Community Engagement Process for Foxhall & MacArthur Blvd School Planning

DCPS has identified Capital Improvement Plan funding beginning in FY21 to construct a new facility – “Foxhall” – on the Old Hardy site (1500 Block of Foxhall Rd NW), as well as funding in FY21 to purchase the newly vacant GDS lower school facility – “MacArthur Blvd School” (4530 MacArthur Boulevard NW).  Both facilities are in Ward 3.  The goal of these investments is to help address overcrowding in the Wilson HS feeder pattern. DCPS has not yet determined the program scope for these buildings, including considerations such as boundaries, feeder patterns, and final grade configurations.  These topics will be the focus of the upcoming engagement process.   

Given the scope of this planning, these conversations are relevant to the entire Wilson feeder pattern.  For this reason, DCPS is launching a community engagement process to support planning for the two sites to ensure that all impacted communities are engaged in the planning and decision-making process.  The engagement plan will include a number of ways for stakeholders to provide input, including: 

• The establishment of a Community Working Group (CWG) of school and parent representatives so that we can hear from every school community on the options and work across schools to identify the impacts and considerations for each option.  This group will begin meeting in early February and will likely meet 1-2 times once per month through the spring.  Each school will identify one staff (the school principal or a designee) and one parent representative to join the CWG.  Representatives from key community groups will also be invited to participate.   
• Additional touchpoints with principals to provide a space for school leaders to hear directly from their peers and provide input to the School Planning Team.  
• Opening up public opportunities for people to  submit their input online, and finally, 
• DCPS may also hold additional school and community meetings in the spring to get more feedback on the ideas that come out of the CWG. 

DCPS expects to hold the first Community Working Group meeting in early February 2021 and will post meeting materials and notes, as well as other relevant updates, to this site after each meeting.   

Wilson Feeder Pattern CWG: January 2018 Meeting #6 Recap

The Wilson Feeder Pattern Community Working Group (CWG) met January 25^th, 2018. In this meeting, representatives from the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Education shared an update on the Master Facilities Plan (MFP) including goals for the MFP, differences from earlier MFPs, and aiming to share the final version by summer 2018.

Additionally, the group discussed next steps for the CWG, including the review and drafting of the summary document that will be used to capture the group’s feedback and conversations. Notes and our presentation are here.

Wilson Feeder Pattern CWG: November 2017 Meeting #5 Recap

The Wilson Feeder Pattern Community Working Group (CWG) met in November for our fifth meeting.  In this meeting, the Strategic School Planning Team shared additional analysis and gathered feedback on several options raised by the group.  We also shared a draft of the outline for the summary document that will be used to capture the group’s feedback and conversations. You can view the draft summary outline and the full presentation here.

An update from the January 25th meeting will be posted soon!

 

Wilson Feeder Pattern CWG: October 2017 Meeting #4 Recap

The Wilson Feeder Pattern Community Working Group (CWG) recently convened for our fourth meeting. In this meeting, the Strategic School Planning Team provided feedback on several options DCPS is interested in pursuing, including strategies to increase capacity and strengthen program offerings outside of the Wilson Feeder Pattern. We also shared updates from our public survey, key takeaways from an enrollment analysis, and dived deeper in the out-of-boundary (OOB) student profiles for the Wilson feeder pattern. Full details and our presentation are here. 

The Wilson Feeder Pattern CWG aims to meet once more in 2017 with a proposed outline of the summary document and additional feedback and data on existing options. DCPS will then develop a summary document that reviews the process, priorities, and analysis that this group has completed. This document is meant to reflect the priorities of the group and will be shared with DCPS leadership and DME to help inform planning.

Please contact our team if you have any questions! dcps.planning@dc.gov