DC Begins School Boundary Study

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Leaving Lafayette in its current feeder pattern and just moving Shepherd makes sense in that it would give Deal and Wells equal number of feeder schools, and not require Lafayette kids to cross the park. But I think it's politically infeasible to remove only Bancroft and Shepherd from the Deal/JR feeder patterns because those schools have the highest populations of Black and Hispanic students.

Two things that would make the boundary reassignments more palatable would be a commitment to working with DDOT and WMATA on the buses required to get kids where they need to go, and a promise to offer honors English and math...the 6th grade classes would be for kids who score 4s and 5s on the 5th grade PARCC, and 7th and 8th would be based on the previous year's performance and teacher recommendations.

Kids have been crossing west across the park to attend Deal/JR for decades. Why can't Lafayette kids cross it east (apart from the unsaid reasons)?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Leaving Lafayette in its current feeder pattern and just moving Shepherd makes sense in that it would give Deal and Wells equal number of feeder schools, and not require Lafayette kids to cross the park. But I think it's politically infeasible to remove only Bancroft and Shepherd from the Deal/JR feeder patterns because those schools have the highest populations of Black and Hispanic students.

Two things that would make the boundary reassignments more palatable would be a commitment to working with DDOT and WMATA on the buses required to get kids where they need to go, and a promise to offer honors English and math...the 6th grade classes would be for kids who score 4s and 5s on the 5th grade PARCC, and 7th and 8th would be based on the previous year's performance and teacher recommendations.

Kids have been crossing west across the park to attend Deal/JR for decades. Why can't Lafayette kids cross it east (apart from the unsaid reasons)?

I'm not involved here (Hardy parent), but perpetuating a harm upon one group simply because a harm has been perpetuated upon a different group previously is the height of selfishness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Leaving Lafayette in its current feeder pattern and just moving Shepherd makes sense in that it would give Deal and Wells equal number of feeder schools, and not require Lafayette kids to cross the park. But I think it's politically infeasible to remove only Bancroft and Shepherd from the Deal/JR feeder patterns because those schools have the highest populations of Black and Hispanic students.

Two things that would make the boundary reassignments more palatable would be a commitment to working with DDOT and WMATA on the buses required to get kids where they need to go, and a promise to offer honors English and math...the 6th grade classes would be for kids who score 4s and 5s on the 5th grade PARCC, and 7th and 8th would be based on the previous year's performance and teacher recommendations.

Kids have been crossing west across the park to attend Deal/JR for decades. Why can't Lafayette kids cross it east (apart from the unsaid reasons)?

https://www.greatschools.org/washington-dc/washington/35-Lafayette-Elementary-School/#Students

[Anonymous]

They should absolutely get rid of OOB feeder rights. There's no reason lottering into a school in K should give you an automatic path to that school's feeders till 12th.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Leaving Lafayette in its current feeder pattern and just moving Shepherd makes sense in that it would give Deal and Wells equal number of feeder schools, and not require Lafayette kids to cross the park. But I think it's politically infeasible to remove only Bancroft and Shepherd from the Deal/JR feeder patterns because those schools have the highest populations of Black and Hispanic students.

Two things that would make the boundary reassignments more palatable would be a commitment to working with DDOT and WMATA on the buses required to get kids where they need to go, and a promise to offer honors English and math...the 6th grade classes would be for kids who score 4s and 5s on the 5th grade PARCC, and 7th and 8th would be based on the previous year's performance and teacher recommendations.

Kids have been crossing west across the park to attend Deal/JR for decades. Why can't Lafayette kids cross it east (apart from the unsaid reasons)?

They definitely can and I would suggest the committee recommend that. The pushback I anticipate is that it leaves Deal underenrolled and Wells overenrolled. But that's fixable: the former by opening up OOB spots, which Lafayette kids would be free to lottery for, and the latter by shifting a middle school grade into the Coolidge building. People may also complain that shifting Lafayette will increase traffic. It would help to offer a bus like the current "Deal bus" that crosses the park and takes kids to and from Wells.

