According to the Post, D.C. Schools Superintendent Clifford Janey has recommended closing six schools by August and having seven others lease underused space to charter schools. The school board is planning on holding hearings on the closures — euphemistically referred to a “rightsizing” — before a final vote on June 28. School officials, facing under-enrollment in 70 of 147 schools, are planning on shedding some one million square feet of space by this fall and an additional two million by Fall 2008.

The schools chosen for closure were the following: Fletcher-Johnson Educational Center in Southeast Washington, Merritt Educational Center in Northeast, Shadd Elementary in Southeast, M.C. Terrell Elementary in Southeast, Van Ness Elementary in Southeast and Walker-Jones Elementary in Northwest. The decision to close these school is sure to provoke controversy among parents whose children attend them.