Anonymous wrote:Let's see SWW will embrace/merge/co-locate with Francis. Therefore the school population will from k thru 12. Isn't proposed that McKinley will go from 6 thru 12. Both are application only high schools, is this the new trend.

No- as there is no application necessary for FS.

Let's see SWW will embrace/merge/co-locate with Francis. Therefore the school population will from k thru 12. Isn't proposed that McKinley will go from 6 thru 12. Both are application only high schools, is this the new trend.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The confusion is between in bounds and feed. A student living next door th FS would be in boundary for Wilson hs, but FS feeds Cardozo. Meaning if you are an OOB student at FS you have the option of Cardozo or your IB HS. If you are IB at FS you have the option of Wilson or Cardozo.

Ok - thank you for clearing that up. But the question remains - why should Eastern enter this equation at all? Why would they feed to a school so far away?

Wilson is over capacity, Eastern under. Agree it would be odd for FS to feed Eastern. The difference in distance (FS - Wilson v. FS - Eastern) is significant but not extreme (Wilson is 4 miles, Eastern, 5.3). The closest schools with 9-12 are Cardozo and Colombia Heights at 2.1 miles. Who knows what will happen with the boundary redraw next year. Ward 2 residents who are in boundary for Wilson (West End, Foggy Bottom, Dupont Circle, Sheridan Kalorama) would be upset to be moved to any of these schools, but frankly I doubt many are in DCPS beyond ES as existing IB MS options aren't considered viable by the well heeled residents of these neighborhoods. As such an investment in FS/SWW at the middle school level could be a net gain, even if these areas are dropped from the Wilson pyramid.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The confusion is between in bounds and feed. A student living next door th FS would be in boundary for Wilson hs, but FS feeds Cardozo. Meaning if you are an OOB student at FS you have the option of Cardozo or your IB HS. If you are IB at FS you have the option of Wilson or Cardozo.

Ok - thank you for clearing that up. But the question remains - why should Eastern enter this equation at all? Why would they feed to a school so far away?

Merely because Eastern is ambitious, and that would make it a more palatable transfer to families who have to give up Wilson. Also, according to the map it's about the same distance as Wilson, if not closer.

Anonymous wrote:In what world should Francis Stevens feed to Eastern? They are 5 miles apart, with plenty of options in between. And if it's 'newly renovated' that is the criteria - Dunbar is only 2 miles down from FS.

Details - none of which change the equation, or the ultimate point.

Eastern, Cardozo, OR Dunbar - they're all big, expensive renovations, and at least one of them will get feeder schools from Wilson. Wilson is full, and it needs to get rid of some students, one way or another. The farther away an MS is, the easier it is to make a case for dropping. Especially if it is NOT a largely inbounds school that's majority minority (like the Bancroft to Deal to Wilson feeder pattern, eliminating it gives DCPS more of a black-eye). With shiny, new facilities at Eastern, or Cardozo, or Dunbar, it will be harder to object, especially as an OOB family. FS families will be expected to go along with the changes and be grateful. Eastern is not going to get the high SES students it wants from the Hill, because the Hill families are not getting the high-SES MS that they want. Actually, as of the official school-closure list, Eastern will fill up some with the leftovers from Springarn. The hopes for high performance are eddying around the drain. The new Cardozo should hasten the demise of Roosevelt and Coolidge, but that's another post.

Bottom line: nobody at FS is going to get an easy ticket into Walls. The demand at Walls has increased, the number of applications has increased. Walls is harder to get into now, not easier. If kids from Deal & Hardy & SH are finding it more competitive, there's no way anyone from FS gets a pass. Sorry, but that is ridiculous. It's not a neighborhood school, it's not a charter, it doesn't have to concern itself with proximity. Growing Walls makes sense, but not by adding FS students. Why expand the school only to kill the value of the brand? Tens of millions have been spent to improve the comprehensive HSs to expand and improve the system - shifting a middling-to-low-performing population into a competitive program is contrary to everyone's interests. Moving FS students away from Wilson makes great sense (most of them don't live in the area anyway), if it's not Eastern, then it will be Cardozo or Dunbar. It won't be Walls. The money was not spent on the comprehensive high schools, only to feed students into an application-entry school, without an application. The suggestion is completely illogical.

Anonymous wrote:The confusion is between in bounds and feed. A student living next door th FS would be in boundary for Wilson hs, but FS feeds Cardozo. Meaning if you are an OOB student at FS you have the option of Cardozo or your IB HS. If you are IB at FS you have the option of Wilson or Cardozo.

Ok - thank you for clearing that up. But the question remains - why should Eastern enter this equation at all? Why would they feed to a school so far away?

PP @ 9.37 says "colocating is not merging". This is correct but note the dcps statement of January 17 specifically says that the schools will be merged under Walls management.

The confusion is between in bounds and feed. A student living next door th FS would be in boundary for Wilson hs, but FS feeds Cardozo. Meaning if you are an OOB student at FS you have the option of Cardozo or your IB HS. If you are IB at FS you have the option of Wilson or Cardozo.

