Posts about Schools

A few weeks ago, the Board of Education looked at options for rebuilding Wheaton High and the adjacent Thomas Edison High, which has a part-time vocational program.

The favored scheme, according to Wheaton Patch, is one that places each school in its own separate building, one on either side of the building both schools currently share. Not only does this allow construction to take place while classes are in session, minimizing disruption, but it puts Wheaton High School in a more prominent location.

Today, Wheaton and Edison's shared building backs to busy Randolph Road. As cars speed by, all they see of the schools are the football stadium. The county and Calverton-based architects Grimm + Parker, who will design the new campus, propose building a new Wheaton High where the football and baseball fields are today, placing the school right on Randolph Road. This move emphasizes the school's significance to the community, putting it in full view of the thousands of people who come through Randolph each day.

The proposal is also more convenient for students who walk or take public transit to Wheaton High. That's especially important at a school whose catchment area extends as far as Takoma Park and Aspen Hill and where four-fifths of the student body is on free or reduced lunch.

People coming from Randolph Road, served by multiple Metrobus and Ride On bus routes, or the Glenmont Metro station a mile away, would now be able to walk right into the school rather than circle around the entire campus. Making it easier to reach Wheaton High without a car will give students a greater sense of independence and reduce their reliance on rides from parents or friends with driver's licenses who aren't allowed to carry passengers.

Speed cameras on Randolph Road. Wheaton High School's football field can be seen at far right.

Bringing Wheaton High up to the street could also help with the issue of speeding along Randolph Road. In 2007, the county placed speed cameras on Randolph behind Wheaton High, arguing that it would improve pedestrian safety. Currently, the only thing motorists see along Randolph Road are trees and the school's fence, the kind of featureless environment that encourages speeding. Grimm + Parker's plans show a new Wheaton High located just a few feet behind the sidewalk, close enough to make drivers more attentive of their surroundings and encouraging them to slow down.

The design for a new Wheaton High isn't perfect. Though the building would be located on Randolph Road, the entrances would face away from the street, allowing buses and cars to drop students off without stopping traffic. But shouldn't a school that's supposed to give a "new fresh start" for Wheaton present itself to the community rather than turning its back on them?

There are few examples of other high schools in Montgomery County that actually face the street, and those that do, like the old Blair High or Bethesda-Chevy Chase High, have been altered so that you enter on the side. Still, I hope that the architects can do things differently at Wheaton.

A new Wheaton High School will be a place to learn and a destination for the community. And by placing the building on one of Wheaton's busiest streets, and creating a prominent entrance on that street, it'll become a treasured landmark as well.

Hall wanted to serve Burleith residents, who had begun to move in to all the new Shannon and Luchs houses. No commercial district was built into Burleith and the residents soon tired of walking all the way to Wisconsin Ave. for their retail needs.

In fact, Hall presented a petition signed by a majority of the neighborhood's residents in favor of his request. Even the Burleith Citizens Association was for it.

What stopped Hall, and the reason there are still no commercial buildings in Burleith, was the Fillmore School. A 35th Street neighbor filed an objection, supported by the PTA and several other citizens associations from across the city.

Their arguments were based off of the belief that no commercial buildings should be in the immediate vicinity of schools. Assistant Superintenent of the Schools, Robert Haycock, argued against the change because, "experience has shown it disadvantageous to the education system and such stores become a factor in delinquency."

The zoning of the block wasn't changed. Whatever few stores were open have long since closed and the buildings either torn down or converted to residential use.

Though many aspects are different, fights over the location of commercial buildings in a non-commercial setting, are still going on. The Office of Planning is drafting a new zoning code. When Travis Parker of the Office of Planning presented the rough contours of the plan to the Citizens Association of Georgetown in November, he emphasized that one of the core principles of the rewrite is to change the code in order to allow other neighborhoods become more like Georgetown.

