Overcrowding and lack of space in Ward 3 Schools

[Anonymous]

This is about Deal and Wilson, and maybe Janney.

Lafayette and Hearst are not crowded. Murch is no longer crowded. They just did a huge boundary adjustment on Murch (huge chunk shifted to Lafayette and moved the south boundary to only 3 blocks away from the school), and they are rebuilding for 100 spaces over current enrollment. Murch will be fine, even with boundary grandfathering. Besides, any adjustments to Murch will not change Deal or Wilson anyway.

If Eaton is crowded, that is their fault for accepting too many OOB students because the school has (or should have) complete control over that, unlike schools that are crowded due to IB enrollment as of right.

Janney's boundary abuts Lafayette, Murch, Hearst, and Mann. The only boundary change that fixes crowding at Janney and Deal in one move is to shift some of Janney to Mann, which is a small school on a a big lot of land. The ripple effect is that it increases the Hardy boundary, which ends up reducing the number of OOB spots available at Hardy, and so possibly the enrollment at Wilson.

[Anonymous]

What the hell will segregation do other than keep the poors in separate classrooms? How is that addressing 75% of DCPS? You do know white kids only account for a small percent of DCPS, right? So separate classrooms at each school to account for 30%?

[Anonymous]

Who said anything about segregation?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is about Deal and Wilson, and maybe Janney.

Lafayette and Hearst are not crowded. Murch is no longer crowded. They just did a huge boundary adjustment on Murch (huge chunk shifted to Lafayette and moved the south boundary to only 3 blocks away from the school), and they are rebuilding for 100 spaces over current enrollment. Murch will be fine, even with boundary grandfathering. Besides, any adjustments to Murch will not change Deal or Wilson anyway.

If Eaton is crowded, that is their fault for accepting too many OOB students because the school has (or should have) complete control over that, unlike schools that are crowded due to IB enrollment as of right.

Janney's boundary abuts Lafayette, Murch, Hearst, and Mann. The only boundary change that fixes crowding at Janney and Deal in one move is to shift some of Janney to Mann, which is a small school on a a big lot of land. The ripple effect is that it increases the Hardy boundary, which ends up reducing the number of OOB spots available at Hardy, and so possibly the enrollment at Wilson.

Mann, Stoddert and Key are all over-crowded. Stodder turns away in-boundary kids with siblings for pre-K, I think they're the only school in DCPS that does that. Key has over 400 in a school built for 300. None of those schools have significant number of OOB. None have obvious boundary adjustments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is about Deal and Wilson, and maybe Janney.

Lafayette and Hearst are not crowded. Murch is no longer crowded. They just did a huge boundary adjustment on Murch (huge chunk shifted to Lafayette and moved the south boundary to only 3 blocks away from the school), and they are rebuilding for 100 spaces over current enrollment. Murch will be fine, even with boundary grandfathering. Besides, any adjustments to Murch will not change Deal or Wilson anyway.

If Eaton is crowded, that is their fault for accepting too many OOB students because the school has (or should have) complete control over that, unlike schools that are crowded due to IB enrollment as of right.

Janney's boundary abuts Lafayette, Murch, Hearst, and Mann. The only boundary change that fixes crowding at Janney and Deal in one move is to shift some of Janney to Mann, which is a small school on a a big lot of land. The ripple effect is that it increases the Hardy boundary, which ends up reducing the number of OOB spots available at Hardy, and so possibly the enrollment at Wilson.

No, it was "Downtown's" decision that Eaton should cram over 470 people in a building with official capacity of 415 (or 420? I can't remember which). The building is unpleasantand uncomfortable. I feel bad leaving my kid there everyday.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is about Deal and Wilson, and maybe Janney.

Lafayette and Hearst are not crowded. Murch is no longer crowded. They just did a huge boundary adjustment on Murch (huge chunk shifted to Lafayette and moved the south boundary to only 3 blocks away from the school), and they are rebuilding for 100 spaces over current enrollment. Murch will be fine, even with boundary grandfathering. Besides, any adjustments to Murch will not change Deal or Wilson anyway.

If Eaton is crowded, that is their fault for accepting too many OOB students because the school has (or should have) complete control over that, unlike schools that are crowded due to IB enrollment as of right.

Janney's boundary abuts Lafayette, Murch, Hearst, and Mann. The only boundary change that fixes crowding at Janney and Deal in one move is to shift some of Janney to Mann, which is a small school on a a big lot of land. The ripple effect is that it increases the Hardy boundary, which ends up reducing the number of OOB spots available at Hardy, and so possibly the enrollment at Wilson.

Mann, Stoddert and Key are all over-crowded. Stodder turns away in-boundary kids with siblings for pre-K, I think they're the only school in DCPS that does that. Key has over 400 in a school built for 300. None of those schools have significant number of OOB. None have obvious boundary adjustments.

And they all feed Hardy. Which means that they have significant attrition as kids peel off for charters and privates. If Hardy ever began attracting a significant number of IB kids it would blow the top off of those schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is about Deal and Wilson, and maybe Janney.

