The below signed members of the Janney Elementary School community write to indicate our objection to the proposal by The Office of the Deputy Mayor for Education as a part of the 2023 Boundary and Student Assignment Study to significantly alter the Janney Elementary School boundary and remove students from their current walkable feeder pattern and send them to Mann/Hardy/MacArthur. 

We are sympathetic to the problem of predicted future overcrowding at Janney and understand the need for a solution that will serve our school. However, the Boundary Study’s current proposal to slash our current boundary area is not the solution. We urge you to identify solutions that do not simply move overcrowding from one school to another. We encourage you to consider the implications of this proposal. Our specific concerns include:

• Traffic and Safety: DCPS’ Boundary and Student Assignment Study 2023 Supporting Datasheet shows that, on average, DCPS elementary school students live at a median distance of 0.7 miles to their in-boundary school. The Datasheet states that, currently, in-boundary Janney students live a median distance of 0.8 miles to Janney ES. This statistic tracks with our walkable community. If the proposed boundary is implemented, families closer to Westmoreland Circle would be walking upwards of 1.6 miles to Mann. Looking at DCPS data, that would place these in-boundary students further from their school than the median distance for all but one of the 69 elementary schools in the city (only 5 elementary schools have median distance of a mile or more; most elementary school students across the city live under 0.5 miles from their in-boundary school)
  AU Park is a community where most of the student body lives within about a mile from both Deal MS and Jackson-Reed HS and is able to walk to these locations safely. Under the proposed redistricting, certain residents along the Massachusetts corridor of the AU Park neighborhood would become part of the Hardy MS / MacArthur HS feeder pattern. Both of these schools are over 3 miles away. Students commuting to these schools would have to take several buses with multiple transfers. WMATA estimates these various route options would take about 70 to 90 minutes during a typical morning commute. As a point of reference, this is about the same as the average morning commute if one were to drive from AU Park to Baltimore, MD.
• Capacity at Mann: DCPS’s plan, as proposed, produces overcrowding at Mann. According to the DME Interactive Boundary Explorer, Janney’s current enrollment is at 96% of utilization. The proposed redraw of the boundary lines would bring Janney’s enrollment down to 87% of utilization. However, the plan moves Mann from its current estimate of 82% up to 95% with the addition of Janney students. This plan does not seem to serve the Mann community well, and, for those families moving from Janney to Mann, they move from one school that DCPS considers to be overcrowded to another school that will become overcrowded. Furthermore, we are struck by the voiced concerns of the Mann community that their school is actually at capacity and does not have the bandwidth to take on additional students. Mann parents expressed concern that DCPS’ estimate of their current utilization (at 82%) does not correctly represent their school and its current capacity levels. 
• Special Needs Students: the proposed boundary change will in no way help us better meet the needs of our special needs students. The supposed extra capacity it might create will not be enough to allow us to create a Behavioral and Educational Support Classroom. Families with special needs students will have to continue to send their children out of boundary to get the services they need. This boundary change does not help the DME achieve the goal of improving sprong and clear special needs feeder patterns and would likely exacerbate existing transportation issues OSSE has been unable to resolve. 

Our school community supports the goals of the district in conducting the Boundary Study to ensure adequate capacity at every school, equitable access to high performing schools, and that families know where their children will attend school throughout the entirety of their education. We also ask that the District honor its original commitment to walkability and to Mann’s capacity. Working with the accurate building capacity as a baseline, we are confident we can continue to engage and arrive at creative solutions that serve all DCPS students. We also urge the District to continue to develop and invest in transportation solutions and safety measures that will ensure all students in the District can get to school safely and quickly. 

The Janney LSAT drafted a letter with more information and possible solutions. Much of the language in this letter is borrowed from their letter. You can read the entire of that letter here.