A commitment to attempt to work collaboratively with DCPS bureaucrats who proved to be feckless and ineffectual is not the same thing as demanding. Drawing nuanced distinctions can be hard for this with an axe to grind or agenda to further.

Anonymous wrote:This is such a shame. With good leadership, turning around EH or Jefferson could be done easily!

Anonymous wrote:This is such a shame. With good leadership, turning around EH or Jefferson could be done easily!

It is not an issue of turning around EH and/or Jefferson, which will take many years to accomplish. Capitol Hill is balkanized with three underperforming middle schools and charters that provide a viable alternative for high SES families. You cannot fix the middle school issue without first fixing underperforming feeder elementaries. Also, most of these same parents view Eastern as a bridge too far. There needs to be a holistic approach in order to keep most IB families in Capitol Hill schools past fourth grade. Sorry if that scares other Ward 6 parents but the current system is broken and thus does not afford high quality educational opportunities to all.

Yeah, everyone should have sat over a couple of beers and did this in one bar tab. The phrase about turning around a school scares the majority of Ward 6 residents. Merely because Capitol Hill is just 10 blocks and the middle-school(s) would serve the entire Ward 6 area. Therefore to turn it around gives me the impression that you would like to turn some residents away.

Keep on demanding, it gets what you exactly deserves.

Anonymous wrote:This is such a shame. With good leadership, turning around EH or Jefferson could be done easily!

The Jefferson principal has impressed many parents. If turning around EH or Jefferson were easy, it would be done.

This is such a shame. With good leadership, turning around EH or Jefferson could be done easily!

The right to go to Latin and BASIS? The right to shrink The IB population of 5th graders?

Brent got hosed. EH and Jefferson are years away from solid, S-H is in the middle of a lot of change/construction, and Tommy Wells wants to be mayor. Not on my vote!

And you know -- "demand" is what we should be able to do with employees paid for by our tax dollars -- but somehow that never works in DC. We are one grand experiment.

Also word of warning. Abigail Smith and Claudia Lujan are now both heavily involved in the boundary/feeder pattern reset process through the deputy mayors office. They did not navigate the situation with ward 6 middle schools successfully and it gives pause about how they will navigate the city as a whole.

No one demanded anything. There was a process involving Rhee, Abigail Smith and Claudia Lujan 3-4 years ago. They asked what parents at Brent wanted to see in middle school that would give them confidence to stick with the DCPS feeder pattern after 5th grade at Brent.

After many meetings and surveys and working group meetings Brent parents answered the question. Saying these are the things that would make it likely that families will stick with DCPS. It was not demanding, it was answering the query from DCpS. It was collaborating. The answer was clear. Parents at Brent would have responded to a middle school solution that had a safe environment, continuation of leadership and curriculum from elementary years, an INtrrnational Baccalureate Program that would insure a well-rounded curriculum and outside auditing and teacher training, and a student body where the majority of students were entering the school on grade level in reading and writing to insure that the bulk of the school wouldn't be about remediation but rather teaching at grade level or above. Tommy Wells describes this as a school coming from a position of strength. As opposed to playing catch up academically.

That was the straight up truth. DCPS wasn't able ( yet ) to create those conditions in the feeder pattern middle schools, so, as predicted, families from Brent and many other schools have been choosing ( as they always have and always will ) middle schools around the city that more closely meet this description.

Other schools on Capitol Hill also gave feedback to DCPS but it was less specific. Actually much of this public process can be found on the DCPS website. Something about Ward 6 Middle Schools.

DEMANDED! Who are you to demand? I hate that sense of entitlement.

You have a car, right, and a deep interest in your kids education, but can't afford private.

Well, go charter. That's where DCPS is leading hill parents.

Anonymous wrote:Why is the word "demand" always used in the same sentences as "Capitol Hill parents"?

Good point. We should have sat down, shut up and accepted the status quo eight years ago.

Anonymous wrote:I come to this thinking that Capitol Hill has committed parents who've asked a lot of the right questions amdemanded the right things to improve their local schools and draw good local interest. Maybe we can do that in some other growing areas.

I know a good amount about elementaries but what has the Hill demanded in middle school? What options have been laid out and how have families responded?

What has been demanded? A viable option.
What options have been laid out? Eliot-Hine!!! (DCPS added the exclamation points.)
How have families responded? "Eliot-Hine? We meant for kids born prior to 2020."

Anonymous wrote:Why is the word "demand" always used in the same sentences as "Capitol Hill parents"?

Why is the word "demand" always used in the same sentences as "Capitol Hill parents"?

I come to this thinking that Capitol Hill has committed parents who've asked a lot of the right questions amdemanded the right things to improve their local schools and draw good local interest. Maybe we can do that in some other growing areas.

I know a good amount about elementaries but what has the Hill demanded in middle school? What options have been laid out and how have families responded?