Why is the overcrowding issue so complex?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have to recommend again this article:
https://ggwash.org/view/71802/can-dcps-survive-the-coming-enrollment-surge

Money quote:

For most of the past 50 years, DC Public Schools (DCPS) has had way too many schools, and the most pressing facilities issue for the agency has been how to close and dispose of unneeded buildings in an orderly manner. Even though DC has gained over 22,000 public school students since 2008, and between 2008 and 2013 DCPS shrunk from 134 to 110 schools, the number of seats still exceeds the number of students by about 25%.

Today, DCPS has a capacity of 61,925 seats and only 48,043 students, according to the Master Facilities Plan. However, if the projections hold, by 2027 – which is only eight years away – DCPS will have 61,697 students. For the first time in 60 years—two generations—DCPS is going to be full. And it's likely going to grow from there.

Ward 3 is seeing what the rest of the city is going to be seeing very soon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have to recommend again this article:
https://ggwash.org/view/71802/can-dcps-survive-the-coming-enrollment-surge

Money quote:

For most of the past 50 years, DC Public Schools (DCPS) has had way too many schools, and the most pressing facilities issue for the agency has been how to close and dispose of unneeded buildings in an orderly manner. Even though DC has gained over 22,000 public school students since 2008, and between 2008 and 2013 DCPS shrunk from 134 to 110 schools, the number of seats still exceeds the number of students by about 25%.

Today, DCPS has a capacity of 61,925 seats and only 48,043 students, according to the Master Facilities Plan. However, if the projections hold, by 2027 – which is only eight years away – DCPS will have 61,697 students. For the first time in 60 years—two generations—DCPS is going to be full. And it's likely going to grow from there.

Ward 3 is seeing what the rest of the city is going to be seeing very soon.

I wonder if politicians doubt projections and prioritize other needs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have to recommend again this article:
https://ggwash.org/view/71802/can-dcps-survive-the-coming-enrollment-surge

Money quote:

For most of the past 50 years, DC Public Schools (DCPS) has had way too many schools, and the most pressing facilities issue for the agency has been how to close and dispose of unneeded buildings in an orderly manner. Even though DC has gained over 22,000 public school students since 2008, and between 2008 and 2013 DCPS shrunk from 134 to 110 schools, the number of seats still exceeds the number of students by about 25%.

Today, DCPS has a capacity of 61,925 seats and only 48,043 students, according to the Master Facilities Plan. However, if the projections hold, by 2027 – which is only eight years away – DCPS will have 61,697 students. For the first time in 60 years—two generations—DCPS is going to be full. And it's likely going to grow from there.

Ward 3 is seeing what the rest of the city is going to be seeing very soon.

I wonder if politicians doubt projections and prioritize other needs?

It's hard for politicians to look past the next election.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is very simple and they don't want to do it because it would make the school system way more segregated than it already is, there would be so much blowback politically. This should be obvious to you.

But there are set aside seats for at-risk students and Bancroft and Shepherd are diverse enough to not give off a segregation feel.

DCPS has to plan for the long term and Bancroft and Shepherd may become less diverse. And it would make Wilson less diverse overall. It may be that the OOB population at Bancroft and Shepherd is more diverse than the IB population, I don't know. Bottom line, you might be okay with the school system becoming more segregated but DCPS and the Mayor clearly are not.

No, they don't. There are other ways to deal with overcrowding. They could change and/or shrink the boundaries. That many UMC view this as the only way to deal with existing problems doesn't mean that DC leadership does or should view it that way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have to recommend again this article:
https://ggwash.org/view/71802/can-dcps-survive-the-coming-enrollment-surge

Money quote:

For most of the past 50 years, DC Public Schools (DCPS) has had way too many schools, and the most pressing facilities issue for the agency has been how to close and dispose of unneeded buildings in an orderly manner. Even though DC has gained over 22,000 public school students since 2008, and between 2008 and 2013 DCPS shrunk from 134 to 110 schools, the number of seats still exceeds the number of students by about 25%.

Today, DCPS has a capacity of 61,925 seats and only 48,043 students, according to the Master Facilities Plan. However, if the projections hold, by 2027 – which is only eight years away – DCPS will have 61,697 students. For the first time in 60 years—two generations—DCPS is going to be full. And it's likely going to grow from there.

