OP, are you currently at the school? If so you are grandfathered in and have nothing to worry about.

OP -- race has absolutely nothing to do with this post

Anonymous wrote:What would you do?

This new proposal takes my child from one of the BEST performing schools in my Ward to the WORST performing. The proposed school is twice the distance from my home and is the third farthest elementary from my home.

My child loses proximity preference under the new proposal because we don't have to travel further than one mile (Proposal 12 in the document released this week), but we will have to drive opposed to walk (there is no public transit option), and will more than double our commute in the car.

This new school will be forced to take mostly at-risk OOB kids (foster care, homeless, welfare). It is heavily OOB already (over 80%) and will now have to grapple with the most challenging kids the city offers. The families who attend the school do not live in my neighborhood so I will lose all of the neighborhood elements of close-in play dates and walking my child to school.

Livid doesn't begin to describe how angry and disgruntled I am with this process led by the DME.

What would I do? First, I would calm down. Second, I would recognize that my hysteria is unfounded and based on misinformation and most likely racism.

Assuming you are talking about Murch to Hearst, yes, the geography is unfortunate. I wouldn't want to be moved from a closer school to a further one. But really. Just stop there.

To call Hearst the WORST school in the richest part of town is hardly fair. Yes, the test scores are lower than Murch, but it't not like it's a 40 point gap. I believe the Hearst 4th grade cohort actually did better that Murch's last year.

Hearst will not be forced to take mostly at-risk OOB kids. Where do you even get that? They will take exactly the same percentage that every other school does. Yes, the upper grades are mostly OOB, but the current K class is about 50% IB and the incoming pre-k class is closer to 60%. Those who live IB have playdates all the time with neighbors. A group walks to school everyday down 37th. And we hang out with OOB kids to. It's not that hard. It's not like every kid who lives in Murch can walk to each other's house. It is over a mile from the north border to the south one, I'm sure there is a significant amount of driving to playdates that happens already.

Seriously, you just need to get your facts straight and understand that the worst school in ward 3 is still one of the best schools in the city. Clearly you think the school is full of poor black kids, but that is simply not the case. We have a wonderful mix of kids of many ethnic backgrounds and the full range of economic statuses. It is something we love about the school. If this scares you then I guess you can drive across town to a charter or pay for a private like all the other closet racists in our neighborhood do.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why can't you walk to a school that is less than a mile away?

I thought OP said her house was two blocks from Murch. It would be absurd to expect her to walk to some other school much farther away.

Please. My IB is 8 blocks away. It is just fine.

You're a nifty troll aren't you? Probably a fat ass who could use some exercise, in that case stroll your 8 blocks huffing and puffing to your fat heart's content. Not OP, but I'm with her. If an excellent school was 2 blocks away and there was some other school, good or bad, farther than 2 blocks, I wouldn't understand why I'm being routed to the farther school.

No, 13:21, you are not missing anything. The OP is probably in in the portion of Murch that still gets moved even though another poster was restored to Murch in the current proposal.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why can't you walk to a school that is less than a mile away?

I thought OP said her house was two blocks from Murch. It would be absurd to expect her to walk to some other school much farther away.

Please. My IB is 8 blocks away. It is just fine.

for the second time, this is not about Murch poster complaining again. Her situation has been resolved -- see 10:50.

I don't understand. Why can't it still be about Murch? What schools are OP referring to?

see 10:50 and 12:43. If you still don't get it, I can't help you.

I do find it fascinating that people can't get off that topic, though.

The Murch to Hearst change was lessened from the first round of proposals to the second, but it still exists. 10:50 benefited, but perhaps OP did not. Am I missing something else?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why can't you walk to a school that is less than a mile away?

I thought OP said her house was two blocks from Murch. It would be absurd to expect her to walk to some other school much farther away.

Please. My IB is 8 blocks away. It is just fine.

for the second time, this is not about Murch poster complaining again. Her situation has been resolved -- see 10:50.

I don't understand. Why can't it still be about Murch? What schools are OP referring to?

see 10:50 and 12:43. If you still don't get it, I can't help you.

I do find it fascinating that people can't get off that topic, though.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why can't you walk to a school that is less than a mile away?

