November 28, 2007
Fenty, Rhee and Reinoso Announce 24 School Closures
Mayor Adrian Fenty, Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and Deputy Mayor for Education Victor Reinoso announced their plans to "right-size" D.C. public school system today that will include the simultaneous closure of 24 schools.
School closures have been high on the to-do list for several years now as student enrollment has dropped from 55,000 to an estimated 49,600 students this school year. The new school closure plan differs from a previous one offered by former Superintendent Clifford B. Janey in that it will close five more schools, and close them all at once instead of staggering them over a longer period of time. The schools that face closure are: Bruce Monroe, Meyer, Stevens, Clark, Rudolph, Brookland, Bunker Hill, Burroughs, Gage-Eckington, J.F. Cook, Slowe, Bowen, Gibbs, Smothers, Green and Wilkinson elementary schools; Shaw, Bertie Backus and Hine middle schools; and Sharpe Health Center, Mamie D. Lee, Douglass Transition Center, Patricia R. Harris Educational Center and M.M. Washington Career High School.
The mayor has also asked the D.C. council for $31.6 million to cover a shortfall identified by consultants to cover the costs of these excess school buildings and teachers until the closures are complete. Rhee said the closures will save the school system $23.6 million annually once they are complete.
In what has become a familiar cycle of politics with the Fenty administration, members of the D.C. Council are reportedly furious that they were not adequately consulted on the proposal before it was announced. A series of community meetings yet to be announced will be held to explain the proposal.
Photo by Amber Wiley
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OK, no big surprises on the list. Close the schools and sell the properties. It's time that City Council closes their mouths, and find the backbone to approve the closures.
There is not one day that I see Fenty in the news where I like him less than the day before. Best thing to happen in urban local politics for quite awhile.
i put together a map of the closings here.
What's to become of the property? That's the real question.
Nice maps IMGoph, good job.
This is a prime opportunity to tear down Hine Jr High and redevelop the property as mixed use. It's on probably one of the most expensive parcels of land in the city. Redeveloping it as mixed use - retail on the first floor to further augment Eastern Market, residential and office up top, and a multi-story underground parking garage would be tremendous.
However, the school system apparently has plans to keep the dilapidated, outdated building in place, renovate it at some tremendous cost, and move their own office facilities there. This would be a stunningly poor use of our tax dollar resources.
It'd make vastly more sense for the city to sell the parcel, use the tens of millions they'd get to build brand new school office facilities, pocket the rest for additional school or city needs, and allow that parcel to actually benefit the city as a whole. Just the tax revenue off of the residential and retail portions alone would be a huge chunk of tax revenue.
But my bet is on us to do the stupid thing and grossly underuse this parcel.
Wouldn't it make more sense to tear down the schools but sell the development rights? That way, the city would still own the property but would get a steady revenue stream from lease payments. Kinda like what some of the downtown churches do with their properties.
Anyway, the real story is that this seems to be the first that many of the parents in the schools being closed have heard of this, which is kind of tacky. I mean, shouldn't Rhee have told the parents FIRST that their schools were being closed, so they could plan accordingly, instead of having to read about it in the Washington Post? How would residents feel if the Mayor's speeding abatement program involved waking up to find speed bumps on major thoroughfares?
Monkey:
How would you have informed or involved the parents? I assume the WP story came from a press conference or news release.
I would imagine that this would be the ultimate hot button political issue, and while it's nice in theory to include individual parents in reality it means years of bickering and nothing ever getting done.
I think you pretty much have to make your decisions, come up with a concrete list, and stick to your guns. Otherwise we'll still be arguing over it decades from now.
But more notice probably would have been good.
Monkey:
You do have a good point about the city maybe retaining the property but selling development rights.
But the developer would have to be free to do what he wants there.
The ultimate example of DC trying to privately manage property is the stupid development in the 600 (?) block of Pennsylvania Ave SE..... I forget what it's called, but it's the ugly gray fortress, with a half dozen shops in it. That's been an eyesore and dead spot in that block ever since DC took it over. Either the shops are empty or they are usually crappy businesses, poorly maintained. And the design just invites crime and panhandling.
It's gotten better but I remember years of having to walk past that extra fast to avoid getting bum rushed. All brought to me courtesy of my own tax dollars.
A private developer would have gone in and actually put something useful in there decades ago.
hey, now that they've closed down these crappy schools, maybe now they can open some at least one GOOD SCHOOL that, if i had kids, i would actually want to send them to.
Hillman - I see your point about the leasing/selling issue. You only have to look at the ground floor "retail" at the Reeves Center to see what a mess the City's made of that, but there it is. My concern is that at a certain point, the city doesn't have anything left to sell, but that might not be a bad thing.
