DC now in CDC moderate range for schools - what will this mean for reopening?

[Anonymous]

I live in upper northwest and you are right, there is no inventory. But the people moving in have kids in private.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC is much less appealing now with remote work, no IPL, and far away from childcare help from family. So many who could leave already have, and many more will over the summer. Of course, no one really cares about the rich white people leaving again, except all the developers who will be stuck with empty expensive real estate.

DC’s government is going to have to start caring, if enough higher income people leave. That’s the tax base that pays for all of the services for lower income people.

Bowser doesn’t care about public school education very much, but she does care about tax revenue.

Please show me the abundance of real estate in upper NW as evidence that people are moving out and not right back in.

Also, DC would rather have childless rich people that pay taxes and don’t use schools.

And, we all know the super rich don’t pay that much in taxes anyway.

[Anonymous]

The people who cleared out of DC were almost entirely 1) internationals and dual passport holders At our upper NW school I can think of about a dozen of them. They were not home owners. Anyone who had a passport
for another country left in August prior to this school year and a few over winter break. 2) Those with second/vacation homes who elected to attend school at the second home location 3)Those who moved in with relatives in other cities. These second two categories did not sell their DC homes when they left DC for this year.

The movement this coming summer will involved people selling their homes. This really hasn't happened yet. Most people have assumed that school would return here as it has in the rest of the country.
If school is not projected to be in-person this fall, you will see a wave a people actually selling and permanently relocating. We'll be in this bunch.

[Anonymous]

DC being in the moderate range per CDC means nothing without the DC Health Department revising its guidelines for in-person learning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The people who cleared out of DC were almost entirely 1) internationals and dual passport holders At our upper NW school I can think of about a dozen of them. They were not home owners. Anyone who had a passport
for another country left in August prior to this school year and a few over winter break. 2) Those with second/vacation homes who elected to attend school at the second home location 3)Those who moved in with relatives in other cities. These second two categories did not sell their DC homes when they left DC for this year.

The movement this coming summer will involved people selling their homes. This really hasn't happened yet. Most people have assumed that school would return here as it has in the rest of the country.
If school is not projected to be in-person this fall, you will see a wave a people actually selling and permanently relocating. We'll be in this bunch.

Agree. About half of the people I know who did 'temporary' relocations for school are considering leaving for good now. When I talk to anyone who isn't in Washington, they are just appalled by what's happening here. Its a crime.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC is much less appealing now with remote work, no IPL, and far away from childcare help from family. So many who could leave already have, and many more will over the summer. Of course, no one really cares about the rich white people leaving again, except all the developers who will be stuck with empty expensive real estate.

DC’s government is going to have to start caring, if enough higher income people leave. That’s the tax base that pays for all of the services for lower income people.

Bowser doesn’t care about public school education very much, but she does care about tax revenue.

Please show me the abundance of real estate in upper NW as evidence that people are moving out and not right back in.

Also, DC would rather have childless rich people that pay taxes and don’t use schools.

And, we all know the super rich don’t pay that much in taxes anyway.

People won't necessarily sell their homes, even if they permanently move away. Why sell if you don't have to? The value is only going to go up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On this note, are there school-by-school stats on changes of enrollment from 2019/20 to 2020/21?

Not sure if this year's stats are audited yet, but also the enrollment figures will be as of early October 2020, so it won't include all the people who have pulled out since then.

Here's the prelim info:

Enrollment at DC Public Schools (DCPS) decreased from 51,037 students in the 2019-20 school year to 49,958 students in the 2020-21 school year, a 2.11 percent decrease compared to final, audited numbers released in early 2020. Enrollment at DC’s public charter schools increased from 43,518 students in the 2019-20 school year to 44,100 students in the 2020-19 school year, a 1.34 percent increase over final, audited numbers for last school year released in early 2020.

Doesn't sound like much of a drop overall.

https://osse.dc.gov/release/bowser-administration-releases-preliminary-dc-enrollment-numbers-2020-21-school-year#:~:text=Enrollment%20at%20DC%20Public%20Schools,numbers%20released%20in%20early%202020.

This is the biggest drop in more than a decade. And if schools don't fully reopen this fall, the decline will accelerate. DC is increasingly becoming an outlier when it comes to school openings. We are way behind even other heavily Democratic areas.

Do you think this is on the radar screen at all in city hall? Because I would think the reaction would be: Good - we can cut costs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On this note, are there school-by-school stats on changes of enrollment from 2019/20 to 2020/21?

Not sure if this year's stats are audited yet, but also the enrollment figures will be as of early October 2020, so it won't include all the people who have pulled out since then.

Here's the prelim info:

Enrollment at DC Public Schools (DCPS) decreased from 51,037 students in the 2019-20 school year to 49,958 students in the 2020-21 school year, a 2.11 percent decrease compared to final, audited numbers released in early 2020. Enrollment at DC’s public charter schools increased from 43,518 students in the 2019-20 school year to 44,100 students in the 2020-19 school year, a 1.34 percent increase over final, audited numbers for last school year released in early 2020.

Doesn't sound like much of a drop overall.

https://osse.dc.gov/release/bowser-administration-releases-preliminary-dc-enrollment-numbers-2020-21-school-year#:~:text=Enrollment%20at%20DC%20Public%20Schools,numbers%20released%20in%20early%202020.

