CHPSPO members started raising awareness about the need for DCPS to strengthen its approach to school libraries in early 2012. As a result of these efforts, DCPS established a School Library Task Force.
DCPS released the Task Force report that includes a series of recommendations on staffing, programming, collection and resource development, district-level support, facilities, and the creation of a Culture of Literacy Campaign. Read the School Library Task Force report for more details.
Eliot-Hine Collaboration Team Meeting
December 11, 2012
Attendees: Principal Young, Dorcus Lawrence, Joe Weedon, Suzanne Wells
Recruitment
Eliot-Hine is working to recruit students earlier, and is focusing on attracting 4th and 5th graders.
Currently the student population at Eliot-Hine is 284. There is not a breakout on the number of students from the feeder schools that went to Eliot-Hine this year. Ms. Young is going to reach out to DCPS to get the information on which schools the incoming 6th graders came from.
Ms. Young is working to reach out to all the feeder school principals. She met recently with Ms. Taliaferro-Bunch at Miner.
Joe suggested reaching out to the instructional superintendents to get them to talk with the feeder school principals about the importance of encouraging students to attend their feeder neighborhood schools.
Suzanne suggested talking with Ms. Jennifer Frentress about the need for hiring bilingual teachers to meet the needs of incoming Tyler Spanish Immersion students.
Starting January 15th, and every Tuesday through March 26, Eliot-Hine is going to have tours of the school from 9 a.m. – 10:30 a.m., and from 1 p.m. – 3 p.m. There is also going to be an open house on January 30th from 9 – 10:30 a.m., and 5:30 – 6:30 p.m. A buddy day is planned for February 20th from 9 – 10:30 a.m. for 4th and 5th grade students. We discussed the importance of getting the open house information in school newsletters.
Ms. Young said the school is planning to hold a Winter Arts Festival this year. The date isn’t set yet.
Ms. Young is planning principal office hours in the community. It was suggested she team up with Tommy Wells when he hosts his office hours in the community. Tommy’s next office hours are Thursday, December 20th, at SOVA from 8:00 – 9:00 a.m. It was also suggested Ms. Young attend the feeder school principal’s open meetings with parents.
On January 22, there will be a Ward 6 IB program introduction at Westminster Presbyterian Church in SW.
A living room chat was recently held for prospective 4th grade families. Ms. Young said she would be available either Thursday, January 24th or Tuesday, January 29th for a living room chat with prospective 2nd grade families. Sarah McPhie, a Tyler parent, has volunteered to host a living room chat for prospective 3rd grade families, and she will contact Ms. Young about possible dates.
Other Topics
Eliot-Hine is starting a Saturday Academy that meets 8:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. The purpose of the Saturday Academy is to assist with DC-CAS preparation and homework help. Volunteers are needed to help with breakfast and tutoring. Joe suggested reaching out to Leadership Washington to recruit volunteers.
Suzanne mentioned that Whitney Minnis, a local soccer coach, is interested in starting a girl’s soccer team at Eliot-Hine. Whitney already has a girl’s team at Jefferson. The goal is to get the players ready so that when they start at Eastern, they will have a strong team.
The Eliot-Hine Radio Club is broadcasting from the inaugural ball at the Wilson Building on January 21, 2013.
The next Eliot-Hine Collaboration Team meeting is January 9.
Action Items:
1. Ms. Young to contact DCPS to get information on where incoming 6th grade students attended 5th grade.
2. Suzanne to share Eliot-Hine open house schedule with the feeder schools.
3. Ms. Young to continue to reach out to feeder school principals.
4. Suzanne will contact Tommy Wells’ office about having Ms. Young attend his December 20th community office hours at SOVA.
5. Suzanne to get back with Ms. Young about the date for the 2nd grade living room chat.
6. Sarah McPhie to contact Ms. Young about a date for the 3rd grade living room chat.
7. Ms. Young to contact Leadership Washington about recruiting volunteers for the Saturday Academy. Joe will provide contact information for Leadership Washington.
8. Ms. Young to discuss with instructional superintendents the need to encourage principals to support their feeder school patterns.
Great news, CHPSPO community, the World Walk for Road Safety will take place in DC near Union Station on May 8, the very same day as Bike to School Day!
Be sure to mark your calendar and if you’re feeling creative, enter the UN Global Road Safety Week slogan contest!
Join in this terrific drive to bring new pajamas to children in foster care. This effort is the work of Capitol Hill (and Miner ES) parent, Kathleen Jackson, who got the idea while hospitalized with leukemia.
PJs can be dropped off or shipped to:
DC Holiday Pajama Drive
c/o The Daily Rider
1108 H Street NE
Washington DC 20002
Learn more about this effort on the DC Holiday Pajama Drive Facebook page.
by Joe Weedon, Maury ES Superparent
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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.
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For Tweets from the same meeting, see the CHPSPO Storify.
We wanted to see how the proposed DCPS consolidation plan would impact the ability of students affected by the closures to be able to attend a school within a 1 mile walk.
We reached out DC Action for Children and they (thank you, Kate Kairys!) built the following map (super quickly!), which show all DC Public Schools, as well as a one mile radius around those proposed for closure. It helps to see actual impact on a map. Check out DC Kids Count 2012 Databook Tools and Maps for a rich data about DC children and resources available to them (from school performance, to assets like grocery stores and libraries) where they live.
What do you see? How will this impact your community?
Looking to learn more about DC public schools on Capitol Hill? Check out the city-wide open house schedule on DCPS’ website.
This Wednesday, December 5 from 6 – 8 pm, DCPS is holding a community meeting for Wards 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6 to discuss their school closing proposal. The meeting will be held at the Brightwood Education Campus located at 1300 Nicholson St, NW in Ward 4.
While none of our schools are on the school closure list, I believe it is still important to speak out for the closing schools. Some of the schools proposed for closure are working hard to attract neighborhood families, and are starting to see increasing interest in their schools. Other neighborhoods are faced with not having a DCPS school within walking distance if some of the schools close.
Many of our schools have seen great improvements in recent years. I think it is important for DCPS to hear from Ward 6 families about what is working in our schools, and share ideas for how DCPS can support neighborhood schools. I plan to be at the meeting on December 5th, and hope to see you there.
Suzanne Wells
Capitol Hill Public Schools Parent Organization
Maury Elementary School Library – 1250 Constitution Ave., NE
November 20, 2012, 6:30 p.m. – 8 p.m.
1) DCPS School Closing Announcement (Cathy Reilly, SHAPPE, and Daniel del Pielago (Empower DC)
ACTION:
DISCUSSION:
2) Class of 20xx (Drew Golin, Maury parent)
ACTION:
DISCUSSION:
3) Title IX and sports for girls in DC (Valarie Hogan, National Women’s Law Center fellow)
ACTION:
DISCUSSION:
4) Learn about IB Middle Years @ Atlas and Living Room Chats update
ACTION:
5) DCPS Library Task Force update
Next CHPSPO Meeting: December 18, 2012
Upcoming Events:
Ward 6 Public School Parents Organization