Committee on overcrowding in the Wilson feeder pattern

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The problem has always been Wilson - Deal alone is now sending enough students to completely fill Wilson.

You should easily be able to replicate the SES mix at Deal and Wilson by bundling Mt Pleasant, Crestwood, 16th Street Heights, Brightwood, Shepherd Park & Colonial Village into Coolidge or Roosevelt.

I don't think some of the people in these discussions realize how diverse Deal and Wilson are today - sometimes it feels like these Upper NW parents think Deal and Wilson look Sidwell when the reality is far from that.

BTW it is 3.4 miles from Lafayette to Coolidge and 1.5 miles from Lafayette to Wilson - but remember much of the Lafayette district is east of the actual school so there addresses within Lafayette's boundaries that are probably more like 2.5 miles from Coolidge and 2 miles from Wilson. I doubt too many students from Lafayette are walking to Wilson or even taking the bus so going across the park isn't really such a burden.

It is not logistically hard to overnight change the student mix at Coolidge to one that should be palatable for those parents, assuming those parents are ok with the current mix at Wilson which is only 34% white.

Um, if you took out Mt Pleasant, Crestwood, 16th Street Heights, Brightwood, Shepherd Park & Colonial Village from Deal/Wilson, (and presumably OTB families), the SES and racial diversity of DEAL/Wilson would drastically decline. But I guess that suits WOTP families just fine?

Wilson really should have more white kids. The population data shows this, if a school was in a black neighborhood and yet had fewer black kids that were in the city's population percentage wise, people would decry it racist. But because it is white kids being over crowded in a white neighborhood by a city that inflates the black population by adding feeder rights specifically to inject more black kids, it is cool and needs to be preserved. Horse shit

Don't overplay your hand. Have you seen what real estate prices are like in these areas, particularly Mt. Pleasant and Crestwood. Demographics are certainly converging with WOTP.

Housing prices are rising of course all over the city but it's disingenuous to suggest the demographics east and west of the park are the same. There are no lower SES families and relatively few black or latino families west of the park. So if Deal and Wilson have significant diversity of that kind, it is coming from the eotp neighborhoods zoned or previously zoned for Deal/Wilson and OOB students that everyone seems to want to exclude -- just to make Deal/Wilson better/less crowded for the wotp crowd.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The solution isn't just to cut out the east of the park neighborhoods (it's not fair to them - they bought their houses in reliance on the Deal/Wilson right, just like you). And besides, they are a very small portion of the deal/Wilson enrollment.
The only way to create a second (or third) "good" DCPS neighborhood hs option is to split the current wealthy white deal/Wilson population more equally with another feeder pattern. For example, rezone half of Wilson (upper ward 4), including Lafayette, into Coolidge. That will become a high performing high school from day 1. The rich white kids from WOTP won't suffer, and the less advantaged eotp families will finally have a decent chance.
Then, leave the NW neighborhoods south of there, that also traditionally fed into Wilson, at Wilson, and make Roosevelt a magnet/specialty foreign language school that is attractive to the whole city, including students from Adams, Bancroft and Oyster.
Building nice buildings is not enough, and arbitrarily removing families' right to attend Wilson and Deal is unfair unless you give them an equally good option. For this you need socioeconomic and racial diversity to increase the good options for more families.

There is not enough space at Coolidge for Lafayette.

The modernized Coolidge high school will have a maximum capacity of 842 students. As part of the modernization process, DPCS is adding a middle school to the site with a maximum capacity of 687 students. Coolidge high school has enrollment of 310, so there is plenty of room for the number of Lafayette kids who would matriculate there, if you assume 70% of a current 4th grade class of roughly 125, or ~88 kids per grade. It would also mean that Coolidge middle and high schools would become the whitest schools in DCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The solution isn't just to cut out the east of the park neighborhoods (it's not fair to them - they bought their houses in reliance on the Deal/Wilson right, just like you). And besides, they are a very small portion of the deal/Wilson enrollment.
The only way to create a second (or third) "good" DCPS neighborhood hs option is to split the current wealthy white deal/Wilson population more equally with another feeder pattern. For example, rezone half of Wilson (upper ward 4), including Lafayette, into Coolidge. That will become a high performing high school from day 1. The rich white kids from WOTP won't suffer, and the less advantaged eotp families will finally have a decent chance.
Then, leave the NW neighborhoods south of there, that also traditionally fed into Wilson, at Wilson, and make Roosevelt a magnet/specialty foreign language school that is attractive to the whole city, including students from Adams, Bancroft and Oyster.
Building nice buildings is not enough, and arbitrarily removing families' right to attend Wilson and Deal is unfair unless you give them an equally good option. For this you need socioeconomic and racial diversity to increase the good options for more families.