In what world should Francis Stevens feed to Eastern? They are 5 miles apart, with plenty of options in between. And if it's 'newly renovated' that is the criteria - Dunbar is only 2 miles down from FS.

Anonymous wrote:FS currently feeds into Cardozo NOT Wilson. Look it up. Your argument is off.

Not according to the DCPS atlas. http://dcatlas.dcgis.dc.gov/schools/

Enter FRANCIS-STEVENS EDUCATION CAMPUS in the search window and see what it says.

Here's a preview:


The following schools are assigned to your address

School Type School Name School Address Phone Number

Elementary and Middle School Francis-Stevens Education Campus 2425 N STREET NW 202-724-4841

High School Wilson High School 3950 CHESAPEAKE STREET NW 202-282-0120

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To think there will somehow be a firewall between SWW and 8th grade FS students is naive. Maybe next year there will, and I may even give you 2015. But after that the FS kids will be moving on to SWW. You don't merge schools to make a pk-12 school then make kids test into certain grades.

Not saying good or bad but that is what will happen.

Wrong. Completely wrong. Cheh and the families of Upper NW will never stand for it. More importantly, that's not part of the long-term strategy. Look, co-locating is not merging, lots of schools have done it. It's not a big deal. What will happen is that this will facilitate changing the feeder patterns.

DCPS didn't spend all that money at Eastern, just to funnel more kids into Upper NW. Wilson is full, in fact it is over-flowing. Some schools need to be cut loose from Wilson and funneled into Eastern - Stevens is ripe for the picking.

Look at the map. FS is halfway between the two, and on the same side of the park as Eastern. The MS options on the Hill are terrible, largely because the good ESs can't be combined. That means the higher SES families in its vicinity won't strongly support them. (There's no way to combine Brent and Maury with the cluster into SH. DCPS will continue to lose students into the high-end charter options, such as Latin, Basis, now probably DCI too.) So, Kaya has to find a way to steer as many relatively decent MSs into Eastern. Stevens is perfect. What's the OOB percentage - 80% or more? Of course no-one will complain - all the upper year students are from Ward 5 or East of the river anyway, they're just happy to avoid Anacostia.

No-one in upper NW (most of the SWW families) is going to settle for diluting that school by letting anyone walk in without testing, it simply makes no sense. Finding a good way to take some students out of Wilson, is what makes sense. What will happen is that the feeder pattern will change and Francis Stevens will feed Eastern.

FS currently feeds into Cardozo NOT Wilson. Look it up. Your argument is off.

Anonymous wrote:To think there will somehow be a firewall between SWW and 8th grade FS students is naive. Maybe next year there will, and I may even give you 2015. But after that the FS kids will be moving on to SWW. You don't merge schools to make a pk-12 school then make kids test into certain grades.

Not saying good or bad but that is what will happen.

Wrong. Completely wrong. Cheh and the families of Upper NW will never stand for it. More importantly, that's not part of the long-term strategy. Look, co-locating is not merging, lots of schools have done it. It's not a big deal. What will happen is that this will facilitate changing the feeder patterns.

DCPS didn't spend all that money at Eastern, just to funnel more kids into Upper NW. Wilson is full, in fact it is over-flowing. Some schools need to be cut loose from Wilson and funneled into Eastern - Stevens is ripe for the picking.

Look at the map. FS is halfway between the two, and on the same side of the park as Eastern. The MS options on the Hill are terrible, largely because the good ESs can't be combined. That means the higher SES families in its vicinity won't strongly support them. (There's no way to combine Brent and Maury with the cluster into SH. DCPS will continue to lose students into the high-end charter options, such as Latin, Basis, now probably DCI too.) So, Kaya has to find a way to steer as many relatively decent MSs into Eastern. Stevens is perfect. What's the OOB percentage - 80% or more? Of course no-one will complain - all the upper year students are from Ward 5 or East of the river anyway, they're just happy to avoid Anacostia.

No-one in upper NW (most of the SWW families) is going to settle for diluting that school by letting anyone walk in without testing, it simply makes no sense. Finding a good way to take some students out of Wilson, is what makes sense. What will happen is that the feeder pattern will change and Francis Stevens will feed Eastern.

Could they be somehow trying to get the F-S kids out of the Wilson boundaries? That has got to be a priority down at HQ. Wilson is already bursting at the seams with no relief in sight. I wonder if this merger is expected to somehow take those FS kids and slowly give them priority application status at SWW.

I want to be more +ive about this. Coulld be the catalyst needed to get dupont and west end parents behind their in bound middle school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In this case colocating would make more sense than merging. What's the point of the merger?

Francis-Stevens needs new management. It's under enrolled and should have been closed.

Based on what? I have a relative that graduated last year from there and one that works there now. From what I know about the school it is the 3rd highest performing K-8 school DCPS has (out of 15, behind Oyster-Adams and Langdon) and OSSE has it ranked in the RISING schools category, which is the 2nd highest a school can be in. The only knock on the school would possibly be a historical preference for serving out of boundary students of color (that are escaping horrific places in SE, far NE) over catering to more affluent neighborhood families.