Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We passed on this opportunity and have never regretted it. Why send your DC to a school in a different neighborhood, particularly during the difficult MS years? Just did not work for us. It is not a requirement of life.

Perhaps because Luther Jackson MS is a great feeder school to TJ?

If you call 4 a great feed.

Thanks for playing, but the correct answer is 15.

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/25/299438.page#3467239

How many apply to get those 15?

Anonymous wrote:We are facing the Thoreau vs. Jackson AAP decision right now. Our concern isn't with the schools themselves, because I've heard great things about both places, but more with AAP vs. "honors". From what I've heard from current Thoreau parents, the honors classes seem to have been watered down over the past few years and are not especially challenging or accelerated. On the other hand, the homework load at Jackson sounds brutal. Our child already spends 2-4 hours a night on homework in 6th grade and is starting to crack under the strain. I can't see sending her into an environment that will cause her even more stress (Jackson), but I also don't want to do her a disservice by sending her to a place where she may be bored and lose interest in school (Thoreau). Can anyone tell me what the homework load is like at Jackson? Are there a lot of group projects like at Louise Archer, or is it more individual work? Thanks for any advice or insight you can offer!

Parent of a child now at Jackson in AAP. Chose Jackson over Thoreau. Please be sure you go to the Jackson night where they talk to parents -- they do a separate presentation about AAP and we got an excellent overview of how AAP in MS differs from honors and from general ed. Some teachers walked us through specific assignments and how those same assignments would be different for students in each of those programs. (For instance: On one particular history project, general ed kids would do a biography research paper of X words and have to use a few sources; honors kids would need to do a longer paper with more sources; AAP kids would need to do a slightly longer paper and discuss for instance how that person might have handled a modern issue in today's world.) It was a huge help to see those comparisons and I'd never seen them made anywhere else. Find out when that night is this spring and go.

We also went to the Thoreau information night in the spring and the principal said that "ALL students take honors science and (I think) history" -- I know it was two topics. If all kids take honors, how is it honors? A parent asked at that meeting how the school handles it when there are kids in an "honors" class who are working at different levels and paces and was told that "we differentiate." Having seen in the early pre-AAP grades that differentiation didn't really serve kids who needed more challenges and wanted to do more, and could do it faster, that did not impress us. I know some people think that honors and AAP are "the same thing" but having the same curricululm to cover does not make them the same type of classes. Again, go to both the Thoreau and Jackson information nights and be sure you sit in on the specific AAP presentation at Jackson.

Homework as ever depends on the teachers so it's hard to make a blanket statement about it. Simply put, it's middle school and there's going to be a lot wherever you are (if there isn't I'd be concerned that things were a bit too easy.) If your kid has a ton of extracurriculars it can get tough, yes, but again, we know kids at Thoreau and they complain about their homework too. A kid who can learn to work ahead is going to do OK though there is always more homework coming down the pike. Yes, there are group projects but those are going to be everywhere, frankly -- if you object to those, honestly there's not much point, since you can't control what teachers your child gets or whether that teacher, that year, likes to use group projects. And from talking to parents who have had kids in MS and HS ahead of us, more homework is just the way it is everywhere.

If your child in 6th is doing 2-4 hours of homework a night -- is that truly every single night Monday-Thursday? Does your child have extracurriculars on weekdays that influence that or push her homework schedule around? How much of it is actual homework load that is expected the next day and how much is her own schedule and scheduling skills? My child at times did have a lot of homework at Archer but nights when it piled up were affected as much by schedule as by actual amount of homework. Something to consider. Talk to her teachers in 6th and ask if this level of homework is normal or if the issue is possibly how she does it, or other things that are on her plate. Talk with them through the spring about what might work best for her next year -- they see her in class and can have a good "read" on what would benefit her most. (And remember, OP, if you say yes to one school you can change that decison over the summer, I think.)

I have to note that we have friends with kids at Thoreau and the parents and the kids all like it a lot, but I can't vouch for how academically challenged the kids are or are not. I know it's well regarded and kids coming out of it do fine in HS. I can say that at Jackson so far the quality of the teaching and the things they have kids doing in my child's classes are very engaging to my kid, and we hear a lot of positive things from our kid at home about the discussions and activities they have in class.

