No flaming from me, fellow Brent parent.

I taught at Bowen Elementary (Amidon's predecessor) for a school year in the late 80s, when it was a nightmare school, during the height of the DC crack epidemic.

Some of my former students would be parents of current and future JA students. Whenever I think about JA's development trajectory, I remember what tough lives my students had (and that's putting it mildly). All that seemed to be keeping many from foster care, or worse, was a stable, caring 30-something grandmother or two in their corner. Their own parents were mostly in jail, drugged up, dead from crack overdoses, or teens involved in gangs answering to powerful local drug kingpins. The kids lived in grim public housing projects near the school.

Your concerns about JA strike me as logical.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As the parent of a Brent (middle) elementary school kid, I have three main concerns with Jefferson. In no particular order:

1. Location - it ticks me off that the school is not within walking distance (especially given the gerrymandering of school boundaries for social engineering purposes to ensure that the walkable school for us - Stuart Hobson - is not our in-boundary school).
2. The very, very low test scores. I don't want my child to be the best student in the class (by a long shot). I want my child to be surrounded by high-achieving/high scoring peers so that s/he has to work hard to (maybe) be in the top of the class.
3. Safety concerns. I don't want my child to worry about getting beat up in the bathroom. I also don't particularly want him/her exposed the drugs/violence/early sex/promiscuity that is rampant in the nearby big housing project that I imagine a big chunk of the Jefferson kids come from (and that they are exposed to through no fault of their own because it surrounds them at home).

flame away!

not to flame but this is really misguided. Working hard and being advanced relative to peers are not mutually exclusive.

3. is just ignorant

yeah, because everyone knows kids aren't beat up in the bathroom, they're beat up under the bleachers by the field (just kidding!)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As the parent of a Brent (middle) elementary school kid, I have three main concerns with Jefferson. In no particular order:

1. Location - it ticks me off that the school is not within walking distance (especially given the gerrymandering of school boundaries for social engineering purposes to ensure that the walkable school for us - Stuart Hobson - is not our in-boundary school).
2. The very, very low test scores. I don't want my child to be the best student in the class (by a long shot). I want my child to be surrounded by high-achieving/high scoring peers so that s/he has to work hard to (maybe) be in the top of the class.
3. Safety concerns. I don't want my child to worry about getting beat up in the bathroom. I also don't particularly want him/her exposed the drugs/violence/early sex/promiscuity that is rampant in the nearby big housing project that I imagine a big chunk of the Jefferson kids come from (and that they are exposed to through no fault of their own because it surrounds them at home).

flame away!

not to flame but this is really misguided. Working hard and being advanced relative to peers are not mutually exclusive.

3. is just ignorant

Anonymous wrote:As the parent of a Brent (middle) elementary school kid, I have three main concerns with Jefferson. In no particular order:

1. Location - it ticks me off that the school is not within walking distance (especially given the gerrymandering of school boundaries for social engineering purposes to ensure that the walkable school for us - Stuart Hobson - is not our in-boundary school).
2. The very, very low test scores. I don't want my child to be the best student in the class (by a long shot). I want my child to be surrounded by high-achieving/high scoring peers so that s/he has to work hard to (maybe) be in the top of the class.
3. Safety concerns. I don't want my child to worry about getting beat up in the bathroom. I also don't particularly want him/her exposed the drugs/violence/early sex/promiscuity that is rampant in the nearby big housing project that I imagine a big chunk of the Jefferson kids come from (and that they are exposed to through no fault of their own because it surrounds them at home).

flame away!

not to flame but this is really misguided. Working hard and being advanced relative to peers are not mutually exclusive.

As the parent of a Brent (middle) elementary school kid, I have three main concerns with Jefferson. In no particular order:

1. Location - it ticks me off that the school is not within walking distance (especially given the gerrymandering of school boundaries for social engineering purposes to ensure that the walkable school for us - Stuart Hobson - is not our in-boundary school).
2. The very, very low test scores. I don't want my child to be the best student in the class (by a long shot). I want my child to be surrounded by high-achieving/high scoring peers so that s/he has to work hard to (maybe) be in the top of the class.
3. Safety concerns. I don't want my child to worry about getting beat up in the bathroom. I also don't particularly want him/her exposed the drugs/violence/early sex/promiscuity that is rampant in the nearby big housing project that I imagine a big chunk of the Jefferson kids come from (and that they are exposed to through no fault of their own because it surrounds them at home).

flame away!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So true, PP! Jefferson is a great case in point. It is really not a "poor" school. Sure, there are many students who benefit from free and reduced lunch in some way (getting it statistically classified and branded I suppose) but there are also a great many from middle class and really quite affluent families. They are black and brown, mind you, and some white; but it's not a "poor" school. If you care to look and know how, you will notice that.

http://profiles.dcps.dc.gov/Jefferson+Middle+School+Academy lists Jefferson as 100 percent "economically disadvantaged" as of previous academic year (2016-2017). I could not locate what income in DC qualifies for reduced price lunch (I'm not sure if that's tied in to being economically disadvantaged).

