5:21, the interest of neighborhood parents in LT has been going on since my oldest (now in high school) was an infant.

It is testament to the black on white racism at LT that it can't move beyond free daycare for the stroller set on Capitol Hill.

If white parents treated black parents in a similar fashion, Al Sharpton would be on the playground with the National Media in tow.

We still live in Marion Barry's DC though.

Anonymous wrote:I felt many emotions reading various comments. None of them put a smile on my face. I want to thank you for doing that. Racism is alive and ugly. Thank God for good people.

Oh come on. Living one block from LT, I adore my AA neighbors of many years (one of them gives my white kids most of their clothes, hand-me-downs from her well-dressed grandchildren) but won't send my children to the school for a host of reasons. My neighborhood is highly diverse, but not LT. My neighborhood is brimming with well-educated parents of various races, but not LT. My neighborhood is friendly and welcoming, but not the LT principal.

Few of the parents I know from the Stanton Park playground are interested in the school. Sure, a few gentrifiers stay for K and beyond, and the rest of us know that some good things are happening at the school, but not nearly enough for the overwhelming majority of high-SES IB parents after PreK4.

Race is rarely the burning issue on Capitol Hill. If it were, most of us would be elsewhere.

I felt many emotions reading various comments. None of them put a smile on my face. I want to thank you for doing that. Racism is alive and ugly. Thank God for good people.

My kid is in preK now, so I'm only familiar with the ECE program, but here goes:

--Both years my daughter has had *excellent* teachers. Her classrooms have been calm places where kids could focus on learning. I've picked up some great parenting tactics from observing her teachers.

-- I love the Reggio Emilia influence. (LT ECE is not full on Reggio, they say it's "Reggio-inspired.") I think it's a great approach for ECE, where kids are really at the mercy of their physical/mental/emotional development as far as when they're able to learn what. It can be disconcerting for type A parents, though -- you really have to relax and trust that your child is going to learn what s/he needs to learn, when s/he's ready to learn it. I had some very favorable exposure to Montessori, which I think made it easier for me to buy into Reggio (even though the philosophies are actually not that similar).

--The ECE teachers work as a team to come up with a great variety of field trips over a two-year period. (The PS/PK classes go on field trips together.)

--It's a small school. There can be downsides to this as far as resources, but in a smaller community everyone can know everyone else. (Google Dunbar's number.) It seems like just about every adult in the building knows all the kids by name.

--The kids in the older grades are just -good- kids. In the interactions I've observed, they're really fond of the ECE kids. Just one example: there's a 3rd grader we kept seeing on the bus, and now every time she sees my daughter she comes over and gives her a hug.

--They have a relatively new playground and the kids get a lot of outside time, which is good for kids in general (and a necessity for my own kid's mental health).

--The aftercare program offers a lot of good options -- PS & PK have Joy of Motion on Mondays for free and Powertots and soccer on tuesdays & thursdays for an additional fee; there are way more options (tennis, cheer, martial arts, and a lot more) for the older kids. It's also a DCPS aftercare program, so it's on site and inexpensive. And I like both of the adults who manage the aftercare program.

--Officer Powell is wonderful -- it seems like by the second day of school in August she knows every student (and everyone in his or her extended family) by sight. As upsetting as the Sandy Hook school shooting was, one thing I *didn't* worry about was whether my kid would be safe at LT.

I will say I am probably on the low-maintenance side as DC parents go. I don't particularly care about bells and whistles outside the classroom, I don't mind a run-down building (though LT is getting renovated this summer), I don't require much in the way of ongoing communication with my kid's teachers. I can definitely see how more high-maintenance parents might find the school environment frustrating -- and I would encourage high-maintenance parents to steer clear, because I really like the homey, relaxed feeling the school has now.

I am the poster who resurrected this thread. What the parents are talking about in terms of race relations is nothing new in my opinion, and is a struggle that all races will have to face in the coming years as DC's demographics change. Let's all take a big breath, try to be somewhat understanding and move on to answering the questions that parents have about LT.

Aside from the race issue and test scores, what are some of the great things about LT? What activities are/were your kids in? What makes it stand out? How is the parent community (I hear that they are quite involved)? Anybody have kids beyond K? Please share!

Many principals are informed by downtown about what to expect from the community. So, you would have to be a fool to think that a community can give Kaya hell and she not share it with her principal appointee. A principal appointee has loyalty to the appointer. Remember principals are hired and not elected.

Black principals caucus with each other in regards to handling school communities with large white populations and there are remedies. Some work and some don't but the black principal know there's power in numbers; so they look towards those who are successful with the whites.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find the previous two comments incoherent.

Welcome to the world of Word Salad.

Hmm. Well could someone translate? I'm a prospective LT parent and I'm curious about these issues, so this discussion is some interest to me.

Anonymous wrote:I find the previous two comments incoherent.

Welcome to the world of Word Salad.

I find the previous two comments incoherent.

There are very few white principals and far more black principals. When many black principal come across situations that are "new" due to gentrification, they seek out others who experience similiar issues. When answers are not met, they go to the upper leadership which happens to be black. Unfortunately, the advice given is the advice taken and being color blind doesn't have any advantages.

Awww shucks!!! Maybe one can become suspicious of the neighborhood, when they are anti-principal. Many principals are informed only so-slightly by those who are of the LT school family. Don't look at it as being anti-white, it might be anxiety-white. Oh! Please don't act like it can't happen.