It’s Feb­ru­ary, Black His­tory Month. And Stevens School—a liv­ing land­mark in our very own ‘backyard’—has been over­looked. Located at 24th and L Street NW, it was built in 1886, (40 years before Black His­tory was coined), and named after Sen­a­tor Thad­deus Stevens, an abo­li­tion­ist and U.S. rep­re­sen­ta­tive. It was the first school for freed slaves in the Dis­trict and the only such oper­at­ing school in America.

For the moment, Stevens rep­re­sents what pub­lic schools in the U.S. aspire to be: a tight knit com­mu­nity of par­ents, teach­ers, and neigh­bors that sup­port the edu­ca­tion, safety, and well being of its 231 ele­men­tary stu­dents. Those acco­lades aside, Stevens suc­cess­fully pro­motes racial diver­sity and pro­vides a safe haven. Both highly val­ued. Both scarce. These young stu­dents are not emo­tion­ally branded by expo­sure to metal detec­tors promi­nent through­out Dis­trict schools.

Stevens Ele­men­tary is also the only pub­lic ele­men­tary school in Foggy Bottom/West End. It prox­im­ity to pub­lic trans­porta­tion, the busi­ness cor­ri­dor, and its rep­u­ta­tion make it desir­able. Tutor­ing and before/after school pro­grams are in place (and said to be less costly than com­pa­ra­ble Dis­trict coun­ter­parts). Above all, the par­ents – a num­ber are Stevens grad­u­ates – are highly involved in their children’s edu­ca­tion and the school. All are concerned.

Par­ents Work to Keep Stevens Open
Despite their efforts, begin­ning with the pub­lic hear­ing last Novem­ber and the addi­tion of the unan­i­mous sup­port of ANC-2A, Chan­cel­lor Rhee has kept Stevens on the school clo­sure list. A Feb. 5 meet­ing at a neigh­bor­hood law office once again brought par­ents together with three ANC– 2A com­mis­sion­ers, an archi­tect, and a GW student/tutor at Stevens.

Par­ents shared their frus­tra­tion with the city’s lack of response. Accord­ing to Erica, in their pub­lic hear­ing tes­ti­mony, con­cerns were raised. No clar­i­fi­ca­tion has ever been received. Brid­gette made ref­er­ence a pro­posed plan and options devel­oped by the par­ents to address the miss­ing details for the pro­posed merger. These were pre­sented to Chan­cel­lor Rhee dur­ing a pri­vate meet­ing Jan. 10. Again, no response.

Stevens alum­nus Bernard, father of a Stevens stu­dent, men­tioned the let­ter he was send­ing to the
Wash­ing­ton Post, dis­cussing how impor­tant Stevens was to his own suc­cess. He cred­its the good envi­ron­ment at Stevens for keep­ing him off the path of gangs and drugs.

Whit­ney, the GW stu­dent at Stevens, said that the expe­ri­ence is great. She had tutored that day, with five oth­ers who were there as well, giv­ing the teacher won­der­ful sup­port. If Steven closes, the tutor pro­gram goes, too, along with fed­eral fund­ing which sup­ports her education.

Archi­tect Colleen Gove, a for­mer Uni­ver­sity of Mary­land stu­dent pre­sented her award-winning 2006
Stevens School master’s the­sis project. For eco­nomic pur­poses, Ms. Gove added a com­mu­nity cen­ter and hous­ing, sug­gest­ing that one fund­ing pos­si­bil­ity was a pub­lic pri­vate partnership.

Why Close Stevens?
DCPS states the pri­mary rea­son for Stevens School clo­sure is due to 80% over-capacity.

Dis­trict schools aver­age 320 square feet (sf) per per­son, twice the national stan­dard. By clos­ing a num­ber of non-performing schools, the sav­ing from the pur­port­edly huge oper­a­tions cost can be used to improve facil­i­ties and add staff and programs.

While Stevens’ 231– stu­dent enroll­ment is down from 325, DCPS’s “opti­mal” enroll­ment size, this was a con­scious deci­sion made to enhance learn­ing. At this lesser enroll­ment, there is a wait­ing list and with school clo­sures the list will grow. At cur­rent enroll­ment, based on infor­ma­tion from a few sources, Stevens aver­ages 175sf per per­son and at opti­mum school size, 130sf per per­son. School den­sity is not an issue.

Toward a World-Class Edu­ca­tion Sys­tem in a World-Class City
High on the Mayor’s agenda is a world-class city. A read of DCPS’s Mas­ter Edu­ca­tion Plan (MEP) frames the short­com­ings of Dis­trict schools and how DCPS plans to over­come them. Cre­at­ing this World– Class Edu­ca­tion Sys­tem includes inno­v­a­tive and suc­cess­ful pro­grams, a cul­ture of part­ner­ship and col­lab­o­ra­tion, and many other fac­tors through­out the MEP that Stevens demon­strates today. Stevens is the stuff that world-class cities are made of: edu­ca­tion – one stu­dent at a time.

Arts and music pro­grams are vital. No ques­tion. Com­mis­sioner Har­mon said that Stevens par­ents are pre­pared to raise money to sup­port a teacher. But, merely adding pro­grams through an admin­is­tra­tive man­date is not how a school gains the lead­er­ship and soul that Stevens demon­strates with its rela­tion­ships: parental-teacher, com­mu­nity resources, con­tri­bu­tions, and good will. Its grad­u­ates have become good par­ents, pil­lars of the com­mu­nity, suc­cess­ful pro­fes­sion­als and lead­ers within the nation.

In a city of pow­er­ful sym­bols, Stevens is a liv­ing, breath­ing sym­bol with a heart. Chil­dren secure in their envi­ron­ment strive to learn. The com­mu­nity con­tributes resources and like­wise ben­e­fits from their par­tic­i­pa­tion. Chan­cel­lor Rhee’s man­date to close Stevens does not cel­e­brate the insti­tu­tion, its Black His­tory legacy, or the excel­lence this con­tin­u­ously oper­at­ing school sym­bol­izes for the Dis­trict. It nei­ther rec­og­nizes Stevens for the momen­tum it has been gain­ing and its poten­tial to ele­vate the Dis­trict to its cov­eted stature as a world class city.

Stevens should be the model for other schools. “Don’t break what doesn’t need to be fixed”, Com­mis­sioner Mali­nen said. “The Com­mis­sion­ers of ANC-2A have sup­ported keep­ing Stevens open from the start. The more I hear, the more I am con­vinced it should stay open.”

Last Word
If only Stevens were just another old build­ing in the midst of the busi­ness quad­rant, it could close and most of us would not know the dif­fer­ence. Appar­ently that is what the admin­is­tra­tion is count­ing on. — FBN