Reply to Ward 3 - Wilson feeders meeting last night: did anyone attend?

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Reply to "Ward 3 - Wilson feeders meeting last night: did anyone attend?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Here are a few ideas.  I'll describe the pro and con list for each.  None of them are perfect, several will piss people off.  Forgive the blunt descriptions; I'm not good at sugarcoated euphemisms.

1. Keep adding more capacity.  This seems to be where DCPS is headed.  It seems like a dead end.  Also, how can the city justify the cost of building even more schools in NW when half the students are coming from other parts of the city, especially when the city has other schools sitting half empty?  It's the easiest option to sell because it spreads the cost widest, but it's a cop out IMHO.

2. Create a few new test-in schools like SWW and Banneker, which seem to be very successful.  The test-in aspect means that only serious students will be at the schools, so parents who want serious academics and don't care so much about all the extra stuff like band and art will be willing to pull their children out of Deal and Wilson in favor of the test-in schools.  That will reduce overcrowding at Deal-Wilson.  One potential problem is that the test-in schools may end up being largely white and Asian, with less diversity.  Some people will complain that the city shouldn't fund programs that benefit white and Asian students.  But the positive flip-side is that as white and Asian students get peeled away from Deal and Wilson, that will make Deal and Wilson even more diverse.  Also, maybe DCPS could co-locate these test-in schools in other existing schools that have large black and Hispanic populations, which would mean the co-located school as a whole would become more diverse.  Also, the test-in program's PARCC scores would help boost the school's overall rating, which might attract more people from the surrounding neighborhood to the school.  For example, maybe a test-in program gets co-located at the Takoma Education Campus.  Maybe at MacFarland or Brightwood EC?

3. Sister schools a/k/a choice set a/k/a lottery overflow (I don't have a catchy name for this one yet).  This is sort of like the options others seem to be offering for how to create better student balance between Deal (overcapacity) and Hardy (undercapacity).  Link Deal and Hardy as sister schools, with one catching the lottery overflow from the other.  In other words, if Deal has a hard-cap capacity of 1350 (or whatever it currently is), and there are more feeder students than that capacity, then the excess (as determined by lottery) get in-bounds preference for Hardy.  That way, Deal will never be overcapacity, but those squeezed out of Deal will have full rights at Hardy.  That same sister-school model could be applied to pair up over/under-capacity elementary schools.  For example, an obvious pairing might be Lafayette ES (overcapacity?) and Shepherd ES (undercapacity).  If an IB student for Lafayette doesn't get a spot there, then she gets automatic IB rights to Shepherd.  Another pairing might be Hearst (undercapacity) with Janney (overcapacity).  You could even expand the sister-school concept to a multi-school choice set that includes all the schools in the feeder pattern.  In other words, for example, if Janney is overcapacity, any IB students who miss spots at Janney will have full IB rights at all of the other schools in the Deal feeder pattern.  This model helps prevent the popular NWDC schools (or really any school) from getting overcapacity because of the hard-cap on enrollment, but gives students who miss out in the lottery a decent nearby second choice.  This doesn't do much in the short term for Wilson though because there's not another nearby option for high school.  But in the long term, it helps ensure that all the feeder capacity to Wilson is fully utilized by students IB to its many feeders, which helps limit the number of students at Wilson.  (I'm not sure, but this might be nearly identical to the "choice sets" option DCPS planners suggested when we did the boundary squabble a few years ago. If so, maybe it will be attractive to them since they can claim it was their own bright idea in the first place.)

