Why is the overcrowding issue so complex?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's complex because OOB families want feeder rights. And there are a lot of OOB families, all over the city, pushing their councilmembers to preserve feeder rights. Whereas the people who want to end feeder rights are clustered in Ward 3, meaning 7 other ward reps can ignore them and the at-large councilmembers can win an election without their support.

I think feeder rights should end: if you get into an ES OOB, you have a right to stay there through 5th. That would also help many EOTP schools where people are happy but leave for a better MS feed, and it would be good for people who move to DC when their kids are a little older. As a compromise, students from feeder schools could get a lottery preference if they want to go to their destination school. Better would be if it were an at-risk feeder preference and then a non-at-risk. They could also phase out the preference over time: kids in grades 3-8 and when the rules change have feeder rights, kids in PK3-2 have feeder preference, kids not yet at an OOB school have no right or preference and their parents can lottery accordingly.

And yes, on top of this route Bancroft to MacFarland and Roosevelt. Either send Adams to Roosevelt too, or make Oyster-Adams a PK3-5 school across two campuses (like Peabody and Watkins) and send the middle schoolers to MacFarland too. All the dual language schools should have the same feeder pattern. This would also allow for more seats in bilingual programs and more PK classrooms WOTP where there are long waitlists now.

make all high schools lottery and eliminate the concept of inbounds- there, crowding at the high school level gets alleviated and Wilson becomes more diverse

This is BRILLIANT and will never happen. Especially because so many NW parents will only accept Wilson or SWW as an acceptable high school, and they view Wilson as their right for [being able to afford to] live IB for Wilson.

Of course, if we made all DCPS high schools lottery only and eliminated IB preference or feeders, we'd just wind up with other problems. Parents would lobby to make more application only schools and then game the application system to benefit wealthy, mostly white applicants. I mean, look at the mess around TJ in VA. Plus it wouldn't solve the problem of so many struggling schools in poorer parts of the city, which means by middle school and high school, there is already such a stark disparity in outcomes. But I still love the idea of just saying "hey, HS kids can metro and take the bus on their own, let's let the algorithm figure it out and actually mix these kids together in a way they never have before.

The truth is that most wealthy white parents in the District want public [read: "free"] schools that serve their kids, but do not actually care about the rest of the city at all. They aren't worried about non-white students at all, and they also don't care about non-wealthy white kids at all. They feel they won buy buying into what they view as the only good schools in the city, and they pity everyone else but don't really care to do anything about it. Their feeling is, if you want to send your kids to quality schools, you should have done what we did and moved to Ward 3. The end. Look at the comment just above that wants to eliminate feeder preference for kids who lottery in. They just do not care. They got theirs, your kid's education is no longer their problem.

[Anonymous]

+1

The racism on this site and by many upper nw parents is unbelievable. The fact that these are the same “progressives” who place BLM signs in their yards is hilarious.

[Anonymous]

It’s because people view everything as a zero sum game

[Anonymous]

It is complicated because people who had figured out how to game the system do not want their game changed.

It is complicated because it is political (Why else did Bowser change the timeframe for Crestwood / 16th St Heights to feed to Deal)

It is complicated because the minute you talk about Wilson Feeder you are talking about race. Did you ever see how the previously gerrymandered lines were drawn?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because it is race.
And race makes things complicated.

The boundaries are not just about keeping white areas white, they are about keeping black/brown areas black/brown.

It should be complicated. Because it is wrong

This is not so much with gentrification across the city, but but those families choose charters!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:+1

The racism on this site and by many upper nw parents is unbelievable. The fact that these are the same “progressives” who place BLM signs in their yards is hilarious.

To label certain desires by parents as “racism” is just wrong and an easy out to what the real issues are. No - it’s not racist for a parent living in upper NW to want a local public school that their children can walk to and enjoy neighborhood friends. Let’s NOT pretend we all don’t want is best for our children. That is goal number 1. Are we thinking about children we don’t know? No. Sorry.

So maybe start and focus on making all DCPS better. Maybe every child can win.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's complex because OOB families want feeder rights. And there are a lot of OOB families, all over the city, pushing their councilmembers to preserve feeder rights. Whereas the people who want to end feeder rights are clustered in Ward 3, meaning 7 other ward reps can ignore them and the at-large councilmembers can win an election without their support.

