On March 21, 2023, the D.C. Policy Center’s article, The role of school boundaries in the District of Columbia: Facts and findings on boundary participation, student representation, and facility utilization, was cited by DCist:
According to a recent report on school enrollment trends from the D.C. Policy Center, 72% of D.C. students don’t attend their in-boundary public school, but the attendance rate is higher in wealthier parts of the city. Additionally, only a fraction of students stick with their designated feeder pattern as they grow up; the dramatic outlier is Jackson-Reed High School in Tenleytown, where 67% of students are in-boundary. (In Anacostia High School, it’s only 7%.)
The report found that current attendance patterns in most cases do not reflect the city’s overall racial diversity, and that some schools are significantly overcrowded while others have trouble filling their seats. Still, the possible changes to boundaries are only likely to impact a relatively small number of schools and kids.
“Boundary policies can be contentious, creating significant anxiety among families, who may be nervous about changes in their schools,” the group concluded. “But… the immediate impacts of boundary changes will be geographically concentrated, especially in neighborhoods where boundary participation rates are very high, or student representation is low, or facility utilization is too high or too low.”
Read more: D.C. Kicks Off Once-A-Decade Process To Redraw School Boundaries | DCist