Ward 3 is seeing what the rest of the city is going to be seeing very soon.

I don't know why you believe this - there is a massive amount of spare MS and HS capacity EOTP and you don't have to go to Anacostia to find it. Just at Coolidge, Cardozo and Roosevelt alone you can accommodate 1500+ kids no problem. I get that gentrifiers don't want their kids to attend those schools but people in Ward 3 shouldn't have to deal with unsafe conditions at Deal and Wilson to accommodate them either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You cannot force people into underperforming schools. The suburbs have been and will continue to be the alternative to this, if OOB and charters don’t work out.
If DCPS offered tracking, gifted programming, or advanced coursework in some high schools that would go some ways towards attracting families that would otherwise opt out. Carrots not sticks.

I get this, but the upthread comment is legit. WOTP full, Charters full, gentrifiers don't want 90-plus percent low-income African American schools = probably some people moving to the suburbs or changing their opinions of what's available.

If not suburbs, then some [b]interesting changes are going to happen as some white, upper class people accommodate themselves to being tiny minorities in schools aimed at children who aren't testing at grade level.

What does this mean?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wilson and Deal are ethnically diverse but they really aren't that economically diverse anymore and in any case both are overcrowded to the point that sometime soon it will start to erode the quality of both schools.

The fight for access to what should be scarce seats at Deal & Wilson is not a battle between affluent residents of Ward 3 and lower income people of color from Wards 7 & 8.

It is a battle between affluent residents of Ward 3 whose kids can walk to those schools and affluent residents of Crestwood, Mount Pleasant, Shepherd Park (who are getting in by right) and other parts of the city who have found backdoor ways into Ward 3 (like renting in bounds for a year) who in many cases are driving significant distances to get across the park everyday. Some of these residents are people of color but many in fact are also white.

Having some of these affluent families attend schools closer to their own neighborhoods would actually do what some of the people on this thread purport to care about which is to say it would make EOTP schools more ethnically and economically diverse which would almost certainly help to improve those schools.

And Deal & Wilson could actually accept some lower income students who would benefit more from the opportunity to attend what are perceived as higher performing schools.

The idea of opening new public schools in remote Foxhall Village to solve enrollment problems in Tenleytown caused by students living EOTP, many of whom are affluent and white, who live near grossly under enrolled but recently renovated public schools is just insane and shows the lack of courage from the DC Council.

The Mayor should lead on this and pledge to have her own daughter be part of the first group of kids from her neighborhood to actually attend their neighborhood schools and tell the Crestwood residents to stuff it and follow her. And just so the perceived pain is spread around Lafayette students should also have to spend a couple of extra minutes commuting across the park on Military Road to Wells and Coolidge for MS and HS which is a lot less of a commute than anyone will have who gets moved to whatever new schools get opened in Foxhall.

The DC Council has money to burn and a paucity of courage so it will never happen but logistically solving overcrowding at Deal & Wilson is pretty straightforward.

What schools are exactly her neighborhood schools? It takes the same time to get from Bowser’s house to Deal as it does to Macfarland. And about Sam’s as Wells (of which there is no room). Like it or not, Deal is Bowser’s neighborhood school.

That is nonsense and provably untrue.

Colonial Village is much closer to Wells than Deal and about equidistant to MacFarland and FWIW you can get from Colonial Village to both schools on a Metrobus which you cannot do for Deal without a time consuming transfer.

Let me guess - you live in Crestwood?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
No way is Foxhall gaining a couple of thousand school age kids in the next couple of years nor will it even if you add in Stoddert or Mann - there is almost no residential development slated in bounds for any of those 3 schools.

Check out the Office of Planning projections at: https://dme.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dme/publication/attachments/Office%20of%20Planning%20Presentation%20for%20CSCTF%204%2026%2016.pdf

Particularly page 22, where they have youth population projections. Foxhall Road is the boundary between Cluster 13 and Cluster 14. While they don't have specific numbers, both clusters are colored in the color that indicates growth of 1,772-3,278 school age kids. So the two clusters together have a minimum of 3500 kids growth and possibly as much as 6500.

It's not driven by residential development, it's families moving into existing housing.

