Overcrowded Schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Murch is overcrowded. Three new class sections were added this year in order to avoid having class sizes exceeding 30 students per room. New trailers were brought onto the property and placed on the bluetop and in the staff parking. Staff parking went from 45 parking spaces to 15. Arrangements are still being made to find parking in the neighborhood for the staff.

The Murch property is one small block with no room to expand into additional parcels. Part of that block is actually National Park Service land and so building on it may be problematic. Expanding beyond the current footprint would necessarily take away staff parking and/or playground space. So, more students, more staff, less parking and smaller playground.

Murch is overcrowded.

Can you clarify in which grades? The lowest grades seem to be in much better shape, however I am not fully aware of the situation.

This year, there are 3 PK classes, 5 classes each of K, 1st, and 2nd, and 4 classes each of 3rd, 4th, and 5th. The three new classes are one each of K, 1, and 2.

As mentioned before, Murch also has a city-wide autism program, and I believe we have also added a new autism PK class this year.

The school feels so much more crowded compared to last year, with the new trailers (there were already quite a few, but the new ones take up most of the parking lot and part of the play area). I believe the entire 4th and 5th grades are now in trailers. We got an email from the school asking people not to drive to school if at all possible, because parking will be tighter in the neighborhood due to the loss of the staff parking lot.

As a PP mentioned, there are almost no OOB students in the lower grades. The growth in enrollment, and the addition of new classes, is because of growth of IB demand.

A 5th grade parent last year told me more than 90% of the 5th grade was going on to Deal.

Few other things. Don't you think that five classes per grade is too big for an elementary school? With kids in the older grades as well as younger I still see children who I've never seen before and we've been there 5 years+. It is insane.

Secondly as someone mentioned our enrollment is expected to increase mainly because the apartment buildings along Connecticut provide a more affordable way for people to get in a decent school district. Which gives us some diversity. Also, we have a fair number of embassies who have rotating staff so children come and go every few years. Again - great for diversity and International Night - hard for planning. Hopefully, other schools will improve across the city and relieve the crush on Murch and other schools.

As a Murch parent, my primary concern is appropriate space and safety. How many kids are in the school doesn't really concern me; I have friends in Arlington, and their ESs are similarly large. As long as class sizes are under control (which they are at Murch now that they added the fifth sections in the early grades), I don't feel like I need to know everyone I see on the playground.

But on the premise that the Murch expansion might not be able to accommodate all of the IB kids, there's still a problem...and one that redrawing boundaries alone probably won't fix. How long before Hearst inevitably attracts more IB kids--as Eaton has--and becomes overcrowded?

In short, one year. Hearst is too small to handle all of the capacity needed. Hearst only has two classrooms per grade. The incoming grades are about half in bound already, so at a maximum it can only relieve Murch of 1 class per grade, or half a class from Murch and half a class from Janney. It helps, and the new boundary will do that - I predict the new proposed boundary as currently drawn will fill Hearst's incoming classes with students from inside the boundary in the first year after the switch, at which point it is effectively 100% IB with set asides (even though the upper grades will still have a high percentage of OOB students who are entitled to remain there, as they should be, with OOB numbers dwindling as each class graduates). But both Murch and Janney will remain overcrowded even after that shift. Murch and Janney each have more than twice the number of classes as Hearst with 5 classes per grade each in the incoming classes from second grade down (which means they will be 800-student schools by 2017 -- that is a known fact based on current enrollment, not a prediction -- and neither can or should be built that big). Even if Murch can be built to be as big as or bigger than Janney, which won't happen until 2017, you still have more overflow than Hearst can absorb between the two schools. So the big questions is: can Murch be built big enough to accommodate 700-800 students? A feasibility study is underway to answer this question.

The hope with the new boundaries seems to be that shifting some of Murch to Lafayette as well will manage these current, known numbers. The problem is that the numbers show no signs of slowing down, enrollment keeps exceeding predictions, and new multi-family buildings keep getting approved for construction. A new school should be on the table before any more housing development is approved in the area.

Also, based on the size of the current second grade classes of the feeder schools in the new boundary, Deal's incoming class starting in 2018 will have 24 classes. That's a lot of 6th graders. By 2020 that makes 72 classes or about 1650 students in one middle school. And that is if there is NO growth in today's classes of K-2 (wishful thinking). That also does not include accommodating the new requirements for at risk set asides, which I support, but which do not seem to have been adequately thought through from a numbers standpoint. Based on these numbers, the proposed changes have begun to, but have not fully addressed the capacity needs in this area.

