Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Strongly disagree and we have lived EotP for 20 years. If you want to build a strong urban neighborhood school system you need to prioritize attracting residents of a school’s catchment area to the program, like the burbs do. All the crazy school commutes in DC are a real drag, as is insufficient middle school challenge for most middle class students. Weak partial language immersion options in DCPS after ES outside Adams are another losing proposition.

If DCPS wanted more buy in from parents east of the park (I’m one of them) they would need to bring back test in advanced classes for high achieving students. Middle school achievement gap is huge and middle school matters a LOT to get ready for high school, especially in math.
Mixing 6th grade kids above grade level with kids two grade levels behind in o ce class is a disservice for all. But DC is focused only on equity or at least the appearance of it. They are closing the gap by lowering the ceiling.

To be fair, even DCPS tacitly concedes this by allowing straightforward, test-in math tracking in MS. I think it's a shame they don't do anything in upper ES, because it really disadvantages kids whose parents can't work with them at home or afford to send them to mathnasium, etc so that they are ready for the highest math option in 6th grade.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lamb’s test scores have been dropping for years. Every kid I know is supplementing. Lamb kids do not do well at DCI. I don’t know what happened. As a lamb parent it is shocking to me that the leadership seemingly are unconcerned as far as I can tell. Although, to be honest, I don’t really have time to read every parentsquare post because I’m driving my kids to Mathnasium after school like everyone else.

I'm curious if this is based on data or simply anecdotal. The kids I know from LAMB at DCI are doing well but that's also not based on data. Can you share any data you have seen regarding LAMB student performance at DCI?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Strongly disagree and we have lived EotP for 20 years. If you want to build a strong urban neighborhood school system you need to prioritize attracting residents of a school’s catchment area to the program, like the burbs do. All the crazy school commutes in DC are a real drag, as is insufficient middle school challenge for most middle class students. Weak partial language immersion options in DCPS after ES outside Adams are another losing proposition.

If DCPS wanted more buy in from parents east of the park (I’m one of them) they would need to bring back test in advanced classes for high achieving students. Middle school achievement gap is huge and middle school matters a LOT to get ready for high school, especially in math.
Mixing 6th grade kids above grade level with kids two grade levels behind in o ce class is a disservice for all. But DC is focused only on equity or at least the appearance of it. They are closing the gap by lowering the ceiling.

Anonymous wrote:Strongly disagree and we have lived EotP for 20 years. If you want to build a strong urban neighborhood school system you need to prioritize attracting residents of a school’s catchment area to the program, like the burbs do. All the crazy school commutes in DC are a real drag, as is insufficient middle school challenge for most middle class students. Weak partial language immersion options in DCPS after ES outside Adams are another losing proposition.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sigh, Marie Reed, Bruce Monroe, and Powell really are great schools with great teachers, but will never escape the high SES flight (white and otherwise) because of the feeder pattern.

- Former family who loved their school but fled because of the feeder pattern.

Considering Chisholm and Houston don’t have a proper immersion feeder, and some charters don’t have DCI preference, it’s a shame DCPS doesn’t have a city-wide Spanish immersion 6-12 education campus.

Don't all dcps immersion programs except maybe oyster have a programmatic feeder right to MacFarland?

Anonymous wrote:Sigh, Marie Reed, Bruce Monroe, and Powell really are great schools with great teachers, but will never escape the high SES flight (white and otherwise) because of the feeder pattern.

- Former family who loved their school but fled because of the feeder pattern.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sigh, Marie Reed, Bruce Monroe, and Powell really are great schools with great teachers, but will never escape the high SES flight (white and otherwise) because of the feeder pattern.

- Former family who loved their school but fled because of the feeder pattern.

If dcps had the guts to say that getting into a school for elementary oob didn't qualify you for the middle and high school patterns, more people would stay at their elementary schools through 5th grade.

As a matter of fact, that was the story in DCPS pre Michelle Rhee. She was the one who granted automatic feeder rights in 2009. Huge mistake. Politically, it’s tough to take away a right.

I see this argument over and over here- that feeder rights should be revoked for oob schools. I assume that this comes from families west of the park who thinks that they are the only ones who's tax dollars support Deal. But I cannot imagine how difficult it would be for a kid to not get to continue on with their friends because they lotteried into their elementary school. This seems like it would create all kinds of social problems without solving the city's issues.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sigh, Marie Reed, Bruce Monroe, and Powell really are great schools with great teachers, but will never escape the high SES flight (white and otherwise) because of the feeder pattern.