Part of this process is figuring out what makes sense. The other, and maybe bigger, part is figuring out which groups will organize and complain about changes that make sense overall but are seen as harming them (largely by moving their kids or their homes into feeder patterns that have more poor kids). Those groups won't come out and say they don't want their kids going to school with poor kids or that their property values will drop. They will talk about reducing overcrowding, maximizing building capacity, traffic, feeder pattern cohesion, curriculum, how bad it will be for Title I schools to lose that designation, safe street crossings, extracurricular offerings, historical neighborhood boundaries, and literally anything else... but somehow their concerns will always lead to them advocating for their kids going to a richer rather than a poorer school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Leaving Lafayette in its current feeder pattern and just moving Shepherd makes sense in that it would give Deal and Wells equal number of feeder schools, and not require Lafayette kids to cross the park. But I think it's politically infeasible to remove only Bancroft and Shepherd from the Deal/JR feeder patterns because those schools have the highest populations of Black and Hispanic students.

Two things that would make the boundary reassignments more palatable would be a commitment to working with DDOT and WMATA on the buses required to get kids where they need to go, and a promise to offer honors English and math...the 6th grade classes would be for kids who score 4s and 5s on the 5th grade PARCC, and 7th and 8th would be based on the previous year's performance and teacher recommendations.

Kids have been crossing west across the park to attend Deal/JR for decades. Why can't Lafayette kids cross it east (apart from the unsaid reasons)?

Because the rich don’t travel for school, that’s for the poors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here are my ideas:

If you move OOB you only get to stay in your school until the end of the year (exceptions for foster care, homelessness, or legally-required reasons, but centralize that exemption process rather than leaving it with principals and registrars).

If you get into a school OOB, you have rights to it until the terminal year, but no rights to the destination school. This ends the shuffle of people leaving elementaries they like in hopes of a better feeder pattern, reduces overcrowding at in-demand middle and high schools, and creates more equity for people who didn't live in DC when their kids were little or couldn't get little kids across town, but can enter the lottery for older kids. Create a feeder pattern preference in the lottery if necessary for a compromise.

All bilingual elementary schools (and bilingual programs at schools like Marie Reed and Tyler that have bilingual tracks) have programmatic feeder into MacFarland and Roosevelt (that’s right, Oyster and Bancroft lose their Deal/JR feeds). Oyster becomes a PK3-5 school, with younger grades at Oyster and older grades at Adams.

Lafayette and Shepherd to Wells and Coolidge. For folks who say it won’t fit, there is room at Coolidge. Make an 8th grade academy in the Coolidge building and use Wells for just 6th and 7th. If necessary, move Coolidge Early College to Cardozo, which is more centrally located and will have extra space because of the item below.

Francis-Stevens drops the SWW name, gets its own principal, and becomes a PK3-5 school. Schools that feed there for middle go to the new Shaw Middle School along with the schools that already feed into Cardozo. Expect David Alpert, who is on the advisory committee from Ross, to freak out about this, but a 6-school feeder would have the resources to differentiate and offer some good programming.

CHML becomes PK3-5. This creates more PK spots on Capitol Hill, though open to everyone. DCPS offers Montessori middle school program at Brookland middle (closer to Montessori charters, uses underutilized space, and centrally located with CHML, Langdon, and Nalle, all of which would have programmatic feeder rights to the BMS program). The BMS Montessori middle would also take kids at 6th grade if extra space is available.

Make Browne, Walker-Jones, and Wheatley ECs PK3-5 only. Walker-Jones would go to McKinley MS (adding a 3rd feeder to it...right now it's just Langston and Langley) and Dunbar. Browne currently feeds to Eastern and Wheatley to Dunbar, but they'd both go to Eastern (which is closer) and join the middle school options below.

Re-draw Capitol Hill elementary boundaries to be more geographically compact.

Eliot-Hine becomes an arts-focused citywide magnet middle school, providing instruction in the same fields Ellington offers. Possibly run by the folks who run Ellington if they're willing; if not, by DCPS. At-risk preference and then a preference for kids at schools that currently feed to E-H plus Browne and Wheatley. No minimum grade cut-off or focus on pre-existing arts talent/lessons, but some behavior requirements (like no suspensions in the past year, teacher recommendation, etc.) and an essay about why you want to attend or something minimal. Feeds to Eastern. Then, either divide the schools that currently feed Jefferson, Stuart-Hobson, and Eliot-Hine (plus Browne and Wheatley) into JA and SH, or make Jefferson an amazing 6th grade academy for everyone with 7th and 8th at Stuart-Hobson. With Jefferson so close to the Wharf and the Mall, it would be possible to do some really cool partnerships and help the kids build skills and make new friends. A model for this would be Grand Rapids, which has 6th grade-only programs like Zoo School, a nature program, and more.

