OP, I'd be willing to be that what you value in a neighborhood now when you don't have kids is going to change dramatically when you do have them. I think you are smart to think about the schools and do some homework on that before you buy so applaud you for that. But there's a reason so many of us with kids want to live in upper NW because these schools are better. Just look at the numbers, or go take a tour. The differences are striking. I would be willing to bet that once you have kids, you aren't going to be walking to cool restaurants any more but will probably place a much higher value on living in a low crime area, for example. I lived in Columbia Heights for many years before my first child was born and loved how walkable it was, how close to public transportation. When my child was born, all the sudden the shootings that were happening all around me that I just chose to ignore before became really scary. So did the traffice and the lack of green space. I wanted a yard or safe park where I could push my baby on a swing without junkies hanging out there. My upper northwest neighborhood does feel pretty suburban, and that was an adjustment. But we have grown to love that our kids can run free across the neighbors' lawns, playing with the other kids that live there. What really sealed the deal for our move was that I ran the crime numbers on our new house in upper NW verses my old house in CH just before I moved. My upper NW address had 0 violent crimes and 0 property crimes within 1000 feet during the previous year. My CH address had 102 violent crimes, 595 property crimes within 1000 feet. My advice if you want to live in a more urban environment would be to rent or try to buy something that is going to be a good investment, knowing you'll probably want to move once your kids are school age, if not sooner.

I've heard its a great school with a lot of great things happening. I've also met the previous principal. Let's wait and see what the Tubman scores do now after this year. Leadership changes sometimes have an impact on test scores. I'm waiting to see if the greatness extends past the principal in charge of the test scores.

Anonymous wrote:It would be better to just add an English-only program at CHEC.

That won't happen unless CHEC wants it to happen.

Meaning Principal Tukeva. Oddly, CHEC was English only until about 3 years ago. The supposedly bilingual only middle school started about 3 years ago with private money. It was only last year that they started to tout it as a bilingual only 6-12 school. It's also supposedly early college, AP offering but not passing, vocational education but we call beauty shops a career, onsite daycare for infants but supposedly kick out girls who have more than one baby, and now it's both a neighborhood boundary school and an application school.

Tukeva is a masterful fundraiser, public-private partnership building creator, and an accomplished Spin Doctor. But it's basically a charter-magnet hybrid in neighborhood school clothing. Like PPs have said, none of the ward 1 bilingual school assignments make sense.

DCPS doesn't care because Tukeva took over the problem child of Lincoln MS in return for matching funds for a new education campus. The Oyster take over of Adams elementary happened around the same timeframe and freed DCPS from having to close Adams outright.

That was then, this is now. What is the DCPS strategy for dual language immersion programs?

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I live in the area and think that the problem with most of the schools, including Tubman, is that people will stay in the early years and bail when they can. We are looking to move. (Struck out in the lottery this year.)

THIS. There are less than a dozen DCPS schools that parents love, and only one of them is EotP (Brent). Every other DCPS is a "work in progress" and parents will absolutely lie and say they're "all in!" right up until they tell you that they are:

A) just accepted to one of the great charters
B) just got lucky in the OOB lottery
C) have decided to move to FFX or MoCo

DCPS boosters will howl in protest, but its true. Nobody who cares about education wants their child in one of "those" schools by the time they hit the testing grades. It would only affirm that you made a terrible parenting decision that is starkly compromising your child's future.

You know, there are a lot of people who send their kids to schools that are not popular on this board (read: not WotP) who do actually care about education. They just don't post here. Be more of a snob, please. We certainly haven't heard enough about how wonderful it is WotP.

- parent of student at EotP elementary school, all in at that school until grade 5

I agree. I do know families that are choosing to stay in schools like Bancroft, Marie Reed, West and Shepherd. If families do leave, because they value something like Montessori expeditionary learning that the IB DCPS doesn't offer. And people don't say much about diversity on this forum because they equate it with low-quality, but we like charters because we place high value on diversity and charters do it well. I actually get a little nervous at the idea of sending my kid to nearly homogenous schools WOTP. Even suburban schools have more of a mix than JKLM. Hearst looks great for diversity, but even if we lived IB (and it's something we've considered) I'm not comfortable with the stigma placed on OOB kids.

