Anonymous wrote:this post would be better under dc public schools. you may get lots of very varied responses

Ah, this is the original poster, I did not realize there were two different education forums. Thanks!

this post would be better under dc public schools. you may get lots of very varied responses

Do your kids go there? Please share your experience.

Anonymous wrote:That’s wonderful that you are satisfied with Payne. I saw those PARCC scores and thought, definitely not for us. Different strokes.

This ol dogwhistle again

we go to a similar dcps school. small class sizes. socioeconomic diversity. mostly love it.

Yup, and discussions of PARCC have been had on other threads - I started this in case people wanted an idea of why people did send their kids somewhere, instead of did not. It may not gain traction, was just an idea.

That’s wonderful that you are satisfied with Payne. I saw those PARCC scores and thought, definitely not for us. Different strokes.

After the past two threads about Ward 6 schools quickly went down the same negative finger pointing spiral, I wanted to try an experiment. Some people come on here looking for input on schools bc they are new to the area, and honestly curious about where to rent, buy a house, and/or enroll their children. This devolves into a lot of input about where NOT to send children, and often gets away from the initial question. It is easy to respond with negative to negative - so what if folks replied here with what they do like about their school/why their kids are there. I know some may think this is pushing an agenda, but some folks outside of the schools may appreciate a glimpse. I will start with my school, but based on friends I know at other schools I could easily list strengths of other schools as well.

Our kids are at Payne. What we like about the school is the relatively small community (2 classes/grade, except for PK3 which has 3 classes). Tight knit community of veteran teachers. Many teachers at the school have 20+ years of experience, a good number with 10+, creating a great community and role models for the newer teachers. Great cohort of specials teachers - right now we have art, library, PE, Spanish, and science. For kids in grades 3-5 they get science at least 3 days/week, and younger kids get it once/week. Food Prints has built a garden/program at the school which they use frequently. Saturday Academy brought violin, drums, piano, taekwondo, robotics, cooking, ballet, and sports options. Small boundary so many families live nearby and easy to walk to school. Good parent engagement and several fun family events during the year.