Fire away, folks!

You cleaned out J/R real quick!

well, I wouldn't have opened MacArthur so that would have helped, but that ship has sailed. Shifting kids to Coolidge and Roosevelt balances the size of those schools and what courses and extracurriculars they can offer. Definitely good for athletics. It also allows for kids from schools with higher test scores to be more spread out, so that people who won't try their IB school because there isn't a "cohort of high achievers" may be more likely to continue in the feeder pattern. This will also open up some more OOB seats at JR, which is metro-accessible, without the school being overcrowded.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow creating an all-city high school lottery would be a big deal. But TR families will never allow it.

I actually have a tweak to suggest in our neighborhood though -- thanks for flagging this OP so I can reach out to suggest my idea.

school wide lottery will decimate the progress DC has made in retaining upper middle class familiies and getting them to commit to Title 1 schools. it was a disaster in San Fran. UMC will definitely move for school certainty

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They should absolutely get rid of OOB feeder rights. There's no reason lottering into a school in K should give you an automatic path to that school's feeders till 12th.

I disagree. The bonds formed in cohorts and communities are valuable and it would be harmful to pull a child out of their cohort and community once established. If feeder rights were removed, there would be mass exodus from DCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here are my ideas:

If you move OOB you only get to stay in your school until the end of the year (exceptions for foster care, homelessness, or legally-required reasons, but centralize that exemption process rather than leaving it with principals and registrars).

If you get into a school OOB, you have rights to it until the terminal year, but no rights to the destination school. This ends the shuffle of people leaving elementaries they like in hopes of a better feeder pattern, reduces overcrowding at in-demand middle and high schools, and creates more equity for people who didn't live in DC when their kids were little or couldn't get little kids across town, but can enter the lottery for older kids. Create a feeder pattern preference in the lottery if necessary for a compromise.

All bilingual elementary schools (and bilingual programs at schools like Marie Reed and Tyler that have bilingual tracks) have programmatic feeder into MacFarland and Roosevelt (that’s right, Oyster and Bancroft lose their Deal/JR feeds). Oyster becomes a PK3-5 school, with younger grades at Oyster and older grades at Adams.

Lafayette and Shepherd to Wells and Coolidge. For folks who say it won’t fit, there is room at Coolidge. Make an 8th grade academy in the Coolidge building and use Wells for just 6th and 7th. If necessary, move Coolidge Early College to Cardozo, which is more centrally located and will have extra space because of the item below.

Francis-Stevens drops the SWW name, gets its own principal, and becomes a PK3-5 school. Schools that feed there for middle go to the new Shaw Middle School along with the schools that already feed into Cardozo. Expect David Alpert, who is on the advisory committee from Ross, to freak out about this, but a 6-school feeder would have the resources to differentiate and offer some good programming.

CHML becomes PK3-5. This creates more PK spots on Capitol Hill, though open to everyone. DCPS offers Montessori middle school program at Brookland middle (closer to Montessori charters, uses underutilized space, and centrally located with CHML, Langdon, and Nalle, all of which would have programmatic feeder rights to the BMS program). The BMS Montessori middle would also take kids at 6th grade if extra space is available.

Make Browne, Walker-Jones, and Wheatley ECs PK3-5 only. Walker-Jones would go to McKinley MS (adding a 3rd feeder to it...right now it's just Langston and Langley) and Dunbar. Browne currently feeds to Eastern and Wheatley to Dunbar, but they'd both go to Eastern (which is closer) and join the middle school options below.

Re-draw Capitol Hill elementary boundaries to be more geographically compact.

