Which would lose their Deal feed first: Shepherd, Bancroft, or Lafayette?

[Anonymous]

Shepherd also makes sense to realign because up until recently, that neighborhood was zoned to Coolidge high school. It only got pulled into Wilson via Deal. Instead of adding more students to the already overcrowded schools, makes sense to redirect them back to Coolidge and to MacFarland middle or another middle ("new north").

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You guys aren't getting it. If you only remove Shepherd and Bancroft, you're still left with an overcrowded middle school. Janney continues to grow, as does Hearst and Lafayette. You have either remove one more school or don't remove any and open another middle school..

I suggested that Shepherd and Bancroft should both be removed from the Deal feed. I actually don't think it should stop there. Remove those two and send them to the the middle schools closest to them - Shepherd to MacFarland, Bancroft to CHEC. Both can feed into Roosevelt.

I also think that Hearst should be added to the Hardy feeder. I get that people don't think that these are big numbers, and I agree. Janney and Murch are enormous and there's very little that can be done about that, short of no longer letting in any OOB kids.

During the boundary talks, I was strongly in favor of the at-risk set asides on the face of it. However, as time has passed, my opinion has evolved. You are not going to solve the segregation that this city faces by setting aside a small percentage of seats for a handful of at-risk kids at wealthy schools. Solving that problem requires a much larger commitment to mixed-income living, and I do not see that happening any time in the near future. As things stand, I would be perfectly satisfied with DC doing away with the OOB lottery all together, effective immediately. If you are already enrolled, you can stay, but there should be no sibling preference for OOB students.

To be clear, we are not in a school that feeds into Deal or Wilson. I don't like the optics of kicking out all the OOB students any more than anyone else does, but rationally, there is not enough space for everyone who is currently destined to go there and something should be done. I doubt that it WILL, because no one wants to be the one who suggests kicking out the OOB students (read: the brown ones who are poor), but it SHOULD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Shepherd also makes sense to realign because up until recently, that neighborhood was zoned to Coolidge high school. It only got pulled into Wilson via Deal. Instead of adding more students to the already overcrowded schools, makes sense to redirect them back to Coolidge and to MacFarland middle or another middle ("new north").

you could toss Lafayette into that mix too. Or not -- if not, DCPS would have to get creative to consider moving the EOTP schools to new MS/HS -- maybe they could reassign Shepherd and Bancroft but also strictly enforce the at-risk quotas WOTP which DME recommended but WOTP schools can't implement due to space constraints. The trade off to further whitening the WOTP schools should be to introduce economic diversity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

You guys aren't getting it. If you only remove Shepherd and Bancroft, you're still left with an overcrowded middle school. Janney continues to grow, as does Hearst and Lafayette. You have either remove one more school or don't remove any and open another middle school.

I think you are mistaken. According to the DME material as from the boundary adjustment, Bancroft was supplying 11% of Deal students, and Shepherd was sending 7%. An 18% reduction in Deal's student body would put it well below the capacity max, which would leave room for the at-risk population DCPS was trying to mandate for each school, and potentially even leave room for future neighborhood growth.

Try the math using capacity at Deal and Janny and Lafayette's 3rd grade classes. Also, do you have link?

On phone, so link hard. The percentages sourced from each school are at the DME page of MS feeder data leading up to the boundary adjustments. Current enrollment of Deal is 1341, over a max capacity of 1200.

Current audited enrollment for 3rd grade class of J/M/L is 318. If you assume that many kids for 3 grades of middle school at Deal, that a total of 954, versus capacity of 1200. Hearst adds 42 per grade, Bancroft adds 73 per grade, and Shepherd adds 42 per grade. That brings us to 1425 total, which is way over the 1200 capacity. Cutting just Bancroft puts the total at 1206. Cutting Shepherd and Bancroft puts the total at 1080.

If what some people say about the OOB population at Hearst Bancroft and Shepherd is true, then the easier choice is to limit OOB rights if school is over capacity. If that is not an option, then may need to remove one or more of the feeders entirely.

[Anonymous]

To bring diversity maybe Murch and Key can be re-directed to McFarland so their is a equal mixture.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Shepherd also makes sense to realign because up until recently, that neighborhood was zoned to Coolidge high school. It only got pulled into Wilson via Deal. Instead of adding more students to the already overcrowded schools, makes sense to redirect them back to Coolidge and to MacFarland middle or another middle ("new north").

Then they'd feed to Roosevelt not Coolidge. The new (sensible) policy is to follow elementary to high feeder path.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Shepherd also makes sense to realign because up until recently, that neighborhood was zoned to Coolidge high school. It only got pulled into Wilson via Deal. Instead of adding more students to the already overcrowded schools, makes sense to redirect them back to Coolidge and to MacFarland middle or another middle ("new north").