In other words, Georgetown already has great neighborhood stores like Sara's and Scheele's, but such stores are prohibited in most residential zones (and wouldn't be allowed in Georgetown if they weren't already grandfathered in). Under the zoning rewrite they will be permitted on a limited basis.

Not everyone is happy about this proposal. While the arguments are probably going to involve fewer mentions of student delinquency and more complaints about noise or traffic, the basic battle lines will be the same.

Eighty-four years ago, the anti-mixed use crowd won, and to this day Burleith residents have a longer walk to get a jug of milk (and most probably just drive instead). The deck is stacked a bit more in favor of the other side now, but it's not over until the DC Register sings.

Cross-posted on the Georgetown Metropolitan.

This is where people in walkable neighborhoods can get their gloat on. (I happily dragged a sled around the corner to pick up fresh groceries during the snowpocalypse of February 2010, while suburbanites survived on canned goods).

But even DC schools have teachers who live in the suburbs and students exercising choice who attend schools outside their neighborhoods.

As a New England native, I would say as long as cars and buses can move (albeit slowly), they can get to school. (The only hazard for kids who walk to school was the strong temptation to stop and play in the snow). That usually meant anything less than one foot of snow was fine. Black ice, the worst non-snow impediment, slows down vehicles but doesn't stop them.

There will be car crashes, but there are crashes every day on the roads. Just drive carefully. Be flexible on arrival times. Fear of power outage or actual power outage or loss of water is reason to close a school. Anything less, however, is just wimping out. If we can't find our way to school during messy but passable winter weather, we should re-evaluate our school density and planning.

What is your cutoff? When is it too cold or too messy on the roads to keep schools open?

The District government made the building available for applications to use it as a school once again. The winning bidders were the Youth Build Public Charter School (YBPCS) and its parent organization, the Latin American Youth Center (LAYC).

YBPCS envisions expanding the school it currently operates at 14th Street and Columbia Road NW in Columbia Heights into the first floor of the Cook building. The school serves people ages 16 to 24 who have dropped out of traditional high schools, but want to turn their lives around by learning a trade while earning a General Education Degree (GED). The school would continue to operate at traditional hours.

LAYC would operate housing on the second and third floors of the building, federally funded through Section 8, for a self-selecting group of 20 young homeless people looking to turn their lives around. Applicants for housing would have to pass drug tests and meet a very rigid schedule to get accepted. While living at the facility, social workers would help each resident one-on-one, and residents would be subject to continued testing for drugs and other risks.

In Columbia Heights, LAYC and YBPCS engage in community policing and maintain good relationships with area business owners. Many credit the nonprofits for contributing to the neighborhood's revitalization, in addition to turning young people's lives in a more healthy direction.

The Fenty Administration approved the transfer of the school to YBPCS and LAYC in 2008, giving the DC Council until February 1, 2011, to vote to put the final stamp on the transaction. YBPCS President Mark Jordan insists that his school has complied with every law and regulation and has made efforts to involve the surrounding community in its plans, including offering to include space for community meetings and arts programs. Jordan feels that there has been more than ample opportunity for public input.

Some neighborhood leaders, however, feel that the school's move is being forced upon them without due process. Heading the opposition is Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner (ANC) Sylvia Pinkney, in whose Single Member District the school sits.

Pinkney and fellow Commissioners Bradley Thomas and Ronnie Edwards offered LAYC & YBPCS three alternatives: no sale of the building, sale with no housing allowed, and sale with only five housing units allowed. None of these are acceptable to the nonprofits, which see these as meaning "don't build it." LAYC & YouthBuild are willing to provide community meeting and arts space, and to include more diverse demographics as tenants in the housing portion.

The nonprofits hosted a community forum in the Cook School parking lot in October, and a listening session at Big Bear Cafe in December. They intended these simply as opportunities for interested neighbors to learn the facts and share concerns in a collaborative manner. Some opponents, though, saw these as having plans forced upon them. One opponent went as far as to ask Big Bear owner Stu Davenport not to host the December session.

