Advocate to Solve Ward 3 School Overcrowding

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The only way school overcrowding will change is if boundaries are moved. Since the SBOE has no power to do that, leave it to the Mayor to deal with it.

Moving kids from one overcrowded school to another overcrowded school will accomplish nothing. That's rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

The only answer is a combination of new facilities and cutting a cohort out of the Deal-JR feeder. The former is happening, if haltingly and perhaps ham-handedly. The latter won't ever happen because DC politicians are cowards. If Janeese truly cared about "equity" she would be asking her W4 constituents to make a bold choice for the good of everyone. But she really only cares about getting reelected, so she won't do that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Make the intelsat space Jacskon Reed 9th and 10th grade

Make the old GDS building an elementary and middle school targeted at supporting children with language based learning differences and create a partnership (as opposed to adversarial relationship) with the Lab school.

It’s hilarious that there are still folks in the neighborhood thinking that GDS will somehow not become a HS. That ship has sailed folks and is over the horizon. Move on, please.

Give Duke Ellington a five-year eviction notice and then recapture the building as Western High School again. The building belongs to the DC taxpayers and should be put to a use that benefits a broader community. Ellington should be more centrally located in DC in any case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A few ways to reduce school overcrowding in Ward 3:

Reduce OOB slots and end sibling preference for OOB. OOB students must have at least a B- average and a clean disciplinary record to advance to the next level (middle, high school). OOB slots are a scarce resource and should go to the students who work hard and aren’t troublemakers.

Ferret out MD resident students who continue to be enrolled in DCPS. Our daughter graduated from former Wilson last year and said that it was common knowledge that a number of kids really lived in Maryland.

Approval of large development projects should take account of school and other infrastructure capacity in the ward. This used to be a requirement in the DC Comprehensive Plan but our pro-development mayor eliminated it. The provision should be restored. Developments above a certain size should be assessed a special school building fee.

A good place to start is to have some folks stand outside at the car lines and look for MD plates. Its very surprising the number of MD plates one sees driving to a DC school, day after day.

Half the scamming Maryland parents are probably DC government employees.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A few ways to reduce school overcrowding in Ward 3:

Reduce OOB slots and end sibling preference for OOB. OOB students must have at least a B- average and a clean disciplinary record to advance to the next level (middle, high school). OOB slots are a scarce resource and should go to the students who work hard and aren’t troublemakers.

The OOB system was created in response to a series of court cases dealing with racial segregation. What you are proposing would violate the settlements of those cases.

Screw that, I don’t want my kid to go to a hopelessly overcrowded school. And many of the OOB kids are white from east of the park. At least one good thing about the conservative Supreme Court is that they are likely soon to gut affirmative action and a number of other race based preferences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A few ways to reduce school overcrowding in Ward 3:

Reduce OOB slots and end sibling preference for OOB. OOB students must have at least a B- average and a clean disciplinary record to advance to the next level (middle, high school). OOB slots are a scarce resource and should go to the students who work hard and aren’t troublemakers.

The OOB system was created in response to a series of court cases dealing with racial segregation. What you are proposing would violate the settlements of those cases.

Screw that, I don’t want my kid to go to a hopelessly overcrowded school. And many of the OOB kids are white from east of the park. At least one good thing about the conservative Supreme Court is that they are likely soon to gut affirmative action and a number of other race based preferences.

It's not raced-based preference. The logic of the rulings was that all DC taxpayers pay for public schools, if a school has seats available then any DC resident is entitled to use those seats. Prior to the ruling DCPS would keep seats open in majority-white schools rather than let kids from outside the neighborhood use them.

The problem isn't OOB per se, it's that the feeder pyramids are unbalanced. More kids have the right to attend Jackson-Reed than it has capacity for.

[Anonymous]

Hence, redrawing boundaries.

good luck moving Bancroft or Shepard out of Jackson-Reed.

And more to the point if this thread, the SBOE has nothing to do with this discussion, so any blathering Goulet tries to do is meaningless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hence, redrawing boundaries.

good luck moving Bancroft or Shepard out of Jackson-Reed.

And more to the point if this thread, the SBOE has nothing to do with this discussion, so any blathering Goulet tries to do is meaningless.

