The schools that are succeeding have a critical mass of families that put a significant amount of their personal wealth in their home, are left with little extra $$ lying around to pay for private, and are therefore highly motivated to making their local public school a great school.

I think that may have been more true at one time than it is now, and that is how the schools became good in the first place. If I needed to pay for private school for my kids, I could do it. It wouldn't be the easiest thing in the world, and we'd have to make some lifestyle changes, but it would be possible. But my thought process was, why spend that money on elementary when our local one is pretty good? If that were not the case, I'd fork out the dough. Many of the parents that I am friends with at my children's' school seem to be in the same boat.

Anonymous wrote:

Make JH a lower FARMS school and take kids from behind the Masonic temple, parts of Rosemont, and new potomac hard to beef up the SES.

Look at home prices in those areas. Many people who can afford to buy there just aren't going to go to JH. They can afford other options. Or they can sell and move. Even houses currently zoned for JH are going for ridiculous amounts of money.

I know folks are frustrated that more parents in the J-H zone are not going public, and to a certain extent I share that frustration, but I think this person raises a good point. If you have enough money to buy in that neighborhood, it's also likely that dropping thousands of dollars a year for private school is not some big hardship. Even if J-H were a higher performing school, I think a number of these families still wouldn't attend, just because they aren't going to attend any public, period.

The schools that are succeeding have a critical mass of families that put a significant amount of their personal wealth in their home, are left with little extra $$ lying around to pay for private, and are therefore highly motivated to making their local public school a great school. Hopefully redistricting, along with the basic issue of overcrowding, would also help preserve these critical masses in each attendance zone--we get keep the diversity, but also have a core group of engaged motivated parents.

My kids go to Maury, and absent some very unusual redistricting, given where our house is, will probably continue to. But it is such a great school with a great, diverse mix of kids, and we've invested energy getting to know other students, parents, and teachers well. It really saddens me to think of it changing for my kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have so many conflicting feelings about this. It's desperately needed, but my kid is starting kindergarten in 2016. Currently we are slated for Maury-but will certainly be moving th J-H. If done well, I think this could be a good thing, but I hate that I'll have to decide before I know for sure where we are and whether J-H becomes a decent choice of not.

I am wondering if the boundary for JH will move that much. Maybe JH would cover all of Old Town including the SE quadrant and make Lyles-Crouch an opt in school only with no boundary?

Another good choice would be to make Tucker a neighborhood school an eliminate the year round calendar.

Tucker is a neighborhood school--it just happens to have a year round calendar. You can opt-out of attending Tucker if that calendar doesn't work with your families schedule, and every year a handful of families do. Tucker isn't overcrowded because it has a bunch of kids from all over the city opting into it, its overcrowded because the West End is busting at the seams. Some of the schools can take in more students if they add modular classrooms, but the parcel of land that Tucker is on can't have any more buildings. It's deceptive if you are driving by because all you see is that large park, but the park is not actually school property.

Make JH a lower FARMS school and take kids from behind the Masonic temple, parts of Rosemont, and new potomac hard to beef up the SES.

Look at home prices in those areas. Many people who can afford to buy there just aren't going to go to JH. They can afford other options. Or they can sell and move. Even houses currently zoned for JH are going for ridiculous amounts of money.

We're a 2016 entering K as well. I am just wondering what we think we'll know and when (and if people are given choices, how that will be managed)

The City should look beyond redistricting and also take this process as an opportunity to see what is and isn't working in the City. JH isn't working as is. Mount Vernon is a joke and isn't working - the dual language paradigm is failing all ESL and non-esl kids. Make MVCS a charter or focus dual language school that families can opt into. Make JH a lower FARMS school and take kids from behind the Masonic temple, parts of Rosemont, and new potomac hard to beef up the SES. Then JH will become a top performer like LCTA and Maury.

I hope this redistricting won't screw up the elementary schools that are finally performing well, and getting some respect from Greatschools.org (LCTA and Maury). Leave it to ACPS to disrupt a good thing.

So when do we actually get some clarity on who/what will be redistricted? And how will this impact the hundreds of kids who already have existing admin transfers in place? We have admin transfers away from JH to another elementary and I really hope that won't be affected. There are parts of Rosemont and Del Ray that are closer to Maury but are zoned for JH, which is ridiculous! We can walk to maury but had to admin transfer there from JH because of crappy zoning.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had heard Potomac Yards would be in JH district. Will be interested in following the process.

Potomac Yards has always been in the JH district. There aren't any kids in JH from Potomac Yards, but that's their assigned school. It goes to show that it doesn't really matter what the district boundary is. You still have to convince parents to send their kids.

I thought it was in the Cora Kelly zone because the school is closer to Potomac Yards then JH

Cora Kelly zone stops at Route 1.

http://www.acps.k12.va.us/enroll/zone_map.pdf

Anonymous wrote:I have so many conflicting feelings about this. It's desperately needed, but my kid is starting kindergarten in 2016. Currently we are slated for Maury-but will certainly be moving th J-H. If done well, I think this could be a good thing, but I hate that I'll have to decide before I know for sure where we are and whether J-H becomes a decent choice of not.

I am wondering if the boundary for JH will move that much. Maybe JH would cover all of Old Town including the SE quadrant and make Lyles-Crouch an opt in school only with no boundary?

Another good choice would be to make Tucker a neighborhood school an eliminate the year round calendar.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had heard Potomac Yards would be in JH district. Will be interested in following the process.

Potomac Yards has always been in the JH district. There aren't any kids in JH from Potomac Yards, but that's their assigned school. It goes to show that it doesn't really matter what the district boundary is. You still have to convince parents to send their kids.

I thought it was in the Cora Kelly zone because the school is closer to Potomac Yards then JH

Anonymous wrote:I am utterly convinced my area (the neighborhood behind the masonic temple and parts of rosemont closer to the king st metro) will be moved over to JH. It's so close.

That's a little paranoid. George Washington Park is closer to Maury and MacArthur, which it's zoned for now. Sending those kids to JH would be effectively a form of busing. It's the opposite of the stated goal of "neighborhood schools."

The school board is also in the process of developing a plan to completely reorganize the districting of Lyles-Crouch, Cora Kelly, and Maury in order to re-sort the Jefferson-Houston catchment. They've been quite open about it in conversations. Might not be an entirely bad thing.

I don't know. The issue isn't currently that say, Maury is non-diverse. It is diverse. There is substantial income and racial diversity. If parents in the JH school district would actually send their kids to the school vs. moving away or choosing private, JH would have the same. But we really don't have a reason to believe that if high SES families in Maury were redistricted to JH, they would choose to go there, vs. acting the exact same way that high SES families in the current JH district do right now.

Anonymous wrote:

There aren't any kids in JH from Potomac Yards, but that's their assigned school. It goes to show that it doesn't really matter what the district boundary is. You still have to convince parents to send their kids.


Are there no public school kids living in Potomac Yards? Where do they go then? I'm not following you.

Some of them manage to get admin transfers elsewhere. Some go to private school.

A lot of the kids in the new Potomac Yards houses are younger than school age too.