Why is the overcrowding issue so complex?

[Anonymous]

Duke Ellington is located in what was once Western High School. It is a much more centralized location for a high school and on major bus routes. Let’s renovate the old Georgetown Day site to suit Ellington’s needs and turn the bazillion dollar, presumably gold-plated Western High building back over to a regular public high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Duke Ellington is located in what was once Western High School. It is a much more centralized location for a high school and on major bus routes. Let’s renovate the old Georgetown Day site to suit Ellington’s needs and turn the bazillion dollar, presumably gold-plated Western High building back over to a regular public high school.

Duke Ellington is not really central and is on a bus route but not a major one but it would be a much better location than Foxhall for some school capacity so your broader point is a good one.

But that ship has sailed - DC spent what 250 million on Ellington and the school has all sorts of classrooms and studio spaces that will be of no use to a standard HS.

Again there is excess capacity EOTP in recently renovated DCPS buildings and many of the students crowding Deal and Wilson are coming from EOTP - why should DC spend money in Foxhall when simpler and cheaper solutions exist?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wilson and Deal are ethnically diverse but they really aren't that economically diverse anymore and in any case both are overcrowded to the point that sometime soon it will start to erode the quality of both schools.

The fight for access to what should be scarce seats at Deal & Wilson is not a battle between affluent residents of Ward 3 and lower income people of color from Wards 7 & 8.

It is a battle between affluent residents of Ward 3 whose kids can walk to those schools and affluent residents of Crestwood, Mount Pleasant, Shepherd Park (who are getting in by right) and other parts of the city who have found backdoor ways into Ward 3 (like renting in bounds for a year) who in many cases are driving significant distances to get across the park everyday. Some of these residents are people of color but many in fact are also white.

Having some of these affluent families attend schools closer to their own neighborhoods would actually do what some of the people on this thread purport to care about which is to say it would make EOTP schools more ethnically and economically diverse which would almost certainly help to improve those schools.

And Deal & Wilson could actually accept some lower income students who would benefit more from the opportunity to attend what are perceived as higher performing schools.

The idea of opening new public schools in remote Foxhall Village to solve enrollment problems in Tenleytown caused by students living EOTP, many of whom are affluent and white, who live near grossly under enrolled but recently renovated public schools is just insane and shows the lack of courage from the DC Council.

The Mayor should lead on this and pledge to have her own daughter be part of the first group of kids from her neighborhood to actually attend their neighborhood schools and tell the Crestwood residents to stuff it and follow her. And just so the perceived pain is spread around Lafayette students should also have to spend a couple of extra minutes commuting across the park on Military Road to Wells and Coolidge for MS and HS which is a lot less of a commute than anyone will have who gets moved to whatever new schools get opened in Foxhall.

The DC Council has money to burn and a paucity of courage so it will never happen but logistically solving overcrowding at Deal & Wilson is pretty straightforward.

What schools are exactly her neighborhood schools? It takes the same time to get from Bowser’s house to Deal as it does to Macfarland. And about Sam’s as Wells (of which there is no room). Like it or not, Deal is Bowser’s neighborhood school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I posted in the ANC Foxhall thread, but will post my comment here.

Why hasn’t DCPS looked into how many students attend Ward 3 schools, Shepherd and Bancroft that are OOB? Once those figures come in, then look to see what percentage of those kids would eliminate the overcrowding of those schools? If it’s a significant amount, then those families would need to lottery for Deal, Hardy and Wilson.

This seems like a simple task that should be understandable to those families OOB. I say this as an OOB parent who kids attend Bancroft. I guess my kids would have to attend MacFarland if faced with this decision.

The problem is that fixing overcrowding requires a 5-10 year plan and no school official has any incentive to make a long-term plan.

Ferebee is just getting this line on his resume before he jumps to a revolving-door charter school sell-out job in a few years.
Bowser may not be around in 5 and probably not 10 years.
And the Council really doesn't want to touch this. It's a hornet's nest with no upside for them. Better to leave it alone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Duke Ellington is located in what was once Western High School. It is a much more centralized location for a high school and on major bus routes. Let’s renovate the old Georgetown Day site to suit Ellington’s needs and turn the bazillion dollar, presumably gold-plated Western High building back over to a regular public high school.

Duke Ellington is not really central and is on a bus route but not a major one but it would be a much better location than Foxhall for some school capacity so your broader point is a good one.

But that ship has sailed - DC spent what 250 million on Ellington and the school has all sorts of classrooms and studio spaces that will be of no use to a standard HS.

[b]Again there is excess capacity EOTP in recently renovated DCPS buildings and many of the students crowding Deal and Wilson are coming from EOTP - why should DC spend money in Foxhall when simpler and cheaper solutions exist?

