New DME master facilities plan released

[Anonymous]

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[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^ This argument is a red herring based on very outdated data.

The Lab School has 350 students from DC, MD and VA. In 2017-18 only 33 Lab students have their tuition being paid for by OSSE (see link below)

There is no reason to think that if Lab lost the old Hardy bldg that these students would either end up in a traditional public school, or if they did, would all be IB for a Wilson feeder.

https://osse.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/osse/page_content/attachments/SY17-18%20Annual%20Enrollment%20Audit%20Report_02152018.xlsx

Yup. I'm a Lab neighbor and I was at a school event where a spokesman for the school referred to it as "quasi-public." Uh, no. It's so insulting to people who work in real public education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looks like the lobbyists were successful in keeping the Old Hardy school out of the report.

Isn't that building still under lease until 2023?

Why would the city have factored it in for planning purposes? The Ward 3 overcrowding issue is much, much bigger than booting out a special education school with a max occupancy of 90 kids in a rundown building with very demanding neighbors who would fight any increase in traffic.

Let...it...go.

You left out "private" in your description of the current tenant.

2023 is well within the planning horizon of the master facilities plan. And shouldn't it be 2022 anyway? The original lease was for 25 years starting January 1998 so 25 year would be December, 2022. So they'd have to be out by June 2022 -- which is three school years away.

The building is exactly the same as the main parts of Key, Mann and Stoddert, they were all built at the same time from the same plans. The city-owned plot at Hardy is much larger than any of those.

Lab School is private but it's not like Sidwell or Maret. It's for special ed and has a few DC-funded kids not being served by DC public and charters. The city is awful at serving kids with disabilities. Historically, Lab had a higher amount of DC kids. Randomly cutting funding hurt DC families who couldn't afford tuition upfront and lawyers to sue for reimbursement. Meanwhile, there are a lot of DC kids who are suffering unnecessarily in DCPS public and charter schools. These kids legally deserve a free education, just like yours.

How about pressuring DCPS to serve more kids with disabilities instead of continuing to selfishly covet a space with zero likelihood of physically expanding thanks to NIMBYism.

Is there any evidence that Old Hardy is a viable option for solving the bigger problems of overcrowding? There will likely be increases in kids with learning disabilities along with the general population. Do those of you who covet the Old Hardy space for a neighborhood school have any ideas on how to serve the current and future students with disabilities?

Many private schools also serve special-ed kids. It wouldn't surprise me if Sidwell serves more special-ed DC residents than Lab does.

Ha! Not if they can help it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d give charters money to bring facilities up to modern if they could publicly prove that’s what they did with the money. The shocking thing now is that they want the money but not to prove they did what they get the money for. I don’t go for that even on kids’ chores.

And they currently get something like $3600 a head for facilities. Maybe not enough to build something new, but that's what - about $20k per classroom amortized across an entire facility? Tell me that ta lot of this money isn't going to consultants??!? DC taxpayers will never know.

What is the fully amortized DCPS equivalent? Nobody knows.

+1.

The number of falling DCPS schools getting $100M+ buildings while successful ones have trailers is truly insane.

+1000.

[Anonymous]

Do the facility plans address crowding in ward 3?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d give charters money to bring facilities up to modern if they could publicly prove that’s what they did with the money. The shocking thing now is that they want the money but not to prove they did what they get the money for. I don’t go for that even on kids’ chores.

And they currently get something like $3600 a head for facilities. Maybe not enough to build something new, but that's what - about $20k per classroom amortized across an entire facility? Tell me that ta lot of this money isn't going to consultants??!? DC taxpayers will never know.

What is the fully amortized DCPS equivalent? Nobody knows.

+1.

The number of falling DCPS schools getting $100M+ buildings while successful ones have trailers is truly insane.

+1000.

That’s because they want to make the failing schools enticing two potential new families. The trailers are because those are the schools that everyone wants to go to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do the facility plans address crowding in ward 3?

No.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ This argument is a red herring based on very outdated data.

The Lab School has 350 students from DC, MD and VA. In 2017-18 only 33 Lab students have their tuition being paid for by OSSE (see link below)

There is no reason to think that if Lab lost the old Hardy bldg that these students would either end up in a traditional public school, or if they did, would all be IB for a Wilson feeder.

https://osse.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/osse/page_content/attachments/SY17-18%20Annual%20Enrollment%20Audit%20Report_02152018.xlsx

Yup. I'm a Lab neighbor and I was at a school event where a spokesman for the school referred to it as "quasi-public." Uh, no. It's so insulting to people who work in real public education.

I was thinking that it might be so insulting to people who work at the Lab School....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ This argument is a red herring based on very outdated data.

The Lab School has 350 students from DC, MD and VA. In 2017-18 only 33 Lab students have their tuition being paid for by OSSE (see link below)

There is no reason to think that if Lab lost the old Hardy bldg that these students would either end up in a traditional public school, or if they did, would all be IB for a Wilson feeder.

https://osse.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/osse/page_content/attachments/SY17-18%20Annual%20Enrollment%20Audit%20Report_02152018.xlsx

Yup. I'm a Lab neighbor and I was at a school event where a spokesman for the school referred to it as "quasi-public." Uh, no. It's so insulting to people who work in real public education.

I was thinking that it might be so insulting to people who work at the Lab School....

