D.C. Public Schools announced Tuesday that it will open a middle school in Brookland, giving Ward 5 residents a standalone school for students in grades six through eight after years of community outcry.
The school system also will create an International Baccaleurate program at Brown Education Campus and a middle-school program at McKinley Technology High School, to feed into the magnet high school.
DCPS hopes to open the programs in time for the 2013-2014 school year.
School officials announced the decision on Tuesday evening after months of meetings with the Ward 5 community. Family and community members were asked to sign up for committees focused on recruiting students and fostering the transitions and renovations.
Currently, middle-grade students in Ward 5 can attend one of seven “education campuses,” which combine the students with elementary-school students or, less frequently, with high-school students. For instance, Noyes Education Campus serves students in preschool through grade 8.
Many education campuses were created under former Chancellor Michelle Rhee, who saw them as a solution to underenrolled schools that DCPS didn’t want to close. Most are elementary schools refurbished into preK-8 campuses.
But parents and community members were far from satisfied. In some cases, preteen and adolescent students use desk chairs and toilets designed for children half their size, Ward 5 representatives told The Washington Examiner.
Many of the middle schoolers don’t have access to extracurriculars like music, art and athletics, because there aren’t enough students to fund these programs under the city’s per-pupil budget formula. Across seven education campuses, Ward 5 middle-grade programs enroll 790 students, a small fraction of the 2,100 students they have capacity for.
“Everywhere I turn in Brookland there are kids in strollers, and we lose them to charter schools, or we lose them to other schools in the city,” Raenelle Zapata, president of the Ward 5 Education Council, told The Washington Examiner in September. “It’s like ‘Field of Dreams’: If you build it, they will come. If you have a great school, who would drive their kids across town?”
The new Brookland Middle School is set to cover the northern portion of Ward 5, and serve up to 500 students with arts integration and world languages programs.
The school would host at least two guest artists or performances each year, and students would present at two showcases, while half of students would participate in an “artist-in-residence” program each year.
Brookland Middle also would offer two languages, in some cases providing high school credit, with specialized year-long instruction.
Browne Education Campus, which already serves grades six through eight in southeastern Ward 5, is to feature an IB program for both elementary and middle-grade students. “An IB program is one of the ways we can see more rigor, increases student outcomes, and a specialized curriculum,” school officials said in a press release.
The new science, math, engineering, and technology (STEM) program at McKinley Tech — dubbed McKinley Middle School — is to include two showcases of student work each year. Students also will participate in STEM-related competitions, as the high-school students do.
