Anonymous wrote:The teachers at Murch are quite blah after second grade. They are somewhat dopey. My son is in fifth and I am happy he is moving on. Try Lafeyette.

It is really hit or miss. My child had a phenomenal teacher in 3rd grade, and two out of three teachers in 5th grade were excellent.

"50 kids in one class", Part Deux. Bring it on!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about that experiment with the one class with 50 kids and two teachers at Lafayette? Is that something they plan on continuing? I know at least one person pulled their kid out of the school as a result.

Here we go again....

even your comment is not very helpful (and not, you are no Reagan)

Anonymous wrote:What about that experiment with the one class with 50 kids and two teachers at Lafayette? Is that something they plan on continuing? I know at least one person pulled their kid out of the school as a result.

Here we go again....

What about that experiment with the one class with 50 kids and two teachers at Lafayette? Is that something they plan on continuing? I know at least one person pulled their kid out of the school as a result.

Anonymous wrote:The teachers at Murch are quite blah after second grade. They are somewhat dopey. My son is in fifth and I am happy he is moving on. Try Lafeyette.

OP, be skeptical about these kind of responses. Whenever I read these kind of dimissive, vague responses I smell ulterior motive...like making one school sound unattractive in hopes of keeping your family from movIng in after registration numbers are mostly set and further crowding their already overcrowded school. I'm not at Murch or Laf. But I wouldn't want to encourage you to move to my district over the summer either.

If we had to do it over again, there is no way we would send our kids to Lafayette. Unfortunately, we learned the hard way that Lafayette was a lot of smoke and mirrors. Our kids learned a lot at Lafayette but not much of it was academically related. There are way too many lazy, uncaring teachers in that building and the principal knows it but does nothing.

As a long time Lafayette parent, I can tell you the The Principal at Lafayette leaves much to be desired. The school has gone downhill and continues to decline under her "leadership". it has taken a few years for the parents to wake up and smell the coffee but pretty much every parent now recognizes that Lafayette, it's teachers and their kids test scores have gone way down hill. The only positive to Lafayette is the parent participation, but let's face it The PTA isn't teaching our kids.

Anonymous wrote:The open design at Lafayette has pretty negative effects on kids learning. That they have not dropped is a credit to the teachers and administration. That said, I think DCPS has the obligation to fix the design issues that have proven to harm kids. As to it being a mega school. Most schools in the burbs are 600 plus students. That was a huge surprise to me but have 10 or so friends in Fairfax and Montgomery with kids all in 800 plus size schools.

Show me some data on Lafayette kids that proves this.

The open design at Lafayette has pretty negative effects on kids learning. That they have not dropped is a credit to the teachers and administration. That said, I think DCPS has the obligation to fix the design issues that have proven to harm kids. As to it being a mega school. Most schools in the burbs are 600 plus students. That was a huge surprise to me but have 10 or so friends in Fairfax and Montgomery with kids all in 800 plus size schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The teachers at Murch are quite blah after second grade. They are somewhat dopey. My son is in fifth and I am happy he is moving on. Try Lafeyette.

I find that comment fascinating. I also have a 5th grader and my family has not had that experience at Murch at all.

Another Murch parent here, and I would wager that every school has its share of dopey teachers. Sounds like PP was particularly unlucky to get a streak of them at Murch. But I hear the same reports from Lafayette parents I know--one teacher at a particular grade level is great, the other is blah.

Anonymous wrote:The teachers at Murch are quite blah after second grade. They are somewhat dopey. My son is in fifth and I am happy he is moving on. Try Lafeyette.

I find that comment fascinating. I also have a 5th grader and my family has not had that experience at Murch at all.

The teachers at Murch are quite blah after second grade. They are somewhat dopey. My son is in fifth and I am happy he is moving on. Try Lafeyette.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's overcrowded because of demand.

ALL upper NW elementaries are overcrowded. That doesn't automatically make them sensory overloads. Lafayette needs a redesign of the physical plant to catch up with the '90s. (No, that wasn't a typo.)

Tell us something we don't already know about the design.

My point is that people still choose to send their kids to Lafayette despite the layout. Lafayette is the largest elementary in the system and is projecting an enrollment of 700 kids next year. As a parent with kids at Lafayette, the administration does an excellent job with managing these numbers of kids. It is definitely not the best layout for all kids. But instead of spending $$ on a redesign, I would rather see my tax $$ spent on creating more school options so we don't have overcrowding in the first place. Plus if you've ever visited other elementary schools in the city you would know that there are many other schools that have more urgent renovation needs.

So, not only is it poorly designed, but it's also a mega-school.

How many decades of research tell us that smaller schools are better? Three? Four? Five? Six? 700 children in a MIDDLE school would be huge. Lafayette is packing 700 into an ELEMENTARY? Yikes!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's overcrowded because of demand.

ALL upper NW elementaries are overcrowded. That doesn't automatically make them sensory overloads. Lafayette needs a redesign of the physical plant to catch up with the '90s. (No, that wasn't a typo.)

Tell us something we don't already know about the design.

My point is that people still choose to send their kids to Lafayette despite the layout. Lafayette is the largest elementary in the system and is projecting an enrollment of 700 kids next year. As a parent with kids at Lafayette, the administration does an excellent job with managing these numbers of kids. It is definitely not the best layout for all kids. But instead of spending $$ on a redesign, I would rather see my tax $$ spent on creating more school options so we don't have overcrowding in the first place. Plus if you've ever visited other elementary schools in the city you would know that there are many other schools that have more urgent renovation needs.