This is the biggest drop in more than a decade. And if schools don't fully reopen this fall, the decline will accelerate. DC is increasingly becoming an outlier when it comes to school openings. We are way behind even other heavily Democratic areas.

Do you think this is on the radar screen at all in city hall? Because I would think the reaction would be: Good - we can cut costs.

Maybe someone would have that reaction, but it's a bad one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On this note, are there school-by-school stats on changes of enrollment from 2019/20 to 2020/21?

Not sure if this year's stats are audited yet, but also the enrollment figures will be as of early October 2020, so it won't include all the people who have pulled out since then.

Here's the prelim info:

Enrollment at DC Public Schools (DCPS) decreased from 51,037 students in the 2019-20 school year to 49,958 students in the 2020-21 school year, a 2.11 percent decrease compared to final, audited numbers released in early 2020. Enrollment at DC’s public charter schools increased from 43,518 students in the 2019-20 school year to 44,100 students in the 2020-19 school year, a 1.34 percent increase over final, audited numbers for last school year released in early 2020.

Doesn't sound like much of a drop overall.

https://osse.dc.gov/release/bowser-administration-releases-preliminary-dc-enrollment-numbers-2020-21-school-year#:~:text=Enrollment%20at%20DC%20Public%20Schools,numbers%20released%20in%20early%202020.

This is the biggest drop in more than a decade. And if schools don't fully reopen this fall, the decline will accelerate. DC is increasingly becoming an outlier when it comes to school openings. We are way behind even other heavily Democratic areas.

Do you think this is on the radar screen at all in city hall? Because I would think the reaction would be: Good - we can cut costs.

The people who leave are going to be disproportionately rich, and they pay the lion's share of taxes. If they sell their homes, it will depress housing prices, which also means lower property taxes. Fewer students in DC schools equals less money from the Department of Education. And just because you have fewer students, doesn't mean you can cut school staffs. It's very difficult politically. Shoot, we can't even lay off teachers when schools have been closed for a year.

[Anonymous]

All this talk of moving is very remincent of a temper tantrum.

Yes you don't like the current system in a pandemic. Are you anticipating another pandemic in 3-4 years and if so do you think DCPS will have the same behavior.

Cut off your nose to spite your face. Please stop with the threats and just go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All this talk of moving is very remincent of a temper tantrum.

Yes you don't like the current system in a pandemic. Are you anticipating another pandemic in 3-4 years and if so do you think DCPS will have the same behavior.

Cut off your nose to spite your face. Please stop with the threats and just go.

+1, and you don’t have to announce that you’re leaving either! We don’t care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All this talk of moving is very remincent of a temper tantrum.

Yes you don't like the current system in a pandemic. Are you anticipating another pandemic in 3-4 years and if so do you think DCPS will have the same behavior.

Cut off your nose to spite your face. Please stop with the threats and just go.

+1, and you don’t have to announce that you’re leaving either! We don’t care.

I agree that we're unlikely to see a big change in the population, but I do think we're already seeing and will continue to see a net exodus from schools with wealthy students. If it really matters to the city-well, that's another discussion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All this talk of moving is very remincent of a temper tantrum.

Yes you don't like the current system in a pandemic. Are you anticipating another pandemic in 3-4 years and if so do you think DCPS will have the same behavior.

Cut off your nose to spite your face. Please stop with the threats and just go.

+1, and you don’t have to announce that you’re leaving either! We don’t care.

I agree that we're unlikely to see a big change in the population, but I do think we're already seeing and will continue to see a net exodus from schools with wealthy students. If it really matters to the city-well, that's another discussion.

Keeping schools closed so long will accelerate the long-term trend of DC becoming a childless city, i.e. the overall population grows but the share under the age of 18 shrinks.

It was already happening here before the pandemic. If parents can't count on the school system being open, even as schools are open almost everywhere else in the rest of the country, then they will take their kids elsewhere and the share of the population under the age of 18 in DC will fall even faster.

I wouldn't want to be a teacher in a city where the number of students is perpetually declining because it means the city will need a lot fewer teachers.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/where-have-all-the-children-gone/594133/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All this talk of moving is very remincent of a temper tantrum.

Yes you don't like the current system in a pandemic. Are you anticipating another pandemic in 3-4 years and if so do you think DCPS will have the same behavior.

Cut off your nose to spite your face. Please stop with the threats and just go.

interesting framing, calling it a tantrum when people are discussing an actual problem, what they are doing to solve it, and the potential downsides of these solutions. i hope you don't say something similar to your children when they're problem solving.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, people calmly discussing what to do, presenting hypotheticals about what this means for the DC tax base and DC schools is not a "tantrum." It is people with the means to do so making choices that are better for them. I don't see a lot of people moving out of spite, but out of a sincere need to solve their problems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, people calmly discussing what to do, presenting hypotheticals about what this means for the DC tax base and DC schools is not a "tantrum." It is people with the means to do so making choices that are better for them. I don't see a lot of people moving out of spite, but out of a sincere need to solve their problems.

+1. Calling it a tantrum is a huge stretch. People want their kids in schools and schools around the courtly have shown it can be done in a safe way. DC is barely scratching the surface with getting kids back. I am from DC and my whole family is here but if I was from somewhere else I would consider moving and do not think people that do are throwing a tantrum.