Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is another area of concern from a board member: about the number of at-risk students in the school going down and disproportionate discipline.

It's not about "not serving at-risk students well". It is about how Latin will serve more of them in a more equitable way.

MEMBER BUMBAUGH: So your school has
5 a very good reputation in this city, and I think
6 it's well earned. I have a lot of friends and
7 former student who send their children there, and
8 they're happy with your school.
9 You began to address some of the
10 issues that I want to raise, but I just feel the
11 need to state them publicly, which is -- I will
12 say personally, it gets exhausting to see the
13 highest-ranked academic schools in this city
14 consistently have among the lowest at-risk
15 populations.
16 In a city where almost 50 percent of
17 kids are at risk, your numbers are 6.8 in the
18 middle school and 16.8 in the high school. It
19 makes it easier to achieve Tier 1 status.
20 MR. ANDERSON: Sir --
21 MEMBER BUMBAUGH: Furthermore, when I
22 look and I see that the at-risk students are
(202) 234-4433 Washington DC www.nealrgross.com
Neal R. Gross and Co., Inc.
42
1 being suspended at rates of 26.6 percent, it's
2 frustrating.
3 MR. ANDERSON: Yeah.
4 MEMBER BUMBAUGH: So I just want to
5 say I support a school like Washington Latin
6 being made available to more students, and
7 particularly at-risk student. I also would like
8 to say that when you come back here next year, I
9 do hope to see the suspension rates much lower
10 for at-risk students.
11 And I -- and the harder thing is, we
12 hear so many of the highly regarded academic
13 schools say they're interested in equity and
14 diversity, and we just don't see their at-risk
15 numbers move.
16 We do see the suspension rates go
17 down, which is progress, but get -- you know,
18 this -- you chose to open a school in Washington,
19 D.C., so serve the children who live here.
20 MR. ANDERSON: And actually, one of
21 the ways that we think we can do that is by
22 opening a new school. I'll tell you why. With
(202) 234-4433 Washington DC www.nealrgross.com
Neal R. Gross and Co., Inc.
43
1 the lottery and the sibling preference, we only
2 have 120 new spots every year, and when we have a
3 sibling preference that accounts for anywhere
4 from 30 to 45 percent of those students, it's
5 hard to move the needle.
6 And one of the ways that we're hoping
7 to do this is by changing some of our recruitment
8 methods, to try to attract even more of those at9 risk families to apply. That's one of the things
10 we're committed to, both for our current campus
11 and for a new campus.
12 So thank you.

I would have left this part out pp.

Why? Unlike a lot of people posting here, I'm about accuracy and understanding context. It's important that people understand what the charter board was concerned about and how Latin plans to address it. Obfuscation and boosterism is not my goal.

Anonymous wrote:Here is another area of concern from a board member: about the number of at-risk students in the school going down and disproportionate discipline.

It's not about "not serving at-risk students well". It is about how Latin will serve more of them in a more equitable way.

MEMBER BUMBAUGH: So your school has
5 a very good reputation in this city, and I think
6 it's well earned. I have a lot of friends and
7 former student who send their children there, and
8 they're happy with your school.
9 You began to address some of the
10 issues that I want to raise, but I just feel the
11 need to state them publicly, which is -- I will
12 say personally, it gets exhausting to see the
13 highest-ranked academic schools in this city
14 consistently have among the lowest at-risk
15 populations.
16 In a city where almost 50 percent of
17 kids are at risk, your numbers are 6.8 in the
18 middle school and 16.8 in the high school. It
19 makes it easier to achieve Tier 1 status.
20 MR. ANDERSON: Sir --
21 MEMBER BUMBAUGH: Furthermore, when I
22 look and I see that the at-risk students are
(202) 234-4433 Washington DC www.nealrgross.com
Neal R. Gross and Co., Inc.
42
1 being suspended at rates of 26.6 percent, it's
2 frustrating.
3 MR. ANDERSON: Yeah.
4 MEMBER BUMBAUGH: So I just want to
5 say I support a school like Washington Latin
6 being made available to more students, and
7 particularly at-risk student. I also would like
8 to say that when you come back here next year, I
9 do hope to see the suspension rates much lower
10 for at-risk students.
11 And I -- and the harder thing is, we
12 hear so many of the highly regarded academic
13 schools say they're interested in equity and
14 diversity, and we just don't see their at-risk
15 numbers move.
16 We do see the suspension rates go
17 down, which is progress, but get -- you know,
18 this -- you chose to open a school in Washington,
19 D.C., so serve the children who live here.
20 MR. ANDERSON: And actually, one of
21 the ways that we think we can do that is by
22 opening a new school. I'll tell you why. With
(202) 234-4433 Washington DC www.nealrgross.com
Neal R. Gross and Co., Inc.
43
1 the lottery and the sibling preference, we only
2 have 120 new spots every year, and when we have a
3 sibling preference that accounts for anywhere
4 from 30 to 45 percent of those students, it's
5 hard to move the needle.
6 And one of the ways that we're hoping
7 to do this is by changing some of our recruitment
8 methods, to try to attract even more of those at9 risk families to apply. That's one of the things
10 we're committed to, both for our current campus
11 and for a new campus.
12 So thank you.