[b]

This is the million dollar question I would like DCPS to give an answer. The obvious is there, but they need to fix those schools first, but they are wasting money when the issues are not lack of facilities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Duke Ellington is located in what was once Western High School. It is a much more centralized location for a high school and on major bus routes. Let’s renovate the old Georgetown Day site to suit Ellington’s needs and turn the bazillion dollar, presumably gold-plated Western High building back over to a regular public high school.

Duke Ellington is not really central and is on a bus route but not a major one but it would be a much better location than Foxhall for some school capacity so your broader point is a good one.

But that ship has sailed - DC spent what 250 million on Ellington and the school has all sorts of classrooms and studio spaces that will be of no use to a standard HS.

[b]Again there is excess capacity EOTP in recently renovated DCPS buildings and many of the students crowding Deal and Wilson are coming from EOTP - why should DC spend money in Foxhall when simpler and cheaper solutions exist?

[b]

This is the million dollar question I would like DCPS to give an answer. The obvious is there, but they need to fix those schools first, but they are wasting money when the issues are not lack of facilities.

Because they are looking for a long term solution and the excess capacity will not last. Check the Master Facilities Plan. It is stunning how fast schools EOTP were filling up before covid.

[Anonymous]

so there are multiple issues:
* family growth west of RCP
* preexisting WOTP crowding
* growth in use of DCPS schools, esp. Deal, if you have a longer memory, and a lower reliance on private schools in upper Northwest.
* growth in student population across DC
* middle class return to the city - these kids, white or upper middle class and diverse, mostly settled in Wards 1, 4, and 5 to have families after Wards 6 and 3 turned out to be expensive, while they had no objection to moving to these Wards nearer downtown as crime had diminished so steadily for 20 years.
* charter sector growth has run into a space problem - there are only so many more big boxes to stick schools in near these middle class families
* Ward 7 and 8, often only gestured to in these conversations, has a very large youth/student population and the families there have rejected DCPS in pretty serious numbers - the charter sector is really big. And if reaching upper northwest is possible, these families will do it.
* Hispanic families have grown too - some of the hottest growth areas of the city are where Hispanic families have clustered more recently - don't think Mt. Pleasant, think Brightwood.

Basically, we have population growth, uneven, and probably the newest political aspect of it for school politics is the emergence of the middle class "gentrifier" families in Wards 1, 4, and 5 who want DCPS or PCS but are not willing to settle for schools that - because of the center of gravity in the classroom usually have to focus on students who are not at grade level. The rest - Ward 3, 6, 7, 8 family growth - is significant, but it isn't a new factor, really.

The real key question is whether we allow those middle class (and UMC) Ward 1 and 4 families to mostly keep expanding into charters or Ward 3 schools, which have little capacity to keep up, or we force them into traditional DCPS schools they haven't really taken to just because the lottery won't get them anywhere any more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:so there are multiple issues:
* family growth west of RCP
* preexisting WOTP crowding
* growth in use of DCPS schools, esp. Deal, if you have a longer memory, and a lower reliance on private schools in upper Northwest.
* growth in student population across DC
* middle class return to the city - these kids, white or upper middle class and diverse, mostly settled in Wards 1, 4, and 5 to have families after Wards 6 and 3 turned out to be expensive, while they had no objection to moving to these Wards nearer downtown as crime had diminished so steadily for 20 years.
* charter sector growth has run into a space problem - there are only so many more big boxes to stick schools in near these middle class families
* Ward 7 and 8, often only gestured to in these conversations, has a very large youth/student population and the families there have rejected DCPS in pretty serious numbers - the charter sector is really big. And if reaching upper northwest is possible, these families will do it.
* Hispanic families have grown too - some of the hottest growth areas of the city are where Hispanic families have clustered more recently - don't think Mt. Pleasant, think Brightwood.

Basically, we have population growth, uneven, and probably the newest political aspect of it for school politics is the emergence of the middle class "gentrifier" families in Wards 1, 4, and 5 who want DCPS or PCS but are not willing to settle for schools that - because of the center of gravity in the classroom usually have to focus on students who are not at grade level. The rest - Ward 3, 6, 7, 8 family growth - is significant, but it isn't a new factor, really.

The real key question is whether we allow those middle class (and UMC) Ward 1 and 4 families to mostly keep expanding into charters or Ward 3 schools, which have little capacity to keep up, or we force them into traditional DCPS schools they haven't really taken to just because the lottery won't get them anywhere any more.

