Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Coolidge, Wells, and Whittier are all over capacity in one of the fastest growing neighborhoods for families in DC. It's wild to me that DCPS just told Whittier they'll basically modernize to the same capacity and instead of building a new building for Wells just added a cafeteria for Coolidge.

Where is Wells actually located?

Next to Coolidge in the building that just looks like another entrance for Coolidge.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Coolidge, Wells, and Whittier are all over capacity in one of the fastest growing neighborhoods for families in DC. It's wild to me that DCPS just told Whittier they'll basically modernize to the same capacity and instead of building a new building for Wells just added a cafeteria for Coolidge.

+1000

This is the part of the city I was going to mention. Wells was overcrowded right after it was built. Whittier keeps growing its enrollment despite a horrible old building. When that new building is built it will be immediately overcrowded. Why? Because DCPS refuses to plan for growth and make the school bigger. DCPS is a truly terrible organization.

The new Whittier should accommodate 800 children at least. Even if they don’t use the extra classrooms immediately, they will have them to alleviate growing demand later.

It's being built for just less than 500.

If you look at the material on the PCSB website for applying to open a new school, there's a whole analysis of what schools are adding grades where, and how many kids live where.

They are opening Shaw middle at Euclid St, and that's functionally an increase in total capacity. I think the Seaton renovation will increase seats too. Langley has tons of room. JOW should have more space too, I think. Schools in the 14th St corridor are more crowded I believe. We should have an updated Master Facilities Plan at some point.

There is the Spingarn building which I think has a bunch of room. I think SSMA may close and one or more Rocketship campuses too. Girls Global is on hard times. Capital Village and Social Justice too.

The new Latin needs to build out upper high school grades so that is a capacity expansion that might relieve a bit of crowding in that area. So there's quite a bit of new capacity coming online.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Coolidge, Wells, and Whittier are all over capacity in one of the fastest growing neighborhoods for families in DC. It's wild to me that DCPS just told Whittier they'll basically modernize to the same capacity and instead of building a new building for Wells just added a cafeteria for Coolidge.

+1000

This is the part of the city I was going to mention. Wells was overcrowded right after it was built. Whittier keeps growing its enrollment despite a horrible old building. When that new building is built it will be immediately overcrowded. Why? Because DCPS refuses to plan for growth and make the school bigger. DCPS is a truly terrible organization.

The new Whittier should accommodate 800 children at least. Even if they don’t use the extra classrooms immediately, they will have them to alleviate growing demand later.

Yes, and it's a really impressive school in terms of high performance with a diverse student body. Adding seats there would benefit current and future students.

In theory this is what the boundary committee was discussing last year, so the topic is on people's radars. I agree with people commenting about keeping an eye on charter school buildings in the next few years. In the 2000s, DCPS enrollment was declining, and the population of DC as a whole was not where it is today, so they closed too many DCPS schools and/or converted them into charter (or built new buildings for the charters). The shine is wearing off on a lot of the charters and I think some smaller charters (ie not Friendship, KIPP, etc.) are realizing it is a lot of work to be their own LEA, so there could be a world where some of those schools/buildings get brought back under the DCPS umbrella.

The population growth has stalled a bit, but there are also more families enrolling in public schools - if that continues, it could snowball and more kids could get pulled away from private schools so you'd see an increase in enrollment without having any actual change in population numbers if that makes sense.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Coolidge, Wells, and Whittier are all over capacity in one of the fastest growing neighborhoods for families in DC. It's wild to me that DCPS just told Whittier they'll basically modernize to the same capacity and instead of building a new building for Wells just added a cafeteria for Coolidge.

+1000

This is the part of the city I was going to mention. Wells was overcrowded right after it was built. Whittier keeps growing its enrollment despite a horrible old building. When that new building is built it will be immediately overcrowded. Why? Because DCPS refuses to plan for growth and make the school bigger. DCPS is a truly terrible organization.

The new Whittier should accommodate 800 children at least. Even if they don’t use the extra classrooms immediately, they will have them to alleviate growing demand later.

Yes, and it's a really impressive school in terms of high performance with a diverse student body. Adding seats there would benefit current and future students.

Amidon and Van Ness are pretty full. One option would be to put a school in the Greenleaf redevelopment, or move things like the fire truck repair center or the DMV inspection station and put a school there. But drawing the boundaries could be tough because the existing schools are pretty close together.

I would also like to see the three middle schools that feed into Eastern consolidate in a sense--make one a 6th grade campus and then have the other two offer different programs for 7th and 8th (maybe an arts focus and a pre-ib). It won't change the capacity but could increase cohesion across the zone.

Separately, I think Francis should be pk-5 and feed to the new shaw middle school, and oyster Adams should also end at 5th and feed to MacFarland and Roosevelt like other bilingual schools (Bancroft too).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Coolidge, Wells, and Whittier are all over capacity in one of the fastest growing neighborhoods for families in DC. It's wild to me that DCPS just told Whittier they'll basically modernize to the same capacity and instead of building a new building for Wells just added a cafeteria for Coolidge.

+1000

This is the part of the city I was going to mention. Wells was overcrowded right after it was built. Whittier keeps growing its enrollment despite a horrible old building. When that new building is built it will be immediately overcrowded. Why? Because DCPS refuses to plan for growth and make the school bigger. DCPS is a truly terrible organization.

The new Whittier should accommodate 800 children at least. Even if they don’t use the extra classrooms immediately, they will have them to alleviate growing demand later.

Anonymous wrote:Coolidge, Wells, and Whittier are all over capacity in one of the fastest growing neighborhoods for families in DC. It's wild to me that DCPS just told Whittier they'll basically modernize to the same capacity and instead of building a new building for Wells just added a cafeteria for Coolidge.

Where is Wells actually located?

Anonymous wrote:Coolidge, Wells, and Whittier are all over capacity in one of the fastest growing neighborhoods for families in DC. It's wild to me that DCPS just told Whittier they'll basically modernize to the same capacity and instead of building a new building for Wells just added a cafeteria for Coolidge.

+1000

This is the part of the city I was going to mention. Wells was overcrowded right after it was built. Whittier keeps growing its enrollment despite a horrible old building. When that new building is built it will be immediately overcrowded. Why? Because DCPS refuses to plan for growth and make the school bigger. DCPS is a truly terrible organization.

I say wait a year and see how the charters shake out. There are some very low performing schools up for review this year as well as some from last year on basically probation. Evaluate after that.

Coolidge, Wells, and Whittier are all over capacity in one of the fastest growing neighborhoods for families in DC. It's wild to me that DCPS just told Whittier they'll basically modernize to the same capacity and instead of building a new building for Wells just added a cafeteria for Coolidge.

They should consolidate Ross and John Francis. They should make Ross into the early childhood and kindergarten campus and make John Francis into the 1st-8th campus for the Dupont Circle/West End neighborhood.

Given the overall decline in population I don't think adding is in the cards. They just opened MacArthur anyway. And I do think some building expansions are in the world. It's just so hard to start a new school because people get upset about the boundary lines.

Since DCPS is committed to providing every kid a school within a certain distance of home, it would be hard to close any at this point. They have already closed a bunch over the past decades.

It depends also on charter closures and where the kids decide to go. There are a number of charters looking iffy, but they're scattered around and it's hard to say when or if any one of them will collapse or be closed.

I have been thinking a lot about the areas of the city where families are moving. I have seen that some schools are struggling with enrollment while others are experiencing a sharp increase. Which areas of the city need new schools and which areas need to have existing schools consolidated?