Anonymous wrote:We liked Watkins pretty well for 1st grade, and were OK with it for 2nd. But we bailed after 2nd (last year) with lottery luck to jump to a different Hill DCPS. The new program offers much better opportunities for advanced learners, real language instruction, a better developed arts program and, frankly, a lot more fun. We moved on though our middle school prospects at the new school are much worse (OOB for the Cluster and the new school). We plan to stay at the new school through 5th.

It's not that Watkins is a bad school, it's that it's that it's a make-do program for high SES families who aren't Cluster boosters. You only feel so much warmth from your IB school when most of the families don't live on the Hill (so you don't see most of the kids around the neighborhood).

The biggest problem is that the principal isn't in your corner. Her MO is "Don't worry about the high SES kids, they'll do fine regardless. I focus my energies on bringing up the bottom/closing the achievement gap." We didn't have the patience to stick with this approach (though we really admire parents who have the patience).

Anonymous wrote:We liked Watkins pretty well for 1st grade, and were OK with it for 2nd. But we bailed after 2nd (last year) with lottery luck to jump to a different Hill DCPS. The new program offers much better opportunities for advanced learners, real language instruction, a better developed arts program and, frankly, a lot more fun. We moved on though our middle school prospects at the new school are much worse (OOB for the Cluster and the new school). We plan to stay at the new school through 5th.

It's not that Watkins is a bad school, it's that it's that it's a make-do program for high SES families who aren't Cluster boosters. You only feel so much warmth from your IB school when most of the families don't live on the Hill (so you don't see most of the kids around the neighborhood).

The biggest problem is that the principal isn't in your corner. Her MO is "Don't worry about the high SES kids, they'll do fine regardless. I focus my energies on bringing up the bottom/closing the achievement gap." We didn't have the patience to stick with this approach (though we really admire parents who have the patience).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All I know is that i live IB and send my kids to Watkins, and so do many of our neighbors. We just had a holiday concert that was well-attended by lots of IB folks. Come to the school and take a look around to see how it is!

Why don’t you tell us how it is? What grades are your kids in? Are you happy with the academics? Do you feel that it is a warm environment?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The success/failure of an urban neighborhood school system IS predicated on neighbors enrolling in their buy-right schools.

When I moved to Capitol Hill in 2000, the percentage of in-bounds students at Brent was 0%. Yes, 0%. I remember checking the statistic on the DCPS web site before visiting with a friend, wondering if that could possibly be right. She's a USG employee who was tutoring a kid there weekly with a volunteer program run by the State Dept. I remember the school being dark and dingy inside, seeing many windows that had been boarded up with wood so long that the wood was falling apart, and broken glass on a banged-up playground.

Now Brent's student body is around 2/3 IB. Yet, a mile north, in a catchment area where the demographics aren't all that different from those in the Brent District, Stuart Hobson remains almost 80% OOB. This is true although the SH building is a lot nicer than Brent's has ever been.

That's the story of Stuart Hobson.

You're comparing elementary apples to middle school oranges

Not really. There's validity to side-by-side comparisons between Brent, and Maury, and the deeply troubled Watkins-SH nexus.

The real difference hasn't been catchment area demographics, location, curricula or ages served. The difference is found in the type of parental involvement/leadership we've seen in the last 15 years.

The pioneering Brent and Maury parents set out to primarily serve their neighborhoods and have achieved this overarching goal over time. The Cluster parents set the much more idealistic goal of supporting a school with a wide EotP draw. They've never really strived to create a neighborhood school collectively, so they mostly serve families from Ward 5, 7 and 8. Ward 6 deserves better.

Cut the crap. If you're talking "Watkins'SH' nexus then let's talk 'Brent-Jefferson' and 'Maury-Eliot Hine'.

Anonymous wrote:All I know is that i live IB and send my kids to Watkins, and so do many of our neighbors. We just had a holiday concert that was well-attended by lots of IB folks. Come to the school and take a look around to see how it is!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The success/failure of an urban neighborhood school system IS predicated on neighbors enrolling in their buy-right schools.

When I moved to Capitol Hill in 2000, the percentage of in-bounds students at Brent was 0%. Yes, 0%. I remember checking the statistic on the DCPS web site before visiting with a friend, wondering if that could possibly be right. She's a USG employee who was tutoring a kid there weekly with a volunteer program run by the State Dept. I remember the school being dark and dingy inside, seeing many windows that had been boarded up with wood so long that the wood was falling apart, and broken glass on a banged-up playground.

Now Brent's student body is around 2/3 IB. Yet, a mile north, in a catchment area where the demographics aren't all that different from those in the Brent District, Stuart Hobson remains almost 80% OOB. This is true although the SH building is a lot nicer than Brent's has ever been.

That's the story of Stuart Hobson.

You're comparing elementary apples to middle school oranges

And you are making the case for those of us who argue that SH feeders are changing, but it isn't happening overnight. As you point out, Brent came from 0% to where it is in a matter of a decade or so. That didn't happen overnight.

Also, the catchment for Brent is one of the most affluent on the Hill. Not sure where you are getting this idea that a mile away is basically the same. It isn't.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The success/failure of an urban neighborhood school system IS predicated on neighbors enrolling in their buy-right schools.

When I moved to Capitol Hill in 2000, the percentage of in-bounds students at Brent was 0%. Yes, 0%. I remember checking the statistic on the DCPS web site before visiting with a friend, wondering if that could possibly be right. She's a USG employee who was tutoring a kid there weekly with a volunteer program run by the State Dept. I remember the school being dark and dingy inside, seeing many windows that had been boarded up with wood so long that the wood was falling apart, and broken glass on a banged-up playground.

Now Brent's student body is around 2/3 IB. Yet, a mile north, in a catchment area where the demographics aren't all that different from those in the Brent District, Stuart Hobson remains almost 80% OOB. This is true although the SH building is a lot nicer than Brent's has ever been.

That's the story of Stuart Hobson.

You're comparing elementary apples to middle school oranges

And you are making the case for those of us who argue that SH feeders are changing, but it isn't happening overnight. As you point out, Brent came from 0% to where it is in a matter of a decade or so. That didn't happen overnight.

Also, the catchment for Brent is one of the most affluent on the Hill. Not sure where you are getting this idea that a mile away is basically the same. It isn't.

Project much? Where on earth did you read that from above reply?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Watkins is too large of a school. It used to have 5 classes per grade. Now it's 4.
How many classes per grade for Brent or Maury?

Some Brent and Maury grades have three classes per grade - not very different from four.

Also, think about Janney which is even more classes per grade.

I think where size comes in is how many families you need to commit - for Brent and Maury (in the early days), you needed far fewer families to see the impact in the classroom - that is 10 IB families goes a lot farther at Brent in changing IB/OOB mix than it does at Watkins.