[Anonymous]

13:04 - Holy shit.

Solution: (I'll go ahead and say it) A new Ward 3 Elementary school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:13:04 - Holy shit.

Solution: (I'll go ahead and say it) A new Ward 3 Elementary school.

Nah, overcrowding is one way to provide incentive for OOB to find a less crowded option. Some of us prefer an honors class of 6 to an honors class of 30.

[Anonymous]

I may be reading this incorrectly, but if you look at the data provided in some of the DME supporting docs, it looks like there are currenly 104 IB students that could attend Hearst (obviously many choose to attend private). And, under the DME proposal with the new boundary the projected number of IB kids eligible to attend is 140. The school can hold 325 students. Which begs the question, why not expand the Hearst boundary even further rather than turn Janney and Murch into trailer parks?

"School, Boundary, Neighborhood-Level Data Sheet Including Boundary Change Rationales"

http://dme.dc.gov/node/885242

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:I may be reading this incorrectly, but if you look at the data provided in some of the DME supporting docs, it looks like there are currenly 104 IB students that could attend Hearst (obviously many choose to attend private). And, under the DME proposal with the new boundary the projected number of IB kids eligible to attend is 140. The school can hold 325 students. Which begs the question, why not expand the Hearst boundary even further rather than turn Janney and Murch into trailer parks?

"School, Boundary, Neighborhood-Level Data Sheet Including Boundary Change Rationales"

http://dme.dc.gov/node/885242

A suggestion to do that was vociferously opposed during the DME process. The Janney boundary change was reversed completely in the Advisory Committee recommendation and Murch did some sort of land exchange with Hearst that I don't think had much of an impact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I may be reading this incorrectly, but if you look at the data provided in some of the DME supporting docs, it looks like there are currenly 104 IB students that could attend Hearst (obviously many choose to attend private). And, under the DME proposal with the new boundary the projected number of IB kids eligible to attend is 140. The school can hold 325 students. Which begs the question, why not expand the Hearst boundary even further rather than turn Janney and Murch into trailer parks?

"School, Boundary, Neighborhood-Level Data Sheet Including Boundary Change Rationales"

http://dme.dc.gov/node/885242

Because Murch and Janney families prefer their trailer parks over Hearst. The battle cry was basically, "Anything BUT Hearst." Simple.

[Anonymous]

Seems short sighted on the part of the Murch and Janney parents. All it would take is another 100 IB kids and Hearst would be then envy of the city. Small classes and brand new facilities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Seems short sighted on the part of the Murch and Janney parents. All it would take is another 100 IB kids and Hearst would be then envy of the city. Small classes and brand new facilities.

It's extremely short sighted. Hearst's population is similar to Eaton and Stoddert--solidly middle/upper middle class across all races. Score wise, Hearst should be on par with these schools, but in the last five years went through an expansion from an early childhood center to a PK-5 and simultaneously suffered through multiple principal changes. The consistent rise in test scores is evidence that the dust is finally settling. If the DCCAS were continuing, the school was on track to hit Reward status next year. It's clear that Hearst is going to follow the same pattern as Eaton and Stoddert, whether it is majority IB or not. It's a good little school. Always has been. It just had to work through some growing pains.

Bottom line: In two years, I doubt if even the Murch and Janney families will be anti-Hearst.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:It seems that a number of boundary changes that were incacruan the Advisory Committee recommendations were not included in the final recommendations. Yet, no complaining about wealthy whiners. It's starting to look to me as if the entire city is getting new boundary maps because of Deal and Wilson overcrowding.

3 problems with this oversimplistic interpretation:
- look at the actual numbers, close to all Ward 3 schools are overcrowded by common standards today
- look at the projected numbers, this is only getting worse given trends
- the DME.report explicitly identified many other problems, such as overlapping boundaries, areas with no assigned school, too much commuting time and lack of walk ability...

Right or wrong, the DME did try its best at planning hoblimprove THE SYSTEM for everyone. It is predictable that some special interests dont like the results.

