DCPS proposes closing 20 schools

DC Public Schools is recommending the closure of 20 campuses because the schools are underenrolled and draining resources from the city's efforts to improve education, Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson said Tuesday.
The proposed closings, which make up 17 percent of campuses and span elementary, middle and even Spingarn High School, would trigger new school boundaries and feeder patterns for the 45,000-student school system, which has lost about 16,000 students since 2000 to competition from public charter schools and mistrust of the city's chronically troubled -- but reforming -- schools. Eighteen of the schools would close by next fall.



Schools proposed to close


Ward
School to close
Students would go to


2
Francis-Stevens Education Campus
Marie Reed Elementary and Hardy Middle


2
Garrison Elementary
Seaton Elementary


4
MacFarland Middle
Roosevelt High


4
Sharpe Health School*
River Terrace Elementary (already closed and empty)


5
Mamie D. Lee School*
River Terrace Elementary (already closed and empty)


5
CHOICE at Hamilton
Cardozo High


5
Marshall Elementary
Langdon Education Campus


5
Spingarn High
Eastern, Dunbar and Woodson high schools


5
Spingarn STAY (adult program)
Ballou STAY and Roosevelt STAY


6
Prospect Learning Center
TBD


6
Shaw Middle
Cardozo High


7
Davis Elementary
C.W. Harris Elementary


7
Kenilworth Elementary
Houston Elementary


7
Ron Brown Middle
Kelly Miller Middle


7
Smothers Elementary
Aiton and Plummer elementaries


7
Winston Education Campus
Stanton Elementary and Kramer Middle


8
Ferebee-Hope Elementary
Hendley Elementary


8
Johnson Middle
Hart and Kramer middles


8
Malcolm X Elementary
Turner Elementary


8
MC Terrell/McGogney Elementary
King Elementary


*These schools would be consolidated a year later than the rest, in 2014-15

Unlike with the last round of school closings -- 23 in 2008 -- DCPS is planning to hold on to most of its buildings and may reopen them as the city's school-age population is expected to increase in 2015.

"This is an opportunity to stabilize a system of traditional neighborhood schools," Henderson said.

But long-term stability was little salve for some parents, who were frustrated that their children would need to change schools, some not for the first time. With Shaw Middle School at Garnet-Patterson slated to close, Joy Hicks said this would be the third time a school attended by her seventh-grade daughter would be shut.

"I don't want to keep taking her out of schools and sending her to somewhere else. At some point, as a parent, we need to provide a level of stability for these kids," said Hicks, who plans to look at charter schools for her daughter.

Most of the schools targeted for closure are underperforming, some with math and reading proficiency rates in the teens. Henderson said her efforts to revitalize some schools have reached their limit and she must confront "realities."

"Just spending money blindly hoping parents will choose our schools isn't the best decision," she said.