Anonymous wrote:Can one get IB info by grade? Or is that protected/non-public data?

I will get totally flamed for suggesting this, but if you cannot find IB/OOB breakdown by grade level for a school, you can use the racial and FARM breakdown by grade as an imperfect proxy. This is publicly available (for sub groups of 5 or more students) in the equity reports in the DCPS school profiles. Ok, flame away, I am not making statements about who is desirable in a school, I am just suggesting that race/FARM by grade, which is publicly available, could serve as a proxy for IB/OOB, if the latter is not publicly available.

Anonymous wrote:The Hardy PTA has become pretty organized. They should conduct a Survey Monkey asking parents and students if they like uniforms or would prefer not to have them. If they nix the uniforms they could institute a reasonably rigid dress code to avoid the stuff I know the admin worries about (jeans worn below the butt with boxers hanging out; non-existent mini skirts; tank tops and mid drafts) The school can collect no longer used uniforms and that is what children showing up to school inappropriately dressed get to wear instead.

The question at Hardy is not with the families who enroll, but the ones who don't.

It is believed that a significantly lower share of in-boundary families choose Hardy than Deal. But nobody outside of DCPS central office really knows, because that information -- the capture rate -- is not publicly revealed. While it may be knowable with information that DCPS has, we don't even know for sure whether anyone in DCPS actually looks at it. If you wanted to address that disparity -- and that in of itself is not a uncontroversial idea, there are plenty of people who say that those who opt out of their neighborhood school lose their voice, but say you wanted to -- the people you should be polling are not the existing Hardy families, but instead the in-boundary families who didn't choose Hardy. But that isn't an easily identifiable group. And people are complicated. For example it's hard to distinguish between those who were always planning on going private for middle school and those who were turned off by a single key issue (eg uniforms).

The Hardy PTA has become pretty organized. They should conduct a Survey Monkey asking parents and students if they like uniforms or would prefer not to have them. If they nix the uniforms they could institute a reasonably rigid dress code to avoid the stuff I know the admin worries about (jeans worn below the butt with boxers hanging out; non-existent mini skirts; tank tops and mid drafts) The school can collect no longer used uniforms and that is what children showing up to school inappropriately dressed get to wear instead.

Anonymous wrote:Why are uniforms an issue for IB parents?

1. Their kids don't like them.
2. They're a turnoff for high SES parents, too. Public school uniforms were part of a toolkit that educational reformers used in the late 80s/early 90s (along with tough-love, no-exceptions rules, male role model teachers and even midnight basketball games) to try to bring order and discipline to tough, chaotic, inner city schools. That's not exactly the school atmosphere that Ward 3 parents want, and they wonder what issues remain at Hardy such that it would still feel that uniforms are necessary. (Before folks start pointing out that a few private and even charters have uniforms, which is true, it's this history of how urban public school uniforms came about that carries the negative connotation.) It more symbolic than substantive, but nothing would say turning the page at Hardy like retiring school uniforms.

Why are uniforms an issue for IB parents?

Anonymous wrote:Can one get IB info by grade? Or is that protected/non-public data?

It's a state secret.

Can one get IB info by grade? Or is that protected/non-public data?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In boundary parents care about one number, the IB number which they view as an indication that their neighbors and peers are voting with their feet, manifesting increased confidence in Hardy. They don't care about the feeder number, which is inflated by OOB students who would probably choose to attend Hardy anyway because it likely is a better alternative than the school they would otherwise have been assigned to.

In the lower grades, as a previous poster noted, these schools are now mostly IB, so the feeder number and the IB number are probably converging.

Detail please. It would be very interesting to know the IB percentages in the lower grades at Stoddert and especially Hyde/Addison.

Anonymous wrote:In boundary parents care about one number, the IB number which they view as an indication that their neighbors and peers are voting with their feet, manifesting increased confidence in Hardy. They don't care about the feeder number, which is inflated by OOB students who would probably choose to attend Hardy anyway because it likely is a better alternative than the school they would otherwise have been assigned to.

In the lower grades, as a previous poster noted, these schools are now mostly IB, so the feeder number and the IB number are probably converging.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have they announced the dropping of school uniforms yet? That will signal that Hardy is serious about recruiting more IB students.

Ha,ha.

I think that school uniforms are part of the school's unique DC culture, about which some at Hardy are so protective/defensive.
#hardyuniformsmatter.

??

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have they announced the dropping of school uniforms yet? That will signal that Hardy is serious about recruiting more IB students.

Ha,ha.

I think that school uniforms are part of the school's unique DC culture, about which some at Hardy are so protective/defensive.
#hardyuniformsmatter.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In boundary parents care about one number, the IB number which they view as an indication that their neighbors and peers are voting with their feet, manifesting increased confidence in Hardy. They don't care about the feeder number, which is inflated by OOB students who would probably choose to attend Hardy anyway because it likely is a better alternative than the school they would otherwise have been assigned to.

I'm an in-bound parent at Mann. I don't care about the IB number; I care about th feeder number.

Don't make blanket (and false) generalizations.

Coming from Mann, the IB number and the feeder number would be almost the same. But the overall feeder number is pretty much irrelevant because Hyde/Addison is 60 % OOB. It would be a surprise if those kids did NOT go to Hardy, because, while Hardy is not Deal, it's still a lot better than the poorly performing middle school options that OOB kids normally have.

Anonymous wrote:Have they announced the dropping of school uniforms yet? That will signal that Hardy is serious about recruiting more IB students.

Ha,ha.

Anonymous wrote:In boundary parents care about one number, the IB number which they view as an indication that their neighbors and peers are voting with their feet, manifesting increased confidence in Hardy. They don't care about the feeder number, which is inflated by OOB students who would probably choose to attend Hardy anyway because it likely is a better alternative than the school they would otherwise have been assigned to.

I'm an in-bound parent at Mann. I don't care about the IB number; I care about th feeder number.

Don't make blanket (and false) generalizations.

Anonymous wrote:In boundary parents care about one number, the IB number which they view as an indication that their neighbors and peers are voting with their feet, manifesting increased confidence in Hardy. They don't care about the feeder number, which is inflated by OOB students who would probably choose to attend Hardy anyway because it likely is a better alternative than the school they would otherwise have been assigned to.

I would argue that the IB percentage is the speedometer, not the gas pedal. It's not the reason that IB parents are opting out of Hardy, it's the evidence they are. The reasons they opt out are complex, and probably different for every family, but in short, they have better options.