Anonymous wrote:DC needs to go all-lottery for HS

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think Eastern HS needs a fresh start - new principal, etc. Someone who can turn it around and make it at least a 50% neighborhood school.

DCPS already tried this. When they renovated the school, they also completely reconstituted it. New admin, started over with a freshman class, AND implemented IB at local parents' request.

The "neighborhood" families still didn't show up.

Truth be told, that case is likely the reason why DCPS doesn't give a damn about what anyone on this board thinks. DCUM people are (generally) all talk and no action, unless that action is finding a new and creative way to filter out undesirable students.

I think the bigger problem is that DCPS has no credibility with families so no one is willing to trust their half-baked measures. Anacostia HS, etc., all offer AP classes in theory but if you actually talk to teachers, you find out the content being taught is not AP because kids are too far behind. So how am I supposed to trust Eastern’s IB classes especially when the results look terrible. Are you recommending I just throw my kid in there and hope for the best?

THIS. UMC families EOTP will never get buy in to send their kids to the middle much less high school. So they go the charter route, private route, or move WOTP which exacerbates the overcrowding. Unless there is real tracking in these schools to be able to offer courses with real rigor, it isn’t going to happen. And we all know DCPS will never offer tracking.......

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think Eastern HS needs a fresh start - new principal, etc. Someone who can turn it around and make it at least a 50% neighborhood school.

DCPS already tried this. When they renovated the school, they also completely reconstituted it. New admin, started over with a freshman class, AND implemented IB at local parents' request.

The "neighborhood" families still didn't show up.

Truth be told, that case is likely the reason why DCPS doesn't give a damn about what anyone on this board thinks. DCUM people are (generally) all talk and no action, unless that action is finding a new and creative way to filter out undesirable students.

I think the bigger problem is that DCPS has no credibility with families so no one is willing to trust their half-baked measures. Anacostia HS, etc., all offer AP classes in theory but if you actually talk to teachers, you find out the content being taught is not AP because kids are too far behind. So how am I supposed to trust Eastern’s IB classes especially when the results look terrible. Are you recommending I just throw my kid in there and hope for the best?

Anonymous wrote:There is no way that DCPS will build a new Highschool when most are sitting half empty. The bigger problem is that DCPS leadership is insular, arrogant, and not particularly smart. They think they have all the answers and don’t listen to teachers or the parent community.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think Eastern HS needs a fresh start - new principal, etc. Someone who can turn it around and make it at least a 50% neighborhood school.

DCPS already tried this. When they renovated the school, they also completely reconstituted it. New admin, started over with a freshman class, AND implemented IB at local parents' request.

The "neighborhood" families still didn't show up.

Truth be told, that case is likely the reason why DCPS doesn't give a damn about what anyone on this board thinks. DCUM people are (generally) all talk and no action, unless that action is finding a new and creative way to filter out undesirable students.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I was just thinking--do you think Wilson is so big this because in part kids are coming back from
the charters for high school? And these are kids who 5 years ago would I have never stayed in DC for elementary and middle?

No. The Wilson boundaries contain too many feeder schools. Look at the boundary map. Wilson’s geographic area is 2x or 3x the norm.

But the boundaries didn't change this year. Why did Wilson suddenly gain 200+ 9th graders?

Probably a number of reasons. Two emerging developments at Murch, Hearst, and Eaton are that the number of families living in McClean Gardens and the apartments along CT Avenue has skyrocketed. And, the number of embassy kids has also grown significantly. So the DCPS enrollment projections for these schools are way off. This could also partly explain Wilson.

DC has no land left to build. Besides, that would take 10 years. We need a solution now.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was just thinking--do you think Wilson is so big this because in part kids are coming back from
the charters for high school? And these are kids who 5 years ago would I have never stayed in DC for elementary and middle?

No. The Wilson boundaries contain too many feeder schools. Look at the boundary map. Wilson’s geographic area is 2x or 3x the norm.

But the boundaries didn't change this year. Why did Wilson suddenly gain 200+ 9th graders?

Probably a number of reasons. Two emerging developments at Murch, Hearst, and Eaton are that the number of families living in McClean Gardens and the apartments along CT Avenue has skyrocketed. And, the number of embassy kids has also grown significantly. So the DCPS enrollment projections for these schools are way off. This could also partly explain Wilson.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was just thinking--do you think Wilson is so big this because in part kids are coming back from
the charters for high school? And these are kids who 5 years ago would I have never stayed in DC for elementary and middle?

No. The Wilson boundaries contain too many feeder schools. Look at the boundary map. Wilson’s geographic area is 2x or 3x the norm.

But the boundaries didn't change this year. Why did Wilson suddenly gain 200+ 9th graders?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was just thinking--do you think Wilson is so big this because in part kids are coming back from
the charters for high school? And these are kids who 5 years ago would I have never stayed in DC for elementary and middle?

No. The Wilson boundaries contain too many feeder schools. Look at the boundary map. Wilson’s geographic area is 2x or 3x the norm.

We go around and around on this every month on this board -- but PP is right. Even if you kicked out every OOB student it would still be overcrowded.

Lines need to be redrawn, significantly. Eliminating two tiny elementary schools from the feeder path won't cut it.

yes, but where did these 700 kids go to middle school? Do the numbers from Deal, Hardy, Adams add up to 700?

some of the kids moved IB this summer. Others were at private and charters for middle school but still live IB.

Move Bancroft and Adams to MacFarland and Roosevelt (just like all the other bilingual elementaries. plus making Oyster a PK-5 school allows the school to open more PK classrooms--more space for English-dominant IB kids and more high-quality seats for Spanish-dominant kids from all over).
Move Shepherd and Lafayette to Wells and Coolidge.
Adding more grade-level kids to the Roosevelt and Coolidge feeder patterns and reducing overcrowding at Deal and Wilson.
Yeah, some parents will freak out. They'll threaten to move out of DC or send their kids to private school. They won't all do it, and DCPS won't particularly care if they do.

What you propose would mean a meaning desegregation of DCPS in its entirety. Bold move! Resources would suddenly come pouring into the non-Wilson schools, and that's not a bad thing. Good on you, PP, whether you meant to state this view or not. Its an interesting approach that could result in a major overall and improvement in public education in the District.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was just thinking--do you think Wilson is so big this because in part kids are coming back from
the charters for high school? And these are kids who 5 years ago would I have never stayed in DC for elementary and middle?

No. The Wilson boundaries contain too many feeder schools. Look at the boundary map. Wilson’s geographic area is 2x or 3x the norm.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think Eastern HS needs a fresh start - new principal, etc. Someone who can turn it around and make it at least a 50% neighborhood school.

Eastern would 'turn around' in a heartbeat if neighborhood families enrolled. The curriculum is there (IB classes). They also have a track for higher achieving students (students apply to be included). I think DCPS has provided a carrot...but people seem to be wanting an heirloom tomato.

Come on, Eastern's much lauded International Baccalaurate Diploma program has a pass rate of about 50% with average points totals in the mid 20s (the IBD equivalent of a D+ or C-).

The vast majority of us can't even get through DCPS MS on the Hill - we have no access to Stuart Hobson, and little reason to believe that our middle school-age children would be safe, happy, or challenged at Jefferson Academy or Eliot-Hine, let alone 9th grade at Eastern.

DCPS has provided nothing more than a dead-end street for in-boundary UMC families at Eastern, which is criminal given that we're now the majority of in-boundary residents.

Do you have kids in DC public schools? It certainly doesn't sound like it.

But the kids at Eastern making those scores aren’t wealthy. If your kids went there they would score high.