Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

First of all, there is no Takoma Park middle. It's an "education campus" (PK - 8th, with all the lack of specialization that entails). Second, it's under-enrolled, and even more so the higher the grade you go up. NOT a school to emulate. Middle class parents in Tacoma Park do not send their children there.

Huh? Takoma Park Middle School for grades 6-8 is on Piney Branch Rd., has around 850 students. The school houses the TPMS math/science magnet admitting 100 kids a year, around 16% of applicants from across MoCo. The school as a whole is around 1/3 white, 1/4 black, 1/5 Asian, nearly 1/5 Hispanic. The magnet is nearly 1/2 Asian. We're looking at moving to Takoma Park to join Ivy League friends who send their children.

Anonymous wrote:

First of all, there is no Takoma Park middle. It's an "education campus" (PK - 8th, with all the lack of specialization that entails). Second, it's under-enrolled, and even more so the higher the grade you go up. NOT a school to emulate. Middle class parents in Tacoma Park do not send their children there.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: I'd close Maury and Ludlow-Taylor

I definitely wouldn't close Maury - their kick ass PTA deserves better. I'd close LT and Payne, where 2/3 of kids are OOB or "IB" PG County address cheaters using grandmothers to generate utility bills in parents' names, the PTAs are controlled by low-SES intransigents, and there is almost no momentum for IB middle-class enrollment above PS.

With all the upper-middle-class parents being siphoned off to charters, the burbs and privates, it's difficult to imagine SH offering suburban level challenge in the forseeable future, let alone EH. You need a critical mass of those parents to push for high wattage middle school ability gropuing and they're dropping out of DCPS like crazy, partly because the Cluster leadership remains deeply territorial.

The Hill will probably simply lose more and more high-SES parents to future charters, like DC International at Walter Reed (a Yu Ying creation that will probably open in 2014-2015) and privates. Hence, I'll be surprised if SH attracts more than 1/4 high-SES (up from around 15% now) within 5-10 years. Current MS planners just don't seem serious/practical about what it would take to provide challenge for advanced learners at the middle school level (read run of the mill high-SES and a few high-performing low-SES kids).

I, too, feel reluctant to get involved, athough I'm an active ES PTA parent of a pres kid, because the chance of a pay-off seems slight, even 7 or 8 years hence.

This. Between Latin, Basis, DCI... charters are responding to the market demand. DCPS isn't. It's basic economics, it really is that simple.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about scrapping the remodel at Stuart and move it to Eliot Hine that is bigger and has fields? Then there would be plenty of room for all the Hill schools to feed into SH>

Because EH is in a sketchy neighborhood. I'm not sending my kid there.

I disagree. I live close to SH, but I'd rather have the big fields at E H. If EH had a really strong math and science program (on level of Takoma park middle, etc.) I'd Love to enroll my child at E H.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd close Maury and Ludlow-Taylor

Funny logic here! Maury has less OOB students than any other Capitol Hill Elementary school except for J.O. Wilson... And if you'd meant to say Miner (which by the way has the most modern facility of all), then that's still 35% in-boundary, compared to 26% in-boundary at Watkins... Now, statistics don't tell the whole story but at least, think a little first.

Anonymous wrote:I'd close Maury and Ludlow-Taylor

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The fact that 84 of the Watkins 5th graders enrolled in Szh is misleading since most of the IB Cluster kids have already left. We started at SWS and I have on entering 6th grade this year. We have one neighborhood friend who started at SWS with us that is heading to SH. The other kids all came in as the IB kids got out. So my question is more of how many of the 84 Watkins kids going to SH are actually IB? My guess would be no more than 1/4 of them.

25% of 5th grade in boundary sounds about right, if not too high. Watkins is overall ~30% out of boundary students, and I'd guess that the 1st grade starts off 70% and if the in bounds drops by 10% - 15% a year. . .

70% 1st
60% 2nd
45% 3rd
30% 4th
15% 5th

Average of the above is 44%

Don't know if it is true, but I did hear that a couple (maybe 2) students are transferring from Brent to Watkins for 5th for the SH feeder. But who knows, maybe by now they are off the Latin Wait List. . . ..

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: I'll be surprised if SH attracts more than 1/4 high-SES (up from around 15% now) within 5-10 years. Current MS planners just don't seem serious/practical about what it would take to provide challenge for advanced learners at the middle school level (read run of the mill high-SES and a few high-performing low-SES kids).

I'm going to err on the side of optimism by predicting 1/3 high-SES families at SH in 6-8 years.

We've begun researching MoCo options in Rockville, Bethesda, Takoma Prk etc. in case we strike out in the Latin and Basis lotteries in 2013 (probably will). The suburban schools we're looking at, or test-in magnets, are all in the 2/3-90% high-SES range. The Hill has the demographics to support at least one middle school program with those demographics, but not the political will.

We'll be sad to go, but can't leave our GT kid to suffer at SH. The kid is shy and not cut out for the rough and tumble there, or waiting for algebra till 8th grade (Johns Hopkins CTY math teacher recommends algebra in 6th). We expected to be in a bind by this age, but hoped against hope that we wouldn't be. Don't have the cash for Sidwell etc. DCPS surely won't miss us.