Anonymous wrote:I love how such an impactful decision re: schools for Wards 2 and 3 means that dcps will have just one meeting with each impacted school, and that's it.

This tells me they've already made their decision and all this is wasted time for theatric purposes only.

My vote would be a second high school. Preferably make current Hardy MS a high school since it's on Wisconsin Ave and easier bus access.

Yeah, I'm sure the decisions have already been made. Though Hardy MS seems too small to be a HS. The space is just too small. But I agree, there needs to be a new Western HS. I wish they'd just had the foresight for the Duke Ellington site. But then again, DCPS isn't made up of the best and brightest...

I think the bigger issue is kids who walk to school will now be driven (Glover Park to Foxhall can be 2 mi+, due to the lack of east-west connections). There is going to be such a mess. Most of these students will be closer to Hyde (which honestly makes much more sense).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:do people actually call it Duke instead of Ellington?

Did anyone ever refer to Mr. Duke Ellington as Mr. Ellington?

That's Sir Duke to you.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are there any instance in DCPS of a school that serves only grades 3-5? Pros, cons?

Why even ask the question? On its face, the idea is patently ridiculous. Have you ever seen a automobile with only two gears, let alone seen anyone purchase one?

The root issue here is that DCPS came across some real estate, and now what to do with it? "Let's build a new elementary school less than a mile away from four other (all roughly equidistant from the new real estate) ones!" Who's with me?!

MCPS has several schools that are split into K-2 and 3-5 clusters, so it's not as ridiculous or unusual even in this area as you make it sound. (Nor, really, is the idea of having lots of elementary schools so near together -- my elementary school in MCPS in the 1980s was 1.3 miles from the nearest other elementary school, both of which fed the same intermediate school (which was only grades 7-8). They were in neighborhoods that connected to each other without crossing any major or minor arterial roads, so by suburban standards, they were really close.

Anonymous wrote:Are there any instance in DCPS of a school that serves only grades 3-5? Pros, cons?

Moco has some.

Anonymous wrote:do people actually call it Duke instead of Ellington?

The students call it Duke

Anonymous wrote:Are there any instance in DCPS of a school that serves only grades 3-5? Pros, cons?

Why even ask the question? On its face, the idea is patently ridiculous. Have you ever seen a automobile with only two gears, let alone seen anyone purchase one?

The root issue here is that DCPS came across some real estate, and now what to do with it? "Let's build a new elementary school less than a mile away from four other (all roughly equidistant from the new real estate) ones!" Who's with me?!

Are there any instance in DCPS of a school that serves only grades 3-5? Pros, cons?

Anonymous wrote:do people actually call it Duke instead of Ellington?

Did anyone ever refer to Mr. Duke Ellington as Mr. Ellington?

do people actually call it Duke instead of Ellington?

Anonymous wrote:I love how such an impactful decision re: schools for Wards 2 and 3 means that dcps will have just one meeting with each impacted school, and that's it.

This tells me they've already made their decision and all this is wasted time for theatric purposes only.

My vote would be a second high school. Preferably make current Hardy MS a high school since it's on Wisconsin Ave and easier bus access.

That would certainly make the most sense: High Schools should be drawing from a wider community, and Wisconsin Avenue is the only artery that makes a practical case for transport access. The lack of sports fields is a problem, but could be resolved by expanding Jelleff across the street. However, if you put the new HS at Hardy, it sits literally right next to the giant, $250-million-dollar Taj Mahal of arts education, Duke Ellington. Talk about a problem of optics: two high schools right next to each other, Ellington always under-occupied and the new HS next to it soon to be bursting at the seams (unless they add more classroom space, somehow). It would make just too much sense to combine the two campuses, but think about the squawks of outrage from the Duke community if that were under consideration. If you put the Duke students at the new HS for academic classes, the whole Duke building could be used for arts and music.

I love how such an impactful decision re: schools for Wards 2 and 3 means that dcps will have just one meeting with each impacted school, and that's it.

This tells me they've already made their decision and all this is wasted time for theatric purposes only.

My vote would be a second high school. Preferably make current Hardy MS a high school since it's on Wisconsin Ave and easier bus access.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Only in DC would there be a one-year ninth grade school. That would be pretty ridiculous.

I went to a 9th grade school in the 80s. It was an old elementary school that was dedicated to the 9th grade. 10-12 main campus.

This is what I did. Alexandria VA used to have (maybe still has) a 9th grade school, plus a separate school for 10-12. It was great. And it didn't feel like another year of middle school.

You got to transition to high school without the pressure. You could do sports/theater/arts/etc with the high school (it helped that the schools were just about three blocks away) so by the time you started 10th grade you were on much more comfortable footing. Honestly it still strikes me as odd that more school districts don't employ this.

Same here, in a very large suburban district in 1990s Upstate New York. The idea of a separate ninth-grade building is far more prevalent than many posters here realize.

Anonymous wrote:They definitely need a new high school to relieve the crazy overcrowding at Wilson, which is really replacing the Ward 2/3 ("Western") high school that Duke Ellington replaced some years ago. So that decision makes sense historically, filling in a slot that was taken away. So, put the new "Western HS" on the old GDS property since there's enough space for a sports field on that lot. But I really don't get shoe-horning in a new elementary when you've already got so many in close distance (Key, Mann, Stoddert, Hyde). Seems like the elementary school problem could be solved by redrawing boundaries for the elementaries.

Key, Mann and Stoddert are all projected to be way over-crowded.

Anonymous wrote:Pardon my ignorance, but what would the site be for Foxhall Elementary? Does the city already have land? I assume they’d have to build a school building from scratch? (Assuming they use the GDS site for middle or high school of course)

Somewhere at Hardy Rec Center.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Only in DC would there be a one-year ninth grade school. That would be pretty ridiculous.

I went to a 9th grade school in the 80s. It was an old elementary school that was dedicated to the 9th grade. 10-12 main campus.

This is what I did. Alexandria VA used to have (maybe still has) a 9th grade school, plus a separate school for 10-12. It was great. And it didn't feel like another year of middle school.

You got to transition to high school without the pressure. You could do sports/theater/arts/etc with the high school (it helped that the schools were just about three blocks away) so by the time you started 10th grade you were on much more comfortable footing. Honestly it still strikes me as odd that more school districts don't employ this.

Or, even better considering how big Wilson is, you get to do sports/theater/arts/etc with just other 9th graders, so that there's actually space for you and you could contemplate trying new activities.