Tails of a 17th Street Geisha

So my friend’s daughter, let’s call her Angela, is going to stay with me from Labor Day to Christmas! I was very excited about it until I started looking at Middle School options for her.

I have to sum up the DC Public School system in 2 words: sucks ass. And I say this not in the best of fun salad tossing ways.

I started looking at class sizes, scoring, and the history of the middle schools in the area, and I must say SLIM PICKIN’S. If I want her to fail in life, to really lose hope and to struggle to read english, I have great choices in the District of Columbia. Am I becoming a republican? Vouchers are starting to look good right about now. Well of course they are! I can’t change public schools quickly enough to accomodate for my kid now! I support a long term improvement of public schools if we could fix them retroactively so ghetto-ass Garnet-Patterson on 10th and V would have better achievement scores. So that Lincoln Middle School on Irving and 16th would not burn through 6 principals in the last 5 years!

There are only 2 public middle schools in my Ward, and BOY do they suck. On one web page describing the school, it refers to a history of violence that is on the decline (well that’s a relief!) I checked out the official school website for the other school AND IT WAS HACKED INTO! There’s a stick figure drawing of one guy getting bent over another and it’s SO lame. So what I need to do is apply for an out-of-boundaries transfer to get Angela into a better middle school. In addition, there are caps to each school for out-of-boundary enrollment which vary by year and some schools don’t even accept them or have reached their max.

OH LINCOLN! Why can’t your middle school be as mighty and magnificant as your memorial?

I remember each morning on the bus in to work seeing the British School of Washington, where the kids in their uniforms would empty off the bus.. So I look it up and it costs 19,000 dollars a year for day school, not including the 1,000 deposit, 1,000 fee for something else and 150 dollar application fee. The student teacher ration is 6 to 1.

I checked out public schools in Montgomery County Maryland, near my work, and they are MUCH better. Only problem is I have to show proof of residency. Perhaps I should sublet my place and rent in Silver Spring for the time being? That’s my goal for tomorrow–look into housing in Silver Spring and fix this mess of Middle School mediocrity. Maybe I could HOMESCHOOL!!!!!!!!! Angela would learn from my work in the non-profit.

HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ideas? Apartment recommendations in Silver Spring?

I can sublet my place EASILY… alright I’ll sleep on this.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 19th, 2006 at 9:47 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.