Eliot-Hine becomes an arts-focused citywide magnet middle school, providing instruction in the same fields Ellington offers. Possibly run by the folks who run Ellington if they're willing; if not, by DCPS. At-risk preference and then a preference for kids at schools that currently feed to E-H plus Browne and Wheatley. No minimum grade cut-off or focus on pre-existing arts talent/lessons, but some behavior requirements (like no suspensions in the past year, teacher recommendation, etc.) and an essay about why you want to attend or something minimal. Feeds to Eastern. Then, either divide the schools that currently feed Jefferson, Stuart-Hobson, and Eliot-Hine (plus Browne and Wheatley) into JA and SH, or make Jefferson an amazing 6th grade academy for everyone with 7th and 8th at Stuart-Hobson. With Jefferson so close to the Wharf and the Mall, it would be possible to do some really cool partnerships and help the kids build skills and make new friends. A model for this would be Grand Rapids, which has 6th grade-only programs like Zoo School, a nature program, and more.

Fire away, folks!

You cleaned out J/R real quick!

well, I wouldn't have opened MacArthur so that would have helped, but that ship has sailed. Shifting kids to Coolidge and Roosevelt balances the size of those schools and what courses and extracurriculars they can offer. Definitely good for athletics. It also allows for kids from schools with higher test scores to be more spread out, so that people who won't try their IB school because there isn't a "cohort of high achievers" may be more likely to continue in the feeder pattern. This will also open up some more OOB seats at JR, which is metro-accessible, without the school being overcrowded.

I’m skeptical your numbers work, but I do like picturing Lafayette parents freaking out. (And I am a Lafayette parent.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here are my ideas:

If you move OOB you only get to stay in your school until the end of the year (exceptions for foster care, homelessness, or legally-required reasons, but centralize that exemption process rather than leaving it with principals and registrars).

If you get into a school OOB, you have rights to it until the terminal year, but no rights to the destination school. This ends the shuffle of people leaving elementaries they like in hopes of a better feeder pattern, reduces overcrowding at in-demand middle and high schools, and creates more equity for people who didn't live in DC when their kids were little or couldn't get little kids across town, but can enter the lottery for older kids. Create a feeder pattern preference in the lottery if necessary for a compromise.

All bilingual elementary schools (and bilingual programs at schools like Marie Reed and Tyler that have bilingual tracks) have programmatic feeder into MacFarland and Roosevelt (that’s right, Oyster and Bancroft lose their Deal/JR feeds). Oyster becomes a PK3-5 school, with younger grades at Oyster and older grades at Adams.

Lafayette and Shepherd to Wells and Coolidge. For folks who say it won’t fit, there is room at Coolidge. Make an 8th grade academy in the Coolidge building and use Wells for just 6th and 7th. If necessary, move Coolidge Early College to Cardozo, which is more centrally located and will have extra space because of the item below.

Francis-Stevens drops the SWW name, gets its own principal, and becomes a PK3-5 school. Schools that feed there for middle go to the new Shaw Middle School along with the schools that already feed into Cardozo. Expect David Alpert, who is on the advisory committee from Ross, to freak out about this, but a 6-school feeder would have the resources to differentiate and offer some good programming.

CHML becomes PK3-5. This creates more PK spots on Capitol Hill, though open to everyone. DCPS offers Montessori middle school program at Brookland middle (closer to Montessori charters, uses underutilized space, and centrally located with CHML, Langdon, and Nalle, all of which would have programmatic feeder rights to the BMS program). The BMS Montessori middle would also take kids at 6th grade if extra space is available.

Make Browne, Walker-Jones, and Wheatley ECs PK3-5 only. Walker-Jones would go to McKinley MS (adding a 3rd feeder to it...right now it's just Langston and Langley) and Dunbar. Browne currently feeds to Eastern and Wheatley to Dunbar, but they'd both go to Eastern (which is closer) and join the middle school options below.

Re-draw Capitol Hill elementary boundaries to be more geographically compact.

Eliot-Hine becomes an arts-focused citywide magnet middle school, providing instruction in the same fields Ellington offers. Possibly run by the folks who run Ellington if they're willing; if not, by DCPS. At-risk preference and then a preference for kids at schools that currently feed to E-H plus Browne and Wheatley. No minimum grade cut-off or focus on pre-existing arts talent/lessons, but some behavior requirements (like no suspensions in the past year, teacher recommendation, etc.) and an essay about why you want to attend or something minimal. Feeds to Eastern. Then, either divide the schools that currently feed Jefferson, Stuart-Hobson, and Eliot-Hine (plus Browne and Wheatley) into JA and SH, or make Jefferson an amazing 6th grade academy for everyone with 7th and 8th at Stuart-Hobson. With Jefferson so close to the Wharf and the Mall, it would be possible to do some really cool partnerships and help the kids build skills and make new friends. A model for this would be Grand Rapids, which has 6th grade-only programs like Zoo School, a nature program, and more.

