Reply to New DCPS school on former Georgetown Day site will be a high school

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Also, how is it possible they could have this school opened for the 23/24 school year? They haven’t even bid it out yet let alone broken ground and the facility is much larger than the elementary school renovations that have all taken almost 2 years up to the day to renovate.[/quote]

While they may not have to "break ground" as it were, I am a little confused as to the SY23/24 timeline quoted in the communication sent out by DC Central office. This is only a line item in the budget which needs to be approved by Council. And the new fiscal year is not until July (I'm not sure but I think that is the earliest). So bids for planning will go out in the summer and finalized late Fall. Given that the site was originally for K-8 for 600 kids (and without a cafeteria etc.) I would imagine that it will take longer than 9 months to finish up all the work, given that they need to put in labs etc. Eaton renovation took over 2 years but granted it did involve a lot of foundation work for the new section.

Then there is the question of sequencing -- if the current crop of 7th Graders at Hardy are the first to attend this school, that only makes about 120 kids for the 9th grade class. Are they planning to fill the rest by lottery + at risk preference? Are there even that many kids in the system who would want to attend? What about class offerings? If the majority are at risk in grades 10-12, will they have sufficient mass to offer AP/honors classes right off the bat? While this may sound politically incorrect, am I accurate in assuming that many of these possible 10-12th graders are coming from other schools in the system that do not currently have extensive AP offerings (or honors?)

If not, then what is the draw of this school? [/quote]

I'm wondering if they plan to add one additional class each year?

So 23-24 has only the freshman class. 24-25 has freshman and sophomore classes. Etc.

In this scenario, they do not need the entire campus finished by 22-23. They can work on renovations and expansion each year, adding more capacity for the next year's additional class. Finally, by year 26-27 the school has all four grades filled.[/quote]

This is how most new schools operate. It wouldn't make sense to fill all grades the same year.[/quote]

Yes, but this would be really rough extracurricularly for a high school. No teams basically (or totally non-competitive ones that will get crushed); I assume you'd need to grandfather them into Wilson or something along those lines. That alone would drive lots of kids away.[/quote]

I'd be fine if the high school didn't have a major focus on sports, if instead it was an IB program or STEM-focused. Football is declining pretty quickly in popularity and is a huge money suck. There won't be a pool at this site.

I'd expect the new MacArthur HS to instead focus on sports activities with a small footprint - tennis, crew (take advantage of easy access to the Potomac!), basketball, cross-country running, etc. Maybe utilize Palisades Rec Center for soccer and baseball/softball teams.

In short, don't expect this school to be a sports powerhouse. You can go elsewhere in the city if you want your kid to have that experience.[/quote]

But would it even be an academic powerhouse? Will they have the critical mass of kids (starting from the 150 odd 9th graders) to offer them honors classes, labs and in some cases, even AP classes? I guess it will take about 2-3 years to build that up. It will be a rough transition for the current Hardy kids -- especially in an era when colleges that many of these students' families aspire to expect extensive AP classes (or at least rigorous curricula). [/quote]

Walls and Banneker both have 100-150 kids per grade and offer plenty of APs. I don’t see why it would be a problem.[/quote]

Sure, eventually McArthur should get there. But I suppose starting out, it might be difficult for kids to access different AP offerings. Or do schools offer AP/honors classes even with a handful (<10) students? For instance, there are a handful of kids at Hardy who are in Algebra 1 in 7th and will have finished Geometry by 8th. Presumably the school will have to account for this and offer Alg 2 or higher straightaway in 9th, just to these 10 odd students? [/quote]

They had better, or they are doing those students a terrible disservice.  And what’s wrong with one class with 10 students?[/quote]

Nothing. But will DCPS do so? There would a LOT of 10 person classes in this scenario. I am not complaining -- just trying to figure out how this will all work out, given I have vested interests here...Flip side, I guess the students will have interesting fodder for college essays about starting 2-person clubs or whatever.[/quote]

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