Just like the previous post, you prefer to ignore facts and concentrate on simply arguing with me. Let's take the first and second of your listed "problems". What difference do the current and projected numbers make if the boundaries did not change? I asked to list schools that had over-crowding problems that were fixed by the final recommendations. Several schools that are commonly said to be filled to the brim or overcrowded had no changes to their boundaries at all. Others actually had their boundaries enlarged. All I asked for was a list of schools whose overcrowding problems were resolved by the recommendations. If you have a candidate for the list, please offer it. Obviously, I know about Deal and Wilson.

Sad. Jeff, is demagoguery that much fun? This half-baked thread is pointless from the start. There are full reports done by CSPS and DME showing overcrowding, and I can't believe you haven't seen then. Are you going rogue ala Sarah Palin?

Wow, you accuse me of demagoguery and call me Sarah Palin in the same post? My question -- what schools have had their overcrowding problems resolved by the final recommendations? -- is fairly simple. The fact that it is causing considerable hyperventilation among certain posters is very telling.

Here is your OP

"In discussions about boundary and feeder changes, I keep seeing posts saying that these changes need to go through -- imperfect or not -- because there is massive over-crowding that needs to be addressed. But, most schools in DC are under-enrolled."


your clear implication is that the overcrowding does not need to be addressed (or somehow could have been addressed without signficant changes to boundaries. That seems to me to be what has people upset, and rightfully so. There is also your somewhat less clear implication that overcrowding is the only reason that boundaries are changing.

The implication of my post is exactly what I said in my post. What schools had their overcrowding problems resolved by the final recommendations?

I started this thread based on a hypothesis that a list of such schools would be very short. But, I haven't checked the new boundaries of every single school. Therefore, I assumed that posters might identify additional schools. Instead, what has happened is a lot of consternation among posters who seem to believe my extremely simple query is inflammatory, if not downright insulting. Any implications can rightfully be drawn from the lack of schools in the list.

Your query is not inflammatory at all, simply not that smart. Check out the actual data in the actual reports, not through this random chat.

[Anonymous]

Well, Eastern is considered over-crowded this rate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's one: Amidon-Bowen. It's not overcrowded now, but 82% of the kids there are from in-boundary, and its current boundary has literally thousands of housing units under construction. They had to add a 3rd section of 2nd graders this year and take over classrooms that had been used by Appletree. PK3 and PK4 had waitlists including in-bounds students (not sure how much these waitlists cleared after the second round of the lottery) and since it's a Title 1 school, all the in-bound families would have a right to attend PK there in 2015-6. Shrinking its boundaries was a good choice because it prevents overcrowding and allowed for a school to open in the Navy Yard area.

Thank you. I don't know a thing about this school so I appreciate your bringing it to my attention.

They shrunk Amidon's boundaries so that they would have enough kids to make Van Ness viable (says so quite clearly in the dme report). Regardless, any growth at amidon is probably due to more competition for oob/charter spots and people having to give up and go their inbound school. Let's be honest, the navy yard was never going to make amidon overenrolled, since nobody would have sent their kids there in the first place. Amidon's high in-bound rate is purely a function of all the public housing in the neighborhood, nothing else.

Regardless of what reasons the DME gave, Amidon is filling up and this plan keeps it from getting over-full. Even if Amidon is not everyone's first choice, there are enough kids enrolling that shrinking the boundary prevented overcrowding, which was the question asked. It will be worth seeing how many kids stay past the early grades and how test scores move in the next few years.

Wasn't it not even 10 years ago that they shut down Bowen, and combined the 2 schools because they were underenrolled with almost the exact same boundaries? I would suspect that this will end up creating 2 underenrolled title 1 schools where the middle to high ses families will seek out other alternatives (i.e. no change from the status quo). I'm not saying it doesn't make sense to have 2 schools for this general area or what the right answer for either of those neighborhoods is, but trying to say that this proposal fixed an overcrowding issue at Amidon is ridiculous. If anything it will hurt the school, since there will be less students there, which equals less money/resources, etc.

Yes, but in those 10 years the neighborhood has changed a lot. There's been a minor league stadium. A giant public housing complex pulled down and rebuilt as mixed-income. The EPA buildings have become apartments. 172 buildings have been knocked down on the SE side of the area alone since 2003, according to http://www.jdland.com/dc/demolished-bldgs.cfm and lots more density has occurred. The fact that Bowen was closed a decade ago doesn't mean that the neighborhood is unable to sustain Amidon-Bowen and Van Ness. The schools are both likely to have some OOB kids, but that's totally fine.

