Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing that really pisses me off is that Brookland Middle School is being used as the poster child for NOT doing stand-alone middle schools. But guess what, they picked Ward 5 that has the highest concentration of charters, so Brookland MS was doomed to fail. Yet, what happened there will be used repeatedly as a reason not to fund MS elsewhere even if the situation is much different. The elementary schools in the Cardozo feeder are doing fairly well and enrollment is increasing year by year (same couldn't have been said for all the Brookland MS feeders).

I don't really get why Brookland is seen as a total failure, because in-boundry uptake is increasing there. And building utilization would have been better if they had built smaller, but DCPS does not want small middle schools. I don't know the math, sure it would not have all the bells and whistles but lets have a conversation about that for Shaw. Instead there is a conversations about apple pie criteria like equity and proximity.

And I do not see why 500 kids should be the minimum requirememt when Brookland exists in the mid-200s.

It seems silly to fuss over in-boundary numbers when a school is centrally located and on the metro and several good bus lines. I live OOB for it, but can still easily walk to it, and would consider it a terrific location for my child.

I think the concern for DCPS is that it has to compete with charters but it does not want to compete with its other schools. So I do agree that putting a middles school there sized to serve more than the population inbounds or in the feeder pattern, would fill up if the PARCC scores are better than ??? 40% at grade perhaps, it is still pulling kids from other DCPS middle schools that are already too empty. Brookland exists but given the utliization and enrollment the cots per student must be super high. Apart from oversizing the place there could actually be a positive story there.

The Shaw site is such a great location for a middle school, I agree.

Agree a MS in the 200-300 range makes a lot of sense. That’s why the idea of an EC collocated at Seaton makes sense. Then you have the location, a size DCPS agrees is viable, and a facility that is not oversized.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing that really pisses me off is that Brookland Middle School is being used as the poster child for NOT doing stand-alone middle schools. But guess what, they picked Ward 5 that has the highest concentration of charters, so Brookland MS was doomed to fail. Yet, what happened there will be used repeatedly as a reason not to fund MS elsewhere even if the situation is much different. The elementary schools in the Cardozo feeder are doing fairly well and enrollment is increasing year by year (same couldn't have been said for all the Brookland MS feeders).

I don't really get why Brookland is seen as a total failure, because in-boundry uptake is increasing there. And building utilization would have been better if they had built smaller, but DCPS does not want small middle schools. I don't know the math, sure it would not have all the bells and whistles but lets have a conversation about that for Shaw. Instead there is a conversations about apple pie criteria like equity and proximity.

And I do not see why 500 kids should be the minimum requirememt when Brookland exists in the mid-200s.

It seems silly to fuss over in-boundary numbers when a school is centrally located and on the metro and several good bus lines. I live OOB for it, but can still easily walk to it, and would consider it a terrific location for my child.

I think the concern for DCPS is that it has to compete with charters but it does not want to compete with its other schools. So I do agree that putting a middles school there sized to serve more than the population inbounds or in the feeder pattern, would fill up if the PARCC scores are better than ??? 40% at grade perhaps, it is still pulling kids from other DCPS middle schools that are already too empty. Brookland exists but given the utliization and enrollment the cots per student must be super high. Apart from oversizing the place there could actually be a positive story there.

The Shaw site is such a great location for a middle school, I agree.

Anonymous wrote:The frustrating part about this process for me is that it seems to have revealed that DCPS doesn’t care about academic excellence.
You create programs for the top 10% of students not because your kid will necessarily BE one of those kids, but because a good way to bring the whole school up is to attract and retain very smart kids. Those kids help attract good teachers and attract aspirational families to move inbounds.

If the city can’t create a good middle school option for Seaton and Garrison that has programs for all kids including the top students, DCPS will lose the opportunity to build an amazing school program in Shaw. They have at the elementary level the principals, the buildings, and enough families for positive momentum. If they don’t create a good middle school they’re just lighting on fire all that elementary school potential. Would be a huge missed opportunity.

(Note I think Banneker is a huge success story and needs to be considered strongly in any Shaw MS plan.)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing that really pisses me off is that Brookland Middle School is being used as the poster child for NOT doing stand-alone middle schools. But guess what, they picked Ward 5 that has the highest concentration of charters, so Brookland MS was doomed to fail. Yet, what happened there will be used repeatedly as a reason not to fund MS elsewhere even if the situation is much different. The elementary schools in the Cardozo feeder are doing fairly well and enrollment is increasing year by year (same couldn't have been said for all the Brookland MS feeders).

I don't really get why Brookland is seen as a total failure, because in-boundry uptake is increasing there. And building utilization would have been better if they had built smaller, but DCPS does not want small middle schools. I don't know the math, sure it would not have all the bells and whistles but lets have a conversation about that for Shaw. Instead there is a conversations about apple pie criteria like equity and proximity.

And I do not see why 500 kids should be the minimum requirememt when Brookland exists in the mid-200s.

It seems silly to fuss over in-boundary numbers when a school is centrally located and on the metro and several good bus lines. I live OOB for it, but can still easily walk to it, and would consider it a terrific location for my child.