4. Close elementary schools without substantial IB enrollment.  People will hate, hate, hate this idea, and I'm not sure yet if the math works.  But try to keep an open mind so we can get all ideas on the table.  If one of the feeder elementary schools is not substantially IB, then close it.  Merge that school's neighborhood into another nearby ES.  As one example, Shepherd ES is only 35% IB.   So close Shepherd ES and send all its IB students to Lafayette.  The boundary will remain the same, the feeder pattern will remain the same, Shepherd Park residents will retain full access to Deal and Wilson.  But if Shepherd Park families are not using the ES, and it's 65% OOB anyway, then let's close it.  Give the school building to one of the charters that need space.  Closing an ES like that may seem like it will create more overcrowding, so you'd have to make sure that the Shepherd Park neighborhood is combined with another ES that can handle the extra capacity.  But by closing underutilized elementary schools, you'd reduce the feeder numbers going to Deal and Wilson.  If the "political challenge" of closing a neighborhood school is too much for DCPS to handle, then maybe just re-purpose part of the school instead.  For example, split Shepherd ES in half, and co-locate at Shepherd ES one of the middle school test-in programs described above in proposal #2.  That way, instead of a 330 elementary student school that's only 35% IB, Shepherd becomes a 115-student ES that's 100% IB + a 115-student test-in magnet school.  DCPS could even offer some sort of neighborhood preference for Shepherd Park residents for the middle-school test-in program, to sweeten the pot.  This is sort of like how the Takoma Park MS magnet program works.

5. Do nothing.  Perhaps I'm just frustrated by the discussion of the past several years, but I'm wondering if DCPS's real plan (and maybe the best answer) is just to delay and do nothing.  All the OOB students continuing to cram into Deal and Wilson don't care that it's overcrowded, because even overcrowded Wilson is apparently better than their neighborhood schools.  The IB families may complain, but so what?  The city's political power doesn't run through NWDC, and DCPS can easily justify ignoring the complaints of wealthy white residents of NWDC to focus on promoting more "equity" for other neighborhoods.  As the overcrowding gets worse, wealthy NWDC families can either opt for private schools or they can leave for the suburbs; there will always be more buyers willing to take their places.  Eventually, if demographic trends continue, the EOTP neighborhoods will continue to gentrify and get wealthier and the schools around them might even improve on their own as the neighborhoods improve.  That way, DCPS can just let the natural market handle itself and avoid any political challenges.  The only cost is continuing to hold periodic meetings to let whiny NWDC residents vent their frustrations.  Cynical, I know.

Not sure if any of these ideas will work, but perhaps they're fresh ones.  This is DCUM, so probably people will just crap on them, but maybe they'll spark someone else to develop a better idea that actually works.[/quote]

OP here, just chiming in.

I don't think #1 is a viable solution, especially in the short-term.  I also think there would be pushback if they float the idea of building new schools in NW or WOTP in particular, while leaving some existing schools with no or partial renovations (like Shepherd, which has incomplete renovations, with no plans to modernize the cafeteria despite health & safety concerns).

I sort of like #2, the idea of colocating test-in schools within neighborhood schools.  Others would know better than I where this idea might be most likely to get some traction--perhaps some schools with low IB rates that don't show significant upwards trends, but which have high proportions of educated families in the boundary (e.g., Garrison?).

Also, #3 re: sister schools/choice sets might work if done right--the under-enrolled schools would have to be seen as at least somewhat desirable for families to actually consider these options.

I don't like #4, since I don't support the idea of closing under-enrolled schools that actually show an upward trend in IB enrollment.  For example, Shepherd's IB rate has increased from 33% to 43% in just the three years I've had my kid there (a school admin verified this year's IB rate when I asked).  PK3 has a double digit waitlist for next year, which likely means an even higher IB rate for 2017-2018.  Closing under-enrolled schools like Shepherd and Hearst would essentially mean undermining DCPS schools that are finally getting neighborhood buy-in.  So, this is problematic.

Re: #5, perhaps things will be left alone until the next boundary revision.  If there are over-capacity problems in the meantime, perhaps some schools could remove PK4 classes.

#6: I actually think the idea of removing OOB rights could be palatable, IF 1) there is a significant grandfathering period, and 2) a lottery preference is created for OOB students from feeder schools.[/quote]

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