eastern hs

Status

W6PSPO Meeting Notes – October 15, 2019

W6PSPO Meeting Notes

October 15, 2019

Eastern High School

 

1. Eastern High School – Principal Brown

Dialogue on where we want to see Eastern 10 years. EHS is at phase zero of the planning – they are collecting information and want to hear from us.

Core values:

PRIDE of Capitol Hill: Passion, Respect, Innovation, Determination, Excellence

Academic and Other Programming

EHS is an IB World School diploma program for 11th and 12th grades. They are working on being authorized as a “MYP” (Middle Years Programme) for 9th and 10th grade that prepares them for the diploma program. Even if they aren’t in the IB diploma program, a student can take the challenging IB courses.  All 9th and 10th graders would be in the MYP.

EHS is also now a NAF-recognized health sciences school.

There are many extracurricular activities including band, choir, JROTC, sports, Mighty Greens, Chess Club and more.

Adding more pathways, like music, arts and humanities, to encourage more interest-driven programming during the school day to engage them throughout their years at Eastern. They also have a 9th grade academy.

Outcomes

In ELA, 25% of Eastern students scoring at 4 or 5 (8% increase over last year). In math, 0% are at 4 or 5.

EHS graduation rate is 78%, at high end of the comprehensive high schools.

Enrollment is on the rise at 792 (target was 754). More feeders moving in and more in-boundary staying at EHS. (Feeders are: Brown EC, Stuart Hobson, Jefferson, Eliot Hine, Kelly Miller and CHML)

Challenges:

  • Vertical articulation with middle schools is not something that is regularly happening. But, Eastern is starting to do more to understand the students coming from the middle schools, particularly with Stuart Hobson. Making feeder school engagement more intentional, focus on bringing in Eliot Hine and Jefferson students this year, and need to strengthen ties with Brown and Kelly Miller.
  • Shifting curriculum and lack of training. Need stability and continuity for curriculum to make sure it builds all the way through high school.
  • Students not getting support they need BEFORE coming to HS. Students need to learn early how to resolve conflict peacefully and cope with issues. They are not getting enough of that and it carries into high school – inside or outside the school. Eastern has partners to help including a restorative justice program. They also have weapons/mace abatement policy. The school also works closely with WMATA, MPD and resource officers to create strong relationships and understandings.

What can parents do?

  • Notify EHS early whether your child is going to enroll.

Questions to parents: What should Eastern accomplish in the next 10 years? How should Eastern achieve it? How can we help?

  • Promote more all that it is doing for kids
  • Do more to ensure the students are safe and the culture is positive and safe
  • Are there other types of academies or strands to ensure all kids are connected and focused, engaged during the day?
  • Invite middle school kids earlier into Eastern activities – as classes – before 8th Because they choose with their peers and the kids are making the decisions in many cases, not the adults, on where they go to school. And they are doing it in the 7th grade.
  • Performance should include safe, caring environment; stable leadership; and growth (we should look at the reading level of kids coming in here and selective schools). We should make that case with DCPS.
  • Need to find the way to engage more parents at the high school level – and what are the best ways to do that? And what is the reason that parents should come when kids are much more self-sufficient?

2. Student Safety Task Force

Parent and W6PSPO member, Danica Petroshius, is serving on the DCPS Student Safety Task Force. The next meeting is October 30th from 6-8 pm at DCPS where they will give input on policies and how to best implement them. Danica is asking for input on what recommendations she should bring to the Task Force. She has asked that you provide input to incorporate into the feedback by October 27th. You can email her at dpetroshius@yahoo.com. The policies DCPS is asking for feedback on are:

 

3. Ideas for Future Meetings

Suzanne asked for quick-response ideas for future meeting topics. Members suggested the following topics:

Parent Advocacy

  • Strategy discussion on how to recruit more members and what we want people to do with the information we all share
  • How to advocate – training, discussion, effective strategies
  • How can W6PSPO be more visible?

Feeder Patterns

  • How do we help our feeder patterns be more successful and make more connections across our schools?

Budget

  • Budget – updated schedule this year and the how-to’s of the budget process
  • Discussion of At-Risk funds and how LSATs should understand and use the information
  • Understand how central office supports programs within school and how it affects school budgets and budget planning

Sharing Information Among Schools

  • Best practices, lessons learned in schools such as communications in schools, tools, school improvement, etc. Maybe get feedback ahead of time on schools that are struggling with certain issues to focus the discussion
  • Discuss how to create a clearinghouse on tools or things that work well

How to Collaborate More with Other Groups

  • Have EmpowerEd present on their work and discuss collaboration possibilities
  • Have C4DC present on their work and discuss collaboration possibilities

 

Next W6PSPO Meeting: November 19, 2019

Upcoming Events

October 21, 11 am, Committee on Education, Dyslexia and Other Reading Disabilities Screening and Prevention Pilot Program Act of 2019.  Sign up to testify.

