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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Why is any of this new news?  DCPS has been working on consolidating facilities and closing underused schools since at least Janey's tenure.[/quote]
Because it's a big deal to the people who live in neighborhoods near closed schools.  Neighbors are upset at losing their school (which they may have attended or where they may regularly volunteer).  Receiving schools must be chosen for displaced kids.  And a plan needs to be formulated for the now-vacant buildings.

If you're in-boundary for a school that's significantly over-enrolled, the process probably won't affect you.  For everyone else, it's a huge deal.  [/quote]

Actually, I would be happy if they closed our neighborhood PS 3-8.  It's under enrolled, and few of my neighbors would ever send their children there.  Actually, some did enroll their children last year, but ultimately fled.  I am sure circumstances are different in many other neighborhoods, tho.[/quote]
This was my perspective a few years ago, but reality has wound up changing my mind.  I cheered when our local elementary school was closed.  Rhee's office stated that kids from that school "might" be sent to one of the four schools surrounding the to-be-closed school:  schools A & B (which both happened to be high-performing, and for which we applied OOB) or C or D (both lower-performing than the school that was slated to close).  But once the closure actually happened, families were assigned to school D or to a new school E (again with lower test scores than the now-closed school).

Schools D & E are both located west & south of the now-closed school, guaranteeing that for about half of the kids in-boundary, there's another (usually higher-performing) elementary school that is closer to their home than their newly-assigned school.  So all the children are now receiving a lower-quality education, and many of them have a longer journey to school.  I guess from an administrative standpoint, it made sense--the schools that sucked were the ones that had the most spaces open, so let's be efficient and send everyone there.

I hope that Henderson's office thinks this through more thoroughly than Rhee's did.[/quote]

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