DCPS lists the percentage as 100% when it's above a certain threshold. USDA has a "community eligibility" option that allows a school or district to offer free meals to everyone in a school when a certain percentage of students qualify. DCPS probably shouldn't list it on the profiles because it's not accurate. http://learndc.org/schoolprofiles/view?s=0433#reportcard lists JA as 57% economically disadvantaged and I'd guess that number is more accurate.

Thank you for clearing that up! I am the PP who linked to the profiles page, and I had no idea about this. I'm a Brent parent of early elementary students. This makes a big difference to me and makes sense of some of the other information I've come across about JA.

57 is not the economically disadvantaged number for Jefferson on learndc.org To get that percentage, you click on "equity report" and it shows 100%, just like the DCPS school profile pages do. You are right that it is a community eligibility school, so not 100% are in fact technically poor.

The '57' is the DCPS classification of whether a school is reward, rising, etc. It has nothing to do with the demographics of the school.

The percentage of economically disadvantaged students at jefferson is 61%.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So true, PP! Jefferson is a great case in point. It is really not a "poor" school. Sure, there are many students who benefit from free and reduced lunch in some way (getting it statistically classified and branded I suppose) but there are also a great many from middle class and really quite affluent families. They are black and brown, mind you, and some white; but it's not a "poor" school. If you care to look and know how, you will notice that.

http://profiles.dcps.dc.gov/Jefferson+Middle+School+Academy lists Jefferson as 100 percent "economically disadvantaged" as of previous academic year (2016-2017). I could not locate what income in DC qualifies for reduced price lunch (I'm not sure if that's tied in to being economically disadvantaged).

DCPS lists the percentage as 100% when it's above a certain threshold. USDA has a "community eligibility" option that allows a school or district to offer free meals to everyone in a school when a certain percentage of students qualify. DCPS probably shouldn't list it on the profiles because it's not accurate. http://learndc.org/schoolprofiles/view?s=0433#reportcard lists JA as 57% economically disadvantaged and I'd guess that number is more accurate.

Thank you for clearing that up! I am the PP who linked to the profiles page, and I had no idea about this. I'm a Brent parent of early elementary students. This makes a big difference to me and makes sense of some of the other information I've come across about JA.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So true, PP! Jefferson is a great case in point. It is really not a "poor" school. Sure, there are many students who benefit from free and reduced lunch in some way (getting it statistically classified and branded I suppose) but there are also a great many from middle class and really quite affluent families. They are black and brown, mind you, and some white; but it's not a "poor" school. If you care to look and know how, you will notice that.

http://profiles.dcps.dc.gov/Jefferson+Middle+School+Academy lists Jefferson as 100 percent "economically disadvantaged" as of previous academic year (2016-2017). I could not locate what income in DC qualifies for reduced price lunch (I'm not sure if that's tied in to being economically disadvantaged).

Don't ask me how that 100% or 99% gets there. It's not a real number, just isn't. Probably has to do with meeting a threshold in some way, that 41% or something to qualify, then the "system" sets that to 100%. I'm sure Jefferson is in the 'above 41%' category but, no, not 100%, not even close.

Some of the schools where you see 100% listed are community eligibility schools. Jefferson's percentage of students qualifying was 61% in 2016-17 according to the documents linked at the below webpage. That compares to 7% at Deal, 19% at Hardy, 29% at Stuart Hobson and 67% at Eliot Hine.

From OSSE:

Below find the list of Local Education Authorities (LEAs) and school sites in the District of Columbia that are eligible or near eligible to participate in the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) under the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and School Breakfast Program (SBP). Eligible schools have an identified student (direct certified, homeless, or foster care) population of 40 percent or more according to data reported in the District of Columbia’s Direct Certification System report, or by the State Agency Homeless Coordinator and/or the Department of Child and Family Services, as of April 1 of each year.

https://osse.dc.gov/publication/2016-17-school-year-dc-schools-eligible-community-eligibility-provision

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So true, PP! Jefferson is a great case in point. It is really not a "poor" school. Sure, there are many students who benefit from free and reduced lunch in some way (getting it statistically classified and branded I suppose) but there are also a great many from middle class and really quite affluent families. They are black and brown, mind you, and some white; but it's not a "poor" school. If you care to look and know how, you will notice that.

http://profiles.dcps.dc.gov/Jefferson+Middle+School+Academy lists Jefferson as 100 percent "economically disadvantaged" as of previous academic year (2016-2017). I could not locate what income in DC qualifies for reduced price lunch (I'm not sure if that's tied in to being economically disadvantaged).