October 21, 11 am, Committee on Recreation and Youth Affairs, Public Oversight Roundtable on Access to the Public Field at Jelleff Recreation Center. Contact RYA@dccouncil.us to testify.

October 29, 4 pm, Committee on Education, Annual Youth Roundtable on Safe Passage and Other Issues Facing DC Youth.  Opportunity for students PK3 – 12 to testify.  Sign up to testify.

November 2, 2 – 5 pm, MoTH School at Capitol Hill Day School.

November 6, 10 am, Committee on Education, District of Columbia Public Schools Student Technology Equity Act of 2019.  Sign up to testify.

Status

W6PSPO Meets Tuesday Oct 15, 2019 @ Eastern High School

The Ward 6 Public Schools Parent Organization will meet on Tuesday, October 15, at 6:30 pm at Eastern High School, 1700 East Capitol St., NE. We will be joined by Eastern Principal Sah Brown. Principal Brown will share the current efforts to update the vision for Eastern High School, and we will have the opportunity to share our ideas about the vision. We will also have an update on the advocacy efforts around the recent sexual assault allegations. Finally, we will discuss ideas for future topics for W6PSPO meetings, and elections for W6PSPO officers.

Hope to see you on Tuesday.

Suzanne Wells

101519 W6PSPO

International Baccalaureate information night – Tuesday, Jan 22 at 6:00 PM

– by Joe Weedon

International Baccalaureate Programme

World-class curriculum and programming for Capitol Hill students

On January 22, leaders from Eastern Senior HS, Eliot-Hine MS, Jefferson MS and DCPS invite you to an informational session on the implementation of the rigorous International Baccalaureate Programme across Capitol Hill.  This session will focus on the curriculum / course development – ensuring that we have strong academic programs for our children.
We hope to see you on Jan 22.
Westminster Presbyterian Church
400 I Street, SW
Tuesday, January 22, 6:00pm
 
 
Please feel free to forward and invite your friends.
IB Westminster - Jan 22

Recap of Dec 5 School Consolidation Meeting‏ – by Joe Weedon

by Joe Weedon, Maury ES Superparent

————————————————————-

Greetings –

I wanted to provide everyone with a quick recap of last night’s meeting with Chancellor Henderson about DCPS’s proposal to close/consolidate schools across the District.

Last night’s gathering brought together a standing room only group of parents, teachers and students from Wards 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6. The discussion followed the lines of the other forums held last week in Wards 5, 7 and 8. The Chancellor gave brief opening remarks and then small group discussions began. There were DCPS employees taking notes from each small group that will be compiled and presented to the Chancellor. The Chancellor also made her way around the room to observe and listen in on the small group conversations. The groups did report out at the end of the meeting.

The main messages coming from the crowd largely revolved around saving individual schools, questions about why different schools were included and requests for information from DCPS on what their plan is to facilitate the consolidations – ie, will teachers be offered jobs, will there be busing, will there be extra staff to aid in the consolidation. At the end of the day, I believe the consensus was that DCPS is moving too fast. Additionally, there is strong sentiment that DCPS needs to provide more clear information about the criteria for selecting schools, the projected cost savings, and a strategy for reinvesting the funds. Additionally, questions were raised about why the closing/consolidation process is being conducted separately from the redrawing of boundaries (which is expected to take place next year). A final point was a great concern that DCPS and the Public Charters are operating independently without any coordination… the public charters plan to open several new schools this fall raising the question of whether or not DCPS should close more schools or whether a moratorium should be placed on additional openings/closings until there is a central vision and plan for our school system.

Specifically for Ward 6…. It was disappointing to be included with residents from Wards 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6. While the chancellor said she was looking for new ideas and outside the box thinking, the size of the meeting and the limited focus on issues directly impacting us in Ward 6 prevented this. Overall, the representatives from Eastern HS did a great job of expressing concerns about the movement of Spingarm students into their school, though it may have been lost in the overall chaos of the evening. I mis-spoke earlier in the week, one Ward 6 school – Prospect Early Learning Center – is slated to be closed; however, it was not brought up last night and it appears there is limited concern about integrating students from Prospect into their community schools.

The path forward…

We need to ensure that Eastern HS is supported fully in the integration of any new students. Eastern’s culture and curriculum are significantly different from that at Spingarm. Long-term, the inclusion of new feeder schools into Eastern is also significantly problematic. Eastern’s ideal capacity is approximately 1100-1200 (I over estimated based on outdated documents in my note earlier this week). That means they expect to have approximately 250 – 300 freshman each year. With nearly 500 3rd graders already in the Eastern feeder pattern, we cannot sustain a school where more individual students have a ‘right’ to attend.

