Committee on overcrowding in the Wilson feeder pattern

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I found the presentations / meeting notes from the working group interesting.

1 consideration was to make Hardy a 5-8 school. What does this do for Wilson overcrowding?

Didn't DCPS just move all elementary schools to a PreK-5th grade model so that everyone had transition at the same time?

Making Hardy a 5-8 school would reduce number of OOB students in the pathway. It alleviates crowding at Deal

By forcing parents who do not want their 5th grader with 8th graders to go private? How does Hardy having a 5-8 program alleviate crowding at Deal?

They would adjust the boundary.

None of this dialogue makes enough sense to me. How would making Hardy 5-8 reduce the number of OOB students in the pathway? What does it have to do with boundaries? What school's boundaries, anyway? Would adding fifth grade to Hardy be paired with removing fifth grade from its five feeder elementary schools? Or from some but not others? Would those elementary schools then "replace" fifth grade with ....lottery PK3?? Or change their PK4 from lottery to by-right??

The idea is that if you make Hardy more appealing to IB families you reduce the number of people who can attend Wilson by-right. Because when IB families go elsewhere for MS, they still have the right to attend Wilson. At the same time kids who go OOB to Hardy also have the right to attend Wilson. If those OOB kids can be replaced with IB kids the total number drops.

What it shows is how politically difficult it would be to prune back OOB feeder rights, because that would be a much simpler way of doing the same thing.

Wouldn't it be simpler to just change the bolded?

[Anonymous]

The solution isn't just to cut out the east of the park neighborhoods (it's not fair to them - they bought their houses in reliance on the Deal/Wilson right, just like you). And besides, they are a very small portion of the deal/Wilson enrollment.
The only way to create a second (or third) "good" DCPS neighborhood hs option is to split the current wealthy white deal/Wilson population more equally with another feeder pattern. For example, rezone half of Wilson (upper ward 4), including Lafayette, into Coolidge. That will become a high performing high school from day 1. The rich white kids from WOTP won't suffer, and the less advantaged eotp families will finally have a decent chance.
Then, leave the NW neighborhoods south of there, that also traditionally fed into Wilson, at Wilson, and make Roosevelt a magnet/specialty foreign language school that is attractive to the whole city, including students from Adams, Bancroft and Oyster.
Building nice buildings is not enough, and arbitrarily removing families' right to attend Wilson and Deal is unfair unless you give them an equally good option. For this you need socioeconomic and racial diversity to increase the good options for more families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The solution isn't just to cut out the east of the park neighborhoods (it's not fair to them - they bought their houses in reliance on the Deal/Wilson right, just like you). And besides, they are a very small portion of the deal/Wilson enrollment.
The only way to create a second (or third) "good" DCPS neighborhood hs option is to split the current wealthy white deal/Wilson population more equally with another feeder pattern. For example, rezone half of Wilson (upper ward 4), including Lafayette, into Coolidge. That will become a high performing high school from day 1. The rich white kids from WOTP won't suffer, and the less advantaged eotp families will finally have a decent chance.
Then, leave the NW neighborhoods south of there, that also traditionally fed into Wilson, at Wilson, and make Roosevelt a magnet/specialty foreign language school that is attractive to the whole city, including students from Adams, Bancroft and Oyster.
Building nice buildings is not enough, and arbitrarily removing families' right to attend Wilson and Deal is unfair unless you give them an equally good option. For this you need socioeconomic and racial diversity to increase the good options for more families.

There is not enough space at Coolidge for Lafayette.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Citation?

At the November staff meeting at my DCPS we did a mandatory training which stated "The out-of-boundary attendance policy is no longer in effect for
SY18-19. All students will receive the same attendance interventions, and that students cannot be required to return to the neighborhood school due to attendance concerns."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The solution isn't just to cut out the east of the park neighborhoods (it's not fair to them - they bought their houses in reliance on the Deal/Wilson right, just like you). And besides, they are a very small portion of the deal/Wilson enrollment.
The only way to create a second (or third) "good" DCPS neighborhood hs option is to split the current wealthy white deal/Wilson population more equally with another feeder pattern. For example, rezone half of Wilson (upper ward 4), including Lafayette, into Coolidge. That will become a high performing high school from day 1. The rich white kids from WOTP won't suffer, and the less advantaged eotp families will finally have a decent chance.
Then, leave the NW neighborhoods south of there, that also traditionally fed into Wilson, at Wilson, and make Roosevelt a magnet/specialty foreign language school that is attractive to the whole city, including students from Adams, Bancroft and Oyster.
Building nice buildings is not enough, and arbitrarily removing families' right to attend Wilson and Deal is unfair unless you give them an equally good option. For this you need socioeconomic and racial diversity to increase the good options for more families.

