Greater Greater Washington story on school enrollment growth

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nick, the MFP says there are 26 buildings that are District-owned. Yes, some need to stay swing space, but some could be used. I don't even know the names of them all, but re-run the numbers with the following buildings added and I think you will find a lot of problems solved.

Emery
Spingarn
Meyer
Bruce (Chavez)
Fletcher-Johnson
Marshall
Old Miner
Old Randle Highlands
Winston
1325 S St NW (small but perfect for preschool?)
Current Banneker site
Garnett-Patterson
Any others?

Nick here.

I made a conscious effort just to write about what the DME provided. In the Master Facilities Plan there is a facilities spending plan for the next six years, and that plan is reflected in the capacities for 2027. I agree that DCPS needs to add capacity, the problem is that the current plan isn't to do that.

You're being tendentious in refusing to consider these obvious options, and I think you're doing it because you want to believe that Ward 3's problems are shared by the rest of the city, but it just isn't true. DCPS and the Mayor do things that aren't on the plan whenever they feel like it, and there's plenty of time for them to figure out years 7-10.

You still haven't answered the question of why an all-lottery system is inevitable even though people dislike it and it increased segregation in San Francisco. How can something unpopular and problematic be inevitable, yet kicking schools out of the Wilson group is impossible because it's also unpopular?

Not Nick but a random poster here.

I don’t think DC will go all-lottery; it would work worse here than the other cities where it has failed.

However, there is a key reason that the likelihood of going all-lottery is greater than it should be: it’s politically easier than redrawing boundaries.

In the boundary change process, the ‘losers’ organize and fight back. Were the city to go all-lottery, then the losers wouldn’t be known until the system were codified and the lottery happened; the losers would be too geographically dispersed to organize well and it would be too late anyway.

A great solution for feckless officials!

If DC went all-lottery, then Ward 3 should just break way and join Montgomery County, Maryland. Then good riddance to Dysfunctional City.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
If DC went all-lottery, then Ward 3 should just break way and join Montgomery County, Maryland. Then good riddance to Dysfunctional City.

Montgomery schools are having their own issues these days.

[Anonymous]

Two things: building where there is little growth WORP is fundamentally a failure.
“All-lottery” will be fought by those happy with neighborhood schools.
Basically I think ‘all lottery’ fails because Ward 3 organizes and shows up in huge numbers everywhere during boundary reviews. I hate it but it’s true.
I personally will fight expanding Ward 3 schools for out of boundary enrollment
Best solution effectively will be force everyone to go to their own neighborhood schools. It will partially integrate Wards one and four.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Two things: building where there is little growth WORP is fundamentally a failure.
“All-lottery” will be fought by those happy with neighborhood schools.
Basically I think ‘all lottery’ fails because Ward 3 organizes and shows up in huge numbers everywhere during boundary reviews. I hate it but it’s true.
I personally will fight expanding Ward 3 schools for out of boundary enrollment
Best solution effectively will be force everyone to go to their own neighborhood schools. It will partially integrate Wards one and four.

Why are you saying there is little growth WOTP? Office of Planning projections show thousands of new students living WOTP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Two things: building where there is little growth WORP is fundamentally a failure.
“All-lottery” will be fought by those happy with neighborhood schools.
Basically I think ‘all lottery’ fails because Ward 3 organizes and shows up in huge numbers everywhere during boundary reviews. I hate it but it’s true.
I personally will fight expanding Ward 3 schools for out of boundary enrollment
Best solution effectively will be force everyone to go to their own neighborhood schools. It will partially integrate Wards one and four.

Why are you saying there is little growth WOTP? Office of Planning projections show thousands of new students living WOTP.

Where, exactly? Ward 3 is pretty built out, so unless they assume that developers are going to start bulldozing single family neighborhoods for dense and tall mixed use (a GGW fantasy, I’m sure), it’s not going to happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s rather ironic that GGW seems to be advocating a move away from a neighborhood-based school system. I thougjt they were all about walkable neighborhoods and reducing the role of the automobile. A complete lottery system would undercut these goals.

Or perhaps GGW’s walkable, green rhetoric is just that - just empty talking points to advance their pro-Big Develoment agenda.

Go back and read the article and tell me exactly what the article is advocating for. I'll wait.

They seem like clueless “urbanism” wankers.

[Anonymous]

These are OP numbers. Not large WOTP growth. https://planning.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/op/publication/attachments/Neighborhood%20Cluster%20Age%200-4.pdf

https://planning.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/op/publication/attachments/Neighborhood%20Cluster%20Age%200-17.pdf

The first chart in particular shows elementary age growth and yes while there is 0-17 growth WOTP in the second the highest area around Lafayette has 1/3 the growth of Petworth.

If you want to build to match WOTP growth numbers like this build to that limit. Do not making fleeing west an option for Petworth or Ward 1. Pull off the band aid. No additional floor on Deal if that is a trade off for a new elementary school between Spring Road and Military Road. Fill up Ward1 and 4 schools and have NONE of their students going to Hearst, Deal, Wilson.

