1200. OVERVIEW

1200 OVERVIEW 1200.1 The Educational Facilities Element addresses the location, planning, use, and design of the District’s educational facilities and campuses. It includes policies and actions related to early childhood development facilities, public primary and secondary District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS), public charter schools, private schools, and higher educational facilities, including public and private colleges and universities. 1200.2 The District’s pre-kindergarten (PK) through adult environment includes a network of neighborhood schools, matter-of-right schools, and feeder systems that provide predictable paths from elementary to middle to high school grades, as well as a District-wide application and lottery-accessed public and public charter schools. Both DCPS and the public charter schools offer traditional programming as well as specialized programs such as dual language, expeditionary learning, International Baccalaureate, and Montessori. Washington, DC’s collegiate environment includes nine universities whose home campuses are in the District, as well as many other educational institutions and non-local universities that provide programs within the District. 1200.3 The Element focuses on the efficient use of school property and the relationship between schools and the communities that surround them. For DCPS, it focuses on school planning and modernization efforts to meet existing and long-term educational needs, and on investing equitably in a system of neighborhood public schools to provide fair access to high-quality education throughout the District’s communities. 1200.4 The crucial educational facilities issues facing Washington, DC are addressed in this Element. These include: Ensuring that investments in schools promote equity and excellence, serve the needs of all students, and provide access to educational skills and development opportunities across all eight wards through matter-of-right neighborhood schools and District-wide public schools. Equity for many communities of color requires attention on family/community involvement. Continuing to plan for and invest in new and existing school facilities to meet the District’s growth and enrollment needs while delivering spaces that reflect best practices in building configuration and design. Leveraging schools as assets and anchors of District neighborhoods where culture, skills training, and civic engagement goals can be achieved, in addition to schools’ core educational missions. Encouraging university and community college satellite campuses in Wards 7 and 8 to provide expanded educational opportunities, and engaging Washington, DC’s universities as innovation centers, potential activators for large site development, and good neighbors that are compatible with surrounding neighborhoods through the use of a campus plan. Using school facilities to exemplify Washington, DC’s environmental commitments through such measures as building to gold LEED standards. Maintaining District-owned school sites to provide adequate green space for educational, recreation, athletic, and environmental benefit, which are located equitably throughout the District. 1200.5 Since 2006, when the Comprehensive Plan was last updated, the District has committed to reconceiving and rebuilding its public schools in partnership with residents, business owners, and civic organizations. The Educational Facilities Element has guided Washington, DC’s historic strides toward increasing the quality of DCPS facilities to support teaching and learning after decades of disinvestment prior to the year 2000. From 2007 to 2018, the District allocated more than $2 billion to modernize or renovate 73 school facilities. As of 2020, over a dozen years after the modernization project started in earnest, twenty-one schools have yet to be modernized or have received only Phase 1 modernizations and are not yet scheduled for full modernization. Of the latter category, there are none in Ward 3, one each in Wards 1, 2 and 4; two in Ward 5; four in Ward 7, five in Ward 6 and seven in Ward 8. In addition, from 2007 to 2018, the District provided public charter schools with more than $1.2 billion in funding through the per-student public funding allotment specifically for facilities. 1200.6 Washington, DC’s charter and private schools and universities have access to the District’s enviable tax-exempted bonds through Washington, DC’s private activity bond program. Institutions have used this financing tool to raise millions of dollars to finance their expansion, building and renovation programs. 1200.7 Because the emphasis of the Comprehensive Plan is on the physical environment, this Element, as it relates to DCPS and public charter schools, addresses school land and buildings, rather than educational curriculum, teacher quality, school administration, and other programmatic issues. Such issues are critically important, but they will be addressed in the DCPS Strategic Plan and other DCPS documents. 1200.8 Policies in the Educational Facilities Element work alongside those adopted by the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Education (DME), DCPS, the DC Public Charter School Board (DC PCSB), the Department of General Services (DGS), the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE), and the Office of Planning (OP) as a coordinated, internally consistent strategy for educational excellence and neighborhood revitalization. 1200.9 Continuing to improve schools is fundamental in meeting the goal of retaining and attracting households with children. Schools strongly define the social, economic, and physical characteristics of the District’s neighborhoods. SOURCE: District of Columbia Comprehensive Plan Act of 1984, effective April 10, 1984 (D.C. Law 5-76; 31 DCR 1049 (March 9, 1984)); as amended by District of Columbia Comprehensive Plan Act of 1984 Land Use Element Amendment Act of 1984, effective March 16, 1985 (D.C. Law 5-187; 32 DCR 873 (February 15, 1985)); as amended by District of Columbia Comprehensive Plan Amendments Act of 1989, effective May 23, 1990 (D.C. Law 8-129; 37 DCR 55 (January 5, 1990)); as amended by District of Columbia Comprehensive Plan Amendments Act of 1989 NCPC-Recommended Amendments, and Closing of Public Alleys in Square 669, S.O. 88-452, Act of 1990, effective May 23, 1990 (D.C. Law 8-132; 37 DCR 2213 (April 6, 1990)); as amended by District Government Land Use Temporary Amendment Act of 1994, effective October 1, 1994 (D.C. Law 10-190; 41 DCR 5360 (August 12, 1994)); as amended by Comprehensive Plan Amendments Act of 1994, effective October 6, 1994 (D.C. Law 10-193; 41 DCR 5536 (August 19, 1994)); as amended by District of Columbia Comprehensive Plan Act of 1984 Land Use Amendment Act of 1994, effective March 21, 1995 (D.C. Law 10-235; 42 DCR 30 (January 6, 1995)); as amended by Technical Amendments Act of 1996, effective April 18, 1996 (D.C. Law 11-110; 43 DCR 530 (February 9, 1996)); as amended by Second Technical Amendments Act of 1996, effective April 9, 1997 (D.C. Law 11-255; 44 DCR 1271 (March 7, 1997)); as amended by Comprehensive Plan Amendment Act of 1998, effective April 27, 1999 (D.C. Law 12-275; 46 DCR 1441 (February 19, 1999)); as amended by Technical Amendments Act of 1999, effective April 12, 2000 (D.C. Law 13-91; 47 DCR 520 (January 28, 2000)); as amended by Comprehensive Plan Amendment Act of 2006, effective March 8, 2007 (D.C. Law 16-300; 54 DCR 924 (February 2, 2007)); as amended by Technical Amendments Act of 2008, effective March 25, 2009 (D.C. Law 17-353; 56 DCR 1117 (February 6, 2009)); as amended by Comprehensive Plan Amendment Act of 2010, effective April 8, 2011 (D.C. Law 18-361; 58 DCR 908 (February 4, 2011)); as amended by Comprehensive Plan Amendment Act of 2021, effective August 21, 2021 (D.C. Law 24-20; 68 DCR 006918 (July 16, 2021)). District of Columbia Municipal Regulations Comprehensive Plan 10-A DCMR § 1200