Overcrowded Schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Can't add Capital Hill because the recommendations don't appear to resolve over-crowding issues there. I defined the topic as overcrowding because that is the issue that I was always told this was supposed to resolve. To your point about creating Deal@Unicorn, we were specifically told these recommendations were not about improving schools. But, if you want to create a topic about that, feel free.

The recommendations will help resolve stirrings of over-crowding on the Hill in a roundabout way. Because the Brent and Maury IB parents are effectively being told that they will not have viable by-right middle schools, or a high school either, for at least 15 years, the recommendations are already serving to dampen demand somewhat.

Hill parents know that demand at Washington Latin and BASIS,where there is no longer room for all comers, will increase steadily over the years.

Point of info. Do any kids at Latin or BASIS come from areas IB to Hardy, to Unicorn MS, or to the other two proposed MS's EOTP? If so, is it possible that continued change at Hardy, and execution of the plan for the new middle schools, will mean slots open up at Latin and BASIS?

[Anonymous]

More kids who are in-boundary for Hardy attend Basis and Latin than Hardy.

According to this article:
http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/73_of_students_in_dcs_20008_zip_code_attend_private_school/8863?utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=Wednesday+August+13th%2C+2014&utm_medium=keep_reading_link

68% of the kids in zip code 20007, which overlaps somewhat with Hardy's boundaries, attend private school.

An improvement in Hardy would have an impact on both groups.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:It seems that a number of boundary changes that were incacruan the Advisory Committee recommendations were not included in the final recommendations. Yet, no complaining about wealthy whiners. It's starting to look to me as if the entire city is getting new boundary maps because of Deal and Wilson overcrowding.

3 problems with this oversimplistic interpretation:
- look at the actual numbers, close to all Ward 3 schools are overcrowded by common standards today
- look at the projected numbers, this is only getting worse given trends
- the DME.report explicitly identified many other problems, such as overlapping boundaries, areas with no assigned school, too much commuting time and lack of walk ability...

Right or wrong, the DME did try its best at planning hoblimprove THE SYSTEM for everyone. It is predictable that some special interests dont like the results.

Just like the previous post, you prefer to ignore facts and concentrate on simply arguing with me. Let's take the first and second of your listed "problems". What difference do the current and projected numbers make if the boundaries did not change? I asked to list schools that had over-crowding problems that were fixed by the final recommendations. Several schools that are commonly said to be filled to the brim or overcrowded had no changes to their boundaries at all. Others actually had their boundaries enlarged. All I asked for was a list of schools whose overcrowding problems were resolved by the recommendations. If you have a candidate for the list, please offer it. Obviously, I know about Deal and Wilson.

Sad. Jeff, is demagoguery that much fun? This half-baked thread is pointless from the start. There are full reports done by CSPS and DME showing overcrowding, and I can't believe you haven't seen then. Are you going rogue ala Sarah Palin?

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:It seems that a number of boundary changes that were incacruan the Advisory Committee recommendations were not included in the final recommendations. Yet, no complaining about wealthy whiners. It's starting to look to me as if the entire city is getting new boundary maps because of Deal and Wilson overcrowding.

3 problems with this oversimplistic interpretation:
- look at the actual numbers, close to all Ward 3 schools are overcrowded by common standards today
- look at the projected numbers, this is only getting worse given trends
- the DME.report explicitly identified many other problems, such as overlapping boundaries, areas with no assigned school, too much commuting time and lack of walk ability...

Right or wrong, the DME did try its best at planning hoblimprove THE SYSTEM for everyone. It is predictable that some special interests dont like the results.

Just like the previous post, you prefer to ignore facts and concentrate on simply arguing with me. Let's take the first and second of your listed "problems". What difference do the current and projected numbers make if the boundaries did not change? I asked to list schools that had over-crowding problems that were fixed by the final recommendations. Several schools that are commonly said to be filled to the brim or overcrowded had no changes to their boundaries at all. Others actually had their boundaries enlarged. All I asked for was a list of schools whose overcrowding problems were resolved by the recommendations. If you have a candidate for the list, please offer it. Obviously, I know about Deal and Wilson.

Sad. Jeff, is demagoguery that much fun? This half-baked thread is pointless from the start. There are full reports done by CSPS and DME showing overcrowding, and I can't believe you haven't seen then. Are you going rogue ala Sarah Palin?