Visit this link – http://www.engagedcps.org/ – to urge DCPS to slow the process, to ensure that feeder pattern realignment is done in conjunction with school closings.

Thanks for your support of our schools.

————————

For Tweets from the same meeting, see the CHPSPO Storify.

Vote Against the Proposal to Divide Wards 6 and 7 at 17th Street from Benning Road to Barney Circle

The following was send to Councilmembers Mendelson, Evans, Brown with copies to CHPSPO members on May 25, 2011.

————————

Vote Against the Proposal to Divide Wards 6 and 7 at 17th Street from Benning Road to Barney Circle

As members of the Capitol Hill Public Schools Parent Organization (CHPSPO), we are voicing our extreme concern about the D.C. Council’s consideration of the proposal to divide Wards 6 and 7 at 17th Street from Benning Road to Barney Circle which would effectively move Eliot-Hine Middle School and Eastern High School from Ward 6 to Ward 7. We are opposed to this move because of the impact it would have on our neighborhood cohesiveness and the community’s efforts to strengthen our neighborhood public schools.

 

CHPSPO started over six years ago, at a time when some Capitol Hill public elementary schools were bursting at the seams and others were woefully under-enrolled. A group of active parents from each school joined together to share common concerns and great accomplishments. It quickly became clear that our shared interests far exceeded any superficial differences. CHPSPO has established a strong record of working to support our neighborhood’s schools. The School Libraries Project, a $2.4 million public/private partnership with the DC Public Schools that renovated eight public school libraries on Capitol Hill was CHPSPO’s first success at supporting our neighborhood schools. This was followed by efforts to start 3 and 4-year-old programs at our elementary schools, and most recently a proposal to strengthen the middle schools. DCPS has said they want to replicate the community-driven process started by CHPSPO in wards across the city.

With the success of our elementary and middle schools and the renovation of Eastern, the Ward 6 public schools are becoming the schools of choice for families in Ward 6. Currently, many of the Ward 6 elementary schools feed into Eliot-Hine Middle School and then to Eastern High School. Splitting up Ward 6 would create a misalignment between the school feeder patterns and the political oversight of the schools.

Building on the academic gains Eliot-Hine has achieved, under the leadership of Principal Willie Jackson, is the cornerstone of CHPSPO’s — now DCPS’s — Ward 6 Middle Schools Plan. Our neighborhood schools have become a community. Drawing a political line at 17th Street removes Eliot-Hine and Eastern from our community at the very moment that our success at the elementary level is poised to spread into Eliot-Hine and Eastern High School.

We strongly encourage the D.C. City Council to keep the close, successful community that is Ward 6 intact and look to other less drastic solutions to realign the city’s ward structure. This proposed redistricting undermines the democratic representation we deserve and expect, and jeopardizes the progress being made to attract families back to the DC public schools.

 

 

 

Signed by the following on 5/24/11

 

Suzanne Wells, Tyler Elementary School

George Blackmon, Maury Elementary School

Elizabeth D. Festa, Maury Elementary School

Sandra Moscoso, Montessori @ Watkins/Logan

Rachel Klein, Ludlow Taylor Elementary School

Sherry Trafford, School Without Walls

Isabella Harris, Brent Elementary School

Clayton Witt, Stuart-Hobson Middle School

Barbara Riehle, Montessori @ Watkins/Logan

Heather Schoell, Maury Elementary School

Shahna Gooneratne, School Within School at Peabody

Eastern High School Information Session on February 5th

Eastern Senior High School invites middle school students and their families to attend our information session where you will learn about the academic programs and activities for the Class of 2015, participate in a question and answer session, and receive a school tour.  We are excited to launch a rigorous academic experience at our newly restored, state-of-the-art campus and look forward seeing you on Saturday, February 5th at noon.

12:00 – 12:30  Presentation on Academic Programs

12:30 – 12:50  Question and Answer Session

1:00 – 1:45  Building Tour

The event will take place at Eastern Senior High School, The Pride of Capitol Hill (1700 East Capitol Street NE).  Please contact Rachel Skerritt, incoming principal, with questions at rachel.skerritt@dc.gov or by phone at (202) 939-5299.

DCPS Open Houses Kick Off this Month!

Curious about your neighborhood school? Check out the upcoming open houses. Mark your calendar now, but check back if the weather is particularly ‘iffy’ (as in 30 inches of snow…).

http://dcps.dc.gov/DCPS/Learn+About+Schools/Open+Houses/Open+Houses