The community has shown its support for Francis-Stevens Education Campus and Garrison Elementary School with signs like the one above.
The community has shown its support for Francis-Stevens Education Campus and Garrison Elementary School with signs like the one above.
A proposal by DC Public Schools to close 20 schools across the district is meeting the opposition of parents and community members from two of the schools set to close in Ward 2.
Organizers are fighting the proposed closings of Francis-Stevens Education Campus and Garrison Elementary School with signs, petitions, letters, and meetings to advocate for the schools to remain open.
Parents cite a growing need for Francis-Stevens that houses grades kindergarten through eighth grade and was forced to turn away a classroom of about 40 students in the early childhood program last year after DCPS would not staff the room.
“There’s a baby boom in Ward 2,” said local Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner-elect Jackson Carnes. Children under the age of five account for 43 percent of all children who live in Ward 2, Carnes added.
The school also houses a unique low vision special education program for over a dozen visually impaired students. This would be the third time in three years the children in the program have had to move schools said Vincent Kargatis, a parent of two children in the program.
“They’re simply shuffled as a bureaucratic peg to a school performing, on average, a full 14 percentage points lower than Francis-Stevens in the DC-CAS – without any consultation of the expert educators involved in the program,” he said.
The proposal would consolidate Garrison Elementary into Seaton Elementary, also in Ward 2, according to DCPS.
Francis-Stevens would consolidate lower grades into Marie Reed Elementary School, in Ward 1, and higher grades into Hardy Middle School, in Ward 2, according to DCPS.
“It would be like breaking up a family,” said Francis-Stevens PTA treasurer Erin Michener.
Parents choose the downtown school in order to be close to their children, allowing them to be an “active participant in (their) child’s education,” said Michener.
The schools proposed for the consolidation of Francis-Stevens are not accessible by public transportation and are both over a mile away from Francis-Stevens.
DC State Board of Education President, Theodore Trabue, says the consolidation is, at its most basic level, a matter of economics. Closing under-enrolled schools will help reduce overhead helping to “put money back in the classroom,” he said.
The consolidation will open up more money to be spent per student and on teachers, staff, supplies, and modernized schools said Trabue.
Right now, both schools are only using about 60 percent of the building space and enroll about 225 students in each of the schools, according to DCPS.
“The Chancellor really is basing her decision solely… around enrollment and a modernized building,” said Michener.
It is important to “understand the bigger picture,” she said, adding that modernization and enrollment should not be the only reason to close a school that is performing well.
Test scores at Francis-Stevens are in the top 30 percent of D.C. Public Schools, according to an ANC Resolution on the matter of the proposed closure.
Scores at Garrison Elementary are higher than those of Seaton Elementary in both reading and math, according to DCPS.
Making a Stand
Parents have come together in support of both schools along with community members and local representatives from Ward 2.
A petition on Change.org calling for D.C. officials to keep Francis-Stevens open has received the signatures of over 600 people as of December 12th. Another for Garrison Elementary has collected well over 500 signatures.
“The one good thing that has come out of this is that it has brought us even closer together through this process…there is a lot of parent involvement,” said Francis-Stevens parent Michener.
The Francis-Stevens PTA has held family dinners and school meetings to discuss the proposed closure of the school. Parents have also attended city council hearings and community dialogue sessions hosted by DCPS on the school closings.
About 150 people were in attendance for one PTA event at Francis-Stevens where elected officials, community members, parents, kids and vision-impaired activists gathered to speak out against the proposed closing of their school, according to those in attendance.
The Francis-Stevens PTA was set to meet with Kaya Henderson, Chancellor of DCPS, again last Wednesday after requesting a meeting to express their concerns to the Chancellor.
For Garrison Elementary, community involvement has been tremendous with signs reading “We Love Garrison” and “Save our School” popping up around the neighborhood.
Numerous community associations, neighborhood churches, and local businesses have come forward in opposition of the proposal to close Garrison Elementary School, according to a press release by the Garrison Elementary PTA.
“The bottom line is that we have to make the right decisions for our children,” said Ward 2 Council member Jack Evans at a community meeting hosted by DCPS. “Both of these schools have waiting lists for their pre-school programs, and we need to listen to what that means.”
Let me throw my hat in the ring here with regards to the costs of maintaining Francis-Stevens. Truth is, they're among the lowest of the any school slated for closer. If allocations for special needs students are factored out, Francis-Stevens favorably compares with respected DC elementary schools in per-pupil expenditures. Francis-Stevens costs with 225 students are only $600 more per student than that of Tyler ES with 575 students, and about $800 more per student than at Barnard ES with 565 students.