New DCPS school on former Georgetown Day site will be a high school

[Anonymous]

I would consider moving to be able to send my kids to this HS. There are more than enough students in the area who would stick around (and be able to reach this location easily) to make it worth it. Hyde, Mann, Stoddert, Key, new Foxhall ES. Wow this is exciting.

[Anonymous]

So basically they are solving the 'by right' dc high school challenge by building a high ses school and having some opportunity for low ses to attend, and by default doing that at Wilson too. Its solving the wrong problems. And it's terrible to put a high school in such an inaccessible location. What happened to equity? This is akin to people sleeping out to get a spot at a charter school. You shouldn't be allowed to make something open for all and then build in barriers to make it not open for all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hopefully they will expand the languages program at the high school - Hardy has an excellent Italian program. They could also be a hub for language immersion charters like Sela and Bethune which do not feed into DCI, maybe expand Hardy's language footprint and make the new high school a world languages program.

Except that would mean cross-sector collaboration and charters and DCPS do not mix.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Again reflecting DC's racial fears. The high schools are highly segregated, so the place for a new high school in DC is of course placed at the least accessible furthest corner of Georgetown.

Google Maps tells me if you get to the Anacostia Metro at 7:30 am, catch the Green Line then the D6, you can get to that location just before 9am.

So you wanna move some white people to Annacostia to hopefully full up all the open school seats? If the city wanted to get rid of high school boundaries they would have done it. Perhaps they did not cause they would have even more empty seats...

if the city wants to desegregate schools it would create a true magnet school centrally located. Dunbar is only at 50% capacity, turn that into a TJ or Boston Latin

How, exactly? Because isn't that what Banneker is already trying to do? DCPS already has eight selective high schools. A ninth isn't going to move the needle.

EIGHT?!?!?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So basically they are solving the 'by right' dc high school challenge by building a high ses school and having some opportunity for low ses to attend, and by default doing that at Wilson too. Its solving the wrong problems. And it's terrible to put a high school in such an inaccessible location. What happened to equity? This is akin to people sleeping out to get a spot at a charter school. You shouldn't be allowed to make something open for all and then build in barriers to make it not open for all.

Its accessible to MANY current DCPS students. The high school that currently serves these students is wildly overcrowded. It is equitable to meet their needs, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Again reflecting DC's racial fears. The high schools are highly segregated, so the place for a new high school in DC is of course placed at the least accessible furthest corner of Georgetown.

Google Maps tells me if you get to the Anacostia Metro at 7:30 am, catch the Green Line then the D6, you can get to that location just before 9am.

So you wanna move some white people to Annacostia to hopefully full up all the open school seats? If the city wanted to get rid of high school boundaries they would have done it. Perhaps they did not cause they would have even more empty seats...

if the city wants to desegregate schools it would create a true magnet school centrally located. Dunbar is only at 50% capacity, turn that into a TJ or Boston Latin

How, exactly? Because isn't that what Banneker is already trying to do? DCPS already has eight selective high schools. A ninth isn't going to move the needle.

EIGHT?!?!?

Bard
Banneker
CHEC
Early College at Coolidge
Ellington
McKinley
Phelps
Walls
People keep coming up with the same solution and it keeps not working.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So basically they are solving the 'by right' dc high school challenge by building a high ses school and having some opportunity for low ses to attend, and by default doing that at Wilson too. Its solving the wrong problems. And it's terrible to put a high school in such an inaccessible location. What happened to equity? This is akin to people sleeping out to get a spot at a charter school. You shouldn't be allowed to make something open for all and then build in barriers to make it not open for all.

DCPS has a problem that in large parts of the city they can't make neighborhood schools that people want to go to. They don't know how to solve that problem. So their options are to either keep trying to solve the problem they don't know how to solve, or to work on the problem they do know how to solve, which is making schools in parts of the city that people do want to go to. They seem to vacillate between those two approaches.

[Anonymous]

I, for one, am a parent at one of the presumed feeder elementary schools and am excited about the possibility of getting involved and helping to build a new high school. And advocating for the investments in transportation that are clearly needed to make this work in a remotely equitable way. Lots of potential here for DC kids to have better experiences than if 2500 kids were all crammed into Wilson.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So basically they are solving the 'by right' dc high school challenge by building a high ses school and having some opportunity for low ses to attend, and by default doing that at Wilson too. Its solving the wrong problems. And it's terrible to put a high school in such an inaccessible location. What happened to equity? This is akin to people sleeping out to get a spot at a charter school. You shouldn't be allowed to make something open for all and then build in barriers to make it not open for all.

Its accessible to MANY current DCPS students. The high school that currently serves these students is wildly overcrowded. It is equitable to meet their needs, too.

Is it accessible to many? Eaton, a feeder elementary, is a 15 min drive but 45 min via public transit (multiple buses). They will really need to up d6 bus service to have any chance of serving a wider range of students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I, for one, am a parent at one of the presumed feeder elementary schools and am excited about the possibility of getting involved and helping to build a new high school. And advocating for the investments in transportation that are clearly needed to make this work in a remotely equitable way. Lots of potential here for DC kids to have better experiences than if 2500 kids were all crammed into Wilson.

Good luck with that. DCPS Central hates parental involvement. I used to work there. Also, have you visited the site and looked at it carefully? It is a terrible fit for a HS.

[Anonymous]

Is this confirmation that DCPS has given up on the crazy idea of moving Wilson 9th grade to the former GDS location?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I, for one, am a parent at one of the presumed feeder elementary schools and am excited about the possibility of getting involved and helping to build a new high school. And advocating for the investments in transportation that are clearly needed to make this work in a remotely equitable way. Lots of potential here for DC kids to have better experiences than if 2500 kids were all crammed into Wilson.

I know! I'm also hopeful yet again that the conversation about Glen Echo Trolley Trail project (to add a bicycle trail into Georgetown) will be restarted. I was so bummed when they cancelled the project a couple of years ago. That could absolutely cover the commute question for the Hardy students zoned for Hyde-Addison.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I, for one, am a parent at one of the presumed feeder elementary schools and am excited about the possibility of getting involved and helping to build a new high school. And advocating for the investments in transportation that are clearly needed to make this work in a remotely equitable way. Lots of potential here for DC kids to have better experiences than if 2500 kids were all crammed into Wilson.

Good luck with that. DCPS Central hates parental involvement. I used to work there. Also, have you visited the site and looked at it carefully? It is a terrible fit for a HS.

They've got $45 million to improve the site.

[Anonymous]

Any idea which of the current Hardy classes will be the first at this high school? Current 6th graders or 7th graders? The GDS space is not particularly well-suited for a 1000 student high school. Depending on the extent of the needed improvements, this might take a while.

[Anonymous]

Don't you think the opening of this school then would have other yet unknown impact on Wilson... Basically it would be Deal to Wilson (@450 a class as it is, current Wilson enrollment 1900+), Hardy to New HS + lotteried kids (Hardy has grown so much - with around @170 per class now but attrition, and some families around Wilson may choose to come to the New school for a smaller option - so don't know all the ripples yet.)
The facilities, things like not sufficient sports fields, etc, will have to be figured out. Families coming from Hardy have already been dealing with small facility issues (like where the football team can practice and play etc).
It would stink but they could do shuttle buses or other options from hub points (ie. a model many of the private schools already use around the city and area, it wasn't that long ago there was a shuttle from the Hill to Hardy).