Janney third grade parents--what do you think of the giant class sizes?

[Anonymous]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/dc-schools-insider/post/northwest-dc-schools-renovated-janney-faces-third-grade-crowding/2012/05/07/gIQAh9uq7T_blog.html

here is a WaPo article about overcrowding at Janney in 2012 where it states that the principal did not want a trailer and instead went with an oversized class. Nowhere does it state that a trailer wasn't an option due to legal requirements.

[Anonymous]

Right, they'd have to go to Hearst, and Janney moms would chew their own arms off before letting their snowflakes go to Hearst.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Re-district part of Janney now. Simple, obvious, reasonable, and right.

Well, not so obvious. First, there's no point in rezoning to other schools that are also overcrowded, like Lafayette or Murch. So that leaves rezoning to Hearst or Mann. What is the current capacity of those buildings and IB %?

[Anonymous]

So why did they add another PreK class in lieu of keeping 3rd grade at a reasonable size?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, the real solution is to build another ES in upper NW DC, which is not going to happen but is the natural solution when all neighboring schools are also overcrowded. Then some ES will need to be rezoned to Hardy.
Is Wilsok over crowded?

The last thing we need to do is build another ES in upper NW. If Eaton (45% IB) and Hearst (27% IB) had realistic boundaries and average W3 IB participation rates (85%), there would space for 359 kids.

If Janney parents to prefer to have kids sitting on each other laps, so be it.

Hearst is only desirable to Janney parents if they can fully take it over and reconfigure it to their specific needs (a la an early childhood campus for Janney). Of course, the needs and desires of current Hearst families weren't even considered because apparently Janney has a birth right over all things Ward 3 .

No, but as long as DC is to have a neighborhood school system in theory, the needs and desires of those in Ward 3 have to take longterm priority over those in other parts of the city who understandably want to Continue to enjoy wide access to schools like Hearst.

But this doesn't mean that you go with the icky solution of "annexing" Hearst. A boundary shift would work just as well and make infinitely more sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:... Deal: 1312
Wilson: 1788

How many more kids can fit into Deal and Wilson???

Didn't Bowser promise "Alice Deal for all"?

Apparently, we all misunderstood Bowser. We thought she meant to improve other schools to the level of Deal. But what she really meant was that every middle school student in the entire city will attend Deal. Deal enrollment expected to top 10,000. All other middle schools will simply close for lack of enrollment, and will be sold to developers, netting millions for city budgets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:... Deal: 1312
Wilson: 1788

How many more kids can fit into Deal and Wilson???

Didn't Bowser promise "Alice Deal for all"?

Apparently, we all misunderstood Bowser. We thought she meant to improve other schools to the level of Deal. But what she really meant was that every middle school student in the entire city will attend Deal. Deal enrollment expected to top 10,000. All other middle schools will simply close for lack of enrollment, and will be sold to developers, netting millions for city budgets.

DC got "Bowsered."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Frankly, and I posted this upthread, but the other obvious temporary solution is for Janney to have trailers. I would be happy to sacrifice garden space for one trailer so my child was not in a 32 person class.

Does anyone know if this was proposed?

I think there is some sort of agreement with the city or ordinance that won't allow trailers.

I thought that was only on the part that has the underground garage on it.

Does anyone have actual knowledge about the legal constraints relating to trailers? What could the rules be? The school is practically on Wisconsin Ave, so it can't be a zoning issue.

Leasing St Ann's for a few years would make more sense than installing trailers on the playground

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, the real solution is to build another ES in upper NW DC, which is not going to happen but is the natural solution when all neighboring schools are also overcrowded. Then some ES will need to be rezoned to Hardy.
Is Wilsok over crowded?

The last thing we need to do is build another ES in upper NW. If Eaton (45% IB) and Hearst (27% IB) had realistic boundaries and average W3 IB participation rates (85%), there would space for 359 kids.

If Janney parents to prefer to have kids sitting on each other laps, so be it.

Hearst is only desirable to Janney parents if they can fully take it over and reconfigure it to their specific needs (a la an early childhood campus for Janney). Of course, the needs and desires of current Hearst families weren't even considered because apparently Janney has a birth right over all things Ward 3 .

No, but as long as DC is to have a neighborhood school system in theory, the needs and desires of those in Ward 3 have to take longterm priority over those in other parts of the city who understandably want to Continue to enjoy wide access to schools like Hearst.

