DCPS School Planning

The DCPS school planning team has been searching for a name for ‘New North’ MS that will open next school year on the campus of Coolidge HS with a 6th grade class. This school will serve the Brightwood EC, LaSalle-Backus EC, Takoma EC and Whittier EC school committees. Families who live in the boundaries of these 4 education campuses or who currently attend them will have the right to enroll their child at anytime starting in April 2019 for the 2019-20 School Year.

 

‘New North’ MS will add a grade each year until it is a full 6th – 8th grade middle school in SY21-22. We spent the summer collecting ideas and nominations from the public. We are very pleased that most of the nominations came from parents, families and community members in Ward. 4

The DCPS school planning team worked together with the Coolidge Community group to help evaluate and narrow down the nominations to 10 finalist names. The group used a rubric that was developed from criteria outlined in the DCPS school naming policy

Here are the 10 finalist names. You can read more about them here.

Ida B. Wells

Georgiana Simpson

Lawrence Graves

Alma Woodsey Thomas

America Libertad Calderón

James Baldwin

Josephine Dorothy Butler

Paul A. Quander, Jr.

John Wesley Cromwell and Otelia Cromwell

Mary Ann Shadd

We are asking the general public to provide us with feedback on these 10 names.

Please take our survey here. It will be open from October 15 – October 30th. This survey will help DCPS narrow this list down to a final three that DCPS senior leadership will consider, review and work with the DC City Council for final review and action on the name of the school.

The Coolidge Community Working Group came together on October 4th at 6:30pm to discuss and engage around updates on the Coolidge HS modernization. This included highlights on Stadium renovations and progress toward the overall school modernization. Please visit the DCPS Modernization website for more information.

The school planning team shared updates on the progress toward finding a name for ‘New North’ MS that will open next school year with a 6th grade class on the campus of Coolidge HS. DCPS received 50 nominations from the public. Once duplicates are accounted for, this represents 31 individuals and 2 places/neighborhoods. The school planning team is pleased that 78% of the nominations came from Ward 4.

For more information on the nominations including who was nominated and from where the nominations came and the naming process, please click here. During our meeting, members of the working group helped evaluate the submitted nominations with a rubric based on criteria from the DCPS Naming policy. There will be a survey for the broader public to share their thoughts on the finalist names this month.

The school planning team also introduced updates program for New North MS including proposed class and course offerings as well as the overall school vision. For the full presentation of the evening please please click here..

Our next Community Working Group meeting will be Wednesday, Oct. 10 at Coolidge HS at 6:30pm. The purpose of this meeting will be to continue the conversation with the materials posted here about Coolidge HS and New North MS. This will include modernization updates of the Frank R. Williams Center and more information about New North MS.