Ward 2/3 High School proposal in the NW Current

[Anonymous]

When I was informed that I had to move from Boston to DC, I based the selection of the area where to look for hosing only on public school availability and quality.

By the time my wife and I landed in DC, we had already circled on a map the possible areas based on the DCPS school reports we found on their website. We did not know how these areas looked like , but we had already chosen, and passed the map to the real estate agent supplied by my office.

Unsurprisingly, we landed.... just east of Tenleytown!

This is to say that school-age demographic trends endogenously depend of school quality, and will change depending on the school quality in other parts of town.

Strong schools are a magnet for families with kids.

So developing and strenghtening schools EoTP will most certainly reverse those trends.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The current renovation for Ellington is $130m. Dunbary was $120m and built from scratch for a capacity of ~1200. Why would putting Ellington facility for ~600 at Shaw MS or Garnet-Patterson cost so much more?

Looking at the renovation already underway answers your question. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fcd4hTLEGQg

I don't go to the school or have any plans to do so. But even from the outside and having no dog in the fight, this tiresome refrain looks entitled, chauvinistic and an ugly reminder of uglier times. Please stop.

Where would you suggest as the site for the new Ward 2/Ward 3 high school then? Ellington makes the most sense, but given entrenched interests there may be unlikely. Unless you want Wilson to become a strictly west of the park high school, there will be a need for another HS in the area -- any sites that you would suggest instead?

Why don't you go after the old Hardy School on Foxhall instead? Lab School leases it and there may enough land there for your high school.

Maybe, but unforutately the site is less than half of Wilson's and that would be WITH taking all of the surrounding property which is owned by the Department of Parks & Rec. A bigger site could be had near Maclean Gardens by evicting the Second District police station and taking all of the surrounding land that is currently the McL Gardens playground, dog park and community gardens. Aside from predictable opposition to taking those uses, the real problem with that site is its relative proximity to Wilson itself.

It's ridicolos, your are talking about sites which are 1 mile or 3.5 miles from one another. No additional schools in Upper NW.

Yes, perhaps you are right. If you take additional schools off the table WOTP, the simplest solution to deal with Wilson and Deal overcrowding is to end OOB feeder rights from elementary schools and, if additional steps are necessary, shrink Wilson's far-flung boundary area a bit closer to the school. It would be a straightforward solution, although not necessarily a universally popular one politically.

"Far-flung" is exactly what you could call a new Western high school for the large population of students who need different options and won't be opting for private.

To alleviate overcrowding in Upper NW secondary schools, I vote for ending OOB feeder rights but would be ok with grandfathering students already in the system (but not for their siblings not yet of school age).

The tone-deafness here is a force of nature.

DCPS is not interested in any solution which involves you digging a moat around higher-performing DCPSs, and excluding the OOB students who use the schools in upper NW as an escape valve.

How much clearer does it need to be made to you?

So where do you propose that Upper NW students displaced from Deal and Wilson should go??

There aren't that many Upper NW students. Why would any of them be displaced? A handful need to be switched from one ES to another and another small group needs to move from one MS to another. But none of them need to be "displaced".

The DME (or it is "DUMB"?) recommendations included moving Oyster out of Wilson and the strong suggestion that Hardy in the future would feed not to Wilson but to some to be determined high school. So yes, displacement from Wilson is very much an issue for WOTP families!

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:But why would you assume a new school in NW will be a good school, and a revitalized school EotP will be a bad school? Whatever might make the new NW school good can surely be replicated at an EotP school, can't it?

I would not assume that, but others here do. It's a shorthand version of the old "White is right" line of thinking. I'm all in favor of building strong, sustainable schools close to where kids live, and in this city that means 80% EOTP.

I understand your line of thinking -- that some people would rather build a new school and commute to it, just because they think more white students must yield a better school -- but I'm seriously doubting their view is quite so simple. I'm hoping to get someone who is an advocate of a new WotP school to explain how she views it in her own words.

