Council
CHPSPO Meeting Notes – November 19, 2013
Capitol Hill Public Schools Parent Organization
Ludlow-Taylor Elementary
659 G Street, NE
November 19, 2013
6:30 p.m. – 8 p.m.
1. School Boundaries and Feeder Patterns – Open discussion
- Background: DME’s press release and materials: http://dme.dc.gov/DC/DME/Initiatives+and+Priorities/Statewide+Commission+on+Children+Youth+and+Their+Families/Student+Assignment+and+School+Boundaries+Review+Process
- ACTION: Sign up for focus groups and working groups
- ACTION: Volunteers will work on survey for feeder with the help of Mary Filardo, 21st Century Fund, using this as framework (see preliminary discussion below): http://dme.dc.gov/DC/DME/Publication%20Files/Defining%20Principles%20Worksheet.pdf
- ACTION: To be more intentional to give Chancellor feedback on middle schools, group is forming. For reference, the Ward 6 Middle School Plan: http://www.dc.gov/DCPS/Parents+and+Community/Community+Initiatives/Building+on+Momentum:+Ward+6+Middle+Schools
- In boundary % (on school profiles) should change to indicate that school is in feeder pattern
- Feedback on November 15 Council Hearing
- Highlights: scrutiny around process, selection of advisory committee members, Chancellor expressed lack of strategy around middle schools, Catania called upon Chancellor/DCPS to produce a middle school strategy within a month
- Video: http://dc.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=30&clip_id=1966
- Tweets: http://storify.com/CHPSPO/school-boundary-review-roundtable/
- Preparing for Principles/Survey:
- Q: What is working about your current in-boundary/in-feeder middle school?
- Capitol Hill Cluster School:
- Peabody feeding into Watkins feeding into Stuart (the cluster model is working)
- Stuart Hobson students are enrolling following on feeder patterns based on their elementary schools (Ludlow-Taylor, JO Wilson, Watkins)
- DCPS is setting enrollment numbers too high for Stuart Hobson
- The communication to parents at Peabody and Watkins about activities at Stuart Hobson helps families become familiar with their middle school and starts to set the expectation that Stuart Hobson is going to be their middle school.
- Principal reaches out to all feeder schools to encourage participation with the middle school sports, events, etc.
- JO Wilson:
- Want to maintain current feeder pattern to Stuart Hobson.
- Great local option supporting neighborhood schools and an established, reliable option for parents.
- Ludlow Taylor:
- Want to maintain current feeder pattern to Stuart Hobson.
- Maury:
- Want to maintain current feeder pattern to Eliot-Hine and to Eastern.
- Seeing the progress around Eliot Hine and link w/ International Baccalaureate w/ Eastern and would like to see it continue.
- Tyler:
- Families like the choice of being able to attend the Spanish Immersion program. Like that we live on Capitol Hill, and can still have choices in the neighborhood.
- Amidon-Bowen:
- Like Amidon-Bowen feeding into Jefferson.
- SWS:
- The school’s intention to keep cohorts together, beyond geographic boundary. Intent to keep neighborhoods together.
- Q: What is NOT working about your current in-boundary/in-feeder middle school?
- Cluster:
- Boundaries for Watkins don’t match the size of the school.
- Charters like Washington Latin are pulling most advanced students. If DCPS MS doesn’t offer advanced courses, it’s tough to keep the advanced students.
- Ludlow Taylor:
- At Ludlow Taylor, students are not leaving at 5th grade, because parents see a clear path to Stuart. However, there is no connection with Eastern.
- Maury:
- Instructional Superintendents structure does not support vertical integration of programming or collaboration among schools within a feeder pattern.
- CHM@L
- The Ward 6 Middle school plan that DCPS approved has not been supported nor adequately funded.
- Amidon-Bowen:
- Jefferson is an important piece of puzzle – not successful in getting Brent or Thompson students
- Capital/facility improvements have come about too slowly. It is a struggle by the school and community to get DC to fund renovations.
- SWS:
- Too much choice in the system. Choice came about because system was not servicing schools. There isn’t thought about the capacity of a school vs. cachment as a feeder – needs to take charters into account when thinking about decisions around boundary/feeder. Currently, there is no strategy.
- General Comments
- No strategic planning between Charter and DCPS.
- (former Ward 5 parent) Ward 5 has shut down DCPS schools and many neighborhoods are being serviced by charters.
- Boundary discussion is an opportunity to ‘level playing field’ by introducing neighborhood preference and advocating for legislation that requires charters to take in-boundary students, regardless of time of year.
- Catania’s refusing to outsource MS to charters creates an opportunity.
- Boundary planning should happen w/ charters as part of discussion.
- There is intentional misalignment of middle schools starting at 5th grade.
- IB has been slow to get off the ground at Eliot-Hine, which hurt the implementation of the Ward 6 middle school plan.
- DCPS’ competitive advantage on middle schools should be a predictable feeder pattern and path for students. Charters seem to be doing a better job of operating as a system than DCPS.
- Charters seem to do a good job of showing the continuum of education among charter school feeder patterns.
- Questions still to be answered:
- What values do we hold that we believe should influence school boundaries and feeder patterns, e.g., proximity, diversity, choice, predictability?
- What is our vision for school boundaries and successful feeder patterns, e.g., successful feeder patterns from elementary to middle to high schools?
- How do middle schools influence school boundaries and successful feeder patterns?
- How to ensure an open, collaborative and fair process for determining school boundaries and feeder patterns? Ideas for getting broad input from Ward 6 parents – survey?
