Reply to The fate of Fillmore

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

Reply to "The fate of Fillmore"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This premise thread acts like Fillmore is some kind of a problem.  Where's the problem?  Despite the ongoing budget cuts, Fillmore works great, and no one who uses it wants it to go away.  Some kinda weirdness with the initial mindset that there's even a question here.[/quote]

Fillmore is a battlefield in a 40-year war between DCPS and parents. It's a war that's gone on so long that hardly anyone knows what it was about in the first place.

In the early 1970's there were six elementary schools in the area south of Massachusetts Ave. and west of Rock Creek. They were all poorly-attended and in old, small buildings. DCPS proposed closing them all and consolidating them into one modern school. DCPS argued that the old schools didn't have libraries, gyms, or space for art and music, and that a consolidated school would be cheaper to operate.  The six schools were Key, Mann, Stoddert, Hyde, Hardy (elementary, the "old Hardy" on Foxhall Road), and Fillmore (now owned by GW, next to Hardy MS).

Middle school was a consideration as well. All of the schools fed Gordon Junior High. The Burleith Citizens Association website (burleith.org) describes Gordon:
[quote]During the early and mid-1960s, Gordon was held up as a model of successful integration, with an enrollment of 800 fluctuating between 60 percent white and 60 percent black for almost ten years. In 1966 there was a proposal to make both Gordon Junior High and Western High model schools.

However, after Judge Wright's 1967 order, the character of Gordon changed. Almost all ability grouping stopped and students of third grade level ability were in the same classes as students of 12th grade level ability. Discipline became a problem. During the mid-1970s the school's stage curtains were set ablaze and were never replaced. A tear gas grenade was set off, and the cafeteria furniture was burned. When several teachers were assaulted, the teachers staged a one-day sick-out demanding tighter discipline.[/quote]

The parents at Mann had tried to get their school redistricted to feed Deal, but a federal judge rejected the plan, saying that it would increase the level of segregation in the system. (And as a result DCPS has not engaged in meaningful boundary review in the 45 years since.)

The parents at those six schools came up with a plan of their own. Rather than close all six schools, they proposed repurposing Hardy and Fillmore. The students from those two schools would be spread among the remaining four, bolstering their enrollment. To address the concern that the schools lacked libraries, gyms and art and music spaces, Fillmore would be converted into an art and music center. One day a week each school would go to Georgetown, and have art and music at Fillmore, library at the Georgetown Libary, and PE at the Jelleff Boys & Girls club. Hardy would be converted into a middle school -- the original Hardy Middle School -- serving the other four schools, which would help them retain students.  The kicker is that while the DCPS plan was proposed as a money-saver, the parents' plan was actually less expensive. The Council approved the parents' plan.

DCPS hated the parents' plan then, they've hated it ever since, and they've spent 40 years trying to get rid of it. All of the four schools have since been renovated and expanded, and now have gyms and libraries, so only the art and music program remains. (Although when I was on the LSAT of my Fillmore school, almost ten years ago, PE was still in the Fillmore budget and not the school budget). DCPS closed Gordon in 1978, and in 1996 they reopened the building, moved Hardy Middle School into it. and started leasing the old Hardy building to a succession of private schools. When "new" Hardy was renovated around 2005, DCPS moved it to swing space ove by Gallaudet, which effectively destroyed it as a neighborhood school.

I won't say the parents' plan was perfect. Probably the high point was in the late 1970's, when Amy Carter attended Hardy MS on Foxhall while her father was president. Fillmore has never been a great program, it has struggled to be more than adequate. But the parents' plan kept those schools open, I think we'd all agree that DCPS would be in worse shape today if they had been allowed to consolidate them down to one school. [/quote]

Interesting!  Thanks for the background.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics