Why Does Van Ness Elementary School Not Have a Boundary

[Anonymous]

Can we start a petition to rededicate Van Ness as Lake Wobegon Elementary?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is no way the Cap Quarters families will allow the boundary to extend over S Cap and include public housing like Greenleaf. There is a reason they lobbied for years for DCPS to do the study to determine to reopen Van Ness and that reason was NOT to include more public housing kids. Amidon is already underenrolled, and the biggest feeder of kids to AMidon comes from about 450 units of family public housing in SW.

That's interesting that you think the families at Cap Quarters have the power to draw boundary lines to exclude lower SES students. One would have thought the concentration of influence in Woodley Park could prevent Oyster Adams from being shifted to Cardozo, but that's not the case for the moment. The same could be said for the Murch to Hearst uproar, and the Eaton to Hardy uproar, and the possibly loss of Wilson for Hardy. Yet the families at Cap Quarters think they can exclude lower SES students - when the inclusion of lower SES students is exactly what the DME is trying do.

What is the source of this Cap Quaters mojo?

[Anonymous]

I find it odd that families that bought into Capitol Quarter, a large Hope VI development, are focusing so closely on limiting the % FARMS at Van Ness. Capitol Quarter and the rest of the replacement far Capper-Carrollsburg was built with the intention of mixing low income housing with market rate housing. The school should reflect the community's diversity. Hopefully most parents see that as an advantage of Van Ness and not a drawback.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I find it odd that families that bought into Capitol Quarter, a large Hope VI development, are focusing so closely on limiting the % FARMS at Van Ness. Capitol Quarter and the rest of the replacement far Capper-Carrollsburg was built with the intention of mixing low income housing with market rate housing. The school should reflect the community's diversity. Hopefully most parents see that as an advantage of Van Ness and not a drawback.

Well, there is the fact that the neighborhood diversity is different from the school-age children diversity.

Please check the DCPS basic statistics on FARM for elementary schools. Every ES under 30% FARMs is a DCUM "success". There are two or three between 30 and 60, Watkins at 40% and Cap City at 55%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it odd that families that bought into Capitol Quarter, a large Hope VI development, are focusing so closely on limiting the % FARMS at Van Ness. Capitol Quarter and the rest of the replacement far Capper-Carrollsburg was built with the intention of mixing low income housing with market rate housing. The school should reflect the community's diversity. Hopefully most parents see that as an advantage of Van Ness and not a drawback.

Well, there is the fact that the neighborhood diversity is different from the school-age children diversity.

Please check the DCPS basic statistics on FARM for elementary schools. Every ES under 30% FARMs is a DCUM "success". There are two or three between 30 and 60, Watkins at 40% and Cap City at 55%.

This doesn't address the eagerness of Capitol Quarters to build a moat around Van Ness that the students at Amidon Bowen can't swim across. More importantly it doesn't answer how that could be accomplished when DCPS is actively seeking to provide greater access to "high quality seats". It's something of an academic exercise as the school hasn't even opened, but when it does, should it skew high SES, I would anticipate great interest from the peasants outside the castle.

[Anonymous]

Without defending any PP advocating for keeping out low income OOB students, CQ residents worked extremely hard for the past several years to get To the point where VN is about to be modernized and reopened. Perhaps this has engendered a singular sense of ownership.

[Anonymous]

Why would the boundary extend across S. Cap to pick up Greenleaf Public housing when Greenleaf is THREE blocks from Amidon? taking those kids out and moving them to Van Ness will basically put Amidon on the chopping block. they would lose the majority of their students. And most of the kids walk to school. And I know for a fact it was a committed group of Cap Q parents who pushed and pushed on the City to study reopening Van Ness. DCPS had NO intnetion of reopening that school but did it for the Cap Q parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Without defending any PP advocating for keeping out low income OOB students, CQ residents worked extremely hard for the past several years to get To the point where VN is about to be modernized and reopened. Perhaps this has engendered a singular sense of ownership.

And yet the thing about public amenities and utilities is, well, that they're public and not owned private property. Everyone knows this when they put time and effort into public schools (or recreation centers or parks or whatever) and no, there's no way not to look ugly when you turn around and try to depict a public amenity as your particular club or private reserve.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why would the boundary extend across S. Cap to pick up Greenleaf Public housing when Greenleaf is THREE blocks from Amidon?

If the Van Ness boundary included any SW public housing, it would probably be not Greenleaf, but Syphax and/or James Creek. Those are roughly equidistant between A-B and VN.

[Anonymous]

PP that would work but again you are taking students from an already underenrolled school. There is just not a demand NOW for two elem schools in these locations. I thnk it was reopened with the idea that maybe in 5-7 years there will be more demand. The increase in demand will come from Cap Q and the town homes and the still 400 units of public housing that are required to be rebuilt at Cap Q. I think this is why the boundary hasn't been drawn. Until the new public housing is built, it makes no sense to include folks from the other side of S Cap street.

[Anonymous]

It is absurd to think that the boundary hasn't been determined. This process has been ongoing for several years and the modernization is slated to begin in about a year. Just because the boundary does not appear on the DME school assignment materials doesn't mean that it is not already established or that DCPS doesn't have a pretty good handle on the number of IB students.

[Anonymous]

Does anyone have any further information about a comment made by Catania during the 2015 DCPS budget hearing about recommitting Van Ness moderninzation/reopening funds to other Ward 6 schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Without defending any PP advocating for keeping out low income OOB students, CQ residents worked extremely hard for the past several years to get To the point where VN is about to be modernized and reopened. Perhaps this has engendered a singular sense of ownership.

Out of curiosity, do you suppose that CQ residents are somehow more invested in the as-yet-unopened Van Ness than, say, Oyster-Adams parents are in their 20+ year old Spanish Immersion program? Or the Janney/Lafayette/Murch parents in their schools which have been good for decades? Or even the striving Brent parents whose school has struggled its way up to prominence on the Hill?

A sense of ownership is to be encouraged, but a right to exclude others? I'm sorry, but just how new are they? History has been happening since before they arrived. The sense of entitlement is breathtaking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP that would work but again you are taking students from an already underenrolled school. There is just not a demand NOW for two elem schools in these locations. I thnk it was reopened with the idea that maybe in 5-7 years there will be more demand. The increase in demand will come from Cap Q and the town homes and the still 400 units of public housing that are required to be rebuilt at Cap Q. I think this is why the boundary hasn't been drawn. Until the new public housing is built, it makes no sense to include folks from the other side of S Cap street.

Nobody is talking about "taking" anyone from anywhere, but you might need to consider that these families don't need to be forced into staying where they are. They have choices and agency, and in some cases they have proximity preference. As any long-time Hill parent can tell you (as any Hardy parent can tell you, and that's clear over in Burleith and without metro service), OOB students use Hill schools as an escape valve. Don't think you can turn it off.

[Anonymous]

also, the 400 units of public housing and any population growth from the market-rate units at CQ are still a little ways off. DCPS should draw the boundaries in a way that fills Van Ness now, starting the school with younger grades only and adding a grade a year until it's PK-5th. That probably means a boundary that extends into SW, with older kids still going to Amidon and some allowances for little kids to attend Amidon if they want to and they have a sibling there. If the population in Capitol Riverfront gets big enough that Van Ness is overfull with in-boundary kids, they can do what DCPS has recently done at other schools (put up portables and/or expand the school) or redraw the boundary at that point.

But the idea that CQ is going to get to gerrymander a school that cuts out poor kids (even for a few years until more public housing is built in the area and the main VN proponents' kids just happen to be in middle school or in charters that start in 5th grade) is just unrealistic.