If any of the schools on the chopping block are downtown near the core, they should turn it into municipal parking with 4-8-hour meters. WTF is up with having to pay the parking lot mafia $22 for 3 lousy hours? And no, Metro isn't an option for me. You try lugging a pallet loaded with 5-liter jugs of Carlo Rossi Paisano, H&M ladies footwear, and porn on the X2 bus.
i'm surprised that shaw jhs made the list. there's a spot with some potential. of course, the zoning board would probably just tell everyone in the neighborhood that they don't know what they really want, and that they should just shut up and accept what scraps are given them from on high.
personally, i think it would be cool if 10th street got connected between r and rhode island, open back up a little bit of the original city grid again.
Since I live on that bit of 10th St. I think (for purely selfish reasons) it would be awful if they open it up. Parking is already bad with the churches, but now you want to make my once quiet block into a freeway?
Thanks bud.
Fenty & Co. really needs to stop springing announcements without any headsups to relevant people. I don't think the city council can actually stop the closures, but that won't mean they won't be on the TV moaning up a storm about how terrible this is.
The real battle will be over what happens to the closed schools and which connected developers get first dibs on the properties.
I haven't looked into how these closures will affect the renovations plans, but would it surprise anyone if DCPS paid good dollar to fix up a school and then shut it down the next year?
Monkey:
Silly simian. Don't you know you always order your ladies footwear and porn by UPS. That way there's the possibility of the UPS guy and you getting all skanky after you insist on opening the packages while he's there for 'quality control'.
If any of the schools on the chopping block are downtown near the core, they should turn it into municipal parking with 4-8-hour meters. WTF is up with having to pay the parking lot mafia $22 for 3 lousy hours?
Stevens Elementary is downtown just north of GWU, so it might qualify, but if they're smart there's no way in hell they'd make it into a municipal parking lot.
Municipal parking lots are huge money losers for communities; if they're lucky, they can maybe cover their operational costs, but the capital money is well and truly lost. The reason private parking lots and garages charge what they do is, that's what they need to charge to make back their costs and people are willing to pay. There's no good reason for the District to lose taxpayer money hand over fist just to undercut the private sector.
only $31.6 million shortfall ... perhaps they can ask the ladies at the tax office to make then a loan?
Hillman - Call me old fashioned, but I still prefer the "hands-on" treatment you can only get at fetish boutiques, leather shops, and porn stores. This is why I so lamented the loss of Doc Johnson's "Marital Products" when the Atlas Building became the Spy Museum. Sure, it's a lot cleaner and brighter and you don't have booths caked in goo, but it's as much a loss to the community as the loss of the head shops and the thinning herd of hookers on 14th Street. Where do I go to buy a glass bong for Xmas? How am I supposed to get a whore for my kid's 16th birthday? Hell, where can I still buy a decent forty?
If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any porn shop's death diminishes me, because I am involved in pornography; and therefore never send to know for whom the porn shop tolls; it tolls for thee.
Well, you could go ahead and get the porn in person at your shop of choice, then send it to yourself via UPS. Best of both worlds?
There's no good reason for the District to lose taxpayer money hand over fist just to undercut the private sector.
Aren't they already losing potential revenues from people who don't want to pay $14 for the first hour of parking when they shop downtown? Add that to the $6 happy hour "specials" and the DC tax markup and it's a tough sell to this monkey, particularly when I can park at Rustico for free and guzzle $2 PBRs between the occasional Old Speckeled Hen.
I just never dug the UPS-guy-as-porn-fetish. I'll stick with the guy who comes to clean the pool or my kid's au pair. In my pants. Bow chika bow wow.
hungeegirl:
Oyster. An amazing school. Tell me, which of the city's schools have you personally been inside of?
Aren't they already losing potential revenues from people who don't want to pay $14 for the first hour of parking when they shop downtown?
Sure, but is it worth the cost to receive those revenues? Or, at what point does (few bucks per car) + (District tax revenue generated by people in those cars) - (District tax revenue generated by people in those cars who would have been shopping downtown anyway without the garage) - (District's loss of tax revenue from decreased sales at market-price parking lots) - (foregone tax revenue from a private-sector use of the property -- this is a big one) - (foregone income tax revenue from employees of a private-sector use of the property) - (after-tax cost of the DC government employing a few high school dropouts) exceed zero? A complicated question in the fine details, but the big picture is easy enough to grasp, and explains why municipal parking garages are such a terrible investment.
The market knows exactly what it's doing when it asks for fourteen bucks an hour to park in downtown DC. The market's actually working better in downtown DC than it is out in exurbia, where developers have to meet ludicrously over-inflated government mandates for non-revenue-producing parking. (I mean, have you ever seen a Home Depot where the parking lot was full?) An under-appreciated factor in the comeback of some urban cores lately is that developers can get a much higher proportion of the land to be revenue-generating, even if the land itself is much more expensive.
cminus - This is exactly why I'm lousy at math. Game over, man. You won. I'll gladly pay the $14-an-hour if you PROMISE never to write that equation ever again.
Now, if you'll excuse me, the au pair is sunbathing in the raw out back and pleasuring herself to the tune of Sister Christian.