Schools the City Can Build On
As Another Year Gets Underway, System Looks To Use 3 Campuses as Models for Improvement

By V. Dion Haynes and Theola Labbé
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, August 29, 2006; B01

At McKinley Technology High School in Eckington yesterday, students celebrated the first day of school by walking on a makeshift red carpet as they entered a building recently transformed into a first-rate technology center. The specialty-school model will be replicated when the D.C. school system revamps several struggling high schools.

Uptown, officials at Brightwood Elementary in Petworth welcomed students to a newly renovated building, a $15.5 million showcase that will serve as a guide for the system's ambitious plan to spend $1 billion to refurbish dozens of dilapidated buildings.

And at Scott Montgomery Elementary in Shaw, last year's 24 fourth-graders enrolled as fifth-graders at KIPP DC: Will Academy, a new public charter school housed in the same building. The first-of-its-kind partnership will allow the high-achieving Knowledge Is Power Program to share teaching methods with Montgomery, a traditional public school with decreasing enrollment.

The schools are three examples of unprecedented changes that thousands of District youths encountered yesterday as they returned to a school system determined to improve student performance and its public reputation.

The 58,000-student system faces perennial problems such as dismal test scores and enrollment decline. And education is a top concern of voters who will elect a new mayor, D.C. Council chairman and school board president in November.

D.C. school leaders say they are introducing programs this year that will raise the quality of instruction, give students and teachers clean and updated schools and spur the type of innovation that can make a difference in the classroom.

"It's the year of reclamation," Superintendent Clifford B. Janey said yesterday. "We want to reclaim in a very real way the pride and success that we hear about D.C. public schools back in the day."

During an unusually hectic summer, school officials had to manage the regular duties of ordering replacement textbooks while repairing 10 newly consolidated schools and preparing teachers to introduce more rigorous science and social studies curricula.

The relatively smooth opening of 141 schools had a few mishaps.

Libraries in 43 schools did not open yesterday because renovation work was delayed after carpet was not installed on schedule, said Thomas M. Brady, the system's chief business operations officer. Until the libraries reopen late next month, he said, the schools will either convert another room into a temporary library or cart books to classrooms.

Officials said that water fountains at Watkins Elementary on Capitol Hill were shut off because of a problem with new filters but that bottled water was brought in.

McKinley Technology High

At McKinley, returning students and teachers got the red-carpet treatment -- a strip of red plastic taped to the brick front walkway surrounded by balloons. Some strutted and others walked slowly, beaming with pride. A parent thought of the idea to celebrate the first senior class at the remade technology school, which will have 800 students this year.

Students from across the city apply to the school to specialize in one of three areas: biotechnology, information technology or broadcast production. Yesterday they clutched orange class schedules as they bumped elbows in the hallways.

Janey said McKinley will be a guide as he works to improve several low-performing high schools, including Eastern on Capitol Hill, which he plans to close for about 18 months next year for renovations. It will reopen as the D.C. Latin School for grades six through 12.

In October, Janey will announce plans for transforming Ballou and Anacostia senior high schools in Southeast Washington into specialty schools. Both failed for four years to meet academic goals under the federal No Child Left Behind law.

"Opening a new school with an old tradition -- we will do the same at Eastern," Janey said.

McKinley Principal Daniel Gohl said students have proven that they have prowess in areas other than technology. The school's debate team has collected numerous trophies from competitions in New Jersey and Philadelphia. Social studies classes have taken trips to Senegal, Japan and Egypt. Broadcast students will be presenting their films at the Harlem International Film Festival, Gohl said.

"I'm proud of them. They've done tremendous things," he said.

Brightwood Elementary

Natural light streamed through large windows at Brightwood Elementary. A new foyer sparkled with yellow potted flowers, and every teacher's classroom had a telephone and Internet hookup.

The school, built in 1926, has undergone a $15.5 million renovation that included an addition with a gymnasium and offices.

"It's the vision for every school," Principal Wanda Fox said as she walked through the building, watching students settle into their classrooms.

Janey said Brightwood will be a model for the $1 billion school modernization plan, approved by the council in the spring. The project, he said, stayed within its budget and was completed on time.

School system officials said the project is the first example of how they plan to modernize aging school buildings. Brightwood used to have one bathroom, on the first floor. Now there's a bathroom on each of the building's three floors.

KIPP DC: Will Academy

Jessica Cunningham, standing before fifth-graders in a class at KIPP DC: Will Academy, looked like the principal in her gray business suit and pumps, but she sounded more like a cheerleader.

"KIPP: Will, good as gold, let me see your fingers roll!" she shouted. The students, in their loudest voices, recited a multiplication table for the number nine.

The routines, which include chanting positive affirmations and dancing, are part of the public charter school program's strategies for boosting the test scores of low-income students. KIPP operates 52 schools in 16 states and the District. A KIPP middle school on M Street SE, one of two others in the city, had the highest math and reading scores among D.C. middle schools last year.

The school board approved the KIPP-Montgomery partnership in June as an attempt to introduce innovation. Next year, the system plans to give about 10 schools more autonomy to experiment with methods aimed at boosting student achievement.

Yesterday, KIPP officials said 90 fifth-graders were registered at the Will Academy, about five more than anticipated. The school will add a grade each year, eventually enrolling students in grades five through eight.

"I deem it a success, based on the feedback of the students and parents," Cunningham said.

Parents' Turn

At 8 a.m., Janey showed up at Ernestine Lewis's home on Capitol Hill and joined her as she walked sixth-grade sons Marquis and Marquel to Tyler Elementary.

"I let him know I was happy Tyler was not one of the schools that closed," Lewis said later.

Across the city, parents walked their children -- big and small -- to school. Officials want to keep the parents involved. The system plans to open parent resource centers in Wards 1, 7 and 8 that will offer information on school policies and community services.

The resource centers will be aimed at sparking the type of parent participation seen at Tyler.

Leslie Levy, president of Tyler's PTA, greeted parents and invited them to join the organization yesterday. Two years ago, the group didn't exist. Last year, 33 parents signed up.

"It's not just a school," Levy said. "It's more of an extended family."