Fire away, folks!

You cleaned out J/R real quick!

well, I wouldn't have opened MacArthur so that would have helped, but that ship has sailed. Shifting kids to Coolidge and Roosevelt balances the size of those schools and what courses and extracurriculars they can offer. Definitely good for athletics. It also allows for kids from schools with higher test scores to be more spread out, so that people who won't try their IB school because there isn't a "cohort of high achievers" may be more likely to continue in the feeder pattern. This will also open up some more OOB seats at JR, which is metro-accessible, without the school being overcrowded.

I’m skeptical your numbers work, but I do like picturing Lafayette parents freaking out. (And I am a Lafayette parent.)

It will be interesting to see whether the Lafayette or shepherd community yells louder. I could see them both ending up at wells, both at deal, or just shepherd moving. It puts ward 4 politicians in an interesting spot, to be sure!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They should absolutely get rid of OOB feeder rights. There's no reason lottering into a school in K should give you an automatic path to that school's feeders till 12th.

I disagree. The bonds formed in cohorts and communities are valuable and it would be harmful to pull a child out of their cohort and community once established. If feeder rights were removed, there would be mass exodus from DCPS.

It is also harmful for kids to be pulled out of elementary school for the hope of a better feeder pattern. It harms the schools kids leave, their classmates, and maybe the kids themselves. It definitely creates more traffic and it overcrowded deal and hardy. Allowing a feeder preference, with a percentage of seats for at-risk, would be a better idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
They should absolutely get rid of OOB feeder rights. There's no reason lottering into a school in K should give you an automatic path to that school's feeders till 12th.


I disagree. The bonds formed in cohorts and communities are valuable and it would be harmful to pull a child out of their cohort and community once established. If feeder rights were removed, there would be mass exodus from DCPS.

and there is a faction of DCPS who would not mind that. DCPS only cares about "equity" and "achievement gaps". They do not care about creating and sustaining a school system that is used by the vast majority of the school age population of the District of Columbia like in Arlington, Fairfax or Montgomery County. Their version of "let them eat cake" is "let them pay for private". Close to 50% of the DCPS population is "at risk" while less than 25% of school age children in the District are. That statistic means that there is extremely large number of families (and not all of them wealthy, or white) who do not believe that DCPS will do a good job educating their children. The first priority in boundary/feeder patters should be to try to create another feeder pattern that is deemed rigorous enough by middle class families. The best way to do that would be to have all the Hill ES feed to one middle school, and to install a principal at Eastern who is dedicated to creating another JR in the eastern end of the city.

[Anonymous]

Just to clarify regarding Crestwood and 16th Street Heights. Current 6th graders qualify as in boundary for either Deal or MacFarland, and if they attend Deal now and complete it through 8th grade, they can then feed to J/R.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They should absolutely get rid of OOB feeder rights. There's no reason lottering into a school in K should give you an automatic path to that school's feeders till 12th.

I disagree. The bonds formed in cohorts and communities are valuable and it would be harmful to pull a child out of their cohort and community once established. If feeder rights were removed, there would be mass exodus from DCPS.

Luckily, nobody would be forced to do so. Kids would still have rights to their IB schools, in their communities, from K-12, and more of their entering cohort would stay with them. Those whose families chose to enter the OOB elementary lottery could get a preference for their destination middle and high school if they did want to stay.

There is so much mixing and transition at 6th and 9th grades anyway that those are natural points for kids to make new friends. The current situation, where lottery winners peel off in each of the upper elementary grades (often not because they have a problem with their current school, but for the feeder pattern) is worse for cohorts than this change would be.

This change would actually be a reversion to the status quo ante--Michelle Rhee was the chancellor when PK-12 feeder rights were granted. It's not something that always existed.