I would have left this part out pp.

Here is another area of concern from a board member: about the number of at-risk students in the school going down and disproportionate discipline.

It's not about "not serving at-risk students well". It is about how Latin will serve more of them in a more equitable way.

MEMBER BUMBAUGH: So your school has
5 a very good reputation in this city, and I think
6 it's well earned. I have a lot of friends and
7 former student who send their children there, and
8 they're happy with your school.
9 You began to address some of the
10 issues that I want to raise, but I just feel the
11 need to state them publicly, which is -- I will
12 say personally, it gets exhausting to see the
13 highest-ranked academic schools in this city
14 consistently have among the lowest at-risk
15 populations.
16 In a city where almost 50 percent of
17 kids are at risk, your numbers are 6.8 in the
18 middle school and 16.8 in the high school. It
19 makes it easier to achieve Tier 1 status.
20 MR. ANDERSON: Sir --
21 MEMBER BUMBAUGH: Furthermore, when I
22 look and I see that the at-risk students are
(202) 234-4433 Washington DC www.nealrgross.com
Neal R. Gross and Co., Inc.
42
1 being suspended at rates of 26.6 percent, it's
2 frustrating.
3 MR. ANDERSON: Yeah.
4 MEMBER BUMBAUGH: So I just want to
5 say I support a school like Washington Latin
6 being made available to more students, and
7 particularly at-risk student. I also would like
8 to say that when you come back here next year, I
9 do hope to see the suspension rates much lower
10 for at-risk students.
11 And I -- and the harder thing is, we
12 hear so many of the highly regarded academic
13 schools say they're interested in equity and
14 diversity, and we just don't see their at-risk
15 numbers move.
16 We do see the suspension rates go
17 down, which is progress, but get -- you know,
18 this -- you chose to open a school in Washington,
19 D.C., so serve the children who live here.
20 MR. ANDERSON: And actually, one of
21 the ways that we think we can do that is by
22 opening a new school. I'll tell you why. With
(202) 234-4433 Washington DC www.nealrgross.com
Neal R. Gross and Co., Inc.
43
1 the lottery and the sibling preference, we only
2 have 120 new spots every year, and when we have a
3 sibling preference that accounts for anywhere
4 from 30 to 45 percent of those students, it's
5 hard to move the needle.
6 And one of the ways that we're hoping
7 to do this is by changing some of our recruitment
8 methods, to try to attract even more of those at9 risk families to apply. That's one of the things
10 we're committed to, both for our current campus
11 and for a new campus.
12 So thank you.

Source:

https://www.livebinders.com/media/get/MTkyNjcyMzk=

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can't keep straight if--according to posters here---Washington Latin is crappy and should never be allowed to open a second campus because it a) doesn't serve its at-risk population well or b) is trying to serve more at-risk students or c) doesn't serve its children-of-blue-chip-school alum well.


You all are too much

I cannot, in the end, buy the argument that Latin is somehow undeserving of opening a second campus. By any metric, it's a good school, doing good work, in high demand with a commitment to staying diverse. DC most certainly needs more seats in schools like this.