I thought OP said her house was two blocks from Murch. It would be absurd to expect her to walk to some other school much farther away.

Please. My IB is 8 blocks away. It is just fine.

for the second time, this is not about Murch poster complaining again. Her situation has been resolved -- see 10:50.

I don't understand. Why can't it still be about Murch? What schools are OP referring to?

OP is missing in action. 10:50 likely identified the school, but 13:07 is trying to convince us otherwise.

If the poster is indeed a Murch to Hearst family she has every right to be angry. People on this chain keep saying the mile commute to the new school is close enough so too bad. Well that might be true if that were the ONLY relevant fact. But its not. As the poster said, they there are two closer elementary schools to their home, much closer. The current assignment is to a school only a couple of blocks away. It might make perfect sense to be assigned to a school a mile away if the closer schools didn't exist but they do and you can't ignore that as a viable reason to make the current proposal absured. You don't put people in cars, you don't force people out of their neighborhoods. You don't assign households to the third farthest school from their home. They live in a neighborhood that has a great school. There is a nearby neighbrohood that has another great school. But they are being assigned to a school several neighborhoods away that has a school that is lower performing. You especially don't do these things when the third school is lower performing then the other two. And if you do, the poeple that are effect should rightfully scream bloody murder. And everyone should see how unfair and wrong it is and support those people. Its perfectly plainly wrong. Those who don't support the objection are really angry about something else. They are angry that their own neighborhood school isn't as good as Hearst. Fair enough. But if we are going to support the concept of neighborhood schools it doesn't make any sense not to insist that the actual neighbors of a school be assigned to that school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why can't you walk to a school that is less than a mile away?

I thought OP said her house was two blocks from Murch. It would be absurd to expect her to walk to some other school much farther away.

Please. My IB is 8 blocks away. It is just fine.

for the second time, this is not about Murch poster complaining again. Her situation has been resolved -- see 10:50.

I don't understand. Why can't it still be about Murch? What schools are OP referring to?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why can't you walk to a school that is less than a mile away?

I thought OP said her house was two blocks from Murch. It would be absurd to expect her to walk to some other school much farther away.

Please. My IB is 8 blocks away. It is just fine.

for the second time, this is not about Murch poster complaining again. Her situation has been resolved -- see 10:50.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know you can't force people to attend their in-bound school, but I wish you could - maybe the city could give some kind of tax credit for attending your neighborhood school if it is currently less than a certain percentage in bounds and meets other criteria and possibly give them a weighted better chance of OOB lottery if the whole experiment fails and they end up re-imposing OOB lottery.

I think this attitude comes up a lot here. Some people just get off on the idea of making someone else do something for the perceived greater good. This attitude comes up in the anti-charter bromides as well.

At some point, though, it's not even the greater good -- it's that something has to give or the system collapses.

Anonymous wrote:I know you can't force people to attend their in-bound school, but I wish you could - maybe the city could give some kind of tax credit for attending your neighborhood school if it is currently less than a certain percentage in bounds and meets other criteria and possibly give them a weighted better chance of OOB lottery if the whole experiment fails and they end up re-imposing OOB lottery.

A better concept is "encourage" or "incentivize," with options that are actually attractive. With so many people clamoring for good neighborhood options, you'd think DCPS would be working on doing this. e.g. -- get neighborhood families to sign up by offering enrichment programs, increased police protection, after-school programs, better playgrounds, whatever.

Keep in mind if you switched all the kids from a JKLM to a closed, previously failing school in ward 8, that school would suddenly be as successful as the kids' previous school -- with a few points taken off for the long commute everyday and a lack of neighborhood camaraderie.

This is what your neighborhood school would be like if a critical mass of neighbors sent their kids to it. Plain and simple. THere's no other way to do it. It takes DCPS and parents to make it happen.

Is there enough trust and commitment to make this happen?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why can't you walk to a school that is less than a mile away?

I thought OP said her house was two blocks from Murch. It would be absurd to expect her to walk to some other school much farther away.

Please. My IB is 8 blocks away. It is just fine.

This process should not be taking away from any children in any Ward. If kids are close to schools why are they being asked to go to schools that are farther away and lower performing. I don't care what Ward you are in it just doesn't seem fair.