Anonymous wrote:Traditional and charter schools need to both start middle school at the same grade. When do private schools start middle schools? Across the nation, at what grade do most middle schools start? What was the reason for changing from junior high to middle schools? All middle schools that receive any public funding need to start at the same grade. This would provide uniformity and stop brain drain and confusion in certain grades. What are the plans to improve all middle schools and make them competitive so that parents won’t chase certain schools just for the feeder school path and won’t abandon traditional schools?

Elementary school crowding. There is no room to put 4-6 classrooms of sixth graders in each of the Deal feeder elementary schools.

Anonymous wrote:Traditional and charter schools need to both start middle school at the same grade. When do private schools start middle schools? Across the nation, at what grade do most middle schools start? What was the reason for changing from junior high to middle schools? All middle schools that receive any public funding need to start at the same grade. This would provide uniformity and stop brain drain and confusion in certain grades. What are the plans to improve all middle schools and make them competitive so that parents won’t chase certain schools just for the feeder school path and won’t abandon traditional schools?

Some privates begin middle at 5th. Others at 4th. And still others, such as Catholic parochial schools, don't have middle school at all but rather have K-8th elementaries.

Close to DC, MoCo starts middle at 6th and Fairfax County has K-6th grade, with 7th and 8th grade being middle schools. There is no uniformity.

DCPS still has Pk3-8th schools as well, and some have no plans to be folded into a 6th-8th-grade model.

Traditional and charter schools need to both start middle school at the same grade. When do private schools start middle schools? Across the nation, at what grade do most middle schools start? What was the reason for changing from junior high to middle schools? All middle schools that receive any public funding need to start at the same grade. This would provide uniformity and stop brain drain and confusion in certain grades. What are the plans to improve all middle schools and make them competitive so that parents won’t chase certain schools just for the feeder school path and won’t abandon traditional schools?

^^ I mean Tier I in terms of the actual experience of being there. In terms of what school I would choose? Clearly a school in NW w/ an actual MS feed.

I actually think Brent and Maury are both Tier I. Both of their 5th grade scores a somewhat depressed by the fact that 50%+ of the class leaves for Latin/Basis/CHDS/St. Peters/lotterying into a Deal feeder. Unsurprisingly, the 50% that leaves is not random and tends towards the higher achieving/more involved parents set (though obviously not exclusively).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Eaton has the strongest PARCC results for students of color. Although note that the data set includes multiple schools that didn’t have enough students of color to be statistically significant.

Sorry, but Eaton is still pretty second-highest tier compared to JKLM. It baffling that it still can't even draw a majority of its enrollment from the local neighborhood, which shows that it needs more improvement before it gets real traction locally. For now, Eaton's really an EOTP school that happens to be WOTP.

I'll never understand why people need to bash other schools.

1.) Eaton had 54% IB in SY 2016/2017. No data released yet for SY 2017/108.

2.) Even if every single child in the Eaton boundary attended Eaton, at its current over capacity stuffed size, the school could still not be fully IB, there are simply not enough children IB. Perhaps that wouldn't be an issue if the school population was right-sized to its building, but politics preempts reason.

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Anonymous wrote:Tier I Schools (Very involved PTA, Extremely High Fundraising, Motivated Students, High PARCC Test Scores)
===================================================================
Janney Elementary School
Lafayette Elementary School
Brent Elementary School
Murch Elementary School
Mann Elementary School
Key Elementary School
Hearst Elementary School
Ross Elementary School
Eaton Elementary School
Stoddert Elementary School

Tier II Schools (Very Involved PTA, High Fundraising, Motivated Students, Decent PARCC Test Scores)
===============================================================
Capitol Hill Montessori School
Hyde ? Addison Elementary School
Van Ness Elementary School * (No Test Scores yet)
Maury Elementary School
Oyster ? Adams Bilingual School
Shepherd Elementary School
Watkins Elementary School
Peabody Elementary School * (No Test Scores)
Ludlow -Taylor Elementary School

No SWS? Higher performer on PARCC and fundraising $s than a number of your "Tier I" list

True that. Also whiter than any school outside upper NW ... how did that happen?

Capitol Hill is really white and used to get preference at SWS before DCPS took it away from us because we are not allowed to have nice things.

Politics. The preference upset the Marion Bowser base.

"Marion Bowser" -- love it, so true!

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:'J' is the first letter in JKLM not just for alphabetical reasons.

--Proud Jaguar parent

Troll. You are not a Janney parent- no Janney parent I know would ever say that.

I think there used to be one, but this one is somebody else for sure.