Well they must be anticipating at lot of Catholics and Mormons moving in with enormous families then - the area on the map you point to is really low density so to get that many kids in that area you would need a lot of large families AND a lot of turnover of housing stock to enable that.

And BTW they don't predict that area as one growing particularly fast relative to other DC neighborhoods.

But the graphic with the map makes zero sense as they predict lower growth rates in the parts of Ward 3 that are potentially going to see actual new housing units built.

I suspect this is someone twisting the facts to make them match this illogical political decision to spend money on facilities in Foxhall rather than simply forcing more middle class whites to attend under utilized schools in Ward 4.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have to recommend again this article:
https://ggwash.org/view/71802/can-dcps-survive-the-coming-enrollment-surge

Money quote:

For most of the past 50 years, DC Public Schools (DCPS) has had way too many schools, and the most pressing facilities issue for the agency has been how to close and dispose of unneeded buildings in an orderly manner. Even though DC has gained over 22,000 public school students since 2008, and between 2008 and 2013 DCPS shrunk from 134 to 110 schools, the number of seats still exceeds the number of students by about 25%.

Today, DCPS has a capacity of 61,925 seats and only 48,043 students, according to the Master Facilities Plan. However, if the projections hold, by 2027 – which is only eight years away – DCPS will have 61,697 students. For the first time in 60 years—two generations—DCPS is going to be full. And it's likely going to grow from there.

Ward 3 is seeing what the rest of the city is going to be seeing very soon.

I don't know why you believe this - there is a massive amount of spare MS and HS capacity EOTP and you don't have to go to Anacostia to find it. Just at Coolidge, Cardozo and Roosevelt alone you can accommodate 1500+ kids no problem. I get that gentrifiers don't want their kids to attend those schools but people in Ward 3 shouldn't have to deal with unsafe conditions at Deal and Wilson to accommodate them either.

1) Make kids go IB for high school no matter what. It will fix deal if people know they aren't getting feeder rights.
2) Make an income maximum for the School lottery of 75k per year per family. Then no more white families buying cheap EOTP homes and expecting Ward 3 schools but poor families still have a shot for good starts .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You cannot force people into underperforming schools. The suburbs have been and will continue to be the alternative to this, if OOB and charters don’t work out.
If DCPS offered tracking, gifted programming, or advanced coursework in some high schools that would go some ways towards attracting families that would otherwise opt out. Carrots not sticks.

I get this, but the upthread comment is legit. WOTP full, Charters full, gentrifiers don't want 90-plus percent low-income African American schools = probably some people moving to the suburbs or changing their opinions of what's available.

If not suburbs, then some interesting changes are going to happen as some white, upper class people accommodate themselves to being tiny minorities in schools aimed at children who aren't testing at grade level.

Here is how you solve this problem - you don't move some tiny slice of UMC kids to MacFarland/Roosevelt or Wells/Coolidge and nibble around the edges here - you need to move a massive chunk of kids at once and completely change the complexion of the schools.

So you don't move just Shepherd Park and it 60 kids per grade - you pair the move with Lafayette and its 160 kids per grade and suddenly that pair of schools isn't 90% low income minority anymore - if you moved that many kids at once the new schools would suddenly have a similar racial make-up to Deal and would probably be whiter than Deal was just a couple of years ago.

And no Wells, contrary to what someone keeps posting, is not over capacity. Now it could not take 220 kids without some other boundary adjustments but that is not hard to do as some kids could be moved to MacFarland and in either case neither school would be nearly as big nor as overcrowded as Deal already is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have to recommend again this article:
https://ggwash.org/view/71802/can-dcps-survive-the-coming-enrollment-surge

Money quote:

For most of the past 50 years, DC Public Schools (DCPS) has had way too many schools, and the most pressing facilities issue for the agency has been how to close and dispose of unneeded buildings in an orderly manner. Even though DC has gained over 22,000 public school students since 2008, and between 2008 and 2013 DCPS shrunk from 134 to 110 schools, the number of seats still exceeds the number of students by about 25%.

Today, DCPS has a capacity of 61,925 seats and only 48,043 students, according to the Master Facilities Plan. However, if the projections hold, by 2027 – which is only eight years away – DCPS will have 61,697 students. For the first time in 60 years—two generations—DCPS is going to be full. And it's likely going to grow from there.