There is not enough space at Coolidge for Lafayette.

The modernized Coolidge high school will have a maximum capacity of 842 students. As part of the modernization process, DPCS is adding a middle school to the site with a maximum capacity of 687 students. Coolidge high school has enrollment of 310, so there is plenty of room for the number of Lafayette kids who would matriculate there, if you assume 70% of a current 4th grade class of roughly 125, or ~88 kids per grade. It would also mean that Coolidge middle and high schools would become the whitest schools in DCPS.

Add Shepherd and you're already at capacity. You're not taking into account the organic Coolidge enrollment increase once Brightwood, Takoma, Truesdell etc start feeding there through middle. This it not a good plan at all. I support the theory but not the solution.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The solution isn't just to cut out the east of the park neighborhoods (it's not fair to them - they bought their houses in reliance on the Deal/Wilson right, just like you). And besides, they are a very small portion of the deal/Wilson enrollment.
The only way to create a second (or third) "good" DCPS neighborhood hs option is to split the current wealthy white deal/Wilson population more equally with another feeder pattern. For example, rezone half of Wilson (upper ward 4), including Lafayette, into Coolidge. That will become a high performing high school from day 1. The rich white kids from WOTP won't suffer, and the less advantaged eotp families will finally have a decent chance.
Then, leave the NW neighborhoods south of there, that also traditionally fed into Wilson, at Wilson, and make Roosevelt a magnet/specialty foreign language school that is attractive to the whole city, including students from Adams, Bancroft and Oyster.
Building nice buildings is not enough, and arbitrarily removing families' right to attend Wilson and Deal is unfair unless you give them an equally good option. For this you need socioeconomic and racial diversity to increase the good options for more families.

There is not enough space at Coolidge for Lafayette.

The modernized Coolidge high school will have a maximum capacity of 842 students. As part of the modernization process, DPCS is adding a middle school to the site with a maximum capacity of 687 students. Coolidge high school has enrollment of 310, so there is plenty of room for the number of Lafayette kids who would matriculate there, if you assume 70% of a current 4th grade class of roughly 125, or ~88 kids per grade. It would also mean that Coolidge middle and high schools would become the whitest schools in DCPS.

Add Shepherd and you're already at capacity. You're not taking into account the organic Coolidge enrollment increase once Brightwood, Takoma, Truesdell etc start feeding there through middle. This it not a good plan at all. I support the theory but not the solution.

So putting a brand new school at capacity is not OK, but continuing to enroll Deal and Wilson over capacity when only 25% of the kids attending live in the Ward is fine?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The solution isn't just to cut out the east of the park neighborhoods (it's not fair to them - they bought their houses in reliance on the Deal/Wilson right, just like you). And besides, they are a very small portion of the deal/Wilson enrollment.
The only way to create a second (or third) "good" DCPS neighborhood hs option is to split the current wealthy white deal/Wilson population more equally with another feeder pattern. For example, rezone half of Wilson (upper ward 4), including Lafayette, into Coolidge. That will become a high performing high school from day 1. The rich white kids from WOTP won't suffer, and the less advantaged eotp families will finally have a decent chance.
Then, leave the NW neighborhoods south of there, that also traditionally fed into Wilson, at Wilson, and make Roosevelt a magnet/specialty foreign language school that is attractive to the whole city, including students from Adams, Bancroft and Oyster.
Building nice buildings is not enough, and arbitrarily removing families' right to attend Wilson and Deal is unfair unless you give them an equally good option. For this you need socioeconomic and racial diversity to increase the good options for more families.

There is not enough space at Coolidge for Lafayette.

The modernized Coolidge high school will have a maximum capacity of 842 students. As part of the modernization process, DPCS is adding a middle school to the site with a maximum capacity of 687 students. Coolidge high school has enrollment of 310, so there is plenty of room for the number of Lafayette kids who would matriculate there, if you assume 70% of a current 4th grade class of roughly 125, or ~88 kids per grade. It would also mean that Coolidge middle and high schools would become the whitest schools in DCPS.

Add Shepherd and you're already at capacity. You're not taking into account the organic Coolidge enrollment increase once Brightwood, Takoma, Truesdell etc start feeding there through middle. This it not a good plan at all. I support the theory but not the solution.

