D.C. School Rolls Decline, Preliminary Tally Shows

Brookland at Bunker Hill Education Campus, a consolidation of two elementary schools in Northeast, was projected for 512 students but has a current enrollment of 384. Raymond Elementary School in Northwest, slated to accommodate students from the shuttered Clark Elementary, was expecting 437 students and has just 305. Smothers Elementary in Northeast, designated to take children from Benning Elementary, is 70 students short of its projected enrollment of 292.

Other schools, such as Emery and LaSalle-Backus education campuses, are exceeding enrollment, forcing officials to shuffle teachers to equalize staffing.

This has upset parents at schools such as Francis-Stevens, a former junior high school in Foggy Bottom that became a pre-K through eighth-grade campus when nearby Stevens Elementary was closed. Because the school is significantly under-enrolled -- 249 children with a projection of 352 -- officials reassigned the school's sole third- and fifth-grade teachers this week. To replace them, two first-grade and two second-grade classes were consolidated, freeing up two instructors.

Michelle Newby, a Francis-Stevens parent with a child in the third grade, said the confusion disturbed the children. "The kids were kind of upset," she said. "They get attached to their teachers pretty quickly."

Mike Silverstein, an advisory neighborhood commissioner in Dupont Circle, called the transfers "profoundly disappointing" and said newly consolidated schools such as Francis-Stevens should not be penalized while they are trying to get established.

He also questioned the wisdom of the rush to consolidate Francis and Stevens at a cost of $5 million without giving the community adequate time or information to consider the plan.

"Why in the world would you spend that kind of money to throw that kind of party and then have nobody show up?" he said.