Ward 3 is seeing what the rest of the city is going to be seeing very soon.

I don't know why you believe this - there is a massive amount of spare MS and HS capacity EOTP and you don't have to go to Anacostia to find it. Just at Coolidge, Cardozo and Roosevelt alone you can accommodate 1500+ kids no problem. I get that gentrifiers don't want their kids to attend those schools but people in Ward 3 shouldn't have to deal with unsafe conditions at Deal and Wilson to accommodate them either.

What part of "by 2027 DCPS will have 61,925 seats and 61,697 students" do you not understand?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
No way is Foxhall gaining a couple of thousand school age kids in the next couple of years nor will it even if you add in Stoddert or Mann - there is almost no residential development slated in bounds for any of those 3 schools.

Check out the Office of Planning projections at: https://dme.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dme/publication/attachments/Office%20of%20Planning%20Presentation%20for%20CSCTF%204%2026%2016.pdf

Particularly page 22, where they have youth population projections. Foxhall Road is the boundary between Cluster 13 and Cluster 14. While they don't have specific numbers, both clusters are colored in the color that indicates growth of 1,772-3,278 school age kids. So the two clusters together have a minimum of 3500 kids growth and possibly as much as 6500.

It's not driven by residential development, it's families moving into existing housing.

Well they must be anticipating at lot of Catholics and Mormons moving in with enormous families then - the area on the map you point to is really low density so to get that many kids in that area you would need a lot of large families AND a lot of turnover of housing stock to enable that.

And BTW they don't predict that area as one growing particularly fast relative to other DC neighborhoods.

But the graphic with the map makes zero sense as they predict lower growth rates in the parts of Ward 3 that are potentially going to see actual new housing units built.

I suspect this is someone twisting the facts to make them match this illogical political decision to spend money on facilities in Foxhall rather than simply forcing more middle class whites to attend under utilized schools in Ward 4.

Yes, the Office of Planning is well-known for its pro-Foxhall agenda.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have to recommend again this article:
https://ggwash.org/view/71802/can-dcps-survive-the-coming-enrollment-surge

Money quote:

For most of the past 50 years, DC Public Schools (DCPS) has had way too many schools, and the most pressing facilities issue for the agency has been how to close and dispose of unneeded buildings in an orderly manner. Even though DC has gained over 22,000 public school students since 2008, and between 2008 and 2013 DCPS shrunk from 134 to 110 schools, the number of seats still exceeds the number of students by about 25%.

Today, DCPS has a capacity of 61,925 seats and only 48,043 students, according to the Master Facilities Plan. However, if the projections hold, by 2027 – which is only eight years away – DCPS will have 61,697 students. For the first time in 60 years—two generations—DCPS is going to be full. And it's likely going to grow from there.

Ward 3 is seeing what the rest of the city is going to be seeing very soon.

I don't know why you believe this - there is a massive amount of spare MS and HS capacity EOTP and you don't have to go to Anacostia to find it. Just at Coolidge, Cardozo and Roosevelt alone you can accommodate 1500+ kids no problem. I get that gentrifiers don't want their kids to attend those schools but people in Ward 3 shouldn't have to deal with unsafe conditions at Deal and Wilson to accommodate them either.

1) Make kids go IB for high school no matter what. It will fix deal if people know they aren't getting feeder rights.
2) Make an income maximum for the School lottery of 75k per year per family. Then no more white families buying cheap EOTP homes and expecting Ward 3 schools but poor families still have a shot for good starts .

You also need to find someway to cut UMC families out of charters or alternately allow charters to evolve over time to being more neighborhood oriented. Charters were a solution to 1995's problems - I doubt 25 years ago anyone would have anticipated so many UMC white families flooding the charters and taking slots they anticipated would be going to working class POC from poor neighborhoods. Gentrifying neighborhoods should be seeing dramatic improvements in their in-bound schools but aren't because gentrifiers aren't enrolling their kids and that in fact is causing things to worsen at these schools instead of improve as their enrollment sags.

You want to live in Petworth? Great - part and parcel of the deal should be you send your kids to their neighborhood school along with your neighbors kids who have lived in the neighborhood for generations rather than holding up your nose and using your superior resources to enroll your kids elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
No way is Foxhall gaining a couple of thousand school age kids in the next couple of years nor will it even if you add in Stoddert or Mann - there is almost no residential development slated in bounds for any of those 3 schools.