No, Jeff is being dense. He still denies that the numbers dictate the need for either (a) reduced OOB access to Wilson or (b) a new HS in the area so that some of the current IB Wilson students (in the pipeline) can be diverted elsewhere. He sometimes appears to support a modified version of (a) in which the reduced access is voluntary due to improvements at Roosevelt. I'd like to see this, too, but one must plan for the possibility these improvements don't merit the voluntary take-up needed to alleviate looming overcrowding.

He's doing even less forecasting than DCPS, which is frightening. Look at the number. Look at the trends. The need will be there shortly, if it isn't there already.

10:00 here. I am having trouble following your line of reasoning. Instead of pooping on what you think Jeff believes, can you tell me what YOU believe? Are you an advocate for a new WotP high school? If so, then why?

You're asking me (not previous posters), so I'll reply.

I look at the current enrollment numbers, combine them with population and student projections (which, historically, have been far too conservative about growth in upper NW), and I see a looming capacity issue at Wilson. Judging by how quickly Deal turned-around, the problem is only a few years away. In short, I don't believe that Wilson-as-currently-constructed can accommodate all of the students who currently have "rights" to it.

There are several solutions:
1) Build capacity at Wilson. The problem here is that Wilson is already a fairly large school as far as the optimal-size-literature goes, or so I'm told. (I haven't read these studies myself, so this stance could be completely wrong.)
2) Remove students currently having "right" to Wilson. This can take a few forms:
2a) Remove OOB rights. While this will solve the problem today, and for the next few years, I don't believe it will be a long-term solution as Hardy flips from OOB to IB over the next half-decade (like Deal before it). Plus, there are still tons of areas with "by right" access to Wilson; Wilson's catchment basin is absurd, extending from lower SW all the way up through Shepard Park in the far top EOTP. It's, literally, like half of the city.
2b) Shrink the catchment basin boundaries for Wilson, cleaving off areas EOTP and the SW. This would leave Wilson as, basically, the by-right high school for WOTP.
2c), similar to (2b), remove feeder schools, like Hardy.
Both 2b and 2c require finding another place to house these displaced students. For 2b, that would be at other existing schools. Since most of the students removed under 2b are already closer to another HS than Wilson, this seems logical. These other HSs, however, are not currently of the same quality as Wilson, so I'm hesitant to send these students to a failing school. For 2c, this would require creating a new HS. It is entirely unreasonable to force students to trek across the city for their by-right HS. If they chose to do so for one reason or another, fine. But you cannot make their neighborhood HS be far away. Period.

So, because I believe that 2a -- removing OOB "rights" -- would be politically unpalatable, and because I believe that students shouldn't be relegated from a good school to a failing school (2b), I'm left to support 2c as a last resort. Implicit in this support is that I believe the new HS created in NWNW would be good and not suffer from the same problem as 2b. That is, I don't believe that moving students currently IB for Wilson to a newly created NW HS would be equivalent to sending them to Cardozo or Roosevelt-as-of-now. Furthermore, looking at the numbers and projections, I would expect this school to be largely filled with IB students. (This is where I differ most with Jeff. He seems to deny -- or, perhaps, hasn't consulted the projections and looked at the recent trends -- that there would be sufficient mass/need for another HS for these students. I'm confident that he's wrong.)

Really, 2c is the worst option. 1 and 2a are so much easier. And 2b is easier too. But, reality leads me to suspect 2c is the most viable option going-forward. I am reluctant in reaching this conclusion. (I personally asked DME to make a public statement supporting option (1). She declined, saying that she believed 2b was a better solution and that with 2b, 1 is no longer needed.)

Does that explain my reasoning better? Feel free to ask additional questions; I'll chime in as available.

Very well set forth. However, 2c is not a viable option, because if Hardy is removed from Wilson, then you are removing families living in Palisades, Kent, Spring Valley, Woodley Park, Georgetown and potentially Cleveland Park from Wilson. Then the only viable alternative that these families will accept is a new high school reasonably close to their neighborhoods.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

There aren't that many Upper NW students. Why would any of them be displaced? A handful need to be switched from one ES to another and another small group needs to move from one MS to another. But none of them need to be "displaced".

