Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Watkins numbers were interesting, but not surprising. You have a large number of white families, presumably IB, bailing on the school for other options. If you extrapolate from Peabody, Watkins should be about 35-40% white, but it's only at 20%.

While much of the focus is trying to get buy-in for Eliot Hine, maybe more of the focus should be on keeping potential Hill middle schoolers in the DCPS system.

My buy-in for Eliot Hine was smashed when I went on their website to find the "question of the day" for these 6th,7th and 8th graders in a get ready for DCCAS mode was "What is setting?".

Sorry, that may be the right level of inquiry for a large number of students coming out of sub-standard elementary schools, but it doesn't give me the confidence that advanced work and deep thinking is the norm there at the moment.

I know, I know don't judge an entire school by one small thing like that. But I am being truthful when I say that I was starting to thing the IB program and neighborhood support might make it a great choice and this did slam me back to reality.

I get what you are saying, but I think the Basis web site is pretty shitty. Its ugly and doesn't have a lot of content, but I hear great things about the school

they do not give the stats for charter school at all, correct?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Am surprised to see that Lafayette is now the whitest of the upper NW elementary schools. That is definitely a change

I wonder which school you thought would be the whitest?

I would have guessed Key, then Janney.

I have lived in DC a long time and therefore know the little nuances of the stable ward 3 neighborhoods. The easternmost part of CCDC, near the "point" of the DC diamond (Hawthorne, barnaby woods) had always had a not-insignificant AA presence. The census "race as shown by dots" maps still show this. So it's weird that their kids are, evidently, not at Lafayette. Are they older than elementary? All in private schools? Do all those "AA dots" shown in Hawthorne and barnaby woods denote childless couples? A mystery.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow--Oyster is only 7% Black! I think that's the lowest percentage in all of DCPS...which is surprising because the school touts its racial diversity. Several years ago, I think the percentage of Black students at Oyster was at 12 or 13%.

Oyster is 61% Hispanic. It probably doesn't even account for the international diversity there, or among the other white and maybe even black kids. Why is diversity defined as sufficiently "African American?"

Agree. Agree. Agree.

We need to move beyond "Diversity=black" mentality.

+1

If you want to know what diversity looks like, look to the charters. Many charters have a far bigger mix of kids from different races, cultures, heritages and economic levels.

Anonymous wrote:Am surprised to see that Lafayette is now the whitest of the upper NW elementary schools. That is definitely a change

I wonder which school you thought would be the whitest?

I try to defend DCPS when I came but I have no earthly clue why it took them 6 months to update the school profiles. They did the school count day census thing back in October. In general I find it really embarrassing that DCPS with its behemoth of a central office also can't be bothered to set up up websites for each school and so it falls to the school prinicpal or PTA or teachers to manage that. Almost every other school in the DMV has individual school websites.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow--Oyster is only 7% Black! I think that's the lowest percentage in all of DCPS...which is surprising because the school touts its racial diversity. Several years ago, I think the percentage of Black students at Oyster was at 12 or 13%.

Oyster is 61% Hispanic. It probably doesn't even account for the international diversity there, or among the other white and maybe even black kids. Why is diversity defined as sufficiently "African American?"

Agree. Agree. Agree.

We need to move beyond "Diversity=black" mentality.

Anonymous wrote:Wow--Oyster is only 7% Black! I think that's the lowest percentage in all of DCPS...which is surprising because the school touts its racial diversity. Several years ago, I think the percentage of Black students at Oyster was at 12 or 13%.

Oyster is 61% Hispanic. It probably doesn't even account for the international diversity there, or among the other white and maybe even black kids. Why is diversity defined as sufficiently "African American?"

Anonymous wrote:Wow--Oyster is only 7% Black! I think that's the lowest percentage in all of DCPS...which is surprising because the school touts its racial diversity. Several years ago, I think the percentage of Black students at Oyster was at 12 or 13%.

Several years ago the city was more black, and both less white and less hispanic. The English-dominant (aka "white") portion of Oyster is now filled with neighborhood children from Woodley Park (predominately whiter and wealthier). In the meantime, the Spanish-dominant ("latino") population has skewed much more hispanic, because the school has been able to tighten those requirements. Adams Morgan (nearby catchment) used to be a lot more diverse both ethnically and economically, but the couple-no-kids population has definitely risen. There aren't as many Adams Morgan families with children to send to Oyster now. And Columbia Heights used to have a lot fewer recent immigrants from Central America. The fast-expanding latino population in DC is centered in CH. That makes it much more likely that true Spanish-speakers are taking those slots (which you can tell when you see the ethnic flip-flop from lower grades to upper grades).

Having said that, DC in general is diversifying. Not everybody is going to view that as a good thing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow--Oyster is only 7% Black! I think that's the lowest percentage in all of DCPS...which is surprising because the school touts its racial diversity. Several years ago, I think the percentage of Black students at Oyster was at 12 or 13%.

unless you have $$$ or can show some evidence you already speak spanish, you have no chance of getting into Oyster, no matter your race.

Yes, but is Woodley Park much more expensive than AU Park (Janney), Spring Valley (Mann) or Palisades (Key)? Given its proximately to Adams Morgan and Mount Pleasant, I would expect Oyster to be more than 7% Black.

No, it's not more expensive, let alone much more expensive. There are way more multi-family dwellings in WP. Even excluding those, I'm not sure there is much difference in average home price between, say, Spring Valley and Woodley Park. In fact, a quick review of Zillow sales records suggests that WP is cheaper than SV.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow--Oyster is only 7% Black! I think that's the lowest percentage in all of DCPS...which is surprising because the school touts its racial diversity. Several years ago, I think the percentage of Black students at Oyster was at 12 or 13%.

unless you have $$$ or can show some evidence you already speak spanish, you have no chance of getting into Oyster, no matter your race.

Yes, but is Woodley Park much more expensive than AU Park (Janney), Spring Valley (Mann) or Palisades (Key)? Given its proximately to Adams Morgan and Mount Pleasant, I would expect Oyster to be more than 7% Black.

Not on the website. On their twitter feed. Same questions to be asked each day at school in the morning. Am trying to gather information about the school everywhere.

https://mobile.twitter.com/EliotHine/status/441240749376417793

Anonymous wrote:Your question: "what is setting", is presented out of context and as such, no one knows wtf you're talking about.

My point exactly. It sat on the Eliot Hine website just like that. Students probably feel the same way.

The setting for my chair is low. I'm short.

Fair enough. But I wouldn't put my kid at Basis either

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Watkins numbers were interesting, but not surprising. You have a large number of white families, presumably IB, bailing on the school for other options. If you extrapolate from Peabody, Watkins should be about 35-40% white, but it's only at 20%.

While much of the focus is trying to get buy-in for Eliot Hine, maybe more of the focus should be on keeping potential Hill middle schoolers in the DCPS system.

My buy-in for Eliot Hine was smashed when I went on their website to find the "question of the day" for these 6th,7th and 8th graders in a get ready for DCCAS mode was "What is setting?".

Sorry, that may be the right level of inquiry for a large number of students coming out of sub-standard elementary schools, but it doesn't give me the confidence that advanced work and deep thinking is the norm there at the moment.

I know, I know don't judge an entire school by one small thing like that. But I am being truthful when I say that I was starting to thing the IB program and neighborhood support might make it a great choice and this did slam me back to reality.

I get what you are saying, but I think the Basis web site is pretty shitty. Its ugly and doesn't have a lot of content, but I hear great things about the school