DCPS considering moving Hardy to MacArthur Blvd, current Hardy would become a HS

[Anonymous]

Documents https://drive.google.com/drive/mobile/folders/1xc_9YJEZ-snB0FEoFmxfrYsdKhuVXgsc?usp=sharing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t get it. This actually seems like a workable plan. People in the Wilson feeder want “local” schools, the schools are overcrowded. This will result in more of what people want - local schools. Plus there may be more “seats” for OOB students.

So why all the kvetching?

DCPS has committed to new schools at the GDS site and Hardy Rec Center. Since they are within the Wilson boundaries, the only way this doesn't blow the top of Wilson is if more high school space is added, regardless of what grade configuration the new schools have. This plan nets out as a new high school and a new elementary school. Then the question becomes, if you have those three buildings, and need an elementary, a high school and a middle school, what is the best role for each site? Wisconsin Ave is a better site for a high school than MacArthur Blvd. Some day the city will get Jelleff back so it will have an athletic field.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s needed is to get students from Wilson into other existing high schools. DCPS has plenty of real estate, just not the programming.

Meanwhile, try to get a bus to old GDS from anywhere but McArthur Blvd. It would mean middle school students could only get there by there parent’s driving, and HS students could only get there by driving themselves.

Which is why buying the building, without thinking about how it would be used, was such a waste of money.

Can they add a bus line? I mean, why not? Bus lines change all the time. Hardy would be a beautiful HS IMO. Have not seen old GDS up close - my concern is it prob needs some major investment?

Until very recently GDS was a K-8 private school that charged $45k tuition. It's a nice building. DCPS is saying that the early childhood rooms need to be refitted for middle school, and the classrooms are smaller than DCPS norm because private school classes are so much smaller. But it's a nice building.

[Anonymous]

Where did GDS K-8 move to? New campus?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where did GDS K-8 move to? New campus?

Collocated with high school at Davenport/Wisconsin.

[Anonymous]

Wilson is 30% OOB. The problem isn’t space, per se, but the lack of other attractive high schools.

[Anonymous]

+1
Another $125 million because Wilson is 30% OOB and doesn’t want to go to Coolidge Roosevelt Cardozo Anacostia Eastern or wherever. Not because of a need.

And the solution to dc wide middle school education concerns is a middle school on the West side of Georgetown.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:+1
Another $125 million because Wilson is 30% OOB and doesn’t want to go to Coolidge Roosevelt Cardozo Anacostia Eastern or wherever. Not because of a need.

And the solution to dc wide middle school education concerns is a middle school on the West side of Georgetown.

Disagree. City has spent lots of money trying to make non-Wilson schools attractive. This is a solution people want.

[Anonymous]

Go find $125 million in a pandemic somewhere else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wilson is 30% OOB. The problem isn’t space, per se, but the lack of other attractive high schools.

What you say is true now, and has been true for the past 50 years, but it won't be true much longer. According to the Master Facilities Plan, by 2027 all of the high schools in the western half of the city will be full and will have a combined deficit of over a thousand seats.

[Anonymous]

Could you share a page cite for that last claim?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Move lafayette and shepherd out of deal/wilson. Problem solved.

To where? Lafayette has about 120 kids per class (at least k now). The next closest middle is ida b wells. From the numbers it looks like once all three grades are brought in from their current feeders, they have space for maybe 150 more kids total? So you are going to put 360 Lafayette and however many shepherd kids where exactly in wells?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t get it. This actually seems like a workable plan. People in the Wilson feeder want “local” schools, the schools are overcrowded. This will result in more of what people want - local schools. Plus there may be more “seats” for OOB students.

So why all the kvetching?

DCPS has committed to new schools at the GDS site and Hardy Rec Center. Since they are within the Wilson boundaries, the only way this doesn't blow the top of Wilson is if more high school space is added, regardless of what grade configuration the new schools have. This plan nets out as a new high school and a new elementary school. Then the question becomes, if you have those three buildings, and need an elementary, a high school and a middle school, what is the best role for each site? Wisconsin Ave is a better site for a high school than MacArthur Blvd. Some day the city will get Jelleff back so it will have an athletic field.

It’s not that there “may” be more OOB seats. There DEFINITELY will be more OOB seats. That’s is the plan. This has nothing to do,with overcrowding at Deal or Wilson.

[Anonymous]

Wait so we build FOR out of boundary seats on MacArthur Blvd?

[Anonymous]

So would the new HS ONLY feed from Hardy Middle? I 100% agree we need a new HS in the Hardy/Deal feeder pattern, but if the HS feeds from Hardy, then it doesn't matter if one is easier to get to than the other, right? Although presumably HS students can travel a bit further on their own than MS students, I guess.