The DME (or it is "DUMB"?) recommendations included moving Oyster out of Wilson and the strong suggestion that Hardy in the future would feed not to Wilson but to some to be determined high school. So yes, displacement from Wilson is very much an issue for WOTP families!

PP said "Upper NW" not WOTP.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

There aren't that many Upper NW students. Why would any of them be displaced? A handful need to be switched from one ES to another and another small group needs to move from one MS to another. But none of them need to be "displaced".

The DME (or it is "DUMB"?) recommendations included moving Oyster out of Wilson and the strong suggestion that Hardy in the future would feed not to Wilson but to some to be determined high school. So yes, displacement from Wilson is very much an issue for WOTP families!

PP said "Upper NW" not WOTP.

Palisades, Kent, Spring Valley, Wesley Heights are all considered Upper NW.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:But why would you assume a new school in NW will be a good school, and a revitalized school EotP will be a bad school? Whatever might make the new NW school good can surely be replicated at an EotP school, can't it?

I would not assume that, but others here do. It's a shorthand version of the old "White is right" line of thinking. I'm all in favor of building strong, sustainable schools close to where kids live, and in this city that means 80% EOTP.

I understand your line of thinking -- that some people would rather build a new school and commute to it, just because they think more white students must yield a better school -- but I'm seriously doubting their view is quite so simple. I'm hoping to get someone who is an advocate of a new WotP school to explain how she views it in her own words.

No, Jeff is being dense. He still denies that the numbers dictate the need for either (a) reduced OOB access to Wilson or (b) a new HS in the area so that some of the current IB Wilson students (in the pipeline) can be diverted elsewhere. He sometimes appears to support a modified version of (a) in which the reduced access is voluntary due to improvements at Roosevelt. I'd like to see this, too, but one must plan for the possibility these improvements don't merit the voluntary take-up needed to alleviate looming overcrowding.

He's doing even less forecasting than DCPS, which is frightening. Look at the number. Look at the trends. The need will be there shortly, if it isn't there already.

10:00 here. I am having trouble following your line of reasoning. Instead of pooping on what you think Jeff believes, can you tell me what YOU believe? Are you an advocate for a new WotP high school? If so, then why?

You're asking me (not previous posters), so I'll reply.

I look at the current enrollment numbers, combine them with population and student projections (which, historically, have been far too conservative about growth in upper NW), and I see a looming capacity issue at Wilson. Judging by how quickly Deal turned-around, the problem is only a few years away. In short, I don't believe that Wilson-as-currently-constructed can accommodate all of the students who currently have "rights" to it.

There are several solutions:
1) Build capacity at Wilson. The problem here is that Wilson is already a fairly large school as far as the optimal-size-literature goes, or so I'm told. (I haven't read these studies myself, so this stance could be completely wrong.)
2) Remove students currently having "right" to Wilson. This can take a few forms:
2a) Remove OOB rights. While this will solve the problem today, and for the next few years, I don't believe it will be a long-term solution as Hardy flips from OOB to IB over the next half-decade (like Deal before it). Plus, there are still tons of areas with "by right" access to Wilson; Wilson's catchment basin is absurd, extending from lower SW all the way up through Shepard Park in the far top EOTP. It's, literally, like half of the city.
2b) Shrink the catchment basin boundaries for Wilson, cleaving off areas EOTP and the SW. This would leave Wilson as, basically, the by-right high school for WOTP.
2c), similar to (2b), remove feeder schools, like Hardy.
Both 2b and 2c require finding another place to house these displaced students. For 2b, that would be at other existing schools. Since most of the students removed under 2b are already closer to another HS than Wilson, this seems logical. These other HSs, however, are not currently of the same quality as Wilson, so I'm hesitant to send these students to a failing school. For 2c, this would require creating a new HS. It is entirely unreasonable to force students to trek across the city for their by-right HS. If they chose to do so for one reason or another, fine. But you cannot make their neighborhood HS be far away. Period.

