NEWS
- D.C. student commutes to charters vary; some go more than five miles [Potomac Preparatory PCS, Washington Latin PCS, Center City PCS, Friendship PCS, AppleTree Early Learning PCS, and YouthBuild PCS mentioned]
- D.C. charter schools and DCPS have extremely different student feeder patterns
D.C. student commutes to charters vary; some go more than five miles [Potomac Preparatory PCS, Washington Latin PCS, Center City PCS, Friendship PCS, AppleTree Early Learning PCS, and YouthBuild PCS mentioned]
The Washington Post
By Michael Alison Chandler
May 10, 2015
Commuting distances vary widely at charter schools in the District, according to a new school-by school analysis of enrollment patterns. The analysis, from the D.C. Public Charter School Board, shows that some schools attract students from across the city and that others serve mostly families from the surrounding neighborhoods.
Fewer than 10 percent of the city’s charter school students commute less than a mile to school, compared with more than 60 percent of students enrolled in traditional public schools in the District, the report found. Nearly 50 percent of charter students commute between one and two miles to school, and more than a third travel as much as two or three miles to and from school.
“This report tells us something about the character of each school and the diversity of charter schools in the District,” Scott Pearson, the board’s executive director, said. Some charter schools are rooted in their neighborhoods, while others attract students from miles away because of a special academic program or because they offer convenient hours or transportation.
Pearson said the report could offer useful information if District leaders want to consider offering neighborhood families preference for charter schools in the city-wide lottery, which Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) has supported.
Similar school enrollment maps were developed as part of a task force in 2012 that recommended offering a neighborhood preference in a limited way — for charter schools moving into former neighborhood public school buildings. The charter board still supports this position.
The analysis considered enrollment data for the 2014-2015 school year for 105 charter schools. Distances were calculated from point to point on a map, not by using pedestrian or auto routes.
The school that students travel farthest to attend, according to the report, is Potomac Preparatory, with a median distance of 5.6 miles. The school came close to closing this school year when the board moved to revoke its charter for poor performance. It was given conditional approval to stay open under new management and a turnaround plan.
The school is near Providence Hospital in Ward 5, but many students come from other wards, a commute facilitated by five buses that make stops around the city. Public school students in the District are typically expected to provide their own transportation. But offering transportation is one of the “unique features” of Potomac Preparatory, said Principal Marian White-Hood. “It’s on our fliers and our brochures,” she said.
Another charter school that more than half of the students travel more than five miles to attend is YouthBuild, an alternative school for young adults that offers workplace training and is located near the Columbia Heights Metro stop.
Some schools with strong academic reputations, including Washington Latin, also draw from a wide radius and enroll students from every ward. The median distance traveled for Washington Latin’s middle school is 4.7 miles and for its high school is 3.3 miles.
Students at Center City-Brightwood have the shortest commute of those at any charter school in the city, the report showed.
The Brightwood campus is high performing — it has been rated Tier 1 for three years in a row — but it is located in upper Northwest, near the Maryland border, a location that is not very convenient to other parts of the city, said Russ Williams, chief executive.
Two other Center City campuses, in Shaw and Petworth, also had median travel distances that were a mile or less.
Center City’s six charter schools converted from Catholic schools that have been “anchors” in their respective communities for a long time, Williams said. Some students have parents or grandparents who attended the former Catholic schools.
The Catholic church attached to the school in Shaw recently celebrated its 150th anniversary. Despite tremendous change and development in that neighborhood, the school maintains a strong neighborhood following, he said.
At least 48 percent of public charter school students attend school in their home ward. Nearly 5,000 charter students from wards 7 and 8 travel across the Anacostia River to attend schools in other wards. About 1,700 students travel east of the river to attend schools in Ward 7 or 8.
Pearson said the finding challenged a long-held “belief” that no one will travel east across the Anacostia to go to school. Five schools in wards 7 and 8 enroll more than a quarter of their students from the other six wards: Friendship elementary and middle schools at Blow-Pierce, Friendship Collegiate Academy, AppleTree Early Learning-Oklahoma Avenue and SEED.
A study about school choice in New Orleans by researchers at Tulane University showed that academics are just one consideration for families when they are making decisions about schools.
Parents also consider convenience, extended-day and after-school programs and extracurriculars. After Hurricane Katrina, average driving distance to schools increased by nearly two miles, the report found, as nearly all traditional public schools were turned into charter schools and most offer transportation.
D.C. charter schools and DCPS have extremely different student feeder patterns
The Examiner
By Mark Lerner
May 11, 2015
The DC Public Charter School Board has just released a highly detailed report documenting the distances children travel to attend the city's charter schools. The study found that for DCPS the great majority of students go to a school within a mile of their homes. For charters the patten is quite different with most kids traveling between one three miles to enroll in an educational institution.
The report entitled "Making the Choice" illustrates how far students travel to attend for each of the city's 105 schools in the 2014 to 2015 term by Performance Management Framework Tier. The graphs accompanying the study could have been clearer in showing the percentage of students by miles traveled instead of by the total number of schools per mile because it is easy to confuse the school count with percentiles.
In an article about this research by the Washington Post's Michael Allison Chandler she makes this interesting observation:
"At least 48 percent of public charter school students attend school in their home ward. Nearly 5,000 charter students from wards 7 and 8 travel across the Anacostia River to attend schools in other wards. About 1,700 students travel east of the river to attend schools in Ward 7 or 8."
These statistics highlight the disruption that would occur if charters were required to give an admission preference to neighborhood families, something Mayor Bowser has supported. It is especially noteworthy and encouraging to see how many parents have their offspring commute into Wards 7 and 8 for their public schooling.
In her story, Ms. Chandler mentions that the Scott Pearson, the PCSB's executive director, supports the finding that only in the case where a charter replaces a neighborhood school should a preference become an option for those that live near the school. This was the conclusion of the 2012 Neighborhood Preference Task Force that said such a preference should be time limited.
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