To the OP, I'll say that everything with schools is in flux and changing rapidly. There's a noticable boom of families in the EOTP areas you talk about, and access to both charters and WOTP schools is diminishing - so it stands to reason that many are going to stay and make their schools work. That's how Brent rose and it will definitely happen in other places.

Our home in Petworth has doubled in value in the last 3 years. With new retail and restaurants coming in all the time, I can only see it going up. There's no downside to buying where you want to be right now and then see where things stand in a few years. You can and probably will resell for an upgrade if that's what you want.

Hi there: the PP mentioned "stigma placed on OOB kids" and Hearst in the same sentence. I'm a current Hearst parent and I don't see any kind of stigma being placed on anyone at Hearst. It's a terrific community!

That would be quite an interesting stigma considering 80% of the kids are OOB.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live in the area and think that the problem with most of the schools, including Tubman, is that people will stay in the early years and bail when they can. We are looking to move. (Struck out in the lottery this year.)

THIS. There are less than a dozen DCPS schools that parents love, and only one of them is EotP (Brent). Every other DCPS is a "work in progress" and parents will absolutely lie and say they're "all in!" right up until they tell you that they are:

A) just accepted to one of the great charters
B) just got lucky in the OOB lottery
C) have decided to move to FFX or MoCo

DCPS boosters will howl in protest, but its true. Nobody who cares about education wants their child in one of "those" schools by the time they hit the testing grades. It would only affirm that you made a terrible parenting decision that is starkly compromising your child's future.

You know, there are a lot of people who send their kids to schools that are not popular on this board (read: not WotP) who do actually care about education. They just don't post here. Be more of a snob, please. We certainly haven't heard enough about how wonderful it is WotP.

- parent of student at EotP elementary school, all in at that school until grade 5

I agree. I do know families that are choosing to stay in schools like Bancroft, Marie Reed, West and Shepherd. If families do leave, because they value something like Montessori expeditionary learning that the IB DCPS doesn't offer. And people don't say much about diversity on this forum because they equate it with low-quality, but we like charters because we place high value on diversity and charters do it well. I actually get a little nervous at the idea of sending my kid to nearly homogenous schools WOTP. Even suburban schools have more of a mix than JKLM. Hearst looks great for diversity, but even if we lived IB (and it's something we've considered) I'm not comfortable with the stigma placed on OOB kids.

To the OP, I'll say that everything with schools is in flux and changing rapidly. There's a noticable boom of families in the EOTP areas you talk about, and access to both charters and WOTP schools is diminishing - so it stands to reason that many are going to stay and make their schools work. That's how Brent rose and it will definitely happen in other places.

Our home in Petworth has doubled in value in the last 3 years. With new retail and restaurants coming in all the time, I can only see it going up. There's no downside to buying where you want to be right now and then see where things stand in a few years. You can and probably will resell for an upgrade if that's what you want.

Hi there: the PP mentioned "stigma placed on OOB kids" and Hearst in the same sentence. I'm a current Hearst parent and I don't see any kind of stigma being placed on anyone at Hearst. It's a terrific community!

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Anonymous wrote:Tubman definitely has a core group of very supportive parents. However, there were some major issues when the PTA head was white. Apparently the principal wasn't going to let that go too far. (check the archives, there were definitely threads discussing this). Tubman is at an ongoing disadvantage in that Columbia Village Public Housing feeds to it and that is a notoriously troubled complex and the root of quite a bit of crime and violence in CH. PP are right, look in sections of Petworth to be IB for Barnard, West, Powell and maybe even Bruce Monroe.
Signed, '
former CH resident, but had a kid and moved to Petwroth.