I think feeder rights should end: if you get into an ES OOB, you have a right to stay there through 5th. That would also help many EOTP schools where people are happy but leave for a better MS feed, and it would be good for people who move to DC when their kids are a little older. As a compromise, students from feeder schools could get a lottery preference if they want to go to their destination school. Better would be if it were an at-risk feeder preference and then a non-at-risk. They could also phase out the preference over time: kids in grades 3-8 and when the rules change have feeder rights, kids in PK3-2 have feeder preference, kids not yet at an OOB school have no right or preference and their parents can lottery accordingly.

And yes, on top of this route Bancroft to MacFarland and Roosevelt. Either send Adams to Roosevelt too, or make Oyster-Adams a PK3-5 school across two campuses (like Peabody and Watkins) and send the middle schoolers to MacFarland too. All the dual language schools should have the same feeder pattern. This would also allow for more seats in bilingual programs and more PK classrooms WOTP where there are long waitlists now.

make all high schools lottery and eliminate the concept of inbounds- there, crowding at the high school level gets alleviated and Wilson becomes more diverse

Wilson is the most diverse school in DV.

Any change you suggest will make it less so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hearst, Bancroft and shepherd are the most diverse elementary schools feeding into Deal. If keeping Deal diverse is a priority, it would make sense to move some of the other feeder schools instead.

However everyone I have talked to is wildly in support of a new high school where the current Hardy middle school is located. Wilson is really huge, as the only high school west of the park. Both hardy and deal feed into it. Another high school off of the Wisconsin Ave corridor which allows east bus access would be ideal.

This might be a good option I hadn't really thought about. It could work IF both the new high school feeders included more diverse schools or a larger number of at risk spots.
I also think focusing on building and improving the other middle school and high schools. Ward 5 has a fair amount of diversity but it doesn't show up in the dcps schools.

[Anonymous]

The discussion about OOB feeder rights is a distraction and a relatively minor concern compared to the real problem. DCPS has completely reversed a forty year trend of attrition and is experiencing strong growth. At face value, the growth rate would present a challenge for any district, however even this rate understates the extent of the problem because EOTR schools continue to shrink, while schools in wealthier neighborhoods are growing extremely rapidly. Over the next decade or so, you will either see new schools opening WOTP or existing schools fissioning into two and claiming or building nearby space. This isn't discussed publicly because politically there is absolutely no upside to making such an announcement in advance, but realistically there is no other option. When you experienced massive by highly localized growth, you need to deal with that problem locally. And it's actually a very good problem to have, a strong indicator of the success of DCPS, which not so long ago had been written off as hopeless for any family with the means to make a choice.

[Anonymous]

And no one in upper NW is responsible for how the rest of the city is. It’s all my neighborhood school is a success and the rest of the city wants to attend and the third party effects are for others to sort out. No sticks in the system, no limits but space until the next NW renovation or additional school, no boundaries keeping out kids who keep the student numbers flush while leaving other schools minimally staffed, no sorting except through buying real estate or lotterying every year.

[Anonymous]

It's easier to crowd a school than to pick someone to be moved out.

[Anonymous]

Wilson and Deal are ethnically diverse but they really aren't that economically diverse anymore and in any case both are overcrowded to the point that sometime soon it will start to erode the quality of both schools.

The fight for access to what should be scarce seats at Deal & Wilson is not a battle between affluent residents of Ward 3 and lower income people of color from Wards 7 & 8.

It is a battle between affluent residents of Ward 3 whose kids can walk to those schools and affluent residents of Crestwood, Mount Pleasant, Shepherd Park (who are getting in by right) and other parts of the city who have found backdoor ways into Ward 3 (like renting in bounds for a year) who in many cases are driving significant distances to get across the park everyday. Some of these residents are people of color but many in fact are also white.

Having some of these affluent families attend schools closer to their own neighborhoods would actually do what some of the people on this thread purport to care about which is to say it would make EOTP schools more ethnically and economically diverse which would almost certainly help to improve those schools.

And Deal & Wilson could actually accept some lower income students who would benefit more from the opportunity to attend what are perceived as higher performing schools.

The idea of opening new public schools in remote Foxhall Village to solve enrollment problems in Tenleytown caused by students living EOTP, many of whom are affluent and white, who live near grossly under enrolled but recently renovated public schools is just insane and shows the lack of courage from the DC Council.

The Mayor should lead on this and pledge to have her own daughter be part of the first group of kids from her neighborhood to actually attend their neighborhood schools and tell the Crestwood residents to stuff it and follow her. And just so the perceived pain is spread around Lafayette students should also have to spend a couple of extra minutes commuting across the park on Military Road to Wells and Coolidge for MS and HS which is a lot less of a commute than anyone will have who gets moved to whatever new schools get opened in Foxhall.