So, because I believe that 2a -- removing OOB "rights" -- would be politically unpalatable, and because I believe that students shouldn't be relegated from a good school to a failing school (2b), I'm left to support 2c as a last resort. Implicit in this support is that I believe the new HS created in NWNW would be good and not suffer from the same problem as 2b. That is, I don't believe that moving students currently IB for Wilson to a newly created NW HS would be equivalent to sending them to Cardozo or Roosevelt-as-of-now. Furthermore, looking at the numbers and projections, I would expect this school to be largely filled with IB students. (This is where I differ most with Jeff. He seems to deny -- or, perhaps, hasn't consulted the projections and looked at the recent trends -- that there would be sufficient mass/need for another HS for these students. I'm confident that he's wrong.)

Really, 2c is the worst option. 1 and 2a are so much easier. And 2b is easier too. But, reality leads me to suspect 2c is the most viable option going-forward. I am reluctant in reaching this conclusion. (I personally asked DME to make a public statement supporting option (1). She declined, saying that she believed 2b was a better solution and that with 2b, 1 is no longer needed.)

Does that explain my reasoning better? Feel free to ask additional questions; I'll chime in as available.

Is it just me, or are people on DCUM very imprecise about option 2b, above? For example, given that the Deal boundary extends EOTP, why would you assume that shrinking the Wilson boundaries means it becomes exclusively WOTP?

The DME and committee, in contrast, are precise (see Policy Option B).

The real work on this issue is not done at the very big picture level like the PP and most posters on this thread (full credit for taking it seriously, though).

The real work is in tweaking Policy Option B as needed, in a very detailed way. For example, DME Smith reportedly said at the Hardy meeting (I was not there - see other thread) that if the Wilson boundaries were shrunk only as far as the current Hardy and Deal boundaries, this would likely solve the current overcrowding issue.

just to be clear (precise) that means:

1) Wilson boundaries shrunk to Deal and Hardy, which means that no-one currently IB gets cut out of Deal or Hardy and the only families cut from Wilson are those that aren't IB for Deal or Hardy - for example Southwest.
2) OOB students can stay if they want, now and forever, so long as the schools in question (ES, MS, HS) are still accepting OOB. Currently enrolled OOB students stay and follow the feeder patterns.
3) anticipating the time in the future when none of the ESs or MSs in this pyramid, or Wilson, will be accepting OOB naturally because they all have a lot of IB interest, have a 10-20% set-aside to ensure that they always take some OOB. This is now necessary at Janney, for example, but isn't yet necessary at Hearst, Murch or Hardy, for example.

The result will be a short-term crowding as all the OOB work their way through. IB will slowly replace OOB, up to the limit of the set-aside. No one gets zoned to a worse MS. Some people may get zoned from Wilson to a worse HS, but, just possibly, these are not people who were really planning on Wilson anyway, with some exceptions. (that is to say, how many people IB for Wilson but not IB for Deal or Hardy are planning on Wilson?)

In the meantime, lots of time to gradually build up schools for the OOB families that will gradually be replaced by IB at the above pyramid.

Emphasis on "gradually".

Does this sound like a reasonable way to go?

[Anonymous]

I'm the poster to whom you're replying. (Thanks for the "full credit." The academic still lingering inside of me takes solace in this meaningless accolade. Seriousness is a goal unto itself.)

Yes, I would gladly support this plan. I suspect there would still be overcrowding, but I don't view it to be an impediment at that level of crowding.

Is this politically feasible? I'm skeptical but ignorant.

One thing to note is that given Deal's screwy catchment basin, such a proposal would impede improvement to Roosevelt (and other mythical desirable EOTP HSs) since Crestwood, Shep. Park, etc. would stay with Wilson. Getting critical mass is a b!tch; just ask Hardy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm the poster to whom you're replying. (Thanks for the "full credit." The academic still lingering inside of me takes solace in this meaningless accolade. Seriousness is a goal unto itself.)

Yes, I would gladly support this plan. I suspect there would still be overcrowding, but I don't view it to be an impediment at that level of crowding.

Is this politically feasible? I'm skeptical but ignorant.

One thing to note is that given Deal's screwy catchment basin, such a proposal would impede improvement to Roosevelt (and other mythical desirable EOTP HSs) since Crestwood, Shep. Park, etc. would stay with Wilson. Getting critical mass is a b!tch; just ask Hardy.

