Roosevelt High School Revitalization

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Short-term Objective:

• Develop a basic proposal that will draw together various potential supporters of a plan for revitalizing Roosevelt. The ultimate goal is to coordinate an approach by DCPS and various collaborators to revitalize Roosevelt into a strong DCPS school, which will effectively compete with Wilson for students.

Summarizing the Problem:

• Wilson is a strong DCPS school, but it is overcrowded and the problem is getting worse each year. Wilson cannot support so many students.
• Many current Wilson students come from far away neighborhoods, which have closer high schools. http://edu.codefordc.org/#!/school/463
• Parents don't want to move their children out of Wilson, because the alternative high schools in DCPS are substantially less attractive than Wilson.
• DCPS needs more "high quality" spots for students. This could be a new high school, or an existing DCPS high school.
• Limiting access to Wilson, without providing a high quality alternative, is a recipe for failure. The various constituencies will just waste valuable time and energy bickering over access to Wilson. Each group will try to protect its own access to Wilson, at the expense of other groups. In the end, there will be various winners and losers in this fight, and the losers will be left without a quality school.
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Why Roosevelt is a Solution:

• Roosevelt can be the solution. If DCPS and the various constituencies put full energy into revitalizing Roosevelt, it can be a quality high school on par with Wilson. 
• Roosevelt can be a neighborhood school. If Roosevelt becomes a quality high school, it will attract students from several nearby neighborhoods. Many of those neighborhoods are fast-growing ones.
• A revitalized Roosevelt will improve the environment and lessen commuter stress. Currently, Approximately 800 students travel each day to Wilson from outside Wilson's boundaries, all in hopes of obtaining a quality education. Roosevelt is much more centrally located than Wilson, so if it is revitalized, it will shorten the commute time for hundreds of students, keep cars off the roads, reduce the burden on WMATA's public transportation system.
• Roosevelt has lots of excess capacity right now. [Specify how much.] (New building: 1000; Current enrollment: 450 per http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/45392/rough-ride-roosevelt-high-school/)
• Roosevelt is already scheduled to be upgraded and modernized. [Details?]
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What Roosevelt Might Need to Revitalize:

• [This is the wish list! What do we want? Dream big!]
• [Note that this list if for brainstorming. The goal in brainstorming should be to add as many possibilities as we can, not tear down possibilities others added. There are many programs that could be implemented at Roosevelt. Once we have a comprehensive list of ones that might work, we can evaluate and pick the strongest possibilities.]
• Small magnet programs. [Give examples.] Advance Placement Academy, "Best Practices" Special Education services.       
• A sister-school partnership with Wilson? Perhaps some way to link them?
• An active sports program, including financial and facilities support for one or more "prep school" sports like lacrosse, golf or crew.
• Charter programs in the school? Would it work to put a small charter program in the school? Is there a charter program that wants space? Will DCPS let that happen?
• A strong, stand-alone feeder middle school with academic and extracurricular offerings comparable to those at Alice Deal MS.

• Include an additional small learning community to Roosevelt's planned "Academy Structure": The International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme@Roosevelt.  The International Baccalaureate (IB) Program provides highly motivated students an opportunity to pursue a rigorous, comprehensive curriculum based on a global perspective. Within a nurturing environment, this program is designed to prepare students for the university experience.

  http://www.ibo.org/diploma/

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  The objective is to create a city-wide destination school for college bound students interested in this widely recognized program. It would be open

  to students city-wide, but if space limitations exist, in-boundary students would have a preference.

  This program would serve as a destination program for graduating Alice Deal MS students who wish to continue with the IB program.

  The program Would require a commitment from DCPS to appoint a Diploma Programme coordinator to manage the implementation of the Programme in the school. Also requires aggressive recruiting of quality teachers and continue professional development opportunities.

  Potential ideas include collaborating with Bethesda-Chevy Chase HS, which is the closest IB school to Roosevelt.

  Boundary Trigger: Upon the successful of implementation of the IB Academy @Roosevelt and the stand-alone middle school, X neighborhood(s) will be

  switched from the Wilson Boundary to the Roosevelt Boundary and feeder rights from X school to Wilson HS will be eliminated. This puts the onus on DCPS to properly create the programs before any family has to change their pathway.

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Obstacles and Threats Roosevelt Might Need to Overcome to be Revitalized:

• Community support. We need to make sure the local community buys into this plan, and does not oppose it.
• Challenges from charter programs? Will charters have any incentive to oppose Roosevelt revitalization? How can we get them on our side?
• Trust. Will families who may have otherwise attended Wilson trust DCPS enough to invest time, energy and their children's education in the new school?
• School leadership complexity: Can the current school leadership team manage the very diverse academic and social needs of a more economically heterogeneous student body?
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