February 1, 2008
New School Closure List Announced
The Post reports from Mayor Adrian Fenty and Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee's press conference earlier this morning that six of 23 D.C. public schools on the original closure list will remain open, while four others have now been added to the proposal list. The changes brings the total of planned school closures to 21.
Bruce-Monroe, Burroughs, Green and Smothers elementary schools, as well as Brown Middle School and Shaw Junior High School, will remain open. The following school closures are now considered final: Gage-Eckington Elementary, Meyer Elementary, Stevens Elementary, Clark Elementary, Rudolph Elementary, Bertie Backus Middle, Bunker Hill Elementary, J.F. Cook Elementary, Slowe Elementary, M.M. Washington Career High School, Young Elementary, Bowen Elementary, Gibbs Elementary, Hine Middle, Douglass Transition Academy/Choice Academy, Patricia R. Harris Educational Center and Wilkinson Elementary.
The four schools that have been added to the list are Benning Elementary, Merritt Middle School, Garnett-Patterson Middle and Park View Elementary. Benning and Merritt would close at the end of this year, while Garnett-Patterson and Park View would not close until after 2011. Fenty and Rhee said they will hold a new round of public hearings on these four schools.
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from a purely non-emotional standpoint (which i can have, since i have no kids), i think the swap of shaw for garnet-patterson is a good idea.
that land at 10th and U is valuable. sell it off, some developer will pay through the nose for it.
use the money to blow up shaw and build a really nice, world-class new school there...
Which is why CM Graham's outrage at GP closing rings a little hollow. He hasn't met a developer he doesn't like and I'm sure that he's secretly salavating at the prospect of this parcel being developed...
I am a DCPS parent - don't fit the majority demographic of DC parents - and live in Ward 1. I hope that many of these buildings will remain as DCPS or DC property and transition to other or similar educational uses and not wontonly sold for quick cash. Though i have no problem with some buildings sold i would like to also see some properties leased for future reconsiderations by the City for the use of that property. Also, maybe some properties can follow the Oyster and Janney model where developers build a condo in exchange for paying for the rebuilding of the school on the same grounds (with a few considerations by the lessons learned in the Oyster experience).
erahko
Um...so Bunker Hill and Slowe are going to close yet there are two charter schools set to open *in the very same neighborhood* in fall 2008.
Why doesn't the DC government just admit that they're gradually farming out the educational system to private contractors and be done with it?
"Why doesn't the DC government just admit that they're gradually farming out the educational system to private contractors and be done with it?"
Fine by me. Let's give the private industry a shot at it--because, you know, the DC government's done such a fantastic job.