Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Principals should be ranked on how many white kids they recruit and retain in gentrifying neighborhoods. It would demonstrate reaching out to IB high ses families and creating truly neighborhood schools full of IB families.im IB for bruce Monroe but have issues with my kid being te only white student or not being fluent in Spanish which is language of their 60% ESL population. None of the white high ses families we know IB send their kids.

I don't like this attitude. Fair-handedness is important, certainly. But no school should be seen as trying to "recruit and retain white kids." You (and I) are citizens of DC, nothing special, and the children of Spanish-speakers or long-term residents are no less worthy of DCPS attention. Good grief.

If you have learned anything on these boards, it is the rock-solid belief that race doesn't actually matter in the game we're trying to play, it's socioeconomic status. Schools need a balance socioeconomically. "Go recruit some white kids" is dinosaur stuff, man.

Glad you said this, but wish you'd gone all the way. Do you know which parents are most discerning on the brown-to-peach and higher SES-to-lower SES tightrope? I think not, so I'll fill you in: it's the upper-middle AA parents of brown-skinned boys. Even the most so-called liberal of peach-colored mamas will balk at sending their children to 100% AA schools, and higher SES AA families understand this.

Parents of brown-skinned boys (even when both parents have advanced degrees, i.e., Masters or more) have to be extra careful about what and where is a positive environment. It's not easy to find a place where diversity means that there are enough higher SES families (of every shade) that expectations aren't low for anyone, a place where diversity doesn't mean that the brown-skinned boy is automatically assumed to be the trouble-maker when an altercation happens, a place where higher SES AA parents can recognize each other as a majority - or at least a plurality - in the population.

I'm not saying you have it wrong for your "rock-solid belief that race doesn't matter" but I am saying that believing it means that you are white. And it's okay to be white, but you need to understand that your faith in "color-blindness" is a privilege of being white that even higher SES parents of color don't have, especially if they are parents of boys.

To all those "I don't want my kid to be the only white kid" whiners maybe you should move to the suburbs, brent neighborhood or WOTP. You live in EOTP DC,deal with it.

So, I just went to the myschool dc site to see when the next open house is, and the next two are in April. They had some in December and early January, but none are scheduled for between now and when the lottery closes. Does the school not realize that the lottery closes in March?

OP, DCUM is not going to be a good place to get info on Tubman. I would try neighborhood listservs. I would also definitely recommend going to an open house and seeing it first-hand to make your own impression. There are lots of schools that many on DCUM would never consider that are perfectly fine in the early years. Good luck.

+1!

OP, DCUM is not going to be a good place to get info on Tubman. I would try neighborhood listservs. I would also definitely recommend going to an open house and seeing it first-hand to make your own impression. There are lots of schools that many on DCUM would never consider that are perfectly fine in the early years. Good luck.

I know a teacher who works at Tubman. The former principal left and it's now a horrible place to work. Teachers are overworked (no planning periods given, etc) and very unhappy. The new principal does not relate to the staff and has poor management skills. I hope this does not effect students and test scores.

Often, principals can make or break a school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In terms of location, isn't the massive presence of a large cluster of public housing a difference between Petworth and Mt. Pleasant and Tubman's catchment population?

Correct, the "Columbia Heights" area which includes Tubman is surrounded by public housing, however this area is the most socioeconomic area in DC in my opinion.

Huh? If you walk the entire perimeter block of Tubman and look at every point, you will find row houses directly across street. No public housing.

If you are referring to the garden apartment complex on both sides of Columbia Road between 13th and 14th Streets, you are mistaken. This is not public housing.

Columbia Village is public housing and crime ridden. I owned in Columbia Heights and made a fortune so it's a good investment but damn once we had a kid we moved to a quieter location about half mile away.

I'm one of the people talking about public housing and I don't mean the block where Tubman is - I mean the area whose children are students at Tubman. I don't mean the three-story full-market-rate rowhouses on 13th and 11th.

And I had always believed that there was essentially a large highly populated block of subsidized/low-income/section 8 housing running between 13th & 14th on Columbia. Is that not the case and otherwise how would you characterize that block?

Pretty sure it's 2012.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/for-many-young-dc-parents-city-schools-remain-a-sticking-point/2013/10/21/85e02670-380e-11e3-ae46-e4248e75c8ea_story.html

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In terms of location, isn't the massive presence of a large cluster of public housing a difference between Petworth and Mt. Pleasant and Tubman's catchment population?