Wow, you accuse me of demagoguery and call me Sarah Palin in the same post? My question -- what schools have had their overcrowding problems resolved by the final recommendations? -- is fairly simple. The fact that it is causing considerable hyperventilation among certain posters is very telling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Can't add Capital Hill because the recommendations don't appear to resolve over-crowding issues there. I defined the topic as overcrowding because that is the issue that I was always told this was supposed to resolve. To your point about creating Deal@Unicorn, we were specifically told these recommendations were not about improving schools. But, if you want to create a topic about that, feel free.

The recommendations will help resolve stirrings of over-crowding on the Hill in a roundabout way. Because the Brent and Maury IB parents are effectively being told that they will not have viable by-right middle schools, or a high school either, for at least 15 years, the recommendations are already serving to dampen demand somewhat.

Hill parents know that demand at Washington Latin and BASIS,where there is no longer room for all comers, will increase steadily over the years.

Point of info. Do any kids at Latin or BASIS come from areas IB to Hardy, to Unicorn MS, or to the other two proposed MS's EOTP? If so, is it possible that continued change at Hardy, and execution of the plan for the new middle schools, will mean slots open up at Latin and BASIS?

It's more likely in the foreseeable future that slots at good charters like Washington Latin will be even harder to get, if it sticks that schools that previously fed to Deal MS are pushed to schools that are perceived as lesser quality. More students will be seeking berths at Latin as early as grade 5.

[ edited by moderator to fix quoting. ]

[Anonymous]

This might be clearer if it were focused individually on Elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools.

It seems to be saying "this plan does not really address the problem of crowded elementary schools in UNW, ergo the large scale changes in feeder patterns for middle schools and high schools are not warrented, or at least not urgent"

Which is illogical, to say the least.

The new feeder patterns for high schools address crowding at Wilson. Once you push schools like Eastern HS further west to do that, you have to change the boundary of Eastern with schools further east, etc. That really has nothing to do with whether the plan fixes crowding in Janney or wherever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:
Can't add Capital Hill because the recommendations don't appear to resolve over-crowding issues there. I defined the topic as overcrowding because that is the issue that I was always told this was supposed to resolve. To your point about creating Deal@Unicorn, we were specifically told these recommendations were not about improving schools. But, if you want to create a topic about that, feel free.

The recommendations will help resolve stirrings of over-crowding on the Hill in a roundabout way. Because the Brent and Maury IB parents are effectively being told that they will not have viable by-right middle schools, or a high school either, for at least 15 years, the recommendations are already serving to dampen demand somewhat.

Hill parents know that demand at Washington Latin and BASIS,where there is no longer room for all comers, will increase steadily over the years.

Point of info. Do any kids at Latin or BASIS come from areas IB to Hardy, to Unicorn MS, or to the other two proposed MS's EOTP? If so, is it possible that continued change at Hardy, and execution of the plan for the new middle schools, will mean slots open up at Latin and BASIS?

It's more likely in the foreseeable future that slots at good charters like Washington Latin will be even harder to get, if it sticks that schools that previously fed to Deal MS are pushed to schools that are perceived as lesser quality. More students will be seeking berths at Latin as early as grade 5.

That would offset to some degree. It seems to me that the transition of Hardy alone, though, is likely to have a bigger impact than the folks cut out of Deal. And of course it depends what you think will happen with the three new EOTP middle schools. I mean I suppose DME could have said "DCPS and DC govt is guaranteed to screw up the middle schools, so we should not move anyone out of Deal no matter how crowded it gets" but I just have a hard time seeing them saying that.

[ edited by moderator to fix quoting. ]

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Murch has children who are still bussed from their underperforming school. There is only a handful left but Murch used to be a "receiving" school. Once the kids are in they became part of the community and continued through 5th grade. That system has changed and isn't done any longer.

If you follow the lottery you will see that Murch hasn't had seats open in the lottery for a number of years. Some kids do get in off waitlist in pre-k but typically less than 5. The few OOB kids account for very few of the 200+ kids over capacity the school is. Capacity is 488 and Murch is close to 700 (680 or so).