Lafayette and Hearst are not crowded. Murch is no longer crowded. They just did a huge boundary adjustment on Murch (huge chunk shifted to Lafayette and moved the south boundary to only 3 blocks away from the school), and they are rebuilding for 100 spaces over current enrollment. Murch will be fine, even with boundary grandfathering. Besides, any adjustments to Murch will not change Deal or Wilson anyway.

If Eaton is crowded, that is their fault for accepting too many OOB students because the school has (or should have) complete control over that, unlike schools that are crowded due to IB enrollment as of right.

Janney's boundary abuts Lafayette, Murch, Hearst, and Mann. The only boundary change that fixes crowding at Janney and Deal in one move is to shift some of Janney to Mann, which is a small school on a a big lot of land. The ripple effect is that it increases the Hardy boundary, which ends up reducing the number of OOB spots available at Hardy, and so possibly the enrollment at Wilson.

No, it was "Downtown's" decision that Eaton should cram over 470 people in a building with official capacity of 415 (or 420? I can't remember which). The building is unpleasantand uncomfortable. I feel bad leaving my kid there everyday.

This. You can't blame the people at the school for what downtown does to them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who said anything about segregation?

Tracking is segregation

[Anonymous]

Agreed about Eaton. Downtown tells them how many classes/kids needed to maintain the budget. Right now Eaton is full. Not necessarily "overcrowded", just that every classroom is full with a class of 25 students.
No extra space. No classroom to be used for anything else (small groups, specialists, etc). The administration is very careful to keep class size at 25 max but there is no extra space for anything.
Oh, and there was the other decision made for Eaton by the boundary process under Abigail Smith, Eaton no longer will feed to Deal after this year.
Eaton keeps working and achieving in spite of downtown decisions to undermine its successes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Solutions:

--Add additional space.
--Get rid of PK classrooms.
--Shrink boundaries
--Open a new elementary school (or one devoted just to Early Education) in Ward 3 to take off some of the pressure.
--Leave as is and suffer through knowing that the bubble will pass.

Office of planning doesn't think it's a bubble. They're projecting DC will exceed its all-time high population by 2030. Fifty years ago DCPS had almost 150,000 students.

But vast majority of growth isn't projected to be in Ward 3.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Solutions:

--Add additional space.
--Get rid of PK classrooms.
--Shrink boundaries
--Open a new elementary school (or one devoted just to Early Education) in Ward 3 to take off some of the pressure.
--Leave as is and suffer through knowing that the bubble will pass.

Office of planning doesn't think it's a bubble. They're projecting DC will exceed its all-time high population by 2030. Fifty years ago DCPS had almost 150,000 students.

But vast majority of growth isn't projected to be in Ward 3.

Ward 3 is projected to have solid growth in the number of students. You can see the OOP projections here for 2014-2020:

https://dme.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dme/publication/attachments/2014%20Population%20Projections%20and%20Growth%20(between%202014%20to%202020).pdf

The six ward 3 clusters -- 10 through 15 -- are expected to grow 24%, compared to 28% for the whole city. Significant growth.

Keep in mind that, (1) significant portions of the catchment area for Deal, Hardy and Wilson are outside of Ward 3; and (2) the majority of kids who go to school in Ward 3 don't live in Ward 3.

In an environment where Ward 3 is growing by 24% and the city is growing by 28% there's no way the crowding pressures in Ward 3 are going to be eased.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who said anything about segregation?

Tracking is segregation

In the lexicon of DC politics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Old Hardy aside, where can a new elementary school be place? Is there an office building that could be used?

Old Hardy is the only DCPS-owned building WOTP that is not being used for a public school. DC isn't exactly swimming in real estate WOTP, see the struggles over siting the homeless shelter and the Hearst pool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What the hell will segregation do other than keep the poors in separate classrooms? How is that addressing 75% of DCPS? You do know white kids only account for a small percent of DCPS, right? So separate classrooms at each school to account for 30%?

why are you assuming only rich white kid would get tracked? I can assure you that the professional AA parents in our class playing lottery too to avoid the same thing we are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Solutions:

--Add additional space.
--Get rid of PK classrooms.
--Shrink boundaries
--Open a new elementary school (or one devoted just to Early Education) in Ward 3 to take off some of the pressure.
--Leave as is and suffer through knowing that the bubble will pass.

Office of planning doesn't think it's a bubble. They're projecting DC will exceed its all-time high population by 2030. Fifty years ago DCPS had almost 150,000 students.

that would mean doubling the existing population of public ed students in the next 12-13 years. Don't see how tha'ts remotely possble

The projections don't show the school-age population going back to 1960's levels, but they do predict something like 35,000 more elementary-age kids in ten years. That would mean each of DCPS' 90 elementary schools taking an additional 400 students.

I kind of feel the projections are like global warming: if true, they are so catastrophic that people just can't imagine them happening.