& Eastern.

[Anonymous]

What's the point of a 10-25% set aside for OOB?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm the poster to whom you're replying. (Thanks for the "full credit." The academic still lingering inside of me takes solace in this meaningless accolade. Seriousness is a goal unto itself.)

Yes, I would gladly support this plan. I suspect there would still be overcrowding, but I don't view it to be an impediment at that level of crowding.

Is this politically feasible? I'm skeptical but ignorant.

One thing to note is that given Deal's screwy catchment basin, such a proposal would impede improvement to Roosevelt (and other mythical desirable EOTP HSs) since Crestwood, Shep. Park, etc. would stay with Wilson. Getting critical mass is a b!tch; just ask Hardy.

I didn't mean the "credit" in a snarky way - sorry if it came across that way Seriousness is important to me, seriously.

Your point in bold by the way is pretty much the most important overlooked point for me (or most overlooked important point). I think the DME and staff maybe get this, because they are at least looking at some data. Most armchair quarterbacks aren't looking at any data. The attempts on DCUM to model the overcrowding into the future have been very rudimentary, mine included. That's what I meant when I said that the real work is analyzing different tweaks of Policy Option B, data in hand.

Regarding the impediment to improving other schools, I know this point is shared by some, but I just don't agree with it in principle and I don't buy the empirical claims behind it.

Empirically, I don't buy that people who deliberately bought or rented in the Deal zone, specifically to send kids to Deal, would be happy to go anywhere just because you rezone them. I think they are more likely to move schools or move residence.

And on the principle, even if I believed the empirical story, it's wrong to try to force people to participate in this kind of school-building project. It's something people can choose and it's admirable, but it should never be a rationale for a boundary change. The only defensible rationale for cutting anyone out of a high-performing school is overcrowding. Trying to shanghai people into building other schools is a massive changing of the game/moving the goalposts half way through the game and it's not right. People who have moved into a neighborhood for a particular school should only be cut as a last resort.

For those who don't see this, imagine if Deal were high quality but half-empty. Can you imagine arguing that people should be forced out of it to build McFarland/Roosevelt? Clearly not. When you do this thought experiment, you see that the overcrowding question is (and ought to be) providing 100% of the justification for possibly zoning people out, and ethically/morally the creation of an "incentive" to build a failing school is providing 0% justification.

Regarding the overcrowding question, the data has to be studied, but regarding this other question, it's very clear to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What's the point of a 10-25% set aside for OOB?

No particular order:

1) maintain racial/income diversity
2) provide a glimmer of hope to people in a bad situation school-wise (like parole for someone on a life sentence, with sincere apologies for the analogy)
3) provide a diverse educational environment for affluent kids - see the U Michigan arguments at the SCOTUS
4) provide great educational opportunities for the 10-20% (see the research from MoCo on the 80/20 student mix)

Sorry for the shorthand, but all can be googled

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's the point of a 10-25% set aside for OOB?

No particular order:

1) maintain racial/income diversity
2) provide a glimmer of hope to people in a bad situation school-wise (like parole for someone on a life sentence, with sincere apologies for the analogy)
3) provide a diverse educational environment for affluent kids - see the U Michigan arguments at the SCOTUS
4) provide great educational opportunities for the 10-20% (see the research from MoCo on the 80/20 student mix)

Sorry for the shorthand, but all can be googled

The challenge then becomes that 20% of the kids need perhaps 60% of the classroom time, if not more, because of their preparation/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's the point of a 10-25% set aside for OOB?

No particular order:

1) maintain racial/income diversity
2) provide a glimmer of hope to people in a bad situation school-wise (like parole for someone on a life sentence, with sincere apologies for the analogy)
3) provide a diverse educational environment for affluent kids - see the U Michigan arguments at the SCOTUS
4) provide great educational opportunities for the 10-20% (see the research from MoCo on the 80/20 student mix)

Sorry for the shorthand, but all can be googled

The problem with this is that "OOB," by itself, is not the way to accomplish the stated purpose. What should happen is that only low income students should be allowed to come from OOB into higher-SES districts, which should be confirmed as part of the OOB application. Otherwise, you're going to get a lot of OOB families coming in who are in no way low income, which has the effect of taking away potential income diversity from their local neighborhood schools. Those poachers should not be discouraged from using their money and work to improve their local schools; or, if they must avoid improving their own neighborhood situation, make them go the charter route.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's the point of a 10-25% set aside for OOB?