Mann used to be better than Janney, but for the last decade or so Janney moved ahead. The fact that Janney gets Wilson and Mann is stuck with Hardy doesn't help Mann. Janney parents are justly proud of their school.

Anonymous wrote:Are there distinct differences between Janney and Murch? Lafayette and Key? The PARCC scores are within 5-10 points at these schools, and I would assume they have to follow the same core curriculum. What are the differences?

Thanks!

Size - number of students
Feeder - those in the Hardy Zone are less likely to move with their cohort to middle school
After school care - some are more available than othesr
Neighborhood - some have richer families, some more multi-family housing, etc.
Staffing/Resources - can differ here, depending on size, PTA $$, etc.

We are at Janney so I can only speak to it...
Size - large! Five classes per grade (other than Pre-K which they shrunk to allow five 5th grade classes this year)
Feeder - Deal, most kids we know are going to Deal this fall, a couple left for Washington Latin, a few are going to private next year
After school care - large program, can drop-in, space isn't an issue
Neighborhood - mainly boxy colonials with additions and small/no yard, lots of families (Janney went from 500 to 700 in five years)
Staffing/Resources - lots of staff; assistant teachers, co-teachers (with master's), lots of enrichment classes, language classes (even Mandarin), lots of support staff

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:'J' is the first letter in JKLM not just for alphabetical reasons.

--Proud Jaguar parent

Troll. You are not a Janney parent- no Janney parent I know would ever say that.

I think there used to be one, but this one is somebody else for sure.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd say there's not a lot of difference at the top level of the tier. Janney and Mann are quite similar, although Mann unfortunately feeds to Hardy while Janney is in Deal. Lafayette is very strong. Murch is strong, but it's not exactly in the top drawer with Janney and Mann.

Why do people (or a person) have to keep repeating this - there is nothing unfortunate about being fed to Hardy. Given some of the downsides of larger schools some might actually prefer Hardy which is not even half as large as Deal.

I laugh when people boost Hardy, knowing that if they had the choice of Deal vs. Hardy, they would choose Deal 98 out of 100 times.

And the 2 are just stupid

True that.

We have the choice. We can move easily between schools. I guess I must be the 1 or 2 out of 100. Not all of us are stuck with a house in AU Park. Don't see me moving anywhere near Janney. Used live right across the street from Lafayette, but the Connecticut Avenue strip was a bore. Moved bore kid started school.

Anonymous wrote:'J' is the first letter in JKLM not just for alphabetical reasons.

--Proud Jaguar parent

Troll. You are not a Janney parent- no Janney parent I know would ever say that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd say there's not a lot of difference at the top level of the tier. Janney and Mann are quite similar, although Mann unfortunately feeds to Hardy while Janney is in Deal. Lafayette is very strong. Murch is strong, but it's not exactly in the top drawer with Janney and Mann.

Why do people (or a person) have to keep repeating this - there is nothing unfortunate about being fed to Hardy. Given some of the downsides of larger schools some might actually prefer Hardy which is not even half as large as Deal.

I laugh when people boost Hardy, knowing that if they had the choice of Deal vs. Hardy, they would choose Deal 98 out of 100 times.

And the 2 are just stupid

True that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tier I Schools (Very involved PTA, Extremely High Fundraising, Motivated Students, High PARCC Test Scores)
===================================================================
Janney Elementary School
Lafayette Elementary School
Brent Elementary School
Murch Elementary School
Mann Elementary School
Key Elementary School
Hearst Elementary School
Ross Elementary School
Eaton Elementary School
Stoddert Elementary School

Tier II Schools (Very Involved PTA, High Fundraising, Motivated Students, Decent PARCC Test Scores)
===============================================================
Capitol Hill Montessori School
Hyde ? Addison Elementary School
Van Ness Elementary School * (No Test Scores yet)
Maury Elementary School
Oyster ? Adams Bilingual School
Shepherd Elementary School
Watkins Elementary School
Peabody Elementary School * (No Test Scores)
Ludlow -Taylor Elementary School

No SWS? Higher performer on PARCC and fundraising $s than a number of your "Tier I" list

True that. Also whiter than any school outside upper NW ... how did that happen?

Capitol Hill is really white and used to get preference at SWS before DCPS took it away from us because we are not allowed to have nice things.

Politics. The preference upset the Marion Bowser base.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:JKLMs aren't really a thing anymore. Lots of elementary schools in DC are great now.

Dream on. Sorry that you can't afford to buy in AU Park. But you can pretend.

not everyone wants to live in AU Park

+1 What a boring existence.