sense that anyone can go there through a lottery.  If SWS was becoming a magnet test-in school or some other kind of school that required the students to show they had a special skill or a special need, that would be different. [b] The fact is that it is just a regular elementary school and DCPS policy is that there is a hierarchy that determines who gets preference at non-specialty schools: IB w/sibling, IB, OOB w/sibling, OOB w/proximity, no preference.[/b]  All that is being claimed here is that DCPS should not violate its own preference order, not that DCPS provide anything special to the people who live in this community.  If it chooses to not give an IB area to this school then the list still should go OOB w/sibling, OOB w/proximity, no preference.  That is not special treatment.  That is equal treatment. [/quote]

Isn't it a Reggio program?  Ergo, NOT a regular elementary school?[/quote]

As pointed out above, it does not qualify as a "specialized school,  program, or academy" since it doesn't have special entrance requirements. A number of other elementary schools, including several on Capitol Hill, use the Reggio program. While an interesting pedagogical difference, it doesn't make it unique under the law. [/quote]

Sorry, but you are not the arbiter of what makes a "specialized school" -[b] the school can certainly be specialized without having "special entrance requirements."[/b]  And to clarify, the other reggio schools are "reggio inspired", and at least one of them (LT?) is half-assing it at best.[/quote]

Exactly.  As previously stated, Logan Montessori is most definitely a "specialized school" and it most definitely does not have special entrance requirements.[/quote]

I don't know the history of Logan, but somebody posted earlier that when Logan Montessorri first opened it had an interview process by which the families were chosen.  At that point, it probably met the definition of a "specialty school" laid out in this part of the law.  Now that it is a lottery school, it is less clear that it would satisfy this definition.  It has the same legal question open around it that SWS has under its current enrollment process. [/quote]

There is not a precise, generally accepted legal definition of a "specialty school."  "Specialty" is deliberately vague, and in this case, it is whatever DCPS says it is.  In any event even if there was once an interview process, there isn't any longer, and yet it remains a specialty school.  Not only that, but everyone is likely better off for it.  Interviews are inherently subjective, and creating an interview process would likely end of favoring certain types of students over others.  You want to talk about legal challenge?  Think about defending an interview process which selects for school-readiness, independence, and emotional stability and ask yourself if that yields a higher SES (and also generally whiter) population.   Wow, now THAT is a charge and a battle that DCPS really doesn't want to fight.  You can bet the current enrollment process is much better in the eyes of the legal counsel, and it's going to stay what it is.  And expanding specialized offerings (SWS) via a lottery process which does not favor higher SES, whiter populations (aka, Hill residents near Prospect) is exactly what DCPS wants.[/quote]

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