Check out the Office of Planning projections at: https://dme.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dme/publication/attachments/Office%20of%20Planning%20Presentation%20for%20CSCTF%204%2026%2016.pdf

Particularly page 22, where they have youth population projections. Foxhall Road is the boundary between Cluster 13 and Cluster 14. While they don't have specific numbers, both clusters are colored in the color that indicates growth of 1,772-3,278 school age kids. So the two clusters together have a minimum of 3500 kids growth and possibly as much as 6500.

It's not driven by residential development, it's families moving into existing housing.

Well they must be anticipating at lot of Catholics and Mormons moving in with enormous families then - the area on the map you point to is really low density so to get that many kids in that area you would need a lot of large families AND a lot of turnover of housing stock to enable that.

And BTW they don't predict that area as one growing particularly fast relative to other DC neighborhoods.

But the graphic with the map makes zero sense as they predict lower growth rates in the parts of Ward 3 that are potentially going to see actual new housing units built.

I suspect this is someone twisting the facts to make them match this illogical political decision to spend money on facilities in Foxhall rather than simply forcing more middle class whites to attend under utilized schools in Ward 4.

Yes, the Office of Planning is well-known for its pro-Foxhall agenda.

So enlighten us - how are you going to get a couple of thousand additional kids out of a low density neighborhood with no new housing being built?

And also enlighten us why other Ward 3 neighborhoods that in fact have additional housing being built already and have other plots of land zoned for more housing are predicted to have the same amount of growth in students.

I can't explain that but maybe you can.

But it does fit a political narrative to claim that you are meeting demand by building schools in the only place in Ward 3 that happens to have a couple of good plots of land for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have to recommend again this article:
https://ggwash.org/view/71802/can-dcps-survive-the-coming-enrollment-surge

Money quote:

For most of the past 50 years, DC Public Schools (DCPS) has had way too many schools, and the most pressing facilities issue for the agency has been how to close and dispose of unneeded buildings in an orderly manner. Even though DC has gained over 22,000 public school students since 2008, and between 2008 and 2013 DCPS shrunk from 134 to 110 schools, the number of seats still exceeds the number of students by about 25%.

Today, DCPS has a capacity of 61,925 seats and only 48,043 students, according to the Master Facilities Plan. However, if the projections hold, by 2027 – which is only eight years away – DCPS will have 61,697 students. For the first time in 60 years—two generations—DCPS is going to be full. And it's likely going to grow from there.

Ward 3 is seeing what the rest of the city is going to be seeing very soon.

I don't know why you believe this - there is a massive amount of spare MS and HS capacity EOTP and you don't have to go to Anacostia to find it. Just at Coolidge, Cardozo and Roosevelt alone you can accommodate 1500+ kids no problem. I get that gentrifiers don't want their kids to attend those schools but people in Ward 3 shouldn't have to deal with unsafe conditions at Deal and Wilson to accommodate them either.

1) Make kids go IB for high school no matter what. It will fix deal if people know they aren't getting feeder rights.
2) Make an income maximum for the School lottery of 75k per year per family. Then no more white families buying cheap EOTP homes and expecting Ward 3 schools but poor families still have a shot for good starts .

You also need to find someway to cut UMC families out of charters or alternately allow charters to evolve over time to being more neighborhood oriented. Charters were a solution to 1995's problems - I doubt 25 years ago anyone would have anticipated so many UMC white families flooding the charters and taking slots they anticipated would be going to working class POC from poor neighborhoods. Gentrifying neighborhoods should be seeing dramatic improvements in their in-bound schools but aren't because gentrifiers aren't enrolling their kids and that in fact is causing things to worsen at these schools instead of improve as their enrollment sags.

You want to live in Petworth? Great - part and parcel of the deal should be you send your kids to their neighborhood school along with your neighbors kids who have lived in the neighborhood for generations rather than holding up your nose and using your superior resources to enroll your kids elsewhere.

LMAO. I live in Petworth and the first thing my long-time neighbours told me was that no one on the block sends their kids IB and they could help us find a school.