So putting a brand new school at capacity is not OK, but continuing to enroll Deal and Wilson over capacity when only 25% of the kids attending live in the Ward is fine?

Where did I say that? I clearly said I support it in theory, but that solution is simply moving the problem to an non-established school. Personally, I think enforcing the IB that move OOB should go to new boundary school will fix most of the issue. Try that starting now. Look at trends for 2 years, then look at moving Adams and Bancroft feed to a dual language MS/HS. Assess in 2 years. Then address larger non-language elementary feeders. By then, we'd know what Coolidge enrollment is looking like and charter leases would be expiring in ward 4 that we could leverage if needed.

[Anonymous]

what high performing schools on that side of the city doe't have a good hs feed? Stodderd? put those schools with shepherd and lafayette and make it a "small" high school and cap it at 800-1200 as a carrot since not everyone wants a huge high school and it will feel like an attractive alternative to Wilson. You need to create a second highschool not just move families into an underperforming school that will be at capacity soon anyway. Not sure what to do about deal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:what high performing schools on that side of the city doe't have a good hs feed? Stodderd? put those schools with shepherd and lafayette and make it a "small" high school and cap it at 800-1200 as a carrot since not everyone wants a huge high school and it will feel like an attractive alternative to Wilson. You need to create a second highschool not just move families into an underperforming school that will be at capacity soon anyway. Not sure what to do about deal.

I agree, but the Chancellor does not and probably the DME agrees with her. My Kids area at Ross, one of the best performing ES in the district. Our high school is Cardozo. possibly the worst high school in the city (feel free to check that). When asked about our high school options the Chancellors answer is "we ned to improve Cardozo".

Not sure on how she is going to do that. But creating new high school just up or down the road from Cardozo is not how they are thinking. What is that saying about the albatross?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:what high performing schools on that side of the city doe't have a good hs feed? Stodderd? put those schools with shepherd and lafayette and make it a "small" high school and cap it at 800-1200 as a carrot since not everyone wants a huge high school and it will feel like an attractive alternative to Wilson. You need to create a second highschool not just move families into an underperforming school that will be at capacity soon anyway. Not sure what to do about deal.

Those are ES, they also need a middle school, and there are many of those already, and they feed to under enrolled high schools. So even though I like your idea because it created a carrot as you say. A joined up Middle and High could work, but still do the numbers support it? And could it be justified with the current facilities available. I bet the answer to both of those is NO.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:what high performing schools on that side of the city doe't have a good hs feed? Stodderd? put those schools with shepherd and lafayette and make it a "small" high school and cap it at 800-1200 as a carrot since not everyone wants a huge high school and it will feel like an attractive alternative to Wilson. You need to create a second highschool not just move families into an underperforming school that will be at capacity soon anyway. Not sure what to do about deal.

I agree, but the Chancellor does not and probably the DME agrees with her. My Kids area at Ross, one of the best performing ES in the district. Our high school is Cardozo. possibly the worst high school in the city (feel free to check that). When asked about our high school options the Chancellors answer is "we ned to improve Cardozo".

Not sure on how she is going to do that. But creating new high school just up or down the road from Cardozo is not how they are thinking. What is that saying about the albatross?

Coolidge is less than 50% ultized and has low in bounds enrollment. This could be the next Wilson. Except only 1% of the kids passed math last year. So another Cardozo situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:what high performing schools on that side of the city doe't have a good hs feed? Stodderd? put those schools with shepherd and lafayette and make it a "small" high school and cap it at 800-1200 as a carrot since not everyone wants a huge high school and it will feel like an attractive alternative to Wilson. You need to create a second highschool not just move families into an underperforming school that will be at capacity soon anyway. Not sure what to do about deal.

I agree, but the Chancellor does not and probably the DME agrees with her. My Kids area at Ross, one of the best performing ES in the district. Our high school is Cardozo. possibly the worst high school in the city (feel free to check that). When asked about our high school options the Chancellors answer is "we ned to improve Cardozo".

Not sure on how she is going to do that. But creating new high school just up or down the road from Cardozo is not how they are thinking. What is that saying about the albatross?

Coolidge is less than 50% ultized and has low in bounds enrollment. This could be the next Wilson. Except only 1% of the kids passed math last year. So another Cardozo situation.

DCPS gave up on that when they created the plans for the new Coolidge. Half of the renovated building, half the seats to an undefined early college program, and the rest for health science and communications arts academy. It will not be a general, comprehensive high school by any stretch of the imagination.

