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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]The only group that has a decent neighborhood HS is the "neighborhood" that is IB for Wilson. The next closest option for creating a good neighborhood school is to create a new WoTP HS and possibly split the Wilson and up-coming surge of high school students into this new HS -- which has been proposed for Western/Ellington site. At that point, you might have locked in WoTP attendence in quality HS and have created some additional OOB seats to take some of the EoTP students.[/quote]

[b]Why would we create a new WOTP HS when the up-coming surge of students is EAST of the park?

Does it really make sense to keep planning OOB seats for that projected growth?[/b][/quote]

Thank you for pointing out the obvious!  That's not sarcasm, btw.  It's ridiculous how that keeps getting lost.  A new HS is NOT necessary WotP.  There are several under-enrolled high schools (read: all of them) EotP, and [i]that[/i] is where the desperate need for a quality program is.  I favor Cardozo for reasons of geography but could be happy with Roosevelt for the clean slate, since it's undergoing renovation right now.  Hell, Coolidge should be considered as well.

Renaming any of them is absurd and insulting, that idea needs to be let go.  Instead, open an academy program inside one of them and pour resources into it.  Those resources need to be more than just the capital investments we can see: labs, theaters, fields, etc.  They need to be programming resources:

[list]commit to offering every single AP class that Wilson has[/list] 
[list]commit to hiring top-quality teaching talent even if it means paying top dollar to poach them from neighboring systems (i.e., MoCo and FFX) [/list]
[list]commit to something special like a guest-lecture series or teaching fellow in residence[/list]

Commit to some elite athletic options: lacrosse, field hockey, crew, or golf.  Most of all commit to a destination school [i]EAST[/i] of the Park, where the actual [i]need[/i] is.[/quote]

PP poster here: DCPS has not had success luring white high performing students to any comprehensive HS EoTP.  Eastern HS is the latest attempt to create a new HS to attract high-SES families.  They staged the enrollment to make it a nice, clean break from the old "failing" school.  And still, DCPS failed in their attempts to get any white families to select the new school.

It's already been proven that families EoTP will send their kids across town for better schools.  It has been demonstrated that WoTP families mostly won't.  So if you want a new neighborhood school that is of high quality, (which quality hinges primarily on the SES of the families sending students), you need to locate it in a neighborhood where the residents are high-SES and willing to send their children to the neighborhood school.

It's true that most of the new need for a quality program comes from students living EoTP but it has been demonstrated that unless a school gets a certain level of[i] proficient [u]white[/u] students[/i] it won't be a school that high-SES white parents will send their children to.  Both McKinley and Banneker are filled with [i]proficient students[/i], but the white population is zero percent.  According to DCPS building utilization figures [b]there are 130 spaces that could be added to McKinley Tech HS and there are 190 spaces that could be created at Banneker[/b] if there was a surge.   How would a magnet school or a magnet academy inside a comprehensive HS differ from an application only HS and why would parents prefer this to an application school like Banneker and McKinley Tech?.  If the answer is only that it would be a neighborhood school then you would need some way to insure that there would be enough neighborhood participation by proficient "diverse" students.

There is both a minimum level of "diversity" needed to label a school as acceptable, and a tipping point where the school is recognized as a preferred destination.  Old Wilson, pre-renovation was "acceptable".  Post-renovation Wilson is a preferred destination.  Once a school has become a preferred destination the utilization numbers go over 100% pretty quickly, so you can take a look at the DCPS figures to see what schools have the quality.

Getting this "quality demographic" set of "new" students for a "new" school across all grades at once is nearly impossible.  So how do you grow a "diverse" high-quality school?

How many students do you need to seed it so that it is acceptable and the parents will not flee?  Can you get them from the neighborhood?
A plan should give a number of students that are needed in first year, second year to grow the demographic and identify where these students will come from (all EoTP? / former Wilson? / commuting from WoTP / re-joining DCPS)?

What incentives do these parents need to take a gamble on the new program that hasn't been vetted by others that they trust?  Can you fund the incentives?
You mention all the AP classes at Wilson and top-flight teachers.  Put a price tag on that.

Why would Roosevelt turn out any differently than Eastern?[/quote]

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