- Former family who loved their school but fled because of the feeder pattern.

If dcps had the guts to say that getting into a school for elementary oob didn't qualify you for the middle and high school patterns, more people would stay at their elementary schools through 5th grade.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You’re missing the forest for the trees on that one. Take Stuart Hobson. There are still more students enrolled from Wards 5, 7 and 8 than from Wards 6. Take away OOB rights and add programming that appeals to most IB parents, eg advanced Spanish, science and social studies and we’d have a good shot at a Deal equivalent EotP soon enough.

And what happens to all the kids enrolled in S-H feeders from OOB? They didn't lottery into those schools because their IB schools are awesome. Those families are using the lottery as intended, to get their kids better education options because their IB schools are failing. Those needs don't evaporate at 6th.

If IB families wanted to, they could just attend their IB elementaries in higher numbers and that would automatically result in fewer OOB students at S-H. Yet IB families consistently lottery out of the feeder schools, whether in PK or in 5th for Latin and Basis. If they want a school with high IB numbers, that is entirely within their control. Don't blame it on OOB feeder rights that just perpetuate patterns IB families themselves create.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sigh, Marie Reed, Bruce Monroe, and Powell really are great schools with great teachers, but will never escape the high SES flight (white and otherwise) because of the feeder pattern.

- Former family who loved their school but fled because of the feeder pattern.

If dcps had the guts to say that getting into a school for elementary oob didn't qualify you for the middle and high school patterns, more people would stay at their elementary schools through 5th grade.

As a matter of fact, that was the story in DCPS pre Michelle Rhee. She was the one who granted automatic feeder rights in 2009. Huge mistake. Politically, it’s tough to take away a right.

I see this argument over and over here- that feeder rights should be revoked for oob schools. I assume that this comes from families west of the park who thinks that they are the only ones who's tax dollars support Deal. But I cannot imagine how difficult it would be for a kid to not get to continue on with their friends because they lotteried into their elementary school. This seems like it would create all kinds of social problems without solving the city's issues.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lamb’s test scores have been dropping for years. Every kid I know is supplementing. Lamb kids do not do well at DCI. I don’t know what happened. As a lamb parent it is shocking to me that the leadership seemingly are unconcerned as far as I can tell. Although, to be honest, I don’t really have time to read every parentsquare post because I’m driving my kids to Mathnasium after school like everyone else.

Also part of the problem is that LAMB takes SO many days off. The number of PD days is out of control. Next year, they're planning on taking professional development days every single week of the year.

LAMB parent here! You almost gave me a heart attack and I frantically searched ParentSquare to see when this was announced! But alas this is just wrong. The calendar hasn’t been released yet, but sounds like it will be similar to this year.

Ask Jessica. If LAMB isn't planning on taking weekly PD days next year, she will surely deny it. If she doesn't deny it, then you know.

Parents will go *completely* apeshit if LAMB has PD days every week.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Parents don't realize how much less classtime students get at LAMB than they do at DCPS schools.

Based on what? If you compare calendars, there's the same number of days, except that LAMB takes 5 half days (new this year - I won't address unannounced possible additional half days for future years). BUT, LAMB's hours are 8:15-3:15, while most DCPS elementary schools hours are 8:45-3:15, so LAMB students get an extra 30 minutes of class time every day, for the 175 full days of school. Doing the math, that adds up to an EXTRA 12.5 days of class time for LAMB kids.

https://dcps.dc.gov/page/school-start-and-end-times

It's really difficult to accurately compare this. You have to account for lunch and recess and any other breaks, which vary by grade level. And a "half day" can be dismissal at 12, 12:30, 1, etc. it would be a real pain to do it precisely for many schools.

+1. Charters often have longer hours than DCPS in part because they have more recess (at our DCPS - 30 min) and lunch (20 min) time in their schedule. Which is good because 50 minutes total for recess AND lunch, including transition time, is objectively terrible. But that extra 12.5 days of instructional time goes poof if a charter has a more developmentally appropriate, reasonable schedule.

Can any LAMB parents speak to how long recess and lunch are?

Anonymous wrote:From what I hear (from other parents) Mundo Verde Cook kids do very well at DCI. My DCI kid and his classmates from MV are all in advanced track Spanish classes and many are in advanced math and English.