Yes, it is trying to serve more at risk students but it doesn't serve it's current at risk population very well. You can read all about it in the charter board meeting transcript when Latin applied to expand.

Here we go again. You are mischaracterizing the charter board meeting concerns. A couple of the board members were concerned about the GAP in performances on the PARCC--rightly so. But they admit that Latin does far better with at-risk students than other schools in the city. Here is a direct quote:



VICE CHAIR BIREDA: I think just to
continue the conversation around serving our most
needy kids, I just was quickly looking at your
PARCC scores last year, and while of course, you
far exceed where most of the city is, there is a
quite large gap for your at-risk performance
versus -- I mean, your highest-performing group,
which is white students.
MR. ANDERSON: Right.
VICE CHAIR BIREDA: So it gives me
pause when I think about the idea that you go to a place where you'll be serving more of those
students. Can you talk to me about how you --
what your plan is to increase performance of at-
risk students and to close that gap?

MR. ANDERSON: Absolutely. So if you
went back a couple years and looked at our at-
risk students, you would notice that our
proficiency rate in ELA was 39 percent at a time
when the proficiency rate for at-risk student in
the city was 13 percent.

Anonymous wrote:I can't keep straight if--according to posters here---Washington Latin is crappy and should never be allowed to open a second campus because it a) doesn't serve its at-risk population well or b) is trying to serve more at-risk students or c) doesn't serve its children-of-blue-chip-school alum well.


You all are too much

I cannot, in the end, buy the argument that Latin is somehow undeserving of opening a second campus. By any metric, it's a good school, doing good work, in high demand with a commitment to staying diverse. DC most certainly needs more seats in schools like this.

Yes, it is trying to serve more at risk students but it doesn't serve it's current at risk population very well. You can read all about it in the charter board meeting transcript when Latin applied to expand.

I can't keep straight if--according to posters here---Washington Latin is crappy and should never be allowed to open a second campus because it a) doesn't serve its at-risk population well or b) is trying to serve more at-risk students or c) doesn't serve its children-of-blue-chip-school alum well.


You all are too much

I cannot, in the end, buy the argument that Latin is somehow undeserving of opening a second campus. By any metric, it's a good school, doing good work, in high demand with a commitment to staying diverse. DC most certainly needs more seats in schools like this.

Anonymous wrote:Source:

https://latinpcs.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/WLPCS-School-Profile-2019-2020.pdf

It's a decent list, but I'm not bowled over when considering that loads of Latin students, particularly those from Ward 6, have two parents with advanced degrees from blue chip schools and professional jobs.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Absolutely, our admissions committee members appreciate go-getters, resourceful and intellectually curious students who take the initiative to work beyond the curricula offered at their high schools and standard homeschooling programs.

So this is an argument against a school like Latin offering more APs and rather people going after them independently? Those who can afford it, I mean?

Give us a break. Homeschooling families routinely buy paperback AP prep books and have the kids learn the material. They also check out AP prep materials from public libraries or find them for cheap or free on-line. At BASIS, some students take their first AP tests, world history and/or calculus, in 8th grade. Latin doesn't tend to go extra mile on AP prep.

Source:

https://latinpcs.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/WLPCS-School-Profile-2019-2020.pdf

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Washington Latins "model", Boston Latin, is a test in school. Since WL is not, there has been a tension in its mission/vision since it's inception. This is not new. It's the plus and minus of being far more equitable (in one way - lottery based with weighted preferences that are not academic) than BL. If you disagree with that, you would need to change its structure to test in - like a Walls, Ellington, Banneker, TJ or Boston Latin. It is what it is.

I don't agree. This view of how Washington Latin must work--shared by the program's leadership-- is a cop out. Latin's leadership and teachers could offer far more rigor to the most advanced students. At BASIS, another DC charter school, seniors can't graduate unless they've passed at least half a dozen AP exams.

For example, admins won't permit 5th and 6th graders to take languages other than Latin, although a good many come in from DC public school language immersion programs for Spanish, Chinese and French. Some of the UMC parents of language immersion graduates team up to hire pricey tutors to help kids retain language skills, meaning that it's mostly the former low SES language immersion students at Latin who lose their skills. This policy could easily be changed. Also, math is tracked at Latin in middle school, but not humanities subjects, another policy that could be changed. Social promotion could also be jettisoned to help support more advanced academics.