Only DC would rename a high school from that of US president who, warts and all, was a truly historic figure, to two DCPS bureaucrats! It will always be Woodrow Wilson HS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A few ways to reduce school overcrowding in Ward 3:

Reduce OOB slots and end sibling preference for OOB. OOB students must have at least a B- average and a clean disciplinary record to advance to the next level (middle, high school). OOB slots are a scarce resource and should go to the students who work hard and aren’t troublemakers.

The OOB system was created in response to a series of court cases dealing with racial segregation. What you are proposing would violate the settlements of those cases.

Screw that, I don’t want my kid to go to a hopelessly overcrowded school. And many of the OOB kids are white from east of the park. At least one good thing about the conservative Supreme Court is that they are likely soon to gut affirmative action and a number of other race based preferences.

It's not raced-based preference. The logic of the rulings was that all DC taxpayers pay for public schools, if a school has seats available then any DC resident is entitled to use those seats. Prior to the ruling DCPS would keep seats open in majority-white schools rather than let kids from outside the neighborhood use them.

The problem isn't OOB per se, it's that the feeder pyramids are unbalanced. More kids have the right to attend Jackson-Reed than it has capacity for.

Why does DC look the other way when a lot of kids from PG County attend J-R?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A few ways to reduce school overcrowding in Ward 3:

Reduce OOB slots and end sibling preference for OOB. OOB students must have at least a B- average and a clean disciplinary record to advance to the next level (middle, high school). OOB slots are a scarce resource and should go to the students who work hard and aren’t troublemakers.

The OOB system was created in response to a series of court cases dealing with racial segregation. What you are proposing would violate the settlements of those cases.

Screw that, I don’t want my kid to go to a hopelessly overcrowded school. And many of the OOB kids are white from east of the park. At least one good thing about the conservative Supreme Court is that they are likely soon to gut affirmative action and a number of other race based preferences.

It's not raced-based preference. The logic of the rulings was that all DC taxpayers pay for public schools, if a school has seats available then any DC resident is entitled to use those seats. Prior to the ruling DCPS would keep seats open in majority-white schools rather than let kids from outside the neighborhood use them.

The problem isn't OOB per se, it's that the feeder pyramids are unbalanced. More kids have the right to attend Jackson-Reed than it has capacity for.

Why does DC look the other way when a lot of kids from PG County attend J-R?

They don't - DC enforces, but does not have the staff necessary to catch everyone. The burnout rate, including for attorneys, is pretty high given that they are prosecuting parents for trying to get their kids into the best public school that they can while often being priced out of DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hence, redrawing boundaries.

good luck moving Bancroft or Shepard out of Jackson-Reed.

And more to the point if this thread, the SBOE has nothing to do with this discussion, so any blathering Goulet tries to do is meaningless.

Only DC would rename a high school from that of US president who, warts and all, was a truly historic figure, to two DCPS bureaucrats! It will always be Woodrow Wilson HS.

Wilson was a noted segregationist, one of his first official actions as president was issuing an executive order segregating the federal workforce. Less than ten years after Wilson left office, a Black settlement called Reno City was cleared to make way for Deal, Wilson and Ft. Reno Park. Naming the new high school for Wilson was a deliberate provocation to the Black community. It would be like today taking a mosque by eminent domain to build a school, and naming the school for Dick Cheney.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Make the intelsat space Jacskon Reed 9th and 10th grade

Make the old GDS building an elementary and middle school targeted at supporting children with language based learning differences and create a partnership (as opposed to adversarial relationship) with the Lab school.

The Intelsat building isn't even for sale. It's a beautiful building, but it's even less set up to be a high school than the GDS site. It's probably ten years and half a billion dollars away from opening. Meanwhile, MacArthur HS will open in August.

Goulet doesn't seem to understand how DCPS feeders work. To reduce crowding at Jackson-Reed, they need to reduce the number of feeders. Hardy is the obvious one because Deal is across the street. So Hardy needs to be assigned to a different high school, either an existing on or a newly built one. An existing one would have to be contiguous with Hardy's enrollment boundaries, the only school that is is Cardozo -- which is projected to be full soon. A new school would have to be within the Hardy enrollment area. The GDS site isn't ideal but it's pretty central within the Hardy boundaries.

Intelsat is squarely within the Deal boundaries, you'd have to split Deal somehow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Make the intelsat space Jacskon Reed 9th and 10th grade

Make the old GDS building an elementary and middle school targeted at supporting children with language based learning differences and create a partnership (as opposed to adversarial relationship) with the Lab school.