I'm always baffled by these Tubman threads. Their scores are SO much higher than the other schools you mention--something good must be going on, but DCUMers are too scared to find out.

The other goofy thing is that it feeds to CHEC, which is dual language, but Tubman is not. Very poorly thought out (as it typical).

Same issue with Cooke. But then you have a school like Bancroft that doesn't. Again, not very well thought out.

Actually, bilingual followed by English-only makes a lot of sense, because you only really need ES to have a bilingual kid. So Bancroft/Deal/Wilson or Oyster/Deal/Wilson makes sense. Those kids won't lose their Spanish.

What doesn't make sense is encountering bilingual education for the first time in grade 6, so I agree that Tubman to CHEC is odd.

Yes, Tubman and Cooke to CHEC make no sense. And if CHEC is going to have feeders, then it should definitely have them be from bilingual schools. CHEC does not have an English-only track for middle school (not sure about high school).

It would be better to just add an English-only program at CHEC.

That won't happen unless CHEC wants it to happen.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tubman definitely has a core group of very supportive parents. However, there were some major issues when the PTA head was white. Apparently the principal wasn't going to let that go too far. (check the archives, there were definitely threads discussing this). Tubman is at an ongoing disadvantage in that Columbia Village Public Housing feeds to it and that is a notoriously troubled complex and the root of quite a bit of crime and violence in CH. PP are right, look in sections of Petworth to be IB for Barnard, West, Powell and maybe even Bruce Monroe.
Signed, '
former CH resident, but had a kid and moved to Petwroth.

I'm always baffled by these Tubman threads. Their scores are SO much higher than the other schools you mention--something good must be going on, but DCUMers are too scared to find out.

The other goofy thing is that it feeds to CHEC, which is dual language, but Tubman is not. Very poorly thought out (as it typical).

Same issue with Cooke. But then you have a school like Bancroft that doesn't. Again, not very well thought out.

Actually, bilingual followed by English-only makes a lot of sense, because you only really need ES to have a bilingual kid. So Bancroft/Deal/Wilson or Oyster/Deal/Wilson makes sense. Those kids won't lose their Spanish.

What doesn't make sense is encountering bilingual education for the first time in grade 6, so I agree that Tubman to CHEC is odd.

Yes, Tubman and Cooke to CHEC make no sense. And if CHEC is going to have feeders, then it should definitely have them be from bilingual schools. CHEC does not have an English-only track for middle school (not sure about high school).

It would be better to just add an English-only program at CHEC.

Anonymous wrote:^^ so what is happening there with African American kids that went to Tubman for elementary and then have to go to CHEC? Are they forced into Spanish classes?

Yes, anyone who goes to CHEC is in Spanish dual language immersion for 6th-8th grade, including Tubman and Cooke kids. Most of the Cooke kids I know got in OOB to Hardy or elsewhere and are not at CHEC.

^^ so what is happening there with African American kids that went to Tubman for elementary and then have to go to CHEC? Are they forced into Spanish classes?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tubman definitely has a core group of very supportive parents. However, there were some major issues when the PTA head was white. Apparently the principal wasn't going to let that go too far. (check the archives, there were definitely threads discussing this). Tubman is at an ongoing disadvantage in that Columbia Village Public Housing feeds to it and that is a notoriously troubled complex and the root of quite a bit of crime and violence in CH. PP are right, look in sections of Petworth to be IB for Barnard, West, Powell and maybe even Bruce Monroe.
Signed, '
former CH resident, but had a kid and moved to Petwroth.

I'm always baffled by these Tubman threads. Their scores are SO much higher than the other schools you mention--something good must be going on, but DCUMers are too scared to find out.

The other goofy thing is that it feeds to CHEC, which is dual language, but Tubman is not. Very poorly thought out (as it typical).

Same issue with Cooke. But then you have a school like Bancroft that doesn't. Again, not very well thought out.