Latin requires significantly more credits than other DC High Schools in order to graduate. Administration has purposefully chosen which AP classes are offered based on their academic/intellectual value. A teacher not bound by the AP US History course curriculum, for example, has much more leeway to create a meaningful course that's more than a collection of facts to be tested. A thing about Latin is you have to trust the administration and teachers to be professionals and have student's best interests in mind; with the mission and vision-statement always at the forefront. So far, they have earned my trust--more than the AP momey-making machine has!

Fabulous in theory, not so hot in practice. It's useful for kids to have a clutch of high AP scores under their belts when applying to colleges, no matter what sort of schools they attended.

Just so you know: college admissions offices receive what's know as a school "snap shot" from the high school guidance department with every application. This snapshot lays out the courses available in the school and ranks them according to difficulty. The most difficult course at Latin is not an AP course. College admissions staff want students who have taken the most difficult classes available at their school and will compare this snapshot with the students' transcripts. A raft of AP's with high scores is not an entrance ticket by any means--money: tutors and a good zip code can buy all that. Have you been through this before?

I work in college admissions and don't agree.

Which course at Latin is tougher than...Physics 2, Physics C Mechanics, Physics C Electricity and Magnetism, BC Calculus, AP languages?

Interviewing applicants for your alma mater does not count as working in admissions.

I concur. I'm an admissions officer at a university in the District. My children attend a DC public charter school.

Cool. And as an admissions officer, you are telling me that you consider the raw number of APs a student takeswithout considering the profile that comes from the high school? Are you telling me a student applying to your school gets dinged in admissions if their school doesn't offer your list: Physics 2, Physics C Mechanics, Physics C Electricity and Magnetism, BC Calculus?

I am not the PP, but I think he thought you were saying that Latin had harder classes than *any* AP class. So he was asking what the magic class was that was harder than the above classes. If Latin doesn't offer any of the above classes, though, then there's obviously a real problem with its difficulty in STEM. Does Latin seriously not offer any of those classes?

And, also, FWIW, a kid will absolutely get credit for taking the hardest courses his school offers AND will absolutely get dinged if the school doesn't have hard enough classes. There's a reason that most schools get no one into HYPSMC ever and it's not that they have never had a kid capable of it... It's that they don't adequately prepare their kids for admissions. One way they don't do that is that they don't have hard enough courses.

That's not a problem at Latin--hard enough classes, and good record of admissions to HYPSMC . I had to look that up

Not true. For example, none admitted to HYPSMC from Class of 2020.

These are enrollments--not acceptances. Years 2016 - 2019. 3 years of enrollments. one at Harvard, one at Stanford, more than one at Yale. An open enrollment high school. These enrollments are from around 210 students.