...because...?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So according to the utilization grid, the only DC or charter schools at more than 110% capacity for SY 2017-18 were:

110%+ -- Powell, Roosevelt and SWW

95-110% -- Wilson, Janney, Lafayette, Maury, Ross, Eaton, Brent, Oyster-Adams (Adams) - 95-110%

80-95% -- Deal, Oyster-Adams (Oyster), Hearst, Hardy, Shepherd


I can't find Murch or Bancroft on the grid; either because I missed them or perhaps because they were in swing space during 17-18?

Page A-16 https://dme.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dme/publication/attachments/DC%20Public%20Education%20Master%20Facilities%20Plan%202018.pdf

The report uses "programmatic capacity." During the Wilson Feeder Working Group process programmatic capacity was pretty well discredited as meaningless, it's just however many kids DCPS wants to put into the building.

Yes, don't let this point get lost.

Example: they count space in trailers as if it were the building. Example: Deal added yet more trailers this year -- adding trailers obviously only happens when you exceed capacity, yet magically, this now means Deal is at 80-95% of capacity. Smoke and mirrors.

On the Murch question, yes they were in swing space for 2 years when this was counted. Enrollment dropped while in swing, they moved to new building this school year, watch for the post-renovation return/boom in the next year or two.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So according to the utilization grid, the only DC or charter schools at more than 110% capacity for SY 2017-18 were:

110%+ -- Powell, Roosevelt and SWW

95-110% -- Wilson, Janney, Lafayette, Maury, Ross, Eaton, Brent, Oyster-Adams (Adams) - 95-110%

80-95% -- Deal, Oyster-Adams (Oyster), Hearst, Hardy, Shepherd


I can't find Murch or Bancroft on the grid; either because I missed them or perhaps because they were in swing space during 17-18?

Page A-16 https://dme.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dme/publication/attachments/DC%20Public%20Education%20Master%20Facilities%20Plan%202018.pdf

The report uses "programmatic capacity." During the Wilson Feeder Working Group process programmatic capacity was pretty well discredited as meaningless, it's just however many kids DCPS wants to put into the building.

Yes, don't let this point get lost.

Example: they count space in trailers as if it were the building. Example: Deal added yet more trailers this year -- adding trailers obviously only happens when you exceed capacity, yet magically, this now means Deal is at 80-95% of capacity. Smoke and mirrors.

On the Murch question, yes they were in swing space for 2 years when this was counted. Enrollment dropped while in swing, they moved to new building this school year, watch for the post-renovation return/boom in the next year or two.

From the Wilson Feeder Community Working Group summary report:

Capacity Calculation Formula
The formula for calculating capacity looks primarily at spaces programmed for classroom instruction rather than overall building square footage. DCPS calculates a total capacity for the building based on the number of classrooms and their use. Rooms used for administrative spaces, specials, resource rooms and common spaces, for example, do not count toward a schools’ total capacity.

Many participants expressed concerns about the capacity numbers reported by DCPS noting that in certain cases capacity numbers have increased over time despite no increase in square footage.

[Anonymous]

Why does the DME have his kids at a private school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ This argument is a red herring based on very outdated data.

The Lab School has 350 students from DC, MD and VA. In 2017-18 only 33 Lab students have their tuition being paid for by OSSE (see link below)

There is no reason to think that if Lab lost the old Hardy bldg that these students would either end up in a traditional public school, or if they did, would all be IB for a Wilson feeder.

https://osse.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/osse/page_content/attachments/SY17-18%20Annual%20Enrollment%20Audit%20Report_02152018.xlsx

Yup. I'm a Lab neighbor and I was at a school event where a spokesman for the school referred to it as "quasi-public." Uh, no. It's so insulting to people who work in real public education.

I was thinking that it might be so insulting to people who work at the Lab School....

...because...?

DCPS and OSSE are not exactly the Tiffany standard....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d give charters money to bring facilities up to modern if they could publicly prove that’s what they did with the money. The shocking thing now is that they want the money but not to prove they did what they get the money for. I don’t go for that even on kids’ chores.

And they currently get something like $3600 a head for facilities. Maybe not enough to build something new, but that's what - about $20k per classroom amortized across an entire facility? Tell me that ta lot of this money isn't going to consultants??!? DC taxpayers will never know.

What is the fully amortized DCPS equivalent? Nobody knows.

+1.

The number of falling DCPS schools getting $100M+ buildings while successful ones have trailers is truly insane.

+1000.

That’s because they want to make the failing schools enticing two potential new families. The trailers are because those are the schools that everyone wants to go to.

Very stupid and very expensive policy-making.

Things just don't work that way.

[Anonymous]

So I just noticed something in the plan. On page 86 they show the projections for school-age population over the next ten years. The number of school-age kids is going to grow from 96,000 to 120,500 in ten years – a gain of 24,500 kids. On page 89 they show projected enrollment by sector. Today there are 91,484 kids in some sort of public school in DC; 95% of DC kids attend public school. They are projecting 109,800 in ten years. This is a healthy gain, 18,500 kids, but it also means that the percentage of kids in public will drop to 91%. The number of kids in private will go from 4,556 today to 10,700 – a gain of over 6,000 and 135%.

I don't think it's realistic, I don't think private schools can absorb anywhere near that many kids, most are constrained by zoning and already at capacity. I suspect it's a way of soft-pedaling the enrollment projections.