The Intelsat building isn't even for sale. It's a beautiful building, but it's even less set up to be a high school than the GDS site. It's probably ten years and half a billion dollars away from opening. Meanwhile, MacArthur HS will open in August.

Goulet doesn't seem to understand how DCPS feeders work. To reduce crowding at Jackson-Reed, they need to reduce the number of feeders. Hardy is the obvious one because Deal is across the street. So Hardy needs to be assigned to a different high school, either an existing on or a newly built one. An existing one would have to be contiguous with Hardy's enrollment boundaries, the only school that is is Cardozo -- which is projected to be full soon. A new school would have to be within the Hardy enrollment area. The GDS site isn't ideal but it's pretty central within the Hardy boundaries.

Intelsat is squarely within the Deal boundaries, you'd have to split Deal somehow.

Hardy will feed the new HS, no?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Make the intelsat space Jacskon Reed 9th and 10th grade

Make the old GDS building an elementary and middle school targeted at supporting children with language based learning differences and create a partnership (as opposed to adversarial relationship) with the Lab school.

The Intelsat building isn't even for sale. It's a beautiful building, but it's even less set up to be a high school than the GDS site. It's probably ten years and half a billion dollars away from opening. Meanwhile, MacArthur HS will open in August.

Goulet doesn't seem to understand how DCPS feeders work. To reduce crowding at Jackson-Reed, they need to reduce the number of feeders. Hardy is the obvious one because Deal is across the street. So Hardy needs to be assigned to a different high school, either an existing on or a newly built one. An existing one would have to be contiguous with Hardy's enrollment boundaries, the only school that is is Cardozo -- which is projected to be full soon. A new school would have to be within the Hardy enrollment area. The GDS site isn't ideal but it's pretty central within the Hardy boundaries.

Intelsat is squarely within the Deal boundaries, you'd have to split Deal somehow.

Hardy will feed the new HS, no?

Yes it will. And that HS is opening next school year. We don’t need to get into hypotheticals. There are plans approved by the mayor and funded by the council that address the overcrowding issues in Ward 3. This is not a problem that we need “big ideas” to solve as it is being solved. The biggest problem for Ward 3 schools is the new “budget model” that has slashed funding for Hardy MS and other good performing schools. Focusing on anything other issue is simply politics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A few ways to reduce school overcrowding in Ward 3:

Reduce OOB slots and end sibling preference for OOB. OOB students must have at least a B- average and a clean disciplinary record to advance to the next level (middle, high school). OOB slots are a scarce resource and should go to the students who work hard and aren’t troublemakers.

Ferret out MD resident students who continue to be enrolled in DCPS. Our daughter graduated from former Wilson last year and said that it was common knowledge that a number of kids really lived in Maryland.

Approval of large development projects should take account of school and other infrastructure capacity in the ward. This used to be a requirement in the DC Comprehensive Plan but our pro-development mayor eliminated it. The provision should be restored. Developments above a certain size should be assessed a special school building fee.

Why would you only implement this policy for OOB students? Seats in these schools are a scarce resource, period. If your kid who lives across the street from Janney misbehaves and gets C-minuses, they can transfer to a different middle or high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A few ways to reduce school overcrowding in Ward 3:

Reduce OOB slots and end sibling preference for OOB. OOB students must have at least a B- average and a clean disciplinary record to advance to the next level (middle, high school). OOB slots are a scarce resource and should go to the students who work hard and aren’t troublemakers.

Ferret out MD resident students who continue to be enrolled in DCPS. Our daughter graduated from former Wilson last year and said that it was common knowledge that a number of kids really lived in Maryland.

Approval of large development projects should take account of school and other infrastructure capacity in the ward. This used to be a requirement in the DC Comprehensive Plan but our pro-development mayor eliminated it. The provision should be restored. Developments above a certain size should be assessed a special school building fee.

Why would you only implement this policy for OOB students? Seats in these schools are a scarce resource, period. If your kid who lives across the street from Janney misbehaves and gets C-minuses, they can transfer to a different middle or high school.

This is the basis of the legal settlements that DCPS enrollment policies rest upon. Within a school you can't have different policies for different students based upon where they live. DC's Human Rights Act prohibits discrimination based upon residential address.