College Enrollment – Classes of 2016-2019
(Bold lettering indicates more than one student enrolled.)
• Alabama A&M University
• Alfred University, NY
• Allegheny College, PA
• Baldwin Wallace Univ., OH
• Comm. Coll. of Baltimore
County, MD
• Barry University, FL
• Bates College, ME
• Beacon College, FL
• Bennett Career Institute, DC
• Berklee Coll. of Music, MA
• Bowdoin College, ME
• Bowie State Univ., MD
• Brandeis University, MA
• CUNY Brooklyn Coll., NY
• Bucknell University, PA
• Carleton College, MN
• Charleston Southern Univ.,
SC
• Clark Atlanta Univ., GA
• College of William & Mary,
VA
• Colorado College
• Cornell University, NY
• Covenant College, GA
• Dartmouth College, NH
• Davidson College, NC
• Delaware State University
• Drexel University, PA
• Eckerd College, FL
• Fayetteville State Univ., NC
• Fisk University, TN
• Florida A&M University
• Franklin & Marshall
College, PA
• George Mason Univ., VA
• Goucher College, MD
• Grambling State Univ., LA
• Guilford College, NC
• Hamilton College, NY
• Hampden-Sydney Coll., VA
• Hampton University, VA
• Harcum College, PA
• Harrisburg Univ. of Science &
Technology, PA
• Harvard College, MA
• Haverford College, PA
• Hood College, MD
• Howard University, DC
• Itasca Comm. College, MN
• Ithaca College, NY
• Johnson & Wales Univ., FL
• Johnson & Wales Univ., RI
• Johnson C. Smith Univ., NC
• Kean University, NJ
• La Salle University, PA
• Laboratory Institute of
Merchandising, NY
• Lawrence University, WI
• Lehigh University, PA
• Lewis & Clark College, OR
• Liberty University, VA
• Louisiana State University
• Loyola Univ. New Orleans
• Macalester College, MN
• Marshall University, WV
• Marymount University, VA
• McDaniel College, MD
• McGill University, CN
• Messiah College, PA
• Miami Dade College, FL
• Miami University, OH
• Michigan State University
• Middlebury College, VT
• Montgomery College, MD
• Morehouse College, GA
• Morgan State Univ., MD
• NYU-Abu Dhabi
• NYU-Shanghai
• Norfolk State Univ., VA
• NC A&T State Univ.
• NC Central Univ.
• NC State Univ.
• Northeastern Univ., MA
• Northern VA Comm. Coll.
• Northwestern University, IL
• Oberlin College, OH
• Oglethorpe University, GA
• Old Dominion Univ., VA
• Pace University, NY
• Pennsylvania State Univ.
• Pomona College, CA
• Prince George’s CC, MD
• Rochester Institute of
Technology, NY
• Saint Louis University, MO
• Savannah College of Art &
Design, GA
• Shepherd University, WV
• Southern IL. Univ.-
Carbondale
• Southern New Hampshire
Univ.
• Spelman College, GA
• St. John’s College, MD
• St. John’s University, NY
• Stanford University, CA
• SUNY Cortland, NY
• Swarthmore College, PA
• Syracuse University, NY
• Temple University, PA
• Temple University Japan
• The American Univ. of Rome
• The Catholic University of
America, DC
• The College of New Jersey
• The George Washington
University, DC
• The Lincoln Univ. of PA
• Trinity University in
Washington, D.C.
• Tufts University, MA
• Union College, NY
• US Air Force Academy
• US Coast Guard
• US Navy
• University of Chicago, IL
• Univ. of Colorado-Boulder
• Univ. of the District of
Columbia
• Comm. College at UDC
• University of Hartford, CT
• University of Kansas
• Univ. of MD-College Park
• University of New
Hampshire-Durham
• UNC-Chapel Hill
• UNC-Greensboro
• Univ. of Pittsburgh, PA
• Univ. of Rochester, NY
• Univ. of San Francisco, CA
• Univ. of Texas at Austin
• University of Vermont
• University of Washington
• Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison
• Virginia Tech
• Virginia State University
• Virginia Wesleyan College
• Washington College, MD
• Wesleyan University, CT
• West Virginia University
• Western Governors Univ., UT
• Winston-Salem State Univ.,
NC
• Wittenberg University, OH
• Xavier Univ. of Louisiana
• Yale University, CT
• York College of Pennsylvania

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Absolutely, our admissions committee members appreciate go-getters, resourceful and intellectually curious students who take the initiative to work beyond the curricula offered at their high schools and standard homeschooling programs.

So this is an argument against a school like Latin offering more APs and rather people going after them independently? Those who can afford it, I mean?

We sat for AP exams in my high school - without the APs being offered as classes. We went in for a couple prep sessions, couple of hours over a few weekends. We all got 4s and 5s. I don't recall the APs being THAT difficult if you knew the general subject area content, which we had learned in school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Washington Latins "model", Boston Latin, is a test in school. Since WL is not, there has been a tension in its mission/vision since it's inception. This is not new. It's the plus and minus of being far more equitable (in one way - lottery based with weighted preferences that are not academic) than BL. If you disagree with that, you would need to change its structure to test in - like a Walls, Ellington, Banneker, TJ or Boston Latin. It is what it is.