No particular order:

1) maintain racial/income diversity
2) provide a glimmer of hope to people in a bad situation school-wise (like parole for someone on a life sentence, with sincere apologies for the analogy)
3) provide a diverse educational environment for affluent kids - see the U Michigan arguments at the SCOTUS
4) provide great educational opportunities for the 10-20% (see the research from MoCo on the 80/20 student mix)

Sorry for the shorthand, but all can be googled

Has anyone done the math in terms of the size of ripple in the pond? Using Brent as an example, which is already 50 percent OOB, a ten percent set aside would equate to 36 students. This hardly constitutes "diversity" or much of a glimmer of hope for the low-income who can't get in. Even 20 percent, or 72 students, doesn't make much of a dent when considering the number of low-income kids stuck in failing schools. Rearranging chairs on the deck of the Titanic worked about as well for those put in jeapordy by poor planning and decision making.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Is it just me, or are people on DCUM very imprecise about option 2b, above? For example, given that the Deal boundary extends EOTP, why would you assume that shrinking the Wilson boundaries means it becomes exclusively WOTP?

The DME and committee, in contrast, are precise (see Policy Option B).

The real work on this issue is not done at the very big picture level like the PP and most posters on this thread (full credit for taking it seriously, though).

The real work is in tweaking Policy Option B as needed, in a very detailed way. For example, DME Smith reportedly said at the Hardy meeting (I was not there - see other thread) that if the Wilson boundaries were shrunk only as far as the current Hardy and Deal boundaries, this would likely solve the current overcrowding issue.

just to be clear (precise) that means:

1) Wilson boundaries shrunk to Deal and Hardy, which means that no-one currently IB gets cut out of Deal or Hardy and the only families cut from Wilson are those that aren't IB for Deal or Hardy - for example Southwest.
2) OOB students can stay if they want, now and forever, so long as the schools in question (ES, MS, HS) are still accepting OOB. Currently enrolled OOB students stay and follow the feeder patterns.
3) anticipating the time in the future when none of the ESs or MSs in this pyramid, or Wilson, will be accepting OOB naturally because they all have a lot of IB interest, have a 10-20% set-aside to ensure that they always take some OOB. This is now necessary at Janney, for example, but isn't yet necessary at Hearst, Murch or Hardy, for example.

The result will be a short-term crowding as all the OOB work their way through. IB will slowly replace OOB, up to the limit of the set-aside. No one gets zoned to a worse MS. Some people may get zoned from Wilson to a worse HS, but, just possibly, these are not people who were really planning on Wilson anyway, with some exceptions. (that is to say, how many people IB for Wilson but not IB for Deal or Hardy are planning on Wilson?)

In the meantime, lots of time to gradually build up schools for the OOB families that will gradually be replaced by IB at the above pyramid.

Emphasis on "gradually".

Does this sound like a reasonable way to go?

If the DME said that, the DME was wrong.

Here's the problem: DCPS policy is that if a school has capacity beyond the number of IB students it has to accept OOB students. The capacity of the schools that feed Deal, per grade, is greater than the capacity of Deal, per grade (although it's getting closer with the expansion of Deal). Similarly, the capacity of Deal and Hardy, per grade, is greater than the capacity of Wilson per grade.

You can't solve crowding at Deal by reducing its boundaries. Nobody is getting in as an OOB student at sixth grade, they're all coming in through the feeders. The only way to reduce the number of kids who have the right to attend is by either shrinking the capacity of the feeder schools, or reducing the number of feeder schools. If you shrunk the boundaries of the feeders it would mean the same number of kids, just more of them would be OOB.

Same deal with Wilson.