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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Van Ness Elementary School definitely has a good upside going for it now.  The fact that they are only opening with PS3, PK4, and K will give the school the ability to focus on their early childhood education program, while giving the parents of the school the ability to choose a curriculum later (when more grades are added).  The school is undergoing a $20 Million renovation over the next 2 years, and will incorporate the current parking lot, as well as the Joy Evens park into outdoor recreation space for the school.  There are tons of new housing currently being built, so this brand new school will surely attract families looking for new housing zoned for a new school.  Also, it was announced that they do not project that this school will be a Title I school, so you Van Ness will most likely not be a school that is mostly concentrated with kids coming from poverty (which we all know tends to lead to dysfunctional classrooms).[/quote]

so you think:

a) parents get to choose the curriculum in the future (even though DCPS decided not to do Reggio, Montessori, IB, or any of the other curricula/approaches some parents requested thus far)

b) the renovation will decrease parking available for teachers AND take over a DPR site

c) lots of families with school-aged kids want to move into apartment complexes that mostly offer 1 or 2 bedrooms, with low square footage, high rents, and few kid-friendly amenities (treadmills, dog parks, and rooftop grills are nice, but not the best things if you're 9 years old)

d) families that live in the two large public housing complexes and the subsidized housing built as part of the Capper-Carrollsburg redevelopment will not send their kids to their in-bounds school, while families living in market-rate units (who have more means to research, apply to, and transport their kids to charters, private, or Wilson-feeding DCPS) will enroll at Van Ness.

Good luck with that. I predict it is going to wind up a fairly split school, with a diverse and largely in-bounds population from grades PK3-2, and very small classes with a lot of OOB families seeking a Jefferson/Eastern feed in the testing grades. The PTA will mostly be families with kids aged 5 and under, including a sizable group of "prospective parents" with 2-year-old twins, who will rank Van Ness lower than Two Rivers or an immersion charter and bail for Arlington after a couple of unsuccessful years in the lottery.[/quote]

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