Half of D.C. schools targeted for closure were winners in June

Four months before DC Public Schools named Thurgood Marshall Elementary a school it needed to close, it named Marshall a winner.

Marshall applied for and won a $300,000 “Proving What’s Possible” grant, which urged schools to form creative plans to improve their test scores over the next five years. Marshall, a Ward 5 neighborhood school, would use the money to implement astronomy, robotics and agriculture programs. The school had just cleaned out its planetarium and was in the market for a projector.