Any IB, college bound student living in the Coolidge feeder pattern who doesn't want to start college in 11th grade is out of luck.

[Anonymous]

What do you think will actually happen when these large classes of kids hit Wilson? I have a 6th grader at Deal and the grade is about 575 kids. The classes below this at all the feeder elementary schools are even larger. So let's say that Deal hits 650/grade in a few years--totally reasonable and probably conservative projection.
And there isn't room in the area privates (at least the ones in DC) to absorb any kids. We tried applying my kid last year to a big 3 and they didn't take any kids from our JKLM. None. They took 10 kids overall and the public school kids they took (a whopping 5) were almost all (but 1) from Montgomery County.
So what really happens? Boundary change isn't going to happen within 3-5 years. Does Wilson just get trailers? How are they going to manage absolutely giant grades? Any realistic thoughts on this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What do you think will actually happen when these large classes of kids hit Wilson? I have a 6th grader at Deal and the grade is about 575 kids. The classes below this at all the feeder elementary schools are even larger. So let's say that Deal hits 650/grade in a few years--totally reasonable and probably conservative projection.
And there isn't room in the area privates (at least the ones in DC) to absorb any kids. We tried applying my kid last year to a big 3 and they didn't take any kids from our JKLM. None. They took 10 kids overall and the public school kids they took (a whopping 5) were almost all (but 1) from Montgomery County.
So what really happens? Boundary change isn't going to happen within 3-5 years. Does Wilson just get trailers? How are they going to manage absolutely giant grades? Any realistic thoughts on this?

Right now 30% of students from Deal and Hardy do NOT go to Wilson. Some do go to private -- many others head to an application high school (SWW or Banneker).

DCPS is bulking up the application schools to attract yoru child and his/her classmates to give them more options. Banneker, McKinley (watch for PARCC scores to steadily increase as 2018-19 is the first year a 4 or 5 on PARCC was req'd to get into 9th).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What do you think will actually happen when these large classes of kids hit Wilson? I have a 6th grader at Deal and the grade is about 575 kids. The classes below this at all the feeder elementary schools are even larger. So let's say that Deal hits 650/grade in a few years--totally reasonable and probably conservative projection.
And there isn't room in the area privates (at least the ones in DC) to absorb any kids. We tried applying my kid last year to a big 3 and they didn't take any kids from our JKLM. None. They took 10 kids overall and the public school kids they took (a whopping 5) were almost all (but 1) from Montgomery County.
So what really happens? Boundary change isn't going to happen within 3-5 years. Does Wilson just get trailers? How are they going to manage absolutely giant grades? Any realistic thoughts on this?

There are many other options apart from Wilson and Big 3s. Students in Big 3s represent a tiny fraction of kids in private/parochial schools.

My child recently moved to a non-Big 3 private, and is doing well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What do you think will actually happen when these large classes of kids hit Wilson? I have a 6th grader at Deal and the grade is about 575 kids. The classes below this at all the feeder elementary schools are even larger. So let's say that Deal hits 650/grade in a few years--totally reasonable and probably conservative projection.
And there isn't room in the area privates (at least the ones in DC) to absorb any kids. We tried applying my kid last year to a big 3 and they didn't take any kids from our JKLM. None. They took 10 kids overall and the public school kids they took (a whopping 5) were almost all (but 1) from Montgomery County.
So what really happens? Boundary change isn't going to happen within 3-5 years. Does Wilson just get trailers? How are they going to manage absolutely giant grades? Any realistic thoughts on this?

There are many other options apart from Wilson and Big 3s. Students in Big 3s represent a tiny fraction of kids in private/parochial schools.

My child recently moved to a non-Big 3 private, and is doing well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What do you think will actually happen when these large classes of kids hit Wilson? I have a 6th grader at Deal and the grade is about 575 kids. The classes below this at all the feeder elementary schools are even larger. So let's say that Deal hits 650/grade in a few years--totally reasonable and probably conservative projection.
And there isn't room in the area privates (at least the ones in DC) to absorb any kids. We tried applying my kid last year to a big 3 and they didn't take any kids from our JKLM. None. They took 10 kids overall and the public school kids they took (a whopping 5) were almost all (but 1) from Montgomery County.
So what really happens? Boundary change isn't going to happen within 3-5 years. Does Wilson just get trailers? How are they going to manage absolutely giant grades? Any realistic thoughts on this?

3 kids from our charter school got into Big 3s last year. Maybe your kid just wasn't good enough to cut it.