Several folks have e-mailed me links to or questions about Washington, D.C., Superintendent Clifford Janey's announcement yesterday of six D.C. schools that will be closed as part of DCPS's plan to eliminate 3 million square feet of vacant space by August 2006. Parts of nine other D.C. campuses will be opened for co-location with city agencies or charter schools.
Analysis from DC Education Blog tells me that three of the 6 schools slated for closure are in Ward 7, and one is in each of Wards 2, 6, and 8. The predictable carping that 75 percent of the closures are east of the Anacostia River has already begun. I don't know as much as I probably ought to about the schools in Ward 7, so I'll refrain from saying anything much about the specific choices.
I will offer two random bits of trivia, however. One of the schools, Van Ness elementary in Ward 6, is only a few blocks down M street from my home. With only 90 students, it's been severely under-enrolled, although I continue to hope the new Hope V I development in near southeast will mean more kids in that neighborhood's public schools soon. In addition, one of the schools slated for merger--Adams Elementary in Ward 1, slated to merge with Oyster Bilingual--is the source of half of the name of D.C.'s Adams-Morgan neighborhood, known to D.C.-area 20-somethings for its bar and club scene.
More substantively, I will say that I respect Janey for having the guts to move with this.
Excess space has been a tremendous financial drain on the district and a foolish and unecessary one when the district's growing population of charter schools are scrambling for space. Closing schools is something that has to happen, but it's an incredibly difficult thing to do politically--no one will thank you for it, and a lot of people will be pissed off. Janey deserves credit for facing these tough facts and moving forward.
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