Student Assignment Rights on Ward 4

Dear Mayor Elect Bowser,

Congratulations on your election. We, as individuals active in the Ward 4 Education Alliance, look forward to continuing our work with you to strengthen educational opportunities and increase educational equity in Ward 4 and across the District of Columbia. We write to offer a specific proposal for Ward 4 students and their families that would address some of the concerns with the recently completed DCPS boundary and feeder plan.

We suggest that as Mayor you extend the rights to attend Deal and or Wilson to the families located in the geographic boundary that currently have that right in Ward 4. This right would be reconsidered at the next comprehensive boundary evaluation scheduled after the 2020 census or several years after a new middle school opens. This is in line with the marker set out for middle school quality in your recent mayoral transition materials. This student assignment right would be a right to attend their designated elementary feeder school followed by a dual right to attend either the secondary schools they now have a geographic right to attend or a new middle school when it is opened at the MacFarland site and then Roosevelt.

Offering these limited dual attendance rights would reduce disruption for families. At the same time it would invite them to actively participate in the establishment and re-envisioning of schools that will benefit their families, neighborhoods, and the entire District of Columbia. Ward 4’s tremendous diversity should make it a vibrant center of the District’s public school infrastructure. We and our families look forward to working with you as Mayor to build enthusiasm for a system of DCPS secondary schools our families demand and our students need in Ward 4 and in all eight District wards.

At the next comprehensive boundary evaluation, we should have the benefit of updated planning and Census information as well as several years’ experience in new and re-envisioned Ward 4 secondary schools. At that time, we should re-evaluate these dual enrollment options to determine what would most benefit families of DCPS students and our school system.

We believe that these dual options would align with your commitments to and plans for our District’s families and schools. We hope that you will consider our proposal.