I don't agree. This view of how Washington Latin must work--shared by the program's leadership-- is a cop out. Latin's leadership and teachers could offer far more rigor to the most advanced students. At BASIS, another DC charter school, seniors can't graduate unless they've passed at least half a dozen AP exams.

For example, admins won't permit 5th and 6th graders to take languages other than Latin, although a good many come in from DC public school language immersion programs for Spanish, Chinese and French. Some of the UMC parents of language immersion graduates team up to hire pricey tutors to help kids retain language skills, meaning that it's mostly the former low SES language immersion students at Latin who lose their skills. This policy could easily be changed. Also, math is tracked at Latin in middle school, but not humanities subjects, another policy that could be changed. Social promotion could also be jettisoned to help support more advanced academics.

Latin requires significantly more credits than other DC High Schools in order to graduate. Administration has purposefully chosen which AP classes are offered based on their academic/intellectual value. A teacher not bound by the AP US History course curriculum, for example, has much more leeway to create a meaningful course that's more than a collection of facts to be tested. A thing about Latin is you have to trust the administration and teachers to be professionals and have student's best interests in mind; with the mission and vision-statement always at the forefront. So far, they have earned my trust--more than the AP momey-making machine has!

Fabulous in theory, not so hot in practice. It's useful for kids to have a clutch of high AP scores under their belts when applying to colleges, no matter what sort of schools they attended.

Just so you know: college admissions offices receive what's know as a school "snap shot" from the high school guidance department with every application. This snapshot lays out the courses available in the school and ranks them according to difficulty. The most difficult course at Latin is not an AP course. College admissions staff want students who have taken the most difficult classes available at their school and will compare this snapshot with the students' transcripts. A raft of AP's with high scores is not an entrance ticket by any means--money: tutors and a good zip code can buy all that. Have you been through this before?

I work in college admissions and don't agree.

Which course at Latin is tougher than...Physics 2, Physics C Mechanics, Physics C Electricity and Magnetism, BC Calculus, AP languages?

Interviewing applicants for your alma mater does not count as working in admissions.

I concur. I'm an admissions officer at a university in the District. My children attend a DC public charter school.

Cool. And as an admissions officer, you are telling me that you consider the raw number of APs a student takeswithout considering the profile that comes from the high school? Are you telling me a student applying to your school gets dinged in admissions if their school doesn't offer your list: Physics 2, Physics C Mechanics, Physics C Electricity and Magnetism, BC Calculus?

I am not the PP, but I think he thought you were saying that Latin had harder classes than *any* AP class. So he was asking what the magic class was that was harder than the above classes. If Latin doesn't offer any of the above classes, though, then there's obviously a real problem with its difficulty in STEM. Does Latin seriously not offer any of those classes?

And, also, FWIW, a kid will absolutely get credit for taking the hardest courses his school offers AND will absolutely get dinged if the school doesn't have hard enough classes. There's a reason that most schools get no one into HYPSMC ever and it's not that they have never had a kid capable of it... It's that they don't adequately prepare their kids for admissions. One way they don't do that is that they don't have hard enough courses.

That's not a problem at Latin--hard enough classes, and good record of admissions to HYPSMC . I had to look that up

Not true. For example, none admitted to HYPSMC from Class of 2020.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are so many ways outside of school for a motivated kid to carry on in Spanish if that's their be all, end all - or - choose a school that offers Spanish. Meanwhile Latin offers many things others schools don't. I am curious if they will one day offer Spanish... I think it could be done starting in Grade 5. But can't say I'm sympathetic to this line of critique over the school making other choiçes.

There is some support for offering Spanish ( instead of French ) as a language at the second campus. We’ll see if it happens.

You'd think that Latin, campus 1,2 or both, would offer advanced Spanish and maybe Mandarin to the middle school kids who can handle it simply to improve the program's AP language scores down the track.

At Wilson, Oyster-Adams grads routinely take AP Spanish Language in 9th grade and AP Spanish lit in 10th grade and score 5s. The practice can't be hurting Wilson in college admissions. It's not as though Latin doesn't already teach Spanish.

Latin does not already teach Spanish. You are misinformed

They speak Spanish in Latin America. Duh.

Advanced Placement and the College Board are SUCH a racket. Turns my stomach. $$$$$