Then they'd feed to Roosevelt not Coolidge. The new (sensible) policy is to follow elementary to high feeder path.

That'd make sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Shepherd also makes sense to realign because up until recently, that neighborhood was zoned to Coolidge high school. It only got pulled into Wilson via Deal. Instead of adding more students to the already overcrowded schools, makes sense to redirect them back to Coolidge and to MacFarland middle or another middle ("new north").

Then they'd feed to Roosevelt not Coolidge. The new (sensible) policy is to follow elementary to high feeder path.

That'd make sense.

Right, the elementary-middle-high feeder path does makes sense. The question is why Shepherd shifted from Shepherd-Deal-Coolidge to Shepherd-Deal-Wilson, when Wilson was already overcrowded. Would make more sense to shift to Shepherd-______-Coolidge, so only the middle school shifts. That middle could be MacFarland or the "New North" middle that's planned, or maybe Takoma EC.

Seems like the shift made little sense because it pushed more students into an overcrowded system. Once MacFarland is done, seems the obvious shift should be Shepherd-MacFarland-Roosevelt.

[Anonymous]

There really is no point in this thread. It will be 25 pages long, but at end of the day everyone will get worked up about it for nothing. These threads did not influence the DME last time. Let's wait until 2022 to discuss.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Shepherd also makes sense to realign because up until recently, that neighborhood was zoned to Coolidge high school. It only got pulled into Wilson via Deal. Instead of adding more students to the already overcrowded schools, makes sense to redirect them back to Coolidge and to MacFarland middle or another middle ("new north").

Then they'd feed to Roosevelt not Coolidge. The new (sensible) policy is to follow elementary to high feeder path.

That'd make sense.

Right, the elementary-middle-high feeder path does makes sense. The question is why Shepherd shifted from Shepherd-Deal-Coolidge to Shepherd-Deal-Wilson, when Wilson was already overcrowded. Would make more sense to shift to Shepherd-______-Coolidge, so only the middle school shifts. That middle could be MacFarland or the "New North" middle that's planned, or maybe Takoma EC.

Seems like the shift made little sense because it pushed more students into an overcrowded system. Once MacFarland is done, seems the obvious shift should be Shepherd-MacFarland-Roosevelt.

Agreed. In fact I believe that was the original plan -- again, once the new Roosevelt is in place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To bring diversity maybe Murch and Key can be re-directed to McFarland so their is a equal mixture.

Makes good sense if the primary goal is to increase diversity everywhere and protect entitlement if Shepherd and Bancroft to Deal. Makes no sense if the goal is to support neighborhood schools and minimize transit burden. You'd essentially be transiting the biggest group of WOTP students east, and EOTP students west, which sounds like a silly approach.

On the plus side, zoning Murch and Key to MacFarland would certainly cause a huge jump in MacFarland test scores though, which may cause many EOTP families to want to send their children there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There really is no point in this thread. It will be 25 pages long, but at end of the day everyone will get worked up about it for nothing. These threads did not influence the DME last time. Let's wait until 2022 to discuss.

I'm hopeful we can have changes in 2018. Bowser "tweaked" the plan on a whim, so a new mayor could just tweak it again.

[Anonymous]

Lafayette is also in Ward 4, so obviously it would be on the move list. And whatever school it moved to would instantly have a critical mass of great scores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To bring diversity maybe Murch and Key can be re-directed to McFarland so their is a equal mixture.

Makes good sense if the primary goal is to increase diversity everywhere and protect entitlement if Shepherd and Bancroft to Deal. Makes no sense if the goal is to support neighborhood schools and minimize transit burden. You'd essentially be transiting the biggest group of WOTP students east, and EOTP students west, which sounds like a silly approach.

On the plus side, zoning Murch and Key to MacFarland would certainly cause a huge jump in MacFarland test scores though, which may cause many EOTP families to want to send their children there.

Hello? Murch kids cross the street to get to Deal. This thread has jumped the shark.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lafayette is also in Ward 4, so obviously it would be on the move list. And whatever school it moved to would instantly have a critical mass of great scores.

Yes, that's an option. I think these are the steps to take, in order:

1. Limit OOB feeder rights. In-bounds feeder students get priority access, followed by OOB feeder students, followed by pure OOB students, up to whatever the max capacity of the school is. If that solves the overcrowding problem, no need to go further, but if more is needed, then go to step 2.

2. Shift Shepherd and/or Bancroft to MacFarland. Those are the two elementary schools closest to MacFarland, so if a further reduction in enrollment is necessary, that shift seems obvious. If that solves the overcrowding problem, no need to go further, but if more is needed, then go to step 3.

3. Shift Lafayette to MacFarland. The alternative option might be to shift Hearst to Hardy. That's a longer route to travel for each of them than the current arrangement, but if Deal is still overcrowded after taking steps 1 & 2, then these other shifts are the obvious next option.