Just to put those numbers in perspective, almost half of the learning space is outside of the main building (the 488 includes the 1980 temporary space holding 5 classrooms). Now, 17 or 18 rooms are in trailers (including admin space). That's the size of an entire elementary school. If I'm not mistaken, Murch's trailer space is larger than the entire capacity of Ross or Hearst. The feasibility study will tell us whether or not a new building can accommodate the current population, let alone the projected growth; and if not, more adjustments will have to be made, which was noted in the second proposal. A lot is still up in the air. But that doesn't change the fact that all of those kids, whether some are rezoned to Lafayette or Hearst or a new elementary school in Ward 3 the size of Murch's trailers, will feed to Deal and Wilson. The current second grades at Murch, Janney, and Lafayette alone will send 15 6th grade classes to Deal in 2017.

Reading this, I wonder why Hearst isn't just repurposed as a neighborhood school if there is so much capacity demand in the immediate area. For years Hearst has served a largely OOB population. I would shift that capacity to IB before building a new school in Ward 3. It's unclear where a new elementary school would go in W3, although the Second District police site on Idaho Ave. would make a lot of sense because it is surrounded by a lot of space currently used for vehicle storage and adjacent to student-rich areas like McLean Gardens. Besides, mega-fortress stations are so passe -- the trend in policing for the last several decades has been toward much smaller, neighborhood centered police facilities (like the one on Dupont Circle). The property could better serve as a new public school site.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:It seems that a number of boundary changes that were incacruan the Advisory Committee recommendations were not included in the final recommendations. Yet, no complaining about wealthy whiners. It's starting to look to me as if the entire city is getting new boundary maps because of Deal and Wilson overcrowding.

3 problems with this oversimplistic interpretation:
- look at the actual numbers, close to all Ward 3 schools are overcrowded by common standards today
- look at the projected numbers, this is only getting worse given trends
- the DME.report explicitly identified many other problems, such as overlapping boundaries, areas with no assigned school, too much commuting time and lack of walk ability...

Right or wrong, the DME did try its best at planning hoblimprove THE SYSTEM for everyone. It is predictable that some special interests dont like the results.

Just like the previous post, you prefer to ignore facts and concentrate on simply arguing with me. Let's take the first and second of your listed "problems". What difference do the current and projected numbers make if the boundaries did not change? I asked to list schools that had over-crowding problems that were fixed by the final recommendations. Several schools that are commonly said to be filled to the brim or overcrowded had no changes to their boundaries at all. Others actually had their boundaries enlarged. All I asked for was a list of schools whose overcrowding problems were resolved by the recommendations. If you have a candidate for the list, please offer it. Obviously, I know about Deal and Wilson.

Sad. Jeff, is demagoguery that much fun? This half-baked thread is pointless from the start. There are full reports done by CSPS and DME showing overcrowding, and I can't believe you haven't seen then. Are you going rogue ala Sarah Palin?

Wow, you accuse me of demagoguery and call me Sarah Palin in the same post? My question -- what schools have had their overcrowding problems resolved by the final recommendations? -- is fairly simple. The fact that it is causing considerable hyperventilation among certain posters is very telling.

Here is your OP

"In discussions about boundary and feeder changes, I keep seeing posts saying that these changes need to go through -- imperfect or not -- because there is massive over-crowding that needs to be addressed. But, most schools in DC are under-enrolled."


your clear implication is that the overcrowding does not need to be addressed (or somehow could have been addressed without signficant changes to boundaries. That seems to me to be what has people upset, and rightfully so. There is also your somewhat less clear implication that overcrowding is the only reason that boundaries are changing.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:This might be clearer if it were focused individually on Elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools.

It seems to be saying "this plan does not really address the problem of crowded elementary schools in UNW, ergo the large scale changes in feeder patterns for middle schools and high schools are not warrented, or at least not urgent"

Which is illogical, to say the least.

The new feeder patterns for high schools address crowding at Wilson. Once you push schools like Eastern HS further west to do that, you have to change the boundary of Eastern with schools further east, etc. That really has nothing to do with whether the plan fixes crowding in Janney or wherever.

You are misunderstanding. I am not making the argument that you claim I'm making. I'm not arguing at all, but simply trying to gather a list of schools whose overcrowding problems were resolved by the final recommendations. The list I have compiled includes Deal, Wilson, Murch, and Stoddert. If you have other schools to add to the list, please suggest them. This really shouldn't be that complicated of a thread.

