Reply to Revised Boundary Recommendations to be released on or about June 13

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Reply to "Revised Boundary Recommendations to be released on or about June 13"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The boundary change is a complete distraction. Instead of trying to replicate the few quality neighborhood elementary schools. DCPS may ultimately end up undermining these schools. If you notice the boundaries are not even being considered as a "proposal," they are not included in Option A,B, or C. In fact all DC residents would lose the right to a proximity preference which is appaling. However in proposal C teachers would have rights to schools over neighbors -- shame on the DME consultants for even proposing a "solution" like this.

[b]In Ward 3, the exercise is being used to soften up families with extremely walkable schools that are less than 5 minutes walking from their home to get used to having to commute by car. [/b]This will prime these families to become part of an experiment for city-wide elementary schools or charters. Resources have been put into expanding Janney (twice), modernizing Hearst (same capacity just beautiful new facilities), and Murch with promised shovels in the ground by 2015 (the Murch principal is happily looking at a major expansion of the school and has already ordered additional trailers). There should be no overcrowding issue in Ward 3, if there is it means that DCPS officials responsible for planning exercises should lose their jobs. We know the boundary exercise in Ward 3 is a distraction. Stop by and see where the proposed homes are located and see the impact of these changes on young elementary school children who are being taken from schools less than two blocks from their homes. Ironically the new plan has several families moving from the doubly expanded Janney to Murch. Seriously if anyone in the city is happy with the boundary change who is directly impacted by it please chime in. I have not met a single family that is impacted by the boundary change that supports it. From where I sit, it sounds to me like DCPS is proposing a deck chair reshuffling, a conspiracy, or is operating at an extremely high level of incompetence. None of these prospects inspire me to have any confidence in the exercise being led by the DME. I think that the process needs to be stopped and restarted with a clear strategy for family engagement and a focus on children.

A large and vocal group of families throughout the city want quality neighborhood elementary schools for their children. Why can't DCPS focus on this as a goal? Seems like DCPS itself supported this goal, because we were sold a "methodology based on the premise that all students should have the choice of a performing school in their neighborhood."

DME how do you propose to support performing schools in all neighborhoods? in the priority neighborhoods in the city?

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This is a glaring example of how in Dysfunctional City one hand doesn't know (or doesn't care) what the other is doing.  At the same time that DCPS/DME are proposing to put more students into cars at the price of walkabililty, DC's planning office and DDOT for several years have aggressively pushed the opposite policies.  These include trying to eliminate or reduce off-street parking requirements for new development, to discourage car use, reducing lanes on major avenues in favor of bike lanes, etc.  Future plans include congestion road pricing.  You would think that the Office of the Mayor (of which DME is a part) would be coordinating major policy initiatives, but no.[/quote]

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