Shaw Middle School -- what's the plan?
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Anonymous
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-- DCPS failed our students by closing Shaw Junior High School and not investing in the building in the first place. Please remember the school couldn't attract in-boundary or out-of-boundary students to a downtown location. (Some schools like Hardy were never in danger of closing and had a number of students from out-of-boundary.) Then, they failed the students when they moved the school to another location and without the leadership of an amazing principal couldn't keep momentum going, even with all those strange educational '"reform" attempts, like paying students to study. I think focusing on the "data" here is extremely misleading and its forgetting the narrative. This new middle school would be a resource for the entire city and would probably be very attractive to parents commuting downtown and current neighborhood students.
-- Now DCPS continues to fail our students in mid-city. Every year I talk to mothers and fathers about their choices for school after 5th. Many scramble at the last minute because they don't speak English, don't have a good handle on the feeder systems (which is complicated), and have to really work at researching and finding a quality spot for their kids with both parents working and some with two jobs. Some of the mid-city schools don't have strong PTAs to advocate for the families and haven't been aware of advocacy efforts. At the end of school year, I always ask the kids where they are going and many don't know. -- From Thomson, some do go Francis Stevens but its not an option for everyone. I met an old student yesterday that transfers twice on the bus and walks 15 minutes to get to FS alone. It broke my heart. Why should these kids travel so much at such a young impressionable age? Personally, I don't think Francis Steven is a great option for my children. It would also be a rough commute, but I want them to have exposure to clubs, sports, and music on a scale that is available at other large middle schools. With all of our children carved up to all these different schools, our resources are being spread out and not utilized effectively. -- I don't hear calls for a huge state-of-the-art campus at 140 million. Give us a start. Put up trailers and let us start a Shaw Middle School with three 6th grade classes and let us build it. Just do something! Lock people in a room and make something happen that has a path for anther potentially amazing middle school. -- These are kids, not data points. Let's try and start working for all middle schools to be great, accessible, and that will improve our community. Please do not give us more condos!!!!!!! |
Anonymous
Actually, there is a petition circulating asking for a 700 person middle school. I haven’t seen anyone asking for trailers. The proposal is to put a high school—one of the best in the city—on the former Shaw site and expand it to serve 300 more students. At present, condos are not on the table. |
Anonymous
Which do you want--a school large enough for extracurriculars (which would happen if SWW at FS went to PK-5 and six schools fed into Cardozo MS) or a 60-student Shaw middle school in trailers? I'd rather have the former and there are so many families with little kids who would love to have more early childhood space at SWW too. |
Anonymous
Someone keeps saying 6 schools. What is the 6th? Francis Stevens? |
Anonymous
The petition that is being circulated absolutely does not ask for a 700 person middle school. In fact, here is the actual language of the petition, which can be found here https://www.change.org/p/mayor-bowser-save-shaw-middle-school: "I support a new middle school on the old Shaw Junior High School site and renovating and expanding the existing historic Banneker High School building. Both schools and neighborhoods deserve nothing less. We’ve been waiting a decade for DC Public Schools to keep its promises and build a new middle school. By 2022, there will be 584 middle school aged children attending public school in our neighborhoods. These children and their families need a middle school. (Data from DC Auditor Enrollment Dashboard) “The $143 million in the District’s capital improvement plan for Banneker HS could fully modernize the Euclid Street facility for 700 students AND provide a modern middle school at the Shaw site for families. This option is educationally sound for Banneker and Shaw families. It can be implemented the quickest, and is the most fiscally and environmentally responsible.” —21st Century School Fund blog post" |
Anonymous
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Banneker HS should be renovated and the kids who go to school there should have access to better facilities. No one is begrudging them that. But if DCPS is trying to reach the most at-risk kids with an attempt to give them strong options from elementary through MS and HS, then moving Banneker to the Shaw JR High spot is NOT the way to do that.
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Anonymous
| Wow. Banneker expansion is Bowser’s talking point re: Wilson overcrowding. http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/764646.page |
Anonymous
This isn’t really new. Antwan W said the same over and over — they want to get people in the Wilson feeder pattern to choose alternative schools. Adding another 75 slots to Banneker, a proven school, isn’t a bad idea. |
Anonymous
I'm fine with expanding Banneker, and I think with the city's growth and school improvement they will be able to keep academic standards high. But I still think that it isn't fair to promise something in the boundary plan and then yoink it away without a real process. And that the middle school grades for the Cardozo pyramid need some serious intervention. |
Anonymous
Also, there is more than enough room to expand Banneker at the current site. This was the option preferred by parents and the most of the SIT. Moving it to Shaw Jr High is a terrible idea. Expand where it is. |
Anonymous
The boundary plan also acknowledged that DCPS could change boundaries or feeder patterns at any time as needed. It was not set in stone. |
Anonymous
| If DCPS wants to build or create a MS that will work for these feeders it really needs to start listening to the populations who go there and their leadership. Are these schools saying Cardozo sounds like a good long term plan? If you are hearing resistance to that idea then aren’t you setting yourself up for failure...again???? What other options might cost about the same and be better received? It seems to me that DCPS is living in a bubble with its own feedback loop with some misinformed assumptions and now is engaging in CYA. |
Anonymous
It's still wrong to do so with no parent engagement process. |
Anonymous
The problem is there's hardly any population that goes to Cardozo Middle. Outside the International Academy (for kids with very little English), their population is too small for a functioning middle school, because students from the feeders are going elsewhere. They need to engage 3rd-5th parents at the feeder schools for feedback. But I can tell you right now the main problem is no consistent leadership. A new AP almost every year is a plan for failure. |
Anonymous
Agreed. Based on PP’s rationale there never needs to be any public or civic engagement on any schools because DCPS can do whatever it wants at any time. That’s ludicrous. |