Reply to DC Begins School Boundary Study

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

Reply to "DC Begins School Boundary Study"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Here are my ideas:

If you move OOB you only get to stay in your school until the end of the year (exceptions for foster care, homelessness, or legally-required reasons, but centralize that exemption process rather than leaving it with principals and registrars).

If you get into a school OOB, you have rights to it until the terminal year, but no rights to the destination school. This ends the shuffle of people leaving elementaries they like in hopes of a better feeder pattern, reduces overcrowding at in-demand middle and high schools, and creates more equity for people who didn't live in DC when their kids were little or couldn't get little kids across town, but can enter the lottery for older kids. Create a feeder pattern preference in the lottery if necessary for a compromise.

All bilingual elementary schools (and bilingual programs at schools like Marie Reed and Tyler that have bilingual tracks) have programmatic feeder into MacFarland and Roosevelt (that’s right, Oyster and Bancroft lose their Deal/JR feeds). Oyster becomes a PK3-5 school, with younger grades at Oyster and older grades at Adams.

Lafayette and Shepherd to Wells and Coolidge. For folks who say it won’t fit, there is room at Coolidge. Make an 8th grade academy in the Coolidge building and use Wells for just 6th and 7th. If necessary, move Coolidge Early College to Cardozo, which is more centrally located and will have extra space because of the item below.

Francis-Stevens drops the SWW name, gets its own principal, and becomes a PK3-5 school. Schools that feed there for middle go to the new Shaw Middle School along with the schools that already feed into Cardozo. Expect David Alpert, who is on the advisory committee from Ross, to freak out about this, but a 6-school feeder would have the resources to differentiate and offer some good programming.

CHML becomes PK3-5. This creates more PK spots on Capitol Hill, though open to everyone. DCPS offers Montessori middle school program at Brookland middle (closer to Montessori charters, uses underutilized space, and centrally located with CHML, Langdon, and Nalle, all of which would have programmatic feeder rights to the BMS program). The BMS Montessori middle would also take kids at 6th grade if extra space is available.

Make Browne, Walker-Jones, and Wheatley ECs PK3-5 only. Walker-Jones would go to McKinley MS (adding a 3rd feeder to it...right now it's just Langston and Langley) and Dunbar. Browne currently feeds to Eastern and Wheatley to Dunbar, but they'd both go to Eastern (which is closer) and join the middle school options below.

Re-draw Capitol Hill elementary boundaries to be more geographically compact.

Eliot-Hine becomes an arts-focused citywide magnet middle school, providing instruction in the same fields Ellington offers. Possibly run by the folks who run Ellington if they're willing; if not, by DCPS. At-risk preference and then a preference for kids at schools that currently feed to E-H plus Browne and Wheatley. No minimum grade cut-off or focus on pre-existing arts talent/lessons, but some behavior requirements (like no suspensions in the past year, teacher recommendation, etc.) and an essay about why you want to attend or something minimal. Feeds to Eastern. Then, either divide the schools that currently feed Jefferson, Stuart-Hobson, and Eliot-Hine (plus Browne and Wheatley) into JA and SH, or make Jefferson an amazing 6th grade academy for everyone with 7th and 8th at Stuart-Hobson. With Jefferson so close to the Wharf and the Mall, it would be possible to do some really cool partnerships and help the kids build skills and make new friends. A model for this would be Grand Rapids, which has 6th grade-only programs  like Zoo School, a nature program, and more.

Fire away, folks!

[/quote]

You cleaned out J/R real quick![/quote]

well, I wouldn't have opened MacArthur so that would have helped, but that ship has sailed. Shifting kids to Coolidge and Roosevelt balances the size of those schools and what courses and extracurriculars they can offer. Definitely good for athletics. It also allows for kids from schools with higher test scores to be more spread out, so that people who won't try their IB school because there isn't a "cohort of high achievers" may be more likely to continue in the feeder pattern. This will also open up some more OOB seats at JR, which is metro-accessible, without the school being overcrowded. [/quote]

I’m skeptical your numbers work, but I do like picturing Lafayette parents freaking out. (And I am a Lafayette parent.) [/quote]

It will be interesting to see whether the Lafayette or shepherd community yells louder. I could see them both ending up at wells, both at deal, or just shepherd moving. It puts ward 4 politicians in an interesting spot, to be sure![/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