Actually, bilingual followed by English-only makes a lot of sense, because you only really need ES to have a bilingual kid. So Bancroft/Deal/Wilson or Oyster/Deal/Wilson makes sense. Those kids won't lose their Spanish.

What doesn't make sense is encountering bilingual education for the first time in grade 6, so I agree that Tubman to CHEC is odd.

Yes, Tubman and Cooke to CHEC make no sense. And if CHEC is going to have feeders, then it should definitely have them be from bilingual schools. CHEC does not have an English-only track for middle school (not sure about high school).

Anonymous wrote:I don't think it's accurate to say that Tubman is using KIPP strategies. When my DD was there, the teachers showered her with love, and their PS/PK program is play based - the upper grades emphasize participatory learning, and their students are very engages. Not that I know what KIPP is doing, but I've heard that it's very drill-based and memorization-based. I didn't get that feeling from Tubman at all. For example, they encouraged parents to stay with their PS kids as long as they needed to the first few weeks of school.

I am no KIPP defender, but I don't think their PK is drill-based. At least one of their campuses uses the same curriculum as Tubman and many other DCPS -- Tools of the Mind.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tubman definitely has a core group of very supportive parents. However, there were some major issues when the PTA head was white. Apparently the principal wasn't going to let that go too far. (check the archives, there were definitely threads discussing this). Tubman is at an ongoing disadvantage in that Columbia Village Public Housing feeds to it and that is a notoriously troubled complex and the root of quite a bit of crime and violence in CH. PP are right, look in sections of Petworth to be IB for Barnard, West, Powell and maybe even Bruce Monroe.
Signed, '
former CH resident, but had a kid and moved to Petwroth.

I'm always baffled by these Tubman threads. Their scores are SO much higher than the other schools you mention--something good must be going on, but DCUMers are too scared to find out.

The other goofy thing is that it feeds to CHEC, which is dual language, but Tubman is not. Very poorly thought out (as it typical).

Same issue with Cooke. But then you have a school like Bancroft that doesn't. Again, not very well thought out.

Actually, bilingual followed by English-only makes a lot of sense, because you only really need ES to have a bilingual kid. So Bancroft/Deal/Wilson or Oyster/Deal/Wilson makes sense. Those kids won't lose their Spanish.

What doesn't make sense is encountering bilingual education for the first time in grade 6, so I agree that Tubman to CHEC is odd.

Anonymous wrote:OP, to answer your question about Great Schools ratings, it is best to look at the raw data (demographics and test scores) but ignore the scores completely. They seem almost random. I think at one point I checked and Tubman had the same score as Janney or one of those other Deal ESs. If I were you I would wait to see what happens with the feeder patterns and boundaries. If they stay the same, and you can afford it, move to Woodley (Oyster) or Mount Pleasant (Bancroft), if you want Deal/Wilson, or else Dupont (Ross), or Adams Morgan (Marie Reed), maybe some others. There are some good elementary schools in urban neighborhoods.

Just to add, I have nothing against Petworth and other neighborhoods further north, but I don't see why anyone would propose them as alternatives to Columbia Heights. The neighborhoods I mentioned, Woodley, Mount Pleasant, Dupont, Adams Morgan, all have an urban feel, somewhat like CoHi. To me Petworth feels the same as AU Park, it's just less expensive and more racially diverse. I don't see Petworth as a substitute for an urban neighborhood, unless it's very close to the metro, i.e., basically "north CoHi". Same goes for Brightwood and all those other neighborhoods further north.

Argh. Engaged, not engages

I don't think it's accurate to say that Tubman is using KIPP strategies. When my DD was there, the teachers showered her with love, and their PS/PK program is play based - the upper grades emphasize participatory learning, and their students are very engages. Not that I know what KIPP is doing, but I've heard that it's very drill-based and memorization-based. I didn't get that feeling from Tubman at all. For example, they encouraged parents to stay with their PS kids as long as they needed to the first few weeks of school.