DCPS lists the percentage as 100% when it's above a certain threshold. USDA has a "community eligibility" option that allows a school or district to offer free meals to everyone in a school when a certain percentage of students qualify. DCPS probably shouldn't list it on the profiles because it's not accurate. http://learndc.org/schoolprofiles/view?s=0433#reportcard lists JA as 57% economically disadvantaged and I'd guess that number is more accurate.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So true, PP! Jefferson is a great case in point. It is really not a "poor" school. Sure, there are many students who benefit from free and reduced lunch in some way (getting it statistically classified and branded I suppose) but there are also a great many from middle class and really quite affluent families. They are black and brown, mind you, and some white; but it's not a "poor" school. If you care to look and know how, you will notice that.

http://profiles.dcps.dc.gov/Jefferson+Middle+School+Academy lists Jefferson as 100 percent "economically disadvantaged" as of previous academic year (2016-2017). I could not locate what income in DC qualifies for reduced price lunch (I'm not sure if that's tied in to being economically disadvantaged).

Don't ask me how that 100% or 99% gets there. It's not a real number, just isn't. Probably has to do with meeting a threshold in some way, that 41% or something to qualify, then the "system" sets that to 100%. I'm sure Jefferson is in the 'above 41%' category but, no, not 100%, not even close.

I believe 40% qualifies your for Title 1 - I thought the break point was a lot higher for the 100% classification - closer to 60%. If 60% of the student body qualifies for Free and Reduced Lunch, it is significant.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So true, PP! Jefferson is a great case in point. It is really not a "poor" school. Sure, there are many students who benefit from free and reduced lunch in some way (getting it statistically classified and branded I suppose) but there are also a great many from middle class and really quite affluent families. They are black and brown, mind you, and some white; but it's not a "poor" school. If you care to look and know how, you will notice that.

http://profiles.dcps.dc.gov/Jefferson+Middle+School+Academy lists Jefferson as 100 percent "economically disadvantaged" as of previous academic year (2016-2017). I could not locate what income in DC qualifies for reduced price lunch (I'm not sure if that's tied in to being economically disadvantaged).

Don't ask me how that 100% or 99% gets there. It's not a real number, just isn't. Probably has to do with meeting a threshold in some way, that 41% or something to qualify, then the "system" sets that to 100%. I'm sure Jefferson is in the 'above 41%' category but, no, not 100%, not even close.

Anonymous wrote:So true, PP! Jefferson is a great case in point. It is really not a "poor" school. Sure, there are many students who benefit from free and reduced lunch in some way (getting it statistically classified and branded I suppose) but there are also a great many from middle class and really quite affluent families. They are black and brown, mind you, and some white; but it's not a "poor" school. If you care to look and know how, you will notice that.

http://profiles.dcps.dc.gov/Jefferson+Middle+School+Academy lists Jefferson as 100 percent "economically disadvantaged" as of previous academic year (2016-2017). I could not locate what income in DC qualifies for reduced price lunch (I'm not sure if that's tied in to being economically disadvantaged).

So true, PP! Jefferson is a great case in point. It is really not a "poor" school. Sure, there are many students who benefit from free and reduced lunch in some way (getting it statistically classified and branded I suppose) but there are also a great many from middle class and really quite affluent families. They are black and brown, mind you, and some white; but it's not a "poor" school. If you care to look and know how, you will notice that.

Anonymous wrote:This article reminded me of this thread...

"We’re asking parents to make choices that are often against the mainstream idea of what a good parent does—that is, getting every last thing for your kid. And it’s an awkward, difficult conversation. The lack of resources for students of color and low-income students is real, and we’re asking people to invest in all kids and not just their own."

I find it really strange that people automatically lump in "students of color" with low-income students. Of course the lack of resources for low-income students may be less than the extra resources provided by wealthy parents. But I have trouble understanding what lack of resources black students have. If anything, doesn't DCPS provide additional resources for students of color? I mean, isn't there a whole program that DCPS established?

This article reminded me of this thread...

"We’re asking parents to make choices that are often against the mainstream idea of what a good parent does—that is, getting every last thing for your kid. And it’s an awkward, difficult conversation. The lack of resources for students of color and low-income students is real, and we’re asking people to invest in all kids and not just their own."

https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/01/when-white-parents-wont-integrate-public-schools/551612/