CHPSPO Meeting Notes – December 17, 2013

Capitol Hill Public Schools Parent Organization
Watkins Elementary (library, 2^nd floor)

420 12^th Street, SE, December 17, 2013, 6:30 p.m. – 8 p.m.

 

1- Candidates Forums

• Report out on 12/9 Mayoral Candidates Forum –
• Ward 6 City Council – co-sponsor with Eastern Market Metro Community Association (EMMCA) and others on February 18, 20 or 22. CHPSPO will co- Sponsor.
• CHPSPO decided to sponsor an education focused Ward 6 City Council forum.  Joe Weedon volunteered to approach Eastern HS to see if they are willing to host the forum. Suggested the forum be in early March. Advertise in Hill Rag in Feb – Heather Schoell to follow up on advertising.
• Mayor – co-sponsor with other education groups across the city, date TBD CHPSPO will participate. Suzanne Wells to serve as initial PoC until responsibilities are clear.

2 – Report on Catania discussion hosted by Greater Greater Education: http://storify.com/CHPSPO/gge-hosts-education-discussion-with-cm-catania

3 – Update on Middle School recommendations

• Discussion of recommendations sent to Henderson and Catania
• Middle school survey?
• Per Catania, this is the Year of Middle School
• Jan 28 – another boundary/feeder pattern hearing; encouraged CHPSPO to reach out to other ed groups across the city and find out recommendations.
• DCPS budget survey now being framed as a middle school issue
• ACTION: Append letter to middle school survey.
• ACTION: Reps from each school look at MS Plan and where things are today vis-avis implementation, Rick Bardach for Jefferson, Joe Weedon for Eliot-Hine, Bill Horne for SH.

4. Update on school boundaries and feeder patterns (NOTE:  Ward 6 Advisory Committee members Denise Forte and Marty Welles could not attend the CHPSPO meeting on 12/17)

• From 21^st CSF, would be helpful to find out what is working and what is not working.
• Like that there is a geographic boundary and a feeder school pattern.
• Don’t like that there is little communication between middle schools and ES that feed into them or between MS and HS.
• Don’t like that feeder patterns are not aligned from boundaries
• On Feeder/Boundary process, need to leverage conversation to achieve bigger goals.
• Can’t have dialogue w/out starting w/ shared understanding of the situation… no data
• Misalignment between 5^th grade at DCPS and DCPCS
• Misalignment between feeder schools to Eastern and the Eastern boundaries

5. Data that needs to be available to community to inform boundary/feeder discussion:

• Neighborhood residency info for students at school level (for ES, MS, HS), sorted by Ward
• Charter and DCPS at school level, with percentage in-bounds, percentage in Ward, sorted by Ward
• 4th and 5th grade attrition rates at every DCPS elementary school, by Ward
• Percentage of students by DCPS and Charter middle schools at school level by grade and sorted by Ward
• Number of kids in the current elementary school grade-level cohorts, at school level, sorted by Ward
• How many of the past 3 or 4 years’ worth of 4th/5th graders were captured by DCPS middle schools at school level, sorted by Ward
• School lottery results vis a vis enrollment, by school
• DCPS and charter waiting lists for the past 5 years by school, sorted by Ward
• Data that would help quantify students who enroll, but leave the school, either midyear when a slot opens elsewhere or through the lottery the next year, at school level, sorted by Ward
• School level attrition by year, by grade
• School level data around flow of students from feeder to destination schools, from perspective of students who have been through the feeder pattern from ES through HS, identifying in boundary and out of boundary.”

Next CHPSPO Meeting:  January 22, 2014 (NOTE:  This is a Wednesday)

Upcoming Events:

December 16   DCPS and DCPCS lottery opens. Visit school open houses throughout the Spring semester. See DCPS schedule here. Apply via http://www.myschooldc.org/.

December 19   Deputy Mayor for Education’s Focus Group on School Boundaries and Feeder Patterns, Logan

January 23       3^rd Annual Maury Think Tank Night http://maurythinktank.blogspot.com/

2013 Fundraisers:

 

March 8           Tyler Alchemy of Great Taste http://www.tylerelementary.net/

March 14         Cluster Rocks! Auction & Gala http://www.capitolhillclusterschool.org

March 22         Maury at the Market http://mauryelementary.com/

March 29         Brent Taste of the Hill  http://brentelementary.org/

May 18            Capitol Hill Classic 10K/3K/Fun Run http://www.capitolhillclusterschool.org