[Anonymous]

Why doesn't DCPS move the autism classrooms out of Murch and to a less crowded school? It looks like they offer dedicated classrooms throughout the District, but not at every school.

http://dcps.dc.gov/DCPS/In+the+Classroom/Special+Education/Autism+Program+and+Resources/Schools+with+Dedicated+Autism+Classrooms

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems short sighted on the part of the Murch and Janney parents. All it would take is another 100 IB kids and Hearst would be then envy of the city. Small classes and brand new facilities.

It's extremely short sighted. Hearst's population is similar to Eaton and Stoddert--solidly middle/upper middle class across all races. Score wise, Hearst should be on par with these schools, but in the last five years went through an expansion from an early childhood center to a PK-5 and simultaneously suffered through multiple principal changes. The consistent rise in test scores is evidence that the dust is finally settling. If the DCCAS were continuing, the school was on track to hit Reward status next year. It's clear that Hearst is going to follow the same pattern as Eaton and Stoddert, whether it is majority IB or not. It's a good little school. Always has been. It just had to work through some growing pains.

Bottom line: In two years, I doubt if even the Murch and Janney families will be anti-Hearst.

Since Hearst is much smaller and doesn't have the facilities for the older kids, it seems to me that it's best use is as an early childhood center. Why not just make it a PK School for Janney, Murch, Lafayette, Eaton, etc,.... thus freeing up space for K-on through the rest of the grades. Nobody loses their true neighborhood school later, and since PK is optional anyways (many of us don't even get a spot at our inbound school), it's not like somebody gets short changed.

Now maybe this idea is completely stupid, but I just wish the DME spent more time at looking at creative boundary changes/maps in their propsoals vs. turning the city into a lottery system. They only floated 1 option for the specific school boundaries. Their really should have been a couple more on the table once they decided that we were still having an in-bound system with the set asides.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I may be reading this incorrectly, but if you look at the data provided in some of the DME supporting docs, it looks like there are currenly 104 IB students that could attend Hearst (obviously many choose to attend private). And, under the DME proposal with the new boundary the projected number of IB kids eligible to attend is 140. The school can hold 325 students. Which begs the question, why not expand the Hearst boundary even further rather than turn Janney and Murch into trailer parks?

"School, Boundary, Neighborhood-Level Data Sheet Including Boundary Change Rationales"

http://dme.dc.gov/node/885242

You are reading it incorrectly. Those numbers are a snapshot of PK3-5 public school students at a given point in time (i.e., already enrolled at Hearst or Hearst/Murch for the 140 figure). I'm certainly no expert, but I see a few issues that make those numbers not quite predicitive anyway:

1. Hearst has no preK3, so you aren't capturing in that number the in bound preK3 kids who are in private nursery school and will go to Hearst for PreK4 or K. It also fails to show the distribution of those students across the grades, which is what will matter in the boundary shift due to grandfathering of families in their current schools.

2. You have to remember to account for grandfathering when you try to figure out how much space Hearst actually has available. Don't make the mistake of saying there are 40 OOB seats in 5th grade this year (or whatever) so Hearst can take 40 kids from Murch's 5th grade and displace the 40 OOB kids at Hearst -- it can't. The numbers that matter here are how many K seats are available at Hearst to give to families at the edges of Hearst's boundaries, and the answer is about 25 seats. The inbound participation rate in the PK4 and K are up around 50% now. So never mind how many kids were in bound and using public school whenever that snapshot was taken, the current Prek class had very few spots open (about 20), and so the K class coming up in the year of the new boundary is highly likely to be almost entirely IB and will remain so until they are 5th graders. Those 20-25 spots barely puts a dent in the problem at Janney and Murch, which have about 225 kindergarteners between them when the K capacity of the schools as built is 140.

Hearst may be the "best little school in DC" but it can't solve all of our problems.

[Anonymous]

The 20-25 slots open at Hearst may not make a huge dent in the overcrowding nearby, but you cannot argue that the tiny boundary changes made to the Hearst/Murch boundary will even move 20 kids there. About 6 blocks total moved and there can't possibly be 20 pre-K age kids in those 6 blocks.

In short, the Hearst/Janney/Murch boundaries could, and should, have been moved a lot more to reduce at least a bit of the overcrowding. Maybe not the full solution, but a piece of one, and I really think they missed an opportunity there.