Someone posted above how the whole "keep my kid at the neighborhood school" thing that comes up a lot in this area really is moot when the child's "neighborhood" of classmates is actually more important. That's totally true. Thoreau would be our "neighborhood" school only in the sense of physical proximity. Almost all my child's AAP classmates went to Jackson (except those who went to Kilmer because that's where they were zoned--those kids don't have a choice and go to Kilmer whether they're AAP or general ed). And my child has made friends from many other schools -- that side of things has not been an issue.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Said not to Jackson and never looked back. At Duke now.

I'm trying so hard not to make a Duke comment in response to this....

--Tarheel whose kids will go to Kilmer and doesn't have a dog in this fight

Exactly. Stanford and UVA parents. Our kids can decide where they want to go, but we've drilled early on that they should go anywhere but Duke. Haven't met anyone from an Ivy anywhere near as douchy as most Duke grads I meet.

Really inane stuff. As far as I can tell, Duke is similar to U.Va., except the kids are smarter.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Said not to Jackson and never looked back. At Duke now.

I'm trying so hard not to make a Duke comment in response to this....

--Tarheel whose kids will go to Kilmer and doesn't have a dog in this fight

Exactly. Stanford and UVA parents. Our kids can decide where they want to go, but we've drilled early on that they should go anywhere but Duke. Haven't met anyone from an Ivy anywhere near as douchy as most Duke grads I meet.

Anonymous wrote:Said not to Jackson and never looked back. At Duke now.

I'm trying so hard not to make a Duke comment in response to this....

--Tarheel whose kids will go to Kilmer and doesn't have a dog in this fight

We are facing the Thoreau vs. Jackson AAP decision right now. Our concern isn't with the schools themselves, because I've heard great things about both places, but more with AAP vs. "honors". From what I've heard from current Thoreau parents, the honors classes seem to have been watered down over the past few years and are not especially challenging or accelerated. On the other hand, the homework load at Jackson sounds brutal. Our child already spends 2-4 hours a night on homework in 6th grade and is starting to crack under the strain. I can't see sending her into an environment that will cause her even more stress (Jackson), but I also don't want to do her a disservice by sending her to a place where she may be bored and lose interest in school (Thoreau). Can anyone tell me what the homework load is like at Jackson? Are there a lot of group projects like at Louise Archer, or is it more individual work? Thanks for any advice or insight you can offer!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We passed on this opportunity and have never regretted it. Why send your DC to a school in a different neighborhood, particularly during the difficult MS years? Just did not work for us. It is not a requirement of life.

Perhaps because Luther Jackson MS is a great feeder school to TJ?

If you call 4 a great feed.

Thanks for playing, but the correct answer is 15.

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/25/299438.page#3467239

Luther jackson is the best school. And there is one teacher named mr. Mcdade. He is the best teacher there!! I mis him so much. He is the best

Said not to Jackson and never looked back. At Duke now.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We passed on this opportunity and have never regretted it. Why send your DC to a school in a different neighborhood, particularly during the difficult MS years? Just did not work for us. It is not a requirement of life.

Perhaps because Luther Jackson MS is a great feeder school to TJ?

If you call 4 a great feed.

Luther jackson middle school is the best school. The teachers are awesome. I miss that school so much. And mr. Mcdade is the best teacher there!

It's all OK, people. Both schools are good.

Anonymous wrote:We passed on this opportunity and have never regretted it. Why send your DC to a school in a different neighborhood, particularly during the difficult MS years? Just did not work for us. It is not a requirement of life.

It's great if it works for all involved, but neighborhood is not the most important criterion for every family. Some kids might welcome the chance to leave their neighborhoods for school and be able to separate their school lives from their neighborhood friends. And we chose Jackson over Thoreau, which is closer, first for the AAP center, but we also found that my child's real "neighborhood" -- her school friends -- chose Jackson as well, and they, like us, could have gone to Thoreau.Kids who have been in AAP centers outside their neighborhoods might identify more with their schools than with their neighborhoods. I know mine does.

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Anonymous wrote:We passed on this opportunity and have never regretted it. Why send your DC to a school in a different neighborhood, particularly during the difficult MS years? Just did not work for us. It is not a requirement of life.

Perhaps because Luther Jackson MS is a great feeder school to TJ?

We passed on this opportunity and have never regretted it. Why send your DC to a school in a different neighborhood, particularly during the difficult MS years? Just did not work for us. It is not a requirement of life.