Correct, the "Columbia Heights" area which includes Tubman is surrounded by public housing, however this area is the most socioeconomic area in DC in my opinion.

Huh? If you walk the entire perimeter block of Tubman and look at every point, you will find row houses directly across street. No public housing.

If you are referring to the garden apartment complex on both sides of Columbia Road between 13th and 14th Streets, you are mistaken. This is not public housing.

The posters talking about "public housing" mean "poor black people" and "crime". I agree that the area used to be a lot less safe than it has been. And those rowhouses sometimes go for close to $1M. I know what I paid a couple years ago and the market has only gone up since then. Hardly crime central.

Many of the townhomes around Tubman are upwards of $600k, and that whole area around 11th street is becoming very affluent. With all the bloombars parents in the neighborhood, I would expect that the school would be changing. How old is this story with the white parent who tried to change the PTA - 3, 4 years old?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Principals should be ranked on how many white kids they recruit and retain in gentrifying neighborhoods. It would demonstrate reaching out to IB high ses families and creating truly neighborhood schools full of IB families.im IB for bruce Monroe but have issues with my kid being te only white student or not being fluent in Spanish which is language of their 60% ESL population. None of the white high ses families we know IB send their kids.

I don't like this attitude. Fair-handedness is important, certainly. But no school should be seen as trying to "recruit and retain white kids." You (and I) are citizens of DC, nothing special, and the children of Spanish-speakers or long-term residents are no less worthy of DCPS attention. Good grief.

If you have learned anything on these boards, it is the rock-solid belief that race doesn't actually matter in the game we're trying to play, it's socioeconomic status. Schools need a balance socioeconomically. "Go recruit some white kids" is dinosaur stuff, man.

+1. has nothing to do with race , ethnicity. However, there is an idea here worth exploring regarding recruiting all neighborhood families from all socio-economic backgrounds (including affluent black families -- why just white kids?).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In terms of location, isn't the massive presence of a large cluster of public housing a difference between Petworth and Mt. Pleasant and Tubman's catchment population?

Correct, the "Columbia Heights" area which includes Tubman is surrounded by public housing, however this area is the most socioeconomic area in DC in my opinion.

Huh? If you walk the entire perimeter block of Tubman and look at every point, you will find row houses directly across street. No public housing.

If you are referring to the garden apartment complex on both sides of Columbia Road between 13th and 14th Streets, you are mistaken. This is not public housing.

The posters talking about "public housing" mean "poor black people" and "crime". I agree that the area used to be a lot less safe than it has been. And those rowhouses sometimes go for close to $1M. I know what I paid a couple years ago and the market has only gone up since then. Hardly crime central.

Are those really not public housing, or are you parsing between buildings owned by the City and run by the Housing Authority and those that are dominated by Section 8 voucher users?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In terms of location, isn't the massive presence of a large cluster of public housing a difference between Petworth and Mt. Pleasant and Tubman's catchment population?

Correct, the "Columbia Heights" area which includes Tubman is surrounded by public housing, however this area is the most socioeconomic area in DC in my opinion.

Huh? If you walk the entire perimeter block of Tubman and look at every point, you will find row houses directly across street. No public housing.

If you are referring to the garden apartment complex on both sides of Columbia Road between 13th and 14th Streets, you are mistaken. This is not public housing.

Anonymous wrote:Principals should be ranked on how many white kids they recruit and retain in gentrifying neighborhoods. It would demonstrate reaching out to IB high ses families and creating truly neighborhood schools full of IB families.im IB for bruce Monroe but have issues with my kid being te only white student or not being fluent in Spanish which is language of their 60% ESL population. None of the white high ses families we know IB send their kids.

I don't like this attitude. Fair-handedness is important, certainly. But no school should be seen as trying to "recruit and retain white kids." You (and I) are citizens of DC, nothing special, and the children of Spanish-speakers or long-term residents are no less worthy of DCPS attention. Good grief.

If you have learned anything on these boards, it is the rock-solid belief that race doesn't actually matter in the game we're trying to play, it's socioeconomic status. Schools need a balance socioeconomically. "Go recruit some white kids" is dinosaur stuff, man.