2. “A Call to Action” event on December 9, organized by the Washington Teacher’s Union. Stay tuned via: http://www.wtulocal6.org/. Read Principles: http://chpspo.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/principlesuniteus2013.pdf
3. School Information “Night” – December 8, 2-5PM @ Capitol Hill Day School
Next CHPSPO Meeting: December 17, 2013
Upcoming Events:
December 8 School Information “Night,” 2 – 5 p.m., Capitol Hill Day School
December 9 A Call to Action (TBD)
December 10 Deputy Mayor for Education’s Focus Group on School Boundaries and Feeder Patterns, Logan
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Laura Hansen Marks – Student Assignment and School Boundaries Review Process Testimony 11/15/2013
Testimony of
Laura Hansen Marks
Council of the District of Columbia: Committee On Education
Councilmember David Catania, Chairman
Public Oversight Roundtable:
Student Assignment and School Boundaries Review Process
Friday, November 15, 2013, 9:00 am
Room 500, John A. Wilson Building
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Laura Marks. I am a resident of Ward 6 and the parent of two young children, one in first grade at School-Within-School and one in third grade at Watkins Elementary.
I am grateful for your visit to Watkins last month and will look forward to seeing you at School-Within-School on Monday. It is precisely because of your strong record of engagement with virtually every public school community in the city that I am particularly glad this Committee is focusing on the Student Assignment and School Boundaries Review Process.
I see this effort as a critical crossroads for public education in Washington, DC. This review is long overdue, and will help shape the future of our schools and neighborhoods for many years to come. I very much believe this process can and should be used to strengthen our neighborhood schools, providing a high-quality, predictable, by-right pathway from elementary through high school for every child in Washington, DC. I’m much less concerned about how and where boundaries are drawn than that every DC Public School is fully resourced and supported, with high quality programs and outstanding school leaders who are empowered to innovate and respond to the needs of their school communities.
Without strong, by-right, neighborhood pathways through school, we cannot build the kind of excellent academic programming that keeps families committed to DC Public Schools and ensures students are prepared to succeed in high school and beyond. Ward 6 elementary schools have experienced a tremendous resurgence of neighborhood involvement and enrollment in recent years. At Eastern High School, we have one of the country’s top principals in Rachel Skerritt, a rigorous International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme, and an absolutely beautifully renovated building – much nicer than any public school I ever attended.
But there is still a missing step on the road to Eastern.
We must build strong programs at the middle school level to attract students and families from our elementary schools and prepare them for success. The Museum Magnet Program at Stuart-Hobson Middle School and the coming IB Middle Years Programmes at Eliot-Hine Middle School and Jefferson Academy are important steps in that direction.
But to succeed, they need the appropriate resources, both in terms of programming budgets and facilities funding, to support those efforts. The full commitment of DCPS to strong neighborhood middle schools is absolutely essential.
I’m sure I join nearly every other parent in this city in hoping this process will be as transparent and collaborative as possible, with real and ongoing opportunities for community input and feedback. I look forward to your engagement in this regard, helping ensure parents and school communities are able to be heard, and our hopes for ways to strengthen our schools considered carefully throughout.
As a parent at School-Within-School as well as a neighbor, I also want to note my strong support for the creation of a proximity enrollment preference for prospective students living near the school. SWS has always valued its connection to the neighborhood, and the example of the rest of Ward 6 clearly shows how important community support is to the success of our public schools. To me, a proximity lottery preference strikes the right balance between protecting the enrollment stability at neighboring elementary schools, offering neighbors reasonable access to a high quality public school, and SWS’s desire to continue its long tradition of engagement with the Capitol Hill neighborhood.
In conclusion, it’s my hope the Student Assignment and School Boundaries Review Process will move our city toward a fully resourced system of high quality neighborhood public schools that offer families a stable, predictable, by-right path from preschool through high school. I welcome your engagement with this process and hope you continue to advocate for more parent and community voice throughout.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )
CHPSPO Meeting Moved to Tuesday, July 23
The July CHPSPO meeting will be held on July 23 at 6:30 p.m. We are moving the meeting to July 23 because the Miner community has a meeting with Chancellor Henderson on July 16 to discuss the firing of Ms. Bunch (July 16 is our regularly scheduled CHPSPO meeting). CHPSPO has been asked to present testimonial at the meeting with the Chancellor.
Atttached are several testimonies that were given at last week’s hearings on the education bills that have been introduced. Attached are testimonies from Cathy Reilly (SHAPPE), Caryn Ernst (Capitol Hill Cluster School), Liz Davis (President-elect of the Washington Teachers Union), and me on the Individual School Accountability Act, and the Mayor’s education bill. Also, attached is testimony by Cathy Reilly on the funding bill.
Please note that Councilmember Catania has scheduled a series of Community Conversations focused on education. The Ward 6 Community Conversation is scheduled for July 31 at the Southwest Library. You can register for the Community Conversation at http://www.davidcatania.com/summer.
Finally, attached is the draft CHPSPO agenda for July 23. If you have other agenda topics, please let me know.
Suzanne Wells
2013-7-9 SHAPPE Testimony.docx
2013-7-9 Liz Davis testimony spoken version.docx
Testimony on School Accountability Act of 2013 – Ernst.doc
DC Council Hearing on Chartering Authority 070713.docx
072313 CHPSPO Agenda.docx
2013-7-11 Council testimony SHAPPE Funding bill.docx
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Seven Education Bills Introduced by CM Catania
On June 4, 2013, Council member David Catania introduced seven bills dealing with funding, school accountability, assessments, facilities, parental engagement, and governance (see http://www.davidcatania.com/schoolreform).