One ANC 5C Commissioner believes that the nonprofits suffer from poor public relations, saying that school leaders did not approach the Bates Area Civic Association (BACA) or the ANC until very far along in the planning process. BACA approved in March a resolution opposing the project, but LAYC & YouthBuild's later efforts convinced some members to support the school's disposition.

Architect's rendering of the expanded and renovated school.
Image from Wiencek & Associates via City Paper.

Many opponents of the project feel that more Section 8 housing would add to Truxton Circle's problems, citing the negative effects the neighborhood has witnessed from the high concentration of social service agencies nearby. Some supporters see these opponents as inflexible NIMBYs whose views are colored by their sour attitudes towards the Fenty Administration.

The opposition from three civic associations and the ANC may have contributed to the delay in the D.C. Council's final vote. Ward 5 Councilmember Harry Thomas, Jr. has not taken a firm position, despite that every other Councilmember appears to support the sale. When asked, Thomas has only made vague references to flaws in the process. Supporters say that the project fits right in to Mayor Gray and Council Chairman Kwame Brown's emphasis on building more affordable housing.

If things had gone differently, the school could have begun construction by now, with classes to begin this September. However, the persistence of misinformation and mistrust between the project's backers and its critics may mean rapidly-changing Truxton Circle may lose this opportunity to have a venerable building being once again being put to a noble use.

If Council doesn't vote on Feb. 1, the nonprofits, which have everything in place except the title to the school, will be forced back to the drawing board. And the Cook School will remain unused for the foreseeable future.

The city paid the developer half a million dollars in a legal settlement after Mayor Williams bungled the sale last time around, not seeking Council approval. Judging by online editorials and comments made at the meeting, homeless advocates, preservationists, and education advocates are united against the surplus action.

I myself testified on behalf of educational uses of the building, asking city officials whether they understand the public benefits of a downtown school. (I was a co-founder of a charter school that applied to use the Franklin School building and was rejected.)

Understandably, the renovation costs are high and the space is not ideally suited for young children. But that does not mean that the building could not house a high school, UDC law school, or some other educational facility that would honor the legacy of Cluss and draw students from all over the city to a flagship building in a central location. Regardless of which public use is determined to be best, we need a more thoughtful and transparent analysis before the city moves forward with the plan to surplus Franklin.

The historic protection of the building's interior and exterior and the many years of neglect will surely drive the renovation costs even higher. Seeking a private entity to take on the risk and covert the building to a revenue-generating use is understandable. So has someone run the numbers to show what the revenue stream will be net of tax abatements? Did the city have estimates of renovation costs (and did they share them with prospective bidders before the last Request for Offers)? Does the city have estimates of net employment and revenues that will be created by the best commercial use? These numbers would help DRES and DMPED make their case more than assertions about it being "costly" to renovate and that other uses are "not viable."

Someone described schools to me as "non-revenue generating" uses, but what about income and property tax revenue generated by residents who choose these schools over Montgomery County or Fairfax County schools and bid up the value of DC real estate? It's hard to know whether such revenues are a major or minor factor until you run the numbers.

A central location for a school is something that cannot be replicated by locating schools on the fringes of the city, as is now being done with many charter schools. A central location like Franklin Square provides a unique opportunity to draw students from all four quadrants to a racially and economically integrated school, and one whose stunning historic facade could house a flagship facility that would have symbolic value for the city. Has DRES or DCPS come up with a different site that could accomplish this?

What about the homeless? Has the city demonstrated that the savings from surplusing this building will make it possible to serve the needs of displaced homeless men somewhere else? Mayor Fenty asserted that this was the case when he closed the shelter two years ago. Perhaps the analysis is sitting out there somewhere and I haven't found it. If anyone has economic analysis supporting uses or alternative uses of the building, I'll update this post with links.