This is ugly politics but it’s how you get the mix you want in more schools, period.

[Anonymous]

It's always the people proposing a city wide lottery who don't actually have children in DCPS... not gonna happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's always the people proposing a city wide lottery who don't actually have children in DCPS... not gonna happen.

Nick:

I read your article. It was VERY CLEAR. I knew exactly what you were talking about by "boundaries that did not include the school", and by you saying that IF there were no changes, the added students in 10 years would FORCE the city to go all-lottery. (You didn't say that 'all-lottery' was a good idea, and in fact were very clear that it was an option the city would be forced into if they didn't start planning now. For the people that object to all-lottery on equity grounds: AMEN. I don't want all-lottery either. And I definitely don'y want to see DC Council in 10 years saying we HAVE to go all-lottery because they didn't do any planning now.)

I'm not sure why your article was so misunderstood here. Seems pretty clear to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don’t you sometimes get the impression that Greater Greater Washington bloggers tend to view DC from the perspective of their millennial basement flats - or perhaps their mother’s basement? They tend to be single, childless and have little concept of the real world educational considerations faced by parents in DC.

Exactly. Their education coverage reads like an alien visiting this planet and trying to make sense of our strange customs.

No, the article was fine and clear. In fact, the article summarizes the very same debates and worries that DCUM has been discussing over the past 12 months.
And no, it's not just Ward 3 that will be overcrowded. It's Ward 1. And Ward 2. And Ward 4. And parts of Wards 5 and 6.
The article said (1) Overcrowding is going to be a problem. (2) If we continue on the current course there is no PHYSICAL WAY to get the kids in the school buildings EXCEPT all-lottery.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's always the people proposing a city wide lottery who don't actually have children in DCPS... not gonna happen.

Who's proposing a city-wide lottery?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's always the people proposing a city wide lottery who don't actually have children in DCPS... not gonna happen.

Nick:

I read your article. It was VERY CLEAR. I knew exactly what you were talking about by "boundaries that did not include the school", and by you saying that IF there were no changes, the added students in 10 years would FORCE the city to go all-lottery. (You didn't say that 'all-lottery' was a good idea, and in fact were very clear that it was an option the city would be forced into if they didn't start planning now. For the people that object to all-lottery on equity grounds: AMEN. I don't want all-lottery either. And I definitely don'y want to see DC Council in 10 years saying we HAVE to go all-lottery because they didn't do any planning now.)

I'm not sure why your article was so misunderstood here. Seems pretty clear to me.

Nick here. Thank you for reading the entire article, and special thanks for actually understanding it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s rather ironic that GGW seems to be advocating a move away from a neighborhood-based school system. I thougjt they were all about walkable neighborhoods and reducing the role of the automobile. A complete lottery system would undercut these goals.

Or perhaps GGW’s walkable, green rhetoric is just that - just empty talking points to advance their pro-Big Develoment agenda.

Go back and read the article and tell me exactly what the article is advocating for. I'll wait.

They seem like clueless “urbanism” wankers.

Sounds like someone didn't read the article.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These are OP numbers. Not large WOTP growth. https://planning.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/op/publication/attachments/Neighborhood%20Cluster%20Age%200-4.pdf

https://planning.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/op/publication/attachments/Neighborhood%20Cluster%20Age%200-17.pdf

The first chart in particular shows elementary age growth and yes while there is 0-17 growth WOTP in the second the highest area around Lafayette has 1/3 the growth of Petworth.

If you want to build to match WOTP growth numbers like this build to that limit. Do not making fleeing west an option for Petworth or Ward 1. Pull off the band aid. No additional floor on Deal if that is a trade off for a new elementary school between Spring Road and Military Road. Fill up Ward1 and 4 schools and have NONE of their students going to Hearst, Deal, Wilson.

This is ugly politics but it’s how you get the mix you want in more schools, period.

I look at that map and I see thousands of additional kids WOTP -- where the schools are already packed. But the problem with the OoP numbers is they don't show the current numbers, so you don't know how much relative growth there is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Two things: building where there is little growth WORP is fundamentally a failure.
“All-lottery” will be fought by those happy with neighborhood schools.
Basically I think ‘all lottery’ fails because Ward 3 organizes and shows up in huge numbers everywhere during boundary reviews. I hate it but it’s true.
I personally will fight expanding Ward 3 schools for out of boundary enrollment
Best solution effectively will be force everyone to go to their own neighborhood schools. It will partially integrate Wards one and four.

Why are you saying there is little growth WOTP? Office of Planning projections show thousands of new students living WOTP.

Where, exactly? Ward 3 is pretty built out, so unless they assume that developers are going to start bulldozing single family neighborhoods for dense and tall mixed use (a GGW fantasy, I’m sure), it’s not going to happen.

There are literally thousands of units of housing already approved in Ward 3 waiting to be built, and thousands more going through the approval process.