Schools

Facing a group of outraged education activists, DC Council Chairman Phil Mendelson this week criticized the mayor for submitting emergency legislation to extend a private school’s lease of a District-owned site many want converted into a…

About 100 people celebrated last week’s opening of an art exhibition at the Pepco Edison Place Gallery full of revealing photographs of daily life in DC’s neighborhoods — but instead of wine at the reception, there were Capri Suns. …

In a new report Northwest parents are calling for the creation of at least four new public schools to address severe overcrowding at Woodrow Wilson High School and many of its feeder schools. After spending two years studying solutions…

A new year means new leadership for DC’s State Board of Education (SBOE), and this year’s selections brought fresh evidence of a change in direction. The board elected Ward 3’s Ruth Wattenberg and Ward 8’s Markus Batchelor to one-year…

When DC Public Schools honored teachers and administrators at the Standing Ovation ceremony earlier this month, they capped off a challenging year for the school system. Last year DCPS was at the center