Reply to MacFarland - am I missing something?

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[quote=Anonymous]We do need a bilingual program at MacFarland. Columbia Heights EC has a bilingual program designed to serve students who are just starting out in Spanish, not students who will be graduating after 5-7 years of language immersion at Powell, BMPV, Bancroft, and other DCPS bilingual schools.

Why not put the bilingual program at the hypothetical re-opened Shaw? in terms of DCPS bilingual programs, Shaw middle school only has Marie Reed in its feeder. Bancroft goes to Deal (although some parents at Bancroft are pushing for a strong DCPS bilingual option this side of the park and would attend MacFarland if other factors were right). Oyster has its own middle school, and Tyler is all by itself on Capitol Hill. Am I missing any? Powell and BMPV will both go to the New MacFarland, so that is actually the highest concentration of bilingual elementary schools for any middle school in the city.

In addition, MacFarland will feed into Roosevelt, which is currently being re-envisioned as the DCPS flagship school for international studies. Powell, MacFarland, and Roosevelt are literally right next door to each other, so you would have a thriving internationally-focused campus with opportunities for cross-pollination and coordination (older students tutoring younger students, teachers collaborating, and the ability to build on specialized skills and programs as students grow).

Perhaps most importantly, there is strong community support for re-opening MacFarland. By contrast, Shaw parents are not really organizing or pushing for a stand-alone middle school in their neighborhood. This may be because many of the Shaw feeder schools currently feed into Deal, while a number of the MacFarland schools currently feed into under-funded education campuses, so parents can see a clear benefit to re-opening MacFarland, which they may not see for Shaw.

Why didn't all these factors stop MacFarland from closing? Part of it is the community was a blind-sided by the MacFarland closure. Parents from different feeder schools were not well-networked at the time and while individuals (including myself) did attempt to reach out to express our concerns about closing the school, the whole process moved very quickly with few opportunities for public input.

MacFarland was under-enrolled, but Wards 4 and 1 are in the midst of an epic baby boom, and most elementary schools have pyramid-shaped populations, with huge enrollment in early childhood petering off in the upper grades. We are all looking for a reliable middle school option, and the sheer level of interest will do much to address the collective action problem that led to the closure in the first place. Had these parents with young children been better organized, I don't think the closure would have happened.
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