But this doesn't mean that you go with the icky solution of "annexing" Hearst. A boundary shift would work just as well and make infinitely more sense.

Someone should do the analysis. If Hearst became a PK-2 school, how many kids in the catchment area of both Janney and Hearst would that be? How many kids would that move out of Janney, in terms of PK-2, and how many Hearst IB kids grades 3-5 would it add? It's just a numbers analysis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:... Deal: 1312
Wilson: 1788

How many more kids can fit into Deal and Wilson???

Didn't Bowser promise "Alice Deal for all"?

Apparently, we all misunderstood Bowser. We thought she meant to improve other schools to the level of Deal. But what she really meant was that every middle school student in the entire city will attend Deal. Deal enrollment expected to top 10,000. All other middle schools will simply close for lack of enrollment, and will be sold to developers, netting millions for city budgets.

DC got "Bowsered."

It's pretty telling that she used that steaming pile of a line on the campaign and incredulous responses aside, her administration has done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to address middle school quality at DCPS. There is no vision for how this gets better, there's only hope for charters to fill the void.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:... Deal: 1312
Wilson: 1788

How many more kids can fit into Deal and Wilson???

Didn't Bowser promise "Alice Deal for all"?

Apparently, we all misunderstood Bowser. We thought she meant to improve other schools to the level of Deal. But what she really meant was that every middle school student in the entire city will attend Deal. Deal enrollment expected to top 10,000. All other middle schools will simply close for lack of enrollment, and will be sold to developers, netting millions for city budgets.

DC got "Bowsered."

It's pretty telling that she used that steaming pile of a line on the campaign and incredulous responses aside, her administration has done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to address middle school quality at DCPS. There is no vision for how this gets better, there's only hope for charters to fill the void.

Except opening a new middle school in Brookland and putting in a very capable principal, formerly of Janney. Now McFarland is being opened earlier -- community meetings underway.

Too late for my Ward 4 kids, who are in middle school/high school charters. But things are happening.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Frankly, and I posted this upthread, but the other obvious temporary solution is for Janney to have trailers. I would be happy to sacrifice garden space for one trailer so my child was not in a 32 person class.

Does anyone know if this was proposed?

I think there is some sort of agreement with the city or ordinance that won't allow trailers.

I thought that was only on the part that has the underground garage on it.

Does anyone have actual knowledge about the legal constraints relating to trailers? What could the rules be? The school is practically on Wisconsin Ave, so it can't be a zoning issue.

Leasing St Ann's for a few years would make more sense than installing trailers on the playground

DGS apparently already tried to do that as swing space for Murch. No go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, not including SWW, Ellington and Banneker, or the EC's:

Anacostia: 661
Ballou: 755
Coolidge: 395
Dunbar: 653
Eastern: 1025
Woodson: 639
McKinley Tech: 645
Roosevelt: 476



Deal: 1312
Wilson: 1788

How many more kids can fit into Deal and Wilson???

Wilson has 1,838 students this year.

http://thewilsonbeacon.com/the-biggest-freshman-class-in-decades-encounters-struggles-with-overcrowding/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, not including SWW, Ellington and Banneker, or the EC's:

Anacostia: 661
Ballou: 755
Coolidge: 395
Dunbar: 653
Eastern: 1025
Woodson: 639
McKinley Tech: 645
Roosevelt: 476



Deal: 1312
Wilson: 1788



How many more kids can fit into Deal and Wilson???

Wilson has 1,838 students this year.

http://thewilsonbeacon.com/the-biggest-freshman-class-in-decades-encounters-struggles-with-overcrowding/

Isn't the building capacity only 1600? Enough is enough DCPS. Get on this!

[Anonymous]

Those Wilson numbers are staggering because they don't reflect the housing boom numbers at all.
Traditionally schools like Janney and Lafayette only sent a fraction of their students to Wilson. Now almost everyone I know who has elementary aged kids plans on doing this.

And the elementary school classes from Wilson's feeders are MUCH MUCH larger these days.
The Janney class that became today's Wilson's 9th grade had 60-70 kids in it.
These days the classes are 130 kids.

If you simply extrapolate the numbers accordingly, Wilson will be dealing with an enormous number of kids in 5-8 years.
2500? 3000?

[Anonymous]

Yes, and it has been oh so helpful that DCPS slashed Wilson's budget at the same time. They won't even provide Wilson with funds for trailers.