The final COMP plan does not recommend co-location per our recommendations. This amendment also leaves that change in tact. In addition the Mayor is required to deliver a Master Facilities Plan for the Council’s approval by December of 2022.
Read MoreProposed Revisions to the Office of Planning offered by the signed members of the Coalition of DC Public Schools and Communities on the Comprehensive Plan Education Facilities Element
The Comprehensive Plan Education Facilities Element proposed by the Office of Planning (“OP”) currently under consideration by the Council includes a number of excellent components and rhetoric. However, in some important respects the document includes proposed policies and rhetoric that undermine some of the important principles it espouses and in others key priorities should be even more forcefully advanced. With a modest number of revisions the document can be greatly improved. The themes captured in the proposed changes to the OP draft are shown below and an annotation of the specific changes follows.
Unequivocally establish that the key priority in the next decade is to ensure an excellent matter-of-right path from PK through high school in every community. Achieving that goal lay at the heart of ensuring equity and fairness and supporting the long-term growth of the city.
Call for rational correlation of changes in school capacity and location of school capacity to accommodate realistic expectations of need recognizing that significant overcapacity drives up costs and dilutes the dollars available to directly serve students sending them to administrators building owners and operators. Recognize that achieving a rational approach will require coordinated planning between the sectors and caps on additional capacity in areas with significant excess capacity.
Reject the idea of co-location of charter schools inside DCPS buildings as the path to rationalize capacity and need. Such an approach would make a mockery of the core goal of delivering an excellent matter-of-right system from PK through 12 in every community. As has been seen in other jurisdictions, co-location invites operational challenges with dual administrations in one building and maximizes administrative cost as opposed to investing in direct service to students.
Emphasize the importance or retaining publicly owned facilities and green space to ensure we can fully serve our families for generations. There has been relentless pressure for the city to cede building and green space to private entities. It is critical that it maintain adequate infrastructure to fully serve families and communities.
As DC parents invested in the educational opportunities available to students in Shaw and surrounding center city neighborhoods, we encourage you to adopt a Comprehensive Plan that prioritizes strong neighborhood schools and feeder patterns for all parts of the District.
We agree that schools are fundamental to the social, economic, and physical characteristics of the District’s neighborhoods, and land use policies should seek to ensure that all neighborhoods have adequate access to educational facilities.
Last year, the Council recognized the importance of a by-right, stand-alone middle school in the Center City area where DCPS enrollment projections anticipate over 100% utilization of all the feeder elementary schools in the next 3-8 years.
Read MoreMy focus today is not on the land use issues will be the focus of much of the testimony, but on the Education Facilities Element that is intended to offer a vision for the education infrastructure in our city. Settling a clear vision is critical to our success in this all important area on which so much of the city’s growth and future depend.
There is much to commend in the proposed Education Facilities Element, but also important things that can and should be fixed by the Council in its review process so that as enacted it:
Read MoreMy name is Suzanne Wells, and I am the president of the Ward 6 Public Schools Parent Organization, and our organization is a member of the Coalition for DC Public Schools and Communities. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on the District of Columbia’s Comprehensive Plan Amendment Act of 2020. My testimony is focused on the Educational Facilities Element. I offer five suggestions for how the draft can and should be improved.
First, the proposed Education Facilities Element makes random mentions of the importance of high quality, matter-of-right schools in every community to attracting and retaining families with children in the city. It is important for the Council to explicitly state at the beginning of the Educational Facilities Element the City’s responsibility to provide high-quality, matter-of-right neighborhood schools and feeder systems in all eight wards. The Comprehensive Plan should also call for city-wide student assignment policies that promote racial and socioeconomic diversity in our matter-of-right schools.
Read MoreI am here to discuss education facilities and express opposition of section 1203.4, which calls for co-location of “public charter schools within significantly underused DCPS facilities.” The Comprehensive Plan is based on the Deputy Mayor for Education’s 2018 Master Facility Plan (MFP), which in turn is based on recommendations from the DME’s 2018 study.
However, not the DME study, nor the 2018 MFP are supported by any kind of comprehensive education plan inclusive of DCPS and charter sectors. While we can predict needs for seats via population projections, without a strategy or coordination about how to fill those needs, any facilities planning is nonsensical and reactive - just like the proposed co-location.
Read MoreDCPS by right public schools offer environmental and other social benefits for green space, storm water management, recreation, social cohesion, and even political franchise. This comp plan can acknowledge that publicly owned, governed and managed properties bring the full education, social, recreation, and environmental benefits to communities. It can establish that the key priority in the next decade is to ensure an excellent matter-of-right path from PK through high school in every community as it notes in 1200.3.
The plan states in section 1202.1 that DCPS is responsible for educating Washington DC’s children and provides a school of right for every compulsory age child. The Comp plan can protect and provide a roadmap for DCPS to be able to fulfil that responsibility.
In order to Strongly support the goal of making neighborhood schools an appealing school of choice, where students’ academic and personal achievements are nurtured, so that children do not have to travel long distances across the District “ as noted in 1204.10:
Read MoreC4DC is a diverse group of activists – Ward-level education councils, school organizations and other groups – who share a common goal: Children in all corners of our great city deserve to have great public schools in their neighborhoods – from Pre-K through high school – that fully meet the needs of our students and our communities.
Reach us at c4dcpublicschools@gmail.com