Reply to Wilson enrollment numbers increasing

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Reply to "Wilson enrollment numbers increasing"

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[quote=Anonymous]With regards to Wilson and it's effect on other DCPS high schools it's a vicious cycle. Deal has the same issue: These schools are popular because of all the classes, sports, and clubs that they offer. They can offer all those things BECAUSE of their high enrollment numbers. No one will go to any other DCPS high school until they can offer what Wilson offers, but they can't get the advanced classes, lots of different sports teams,etc until they have [i]at least[/i] 1400 kids (for high school). Now some will argue that they want all those course offerings and sports and clubs, etc. but then they also demand a small high school. It's just not possible, and you can thank the DC per pupil formula for that. It's basically illegal for the city to try to give a little extra to a smaller high school so they can offer more advanced classes. (And you can't just throw money at a small high school to add extra sports teams, because you actually need a warm body to be on the team.)

It's got nothing to do with whether or not DCPS does more to "promote" these other high schools. They can send their boosters out into the communities, and try to say how great these other schools are, but if a 9th grader can't have the option of taking an advanced math or have a choice between 3 or 4 different languages, and advanced science classes, etc coming from some of the better middle schools, then it's just a non-starter for most families. I think it's so funny that sooo many potential Wilson families scream about getting all the OOB kids OUT of Wilson because it's just SO CROWDED, when in reality, if you barred OOB kids from Wilson (46% currently) you would have a high school of about 900 kids, far too small to offer what Wilson students currently enjoy. And then guess what, everyone in NW would be screaming about how Wilson did a bait and switch and now they don't have the courses all those parents want their geniuses to have access to.

And I also think it's ridiculous that now Kaya and DCPS want to open yet another high school, the all-boys model when we don't have healthy enrollments at ANY other DCPS high school. It's crazy. I honestly don't know what the answer is except maybe if you graduate from Roosevelt, Eastern, Dunbar or some other HS, you get an extra college tuition grant to use at a private or public university in addition to the DC TAG or something. Then the enrollment numbers would come and people would be scrambling to apply to anywhere other than Wilson, and the enrollments would increase, the courses would expand and the DCPS HS would be stabilized with a healthy enrollment number. But then, as I noted above, Wilson would suffer. [/quote]

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