There is not enough space at Coolidge for Lafayette.

A decent chance at what? Does sending "less advantaged kids" to school with rich white kids improve outcomes academically for those "less advantaged kids". I thought not, the DC school voucher evaluation showed that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Step 1 - Stop Grandfathered families that are not currently enrolled in Deal / Wilson from enrolling. [Crestwood / 16th St Heights]

Step 2 - Cut option for Bancroft to Deal and move it only to MacFarland

Step 3 - Move Oyster Adams feeder to MacFarland

Easy

Step 3 is my favorite, and would make Step 2 a good idea because there would be a strong Spanish continuation for the kids on that track.

Geographically it makes sense. Politically, DCPS does not give an F.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The solution isn't just to cut out the east of the park neighborhoods (it's not fair to them - they bought their houses in reliance on the Deal/Wilson right, just like you). And besides, they are a very small portion of the deal/Wilson enrollment.
The only way to create a second (or third) "good" DCPS neighborhood hs option is to split the current wealthy white deal/Wilson population more equally with another feeder pattern. For example, rezone half of Wilson (upper ward 4), including Lafayette, into Coolidge. That will become a high performing high school from day 1. The rich white kids from WOTP won't suffer, and the less advantaged eotp families will finally have a decent chance.
Then, leave the NW neighborhoods south of there, that also traditionally fed into Wilson, at Wilson, and make Roosevelt a magnet/specialty foreign language school that is attractive to the whole city, including students from Adams, Bancroft and Oyster.
Building nice buildings is not enough, and arbitrarily removing families' right to attend Wilson and Deal is unfair unless you give them an equally good option. For this you need socioeconomic and racial diversity to increase the good options for more families.

So it isn’t fair to move EOTP neighborhoods out of Deal/Wilson but it is fair to do the same to Lafayette families?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The solution isn't just to cut out the east of the park neighborhoods (it's not fair to them - they bought their houses in reliance on the Deal/Wilson right, just like you). And besides, they are a very small portion of the deal/Wilson enrollment.
The only way to create a second (or third) "good" DCPS neighborhood hs option is to split the current wealthy white deal/Wilson population more equally with another feeder pattern. For example, rezone half of Wilson (upper ward 4), including Lafayette, into Coolidge. That will become a high performing high school from day 1. The rich white kids from WOTP won't suffer, and the less advantaged eotp families will finally have a decent chance.
Then, leave the NW neighborhoods south of there, that also traditionally fed into Wilson, at Wilson, and make Roosevelt a magnet/specialty foreign language school that is attractive to the whole city, including students from Adams, Bancroft and Oyster.
Building nice buildings is not enough, and arbitrarily removing families' right to attend Wilson and Deal is unfair unless you give them an equally good option. For this you need socioeconomic and racial diversity to increase the good options for more families.

There is not enough space at Coolidge for Lafayette.

Lafayette has what, 700 kids in prek-8? So maybe 70 in the 8th grade class?
Coolidge is way underenrolled today, and is doubling its official capacity as part of the modernization being completed this year. They will have room for at least 125+ per grade. Now that would show the city finally means business about improving options for everyone. Of course, it will never happen, because the families in Chevy Chase DC will never agree to be rezoned, nevermind that they think others should be rezoned out of Wilson.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If there is money in any budget for a Wilson expansion, I'm going to go down and fight it. We need DCPS, not one school.

Effectively, DC has three public education systems: the charters, the Wilson feeder pyramid, and the rest of DCPS. Here are enrollment numbers for the three systems over the past ten years:


SY 2007-08 SY 2017-18 Change Percent
Wilson Feeder 6,851 9,770 2,919 43%

DCPS w/o Wilson Feeder 42,571 38,212 -4,359 -10%

Charter Schools 19,733 43,340 23,607 120%

Total 69,155 91,322 22,167 32%

(I'm trying to present a table here. If it comes out garbled, each row has four numbers: the number of kids ten years ago, the number last year, the change in the number of kids, and the percentage change.)

