Holy cow. In terms of crowding, we haven't seen nothing yet.
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Anonymous
The 108K figure is "programmatic" capacity, which is a bogus number they made up when the Ward 3 schools started getting crowded. So while every Ward 3 school is now overcrowded, some by hundreds of students, they report that the "programmatic" capacity is 7062 and current enrollment is 6800. "Programmatic" capacity ignores the size of the building, it just takes the number of classroom teachers and multiplies by maximum class size. On the DME website you can see the 2013 master facilities plan. Appendix A has a list of schools, with their capacities: https://dme.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dme/publication/attachments/DC_Public_Education_FMP_Appendix_A.pdf These are the old-fashioned, facilities-constrained capacities. For example, in 2013 Key had a capacity of 320. It now has a "programmatic" capacity of 400. Nothing has been added to the building in the past four years (other than several dozen students!). Here are all of the Ward 3 schools, with their 2013 capacities: Deal 1090 Eaton 415 Hearst 180 Janney 570 Key 320 Murch 488 Mann 270 Oyster 350 Stoddert 320 Wilson 1600 Total 5603 So in 2013 DCPS had the capacity of the ten schools at 5603. Four years later it's up to 7062. Wow! They've added 1460 seats in four years! What's amazing is with a few exceptions, they've done that without making the buildings any bigger! They've done it by making up a new measure called "programmatic capacity" which would be better called "let's imagine a number that means we don't have to deal with crowding." Here are just the elementary schools: Eaton 49,100 415 118.313253 Hearst 17,400 180 96.66666667 Janney 84,400 570 148.0701754 Key 50,000 320 156.25 Murch 47,700 488 97.74590164 Mann 21,903 270 81.12222222 Stoddert 64,750 320 202.34375 Total 335,253 2,563 131 Sorry it's so jumbled. First column is building gross square footage, second column is capacity, third column is square footage per student. Back in the naive days of 2013, DCPS promoted a standard of 150 square feet per student for elementary schools. In those days, only Key and Stoddert exceeded it. For middle school the standard was 170 and 192 for high school. Wilson 376,448 1600 235.28 Oyster 47,984 350 137.0971429 Deal 181,000 1090 166.0550459 By those standards, Oyster and Deal were already crowded back then. Wilson has room for 1960, which is about where it is today. I'll argue that the true capacity of the Ward 3 schools was about what was published in 2013. We don't have 200 empty seats, we have about 1200 kids -- over 20% -- above capacity. |
Anonymous
DCPS already has six test-in schools. Except for Walls and Ellington there isn't real competition for spots. More test-in schools isn't the answer. |
Anonymous
Don't be silly. Name the test-in schools that you think are so great. As I stated originally, the degree of academic rigor at the school (Walls being the one that fits the bill) is what makes it desirable. |
Anonymous
whiners gonna whine |
Anonymous
Also Banneker. |
Anonymous
| the greatest growth in 0-4 year olds by 2025 will be in Wards 1 and 4. there are not enough PS spaces in these elem schools for another 5k kids this young in the neighborhood schools in this area. |
Anonymous
I don't think we have any idea what's going to happen with growth in numbers of 3 year olds beyond 2021 given the many uncertainties in DC. |
Anonymous
I'm not saying they're great, I'm saying there are six of them. Hard to make the case for another. |
Anonymous
If you replicate Walls, you're only going to suck high-performing students out of the remaining DCPS (and Charters, about half the kids applying come from charters). |
Anonymous
You will when little Abigail or Seth gets redistricted from precious Janney to Mayor Marion S. Crackhead Learning Campus in S.E. DC... |
Anonymous
Nah, the opposite: if you replicate Walls at the HS level -- and, especially if you create a similar school at the middle school level in DCPS -- it will encourage more high-performing students to stay in the system. As it stands, kids are leaving in droves at the 5th/6th grade levels, but adding more high-performing seats would result in many of them staying for the full circuit. I know for a fact that many of these families want to stay, but their options are miserable. They do not stay. Of course, this is all a hypothetical. DCPS will do nothing to maintain, encourage or to create high-performing seats because it has a strong aversion to doing it. As a policy goal, DCPS is almost solely devoted to allocating resources to low income students. |
Anonymous
I posted this. I live IB for a 40/40 school and already got redistricted from Wilson to Eastern. So I'm really not concerned if people in Ward 3 see some boundaries shifted. Even if it means they have to travel across the park. Or they can leave their boundaries alone and have 37 kids in a kindergarten class. Doesn't really affect me either way. |
Anonymous
There are six selective schools, not six test-in schools. e.g., GPA, essay, audition, interview http://www.myschooldc.org/how-apply/applying-selective-citywide-high-schools |
Anonymous
| According to the link, Walls and Ellington are the only "selective" schools with a test-in requirement; and Ellington's test is for arts not academics. So Walls is the only one that exists to encourage high academic achievement within its walls via an application test. |
Anonymous
I have seen the DC analysis and yes this is the projection. Makes sense. |