The DC Council has money to burn and a paucity of courage so it will never happen but logistically solving overcrowding at Deal & Wilson is pretty straightforward.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
The idea of opening new public schools in remote Foxhall Village to solve enrollment problems in Tenleytown caused by students living EOTP, many of whom are affluent and white, who live near grossly under enrolled but recently renovated public schools is just insane and shows the lack of courage from the DC Council.

Two schools are proposed for the Foxhall area:
Foxhall Elementary will be a neighborhood elementary school that will pull kids from Key, Stoddert and Mann. The DCPS planning documents claim it will be filled by kids who live within 1.2 miles of the school, all of whom will be closer to their new school than their old school. The area is expected to gain a couple thousand school-age kids in the next 6-7 years. No intention there to alleviate crowding anywhere other than at those three schools.

MacArthur School will be at the old GDS lower school on MacArthur Boulevard. The ideas that are getting the most traction are to either have it be a high school that is fed only by Hardy, or move Hardy to the MacArthur site and have a new high school there. In either case there would be a net addition of one high school. Hardy would be removed from the Wilson feeder pattern, which would alleviate crowding at Wilson. Sure, it's not an ideal site, but it would add high school capacity.

DCPS is expected to add something like 15,000 students in the next 6-7 years, that excess capacity will largely vanish.

[Anonymous]

Really they should quadruple at risk funding and give non title 1 schools even less.

Next fix up neighborhoods schools not in W3 are in, and I don’t mean gentrification I mean affordable grocery stores, nice parks, restaurants not just fast food or 711, etc.

The reason W3 is appealing is literally the location and the notion that the school is better, some may be due to extra funding but that’s not the only reason. If you switched all at risk kids with privileged ones w3 schools wouldn’t be doing as well, money talks and goes beyond racial lines.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The idea of opening new public schools in remote Foxhall Village to solve enrollment problems in Tenleytown caused by students living EOTP, many of whom are affluent and white, who live near grossly under enrolled but recently renovated public schools is just insane and shows the lack of courage from the DC Council.

Two schools are proposed for the Foxhall area:
Foxhall Elementary will be a neighborhood elementary school that will pull kids from Key, Stoddert and Mann. The DCPS planning documents claim it will be filled by kids who live within 1.2 miles of the school, all of whom will be closer to their new school than their old school. The area is expected to gain a couple thousand school-age kids in the next 6-7 years. No intention there to alleviate crowding anywhere other than at those three schools.

MacArthur School will be at the old GDS lower school on MacArthur Boulevard. The ideas that are getting the most traction are to either have it be a high school that is fed only by Hardy, or move Hardy to the MacArthur site and have a new high school there. In either case there would be a net addition of one high school. Hardy would be removed from the Wilson feeder pattern, which would alleviate crowding at Wilson. Sure, it's not an ideal site, but it would add high school capacity.

DCPS is expected to add something like 15,000 students in the next 6-7 years, that excess capacity will largely vanish.

No way is Foxhall gaining a couple of thousand school age kids in the next couple of years nor will it even if you add in Stoddert or Mann - there is almost no residential development slated in bounds for any of those 3 schools.

While there are really only two projects of any consequence under construction in Ward 3 they are both in-bound for Hearst but there are lots of sites in bound for Janney & Lafayette that could see new housing built in the next 10 years (though multi-unit buildings tend to have relatively few children) so new capacity in Foxhall is of really limited utility for dealing with current or future crowding.

And moving Hardy to students to Foxhall is just nuts - the entirety of Stoddert is within comfortable walking distance of Hardy and much of Eaton is as well but for anyone who doesn't want to walk to Hardy it is on a major arterial road and served by numerous WMATA bus routes. Foxhall is the opposite and really isn't even walkable (or bikeable) from the Stoddert catchement area and traffic around both potential sites is already terrible with mostly narrow streets.

And Hardy MS is not big enough to be a High School either and has no athletic fields or locations nearby to add them so you create a bigger problem if you think it can be re-purposed.

I get that Foxhall and Palisades residents are excited because for a small slice of Ward 3 students these schools are in a good location but for most Ward 3 residents and students it is a terrible and inaccessible location that in net is going to make many more peoples commutes worse and probably not even solve the underlying overcrowding at Deal & Wilson.

Again DCPS does not need new facilities in Ward 3 - DCPS needs to move students to under utilized facilities in Ward 4 that it has already spent many millions on modernizing.