DCPS overall lost about 1400 students in the past decade, shrinking 3%.

This is the conundrum that DCPS faces: except for the Wilson feeder pyramid, families are voting with their feet and leaving their schools, even though the school-age population overall is experiencing heavy growth. So do you put resources into the schools that people want to go to, or the ones they don't want to go to? I think the answer is both, but it's not an easy question.

If DCPS wanted to, they could cut off the flow of OOB kids into the Wilson pyramid in an instant. But they don't want to, they'd lose most of those families if they did. They'd rather they went to neighborhood schools, but they have no way to force them.

Thanks for the data! I think this is why cutting Bancroft out of the Wilson system is a bad idea, it is a fledgling neighborhood school, surely a part of that is the secure Deal and Wilson feed. And if they were to be sent to Cardozo Middle, which is not so far away from Mt Pleasant most people would move for middle or go to CHEC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Step 1 - Stop Grandfathered families that are not currently enrolled in Deal / Wilson from enrolling. [Crestwood / 16th St Heights]

Step 2 - Cut option for Bancroft to Deal and move it only to MacFarland

Step 3 - Move Oyster Adams feeder to MacFarland

Easy

Step 3 is my favorite, and would make Step 2 a good idea because there would be a strong Spanish continuation for the kids on that track.

Geographically it makes sense. Politically, DCPS does not give an F.

Don't you mean Oyster Adams to Rossevelt High? Oyster Adams has is a Middle School and McFarland is a Middle School.

[Anonymous]

what are the actual Wilson numbers?
Current numbers and number projected/estimated in 3 and 5 years?
Does anyone know?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The solution isn't just to cut out the east of the park neighborhoods (it's not fair to them - they bought their houses in reliance on the Deal/Wilson right, just like you). And besides, they are a very small portion of the deal/Wilson enrollment.
The only way to create a second (or third) "good" DCPS neighborhood hs option is to split the current wealthy white deal/Wilson population more equally with another feeder pattern. For example, rezone half of Wilson (upper ward 4), including Lafayette, into Coolidge. That will become a high performing high school from day 1. The rich white kids from WOTP won't suffer, and the less advantaged eotp families will finally have a decent chance.
Then, leave the NW neighborhoods south of there, that also traditionally fed into Wilson, at Wilson, and make Roosevelt a magnet/specialty foreign language school that is attractive to the whole city, including students from Adams, Bancroft and Oyster.
Building nice buildings is not enough, and arbitrarily removing families' right to attend Wilson and Deal is unfair unless you give them an equally good option. For this you need socioeconomic and racial diversity to increase the good options for more families.

There is not enough space at Coolidge for Lafayette.

Lafayette has what, 700 kids in prek-8? So maybe 70 in the 8th grade class?
Coolidge is way underenrolled today, and is doubling its official capacity as part of the modernization being completed this year. They will have room for at least 125+ per grade. Now that would show the city finally means business about improving options for everyone. Of course, it will never happen, because the families in Chevy Chase DC will never agree to be rezoned, nevermind that they think others should be rezoned out of Wilson.

No. The school only goes to 5th grade. They have about 815 students. Not as many in PK4 as 5th. The new north middle school will barely fit the PK3-8 schools that will go there let alone Shepherd and Lafayette. The high school portion will not fit them either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:what are the actual Wilson numbers?
Current numbers and number projected/estimated in 3 and 5 years?
Does anyone know?

DCPS doesn't do projections. They'd rather not know.

I'm only joking a little. There doesn't seem to be a lot of interest in surfacing problems before they reach crisis level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:what are the actual Wilson numbers?
Current numbers and number projected/estimated in 3 and 5 years?
Does anyone know?

DCPS doesn't do projections. They'd rather not know.

I'm only joking a little. There doesn't seem to be a lot of interest in surfacing problems before they reach crisis level.

Read the new DC DME master facilities plan, or just read the DCUM argument about it. The document is posted early in the thread. https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/766710.page

[Anonymous]

"Bought your house in reliance on Wilson access" is not a property right. Even if it was, I want it taken away for the good of the rest of us. Move if you want. I want those kids in Ward 1 or 4 schools, or if (when, right PP!?!) you move away, to have your replacements put their kids there.