[Anonymous]

Just a quick point about Lafayette and Murch: Even though it is currently overcrowded, Lafayette's enrollment is projected to go down. Murch's enrollment is projected to continue rising. Also, Lafayette's reno will be done well before Murch's. That's why the decision to move some of the Murch boundary to Lafayette made sense, although I imagine things will be hairy at Lafayette in 2015/16.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:It seems that a number of boundary changes that were incacruan the Advisory Committee recommendations were not included in the final recommendations. Yet, no complaining about wealthy whiners. It's starting to look to me as if the entire city is getting new boundary maps because of Deal and Wilson overcrowding.

3 problems with this oversimplistic interpretation:
- look at the actual numbers, close to all Ward 3 schools are overcrowded by common standards today
- look at the projected numbers, this is only getting worse given trends
- the DME.report explicitly identified many other problems, such as overlapping boundaries, areas with no assigned school, too much commuting time and lack of walk ability...

Right or wrong, the DME did try its best at planning hoblimprove THE SYSTEM for everyone. It is predictable that some special interests dont like the results.

Just like the previous post, you prefer to ignore facts and concentrate on simply arguing with me. Let's take the first and second of your listed "problems". What difference do the current and projected numbers make if the boundaries did not change? I asked to list schools that had over-crowding problems that were fixed by the final recommendations. Several schools that are commonly said to be filled to the brim or overcrowded had no changes to their boundaries at all. Others actually had their boundaries enlarged. All I asked for was a list of schools whose overcrowding problems were resolved by the recommendations. If you have a candidate for the list, please offer it. Obviously, I know about Deal and Wilson.

Sad. Jeff, is demagoguery that much fun? This half-baked thread is pointless from the start. There are full reports done by CSPS and DME showing overcrowding, and I can't believe you haven't seen then. Are you going rogue ala Sarah Palin?

Wow, you accuse me of demagoguery and call me Sarah Palin in the same post? My question -- what schools have had their overcrowding problems resolved by the final recommendations? -- is fairly simple. The fact that it is causing considerable hyperventilation among certain posters is very telling.

Here is your OP

"In discussions about boundary and feeder changes, I keep seeing posts saying that these changes need to go through -- imperfect or not -- because there is massive over-crowding that needs to be addressed. But, most schools in DC are under-enrolled."


your clear implication is that the overcrowding does not need to be addressed (or somehow could have been addressed without signficant changes to boundaries. That seems to me to be what has people upset, and rightfully so. There is also your somewhat less clear implication that overcrowding is the only reason that boundaries are changing.

The implication of my post is exactly what I said in my post. What schools had their overcrowding problems resolved by the final recommendations?

I started this thread based on a hypothesis that a list of such schools would be very short. But, I haven't checked the new boundaries of every single school. Therefore, I assumed that posters might identify additional schools. Instead, what has happened is a lot of consternation among posters who seem to believe my extremely simple query is inflammatory, if not downright insulting. Any implications can rightfully be drawn from the lack of schools in the list.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Murch has children who are still bussed from their underperforming school. There is only a handful left but Murch used to be a "receiving" school. Once the kids are in they became part of the community and continued through 5th grade. That system has changed and isn't done any longer.

If you follow the lottery you will see that Murch hasn't had seats open in the lottery for a number of years. Some kids do get in off waitlist in pre-k but typically less than 5. The few OOB kids account for very few of the 200+ kids over capacity the school is. Capacity is 488 and Murch is close to 700 (680 or so).

Just to put those numbers in perspective, almost half of the learning space is outside of the main building (the 488 includes the 1980 temporary space holding 5 classrooms). Now, 17 or 18 rooms are in trailers (including admin space). That's the size of an entire elementary school. If I'm not mistaken, Murch's trailer space is larger than the entire capacity of Ross or Hearst. The feasibility study will tell us whether or not a new building can accommodate the current population, let alone the projected growth; and if not, more adjustments will have to be made, which was noted in the second proposal. A lot is still up in the air. But that doesn't change the fact that all of those kids, whether some are rezoned to Lafayette or Hearst or a new elementary school in Ward 3 the size of Murch's trailers, will feed to Deal and Wilson. The current second grades at Murch, Janney, and Lafayette alone will send 15 6th grade classes to Deal in 2017.

