Dear Deputy Mayor Kihn,

re: Shepherd ES and the Boundary and Student Assignment Study

Please accept this letter on behalf of the Shepherd Elementary School community regarding the Boundary and Student Assignment Review Study. We appreciate the thoughtful and thorough process your team and the Advisory Committee is conducting. We are heartened by the intentionality and rigor the committee is applying to identify the principles, challenges and scenarios that will guide their recommendations. We want to see DCPS continue to thrive and provide all our children with the educational opportunities they deserve. 

While we are making use of all avenues for public input and have shared our perspective with members of the Advisory Committee, during the last Committee Meeting there were repeated calls for “school-specific insights.” Since we do not have a member of our specific school community represented on the Committee, we wanted to ensure you heard from us directly about our shared community interest in maintaining our current feeder pattern into Alice Deal MS and Jackson-Reed HS. As we delineate in this letter, our interest aligns very well with the three scenarios guiding the work of the Committee: predictable programmatic pathways, balancing utilization and enrollment, and expanding opportunities for those historically discriminated against.

The current feeder pattern from Shepherd to Deal provides a meaningful predictable programmatic pathway via the International Baccalaureate (IB) designation of both schools. Shepherd is the only Primary Years IB Programme that feeds into Deal, which is a Middle Years IB Programme. The IB Programme is a unique instructional framework that promotes independent inquiry, student agency, and international-mindedness. Shepherd has a longstanding history of developing students into IB scholars who are academically equipped for the rigors of the IB Middle Years Programme at Deal. Since 2011, Shepherd has invested in implementing the IB framework in partnership with Deal to provide a continuing educational experience for students.  The Middle Years Programme builds upon the knowledge, skills, and dispositions developed during the Primary Years Programme. Both programmes are intentionally crafted to work in unison so that students acquire developmentally appropriate skills throughout their journey as IB scholars.

Shepherd prides itself in providing an educational framework rooted in research and thought leadership. As parents and members of the greater Shepherd community, we have firsthand experience with the effectiveness of the IB Programme in developing lifelong learners who make an impact in both their local and global communities. Maintaining programmatic continuity supports the growth of our children. The predictability of this pathway is one of the attributes that attracts and retains scholars to our school and families to our community. (Please see the Attachment to read stories from several of our families).

Of the twelve schools in the Jackson-Reed feeder pattern, Shepherd ranks eleventh in population. On average, Shepherd enrolls 360 students and graduates 55 proud Mustangs per year.  These students make up less than 15% of the population at Deal or Jackson-Reed. Given our size, changing our feeder pattern would not address the need to balance utilization and enrollment, and would cause substantial harm.  Shepherd is increasingly being recognized as one of the best elementary schools in the city and draws 63% of the student population from in-boundary.  The opportunity to enroll in an exceptional IB curriculum with predictable programmatic continuity at Deal draws students to Shepherd from private and charter schools and strengthens our community by attracting new families. Changing the feeder pattern and creating uncertainty would significantly negatively impact the students at Shepherd and the community as a whole.  If the current feeder pattern were to change, enrollment at Shepherd would decrease as families choose to leave our neighborhood or leave DCPS, seeking an alternative in private or charter schools.

Lastly, in considering the Committee’s scenario about expanding opportunities for those historically discriminated against, we’d like to highlight that the neighborhoods that feed into Shepherd ES are unique neighborhoods where people fought to create and then preserve a racially integrated community during the 1950s and 1960s when societal forces were pushing against it.[1] This diversity endures and is one of our community’s core values. Generations of families fought to create opportunity for the children of Shepherd, their neighborhood school, and to ensure access for Shepherd students to be part of the Deal/Jackson- Reed feeder pattern. Shepherd’s student body is wonderfully diverse. With current enrollment of approximately 55% Black, 24% White, 8% Hispanic/Latino Students, and 11% Multiple Race, Shepherd leads by example as one of the more racially integrated elementary schools in DCPS.[2][3] This diversity helps our students build a deeper understanding of each other and is as valuable to our community as reading and math. Shepherd is the only school in the Deal/Jackson-Reed feeder pattern that has a majority Black student population. The next closest school has only 17% Black students, and the others are significantly less diverse. Our nation and our city are at a tipping point. We are grappling with the gutting of affirmative action, the normalization of racial divisiveness and an exponential rise in hate crimes. Our public schools and the education they provide stand as a bulwark against the regressive paradigm of racism. As DCPS seeks to produce global citizens, there is a great urgency to maintain diversity and not further segregate our city.

Thank you for your thoughtful consideration of our concerns. We look forward to continuing to engage with you, your team, and the Committee, as this process progresses.

Sincerely, 

Members of the Shepherd ES Community