LOL

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:so there are multiple issues:
* family growth west of RCP
* preexisting WOTP crowding
* growth in use of DCPS schools, esp. Deal, if you have a longer memory, and a lower reliance on private schools in upper Northwest.
* growth in student population across DC
* middle class return to the city - these kids, white or upper middle class and diverse, mostly settled in Wards 1, 4, and 5 to have families after Wards 6 and 3 turned out to be expensive, while they had no objection to moving to these Wards nearer downtown as crime had diminished so steadily for 20 years.
* charter sector growth has run into a space problem - there are only so many more big boxes to stick schools in near these middle class families
* Ward 7 and 8, often only gestured to in these conversations, has a very large youth/student population and the families there have rejected DCPS in pretty serious numbers - the charter sector is really big. And if reaching upper northwest is possible, these families will do it.
* Hispanic families have grown too - some of the hottest growth areas of the city are where Hispanic families have clustered more recently - don't think Mt. Pleasant, think Brightwood.

Basically, we have population growth, uneven, and probably the newest political aspect of it for school politics is the emergence of the middle class "gentrifier" families in Wards 1, 4, and 5 who want DCPS or PCS but are not willing to settle for schools that - because of the center of gravity in the classroom usually have to focus on students who are not at grade level. The rest - Ward 3, 6, 7, 8 family growth - is significant, but it isn't a new factor, really.

The real key question is whether we allow those middle class (and UMC) Ward 1 and 4 families to mostly keep expanding into charters or Ward 3 schools, which have little capacity to keep up, or we force them into traditional DCPS schools they haven't really taken to just because the lottery won't get them anywhere any more.

Well, we are a Ward 5 family happy at our IB. When I first moved here I never thought our baby would go to DCPS but we are planning to stay through 3rd at least. I wouldn't count DCPS out.

[Anonymous]

LOL all you want - the alternatives for these families are limited because charters are filling up and Ward 3 schools are too.

Policy choices are going to be required that cost money so YES they will be ALLOWED or FORCED into particular choices.

The Ward 3 choices - more school buildings, or the Foxhall switcheroos, etc., the recurring "Western HS" drumbeat . . .

The Ward 5 choices - more charters somewhere?

The integrate or move out of DC choices after that.

The lottery is hardly "winnable" any more except at the margins. So yes, these are your forcings.

[Anonymous]

You cannot force people into underperforming schools. The suburbs have been and will continue to be the alternative to this, if OOB and charters don’t work out.
If DCPS offered tracking, gifted programming, or advanced coursework in some high schools that would go some ways towards attracting families that would otherwise opt out. Carrots not sticks.

[Anonymous]

DC should do what Fairfax County did - make all the AAP centers in failing schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
No way is Foxhall gaining a couple of thousand school age kids in the next couple of years nor will it even if you add in Stoddert or Mann - there is almost no residential development slated in bounds for any of those 3 schools.

Check out the Office of Planning projections at: https://dme.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dme/publication/attachments/Office%20of%20Planning%20Presentation%20for%20CSCTF%204%2026%2016.pdf

Particularly page 22, where they have youth population projections. Foxhall Road is the boundary between Cluster 13 and Cluster 14. While they don't have specific numbers, both clusters are colored in the color that indicates growth of 1,772-3,278 school age kids. So the two clusters together have a minimum of 3500 kids growth and possibly as much as 6500.

It's not driven by residential development, it's families moving into existing housing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You cannot force people into underperforming schools. The suburbs have been and will continue to be the alternative to this, if OOB and charters don’t work out.
If DCPS offered tracking, gifted programming, or advanced coursework in some high schools that would go some ways towards attracting families that would otherwise opt out. Carrots not sticks.

I get this, but the upthread comment is legit. WOTP full, Charters full, gentrifiers don't want 90-plus percent low-income African American schools = probably some people moving to the suburbs or changing their opinions of what's available.

If not suburbs, then some interesting changes are going to happen as some white, upper class people accommodate themselves to being tiny minorities in schools aimed at children who aren't testing at grade level.

[Anonymous]

I have to recommend again this article:
https://ggwash.org/view/71802/can-dcps-survive-the-coming-enrollment-surge

Money quote:

For most of the past 50 years, DC Public Schools (DCPS) has had way too many schools, and the most pressing facilities issue for the agency has been how to close and dispose of unneeded buildings in an orderly manner. Even though DC has gained over 22,000 public school students since 2008, and between 2008 and 2013 DCPS shrunk from 134 to 110 schools, the number of seats still exceeds the number of students by about 25%.

Today, DCPS has a capacity of 61,925 seats and only 48,043 students, according to the Master Facilities Plan. However, if the projections hold, by 2027 – which is only eight years away – DCPS will have 61,697 students. For the first time in 60 years—two generations—DCPS is going to be full. And it's likely going to grow from there.