Reading this, I wonder why Hearst isn't just repurposed as a neighborhood school if there is so much capacity demand in the immediate area. For years Hearst has served a largely OOB population. I would shift that capacity to IB before building a new school in Ward 3. It's unclear where a new elementary school would go in W3, although the Second District police site on Idaho Ave. would make a lot of sense because it is surrounded by a lot of space currently used for vehicle storage and adjacent to student-rich areas like McLean Gardens. Besides, mega-fortress stations are so passe -- the trend in policing for the last several decades has been toward much smaller, neighborhood centered police facilities (like the one on Dupont Circle). The property could better serve as a new public school site.

Perhaps you didn't see the 37 page "Murch Boundary" thread. The panel tried to nibble at this in the first proposal and got ripped to shreds for it. You know, because "no student should be moved from a higher performing school to a lower one."

[Anonymous]

Here's one: Amidon-Bowen. It's not overcrowded now, but 82% of the kids there are from in-boundary, and its current boundary has literally thousands of housing units under construction. They had to add a 3rd section of 2nd graders this year and take over classrooms that had been used by Appletree. PK3 and PK4 had waitlists including in-bounds students (not sure how much these waitlists cleared after the second round of the lottery) and since it's a Title 1 school, all the in-bound families would have a right to attend PK there in 2015-6. Shrinking its boundaries was a good choice because it prevents overcrowding and allowed for a school to open in the Navy Yard area.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:It seems that a number of boundary changes that were incacruan the Advisory Committee recommendations were not included in the final recommendations. Yet, no complaining about wealthy whiners. It's starting to look to me as if the entire city is getting new boundary maps because of Deal and Wilson overcrowding.

3 problems with this oversimplistic interpretation:
- look at the actual numbers, close to all Ward 3 schools are overcrowded by common standards today
- look at the projected numbers, this is only getting worse given trends
- the DME.report explicitly identified many other problems, such as overlapping boundaries, areas with no assigned school, too much commuting time and lack of walk ability...

Right or wrong, the DME did try its best at planning hoblimprove THE SYSTEM for everyone. It is predictable that some special interests dont like the results.

Just like the previous post, you prefer to ignore facts and concentrate on simply arguing with me. Let's take the first and second of your listed "problems". What difference do the current and projected numbers make if the boundaries did not change? I asked to list schools that had over-crowding problems that were fixed by the final recommendations. Several schools that are commonly said to be filled to the brim or overcrowded had no changes to their boundaries at all. Others actually had their boundaries enlarged. All I asked for was a list of schools whose overcrowding problems were resolved by the recommendations. If you have a candidate for the list, please offer it. Obviously, I know about Deal and Wilson.

Sad. Jeff, is demagoguery that much fun? This half-baked thread is pointless from the start. There are full reports done by CSPS and DME showing overcrowding, and I can't believe you haven't seen then. Are you going rogue ala Sarah Palin?

Wow, you accuse me of demagoguery and call me Sarah Palin in the same post? My question -- what schools have had their overcrowding problems resolved by the final recommendations? -- is fairly simple. The fact that it is causing considerable hyperventilation among certain posters is very telling.

Here is your OP

"In discussions about boundary and feeder changes, I keep seeing posts saying that these changes need to go through -- imperfect or not -- because there is massive over-crowding that needs to be addressed. But, most schools in DC are under-enrolled."


your clear implication is that the overcrowding does not need to be addressed (or somehow could have been addressed without signficant changes to boundaries. That seems to me to be what has people upset, and rightfully so. There is also your somewhat less clear implication that overcrowding is the only reason that boundaries are changing.

The implication of my post is exactly what I said in my post. What schools had their overcrowding problems resolved by the final recommendations?

I started this thread based on a hypothesis that a list of such schools would be very short. But, I haven't checked the new boundaries of every single school. Therefore, I assumed that posters might identify additional schools. Instead, what has happened is a lot of consternation among posters who seem to believe my extremely simple query is inflammatory, if not downright insulting. Any implications can rightfully be drawn from the lack of schools in the list.

Help me then, what implications do you draw. There is, IIUC, a massive overcrowding problem at Wilson. That means redrawing Wilson boundaries, with knock on effects on hgih schools across the district. There is IIUC a massive overcrowding problem at Deal, which means redrawing Deal - the knock on effects of that, combined with general dissatisfaction with EC's means considerable change to MS boundaries. Elementary boundaries are being changed mostly for reasons unrelated to overcrowding, AFAICT - for walkability, to simplify feeder patterns, etc.

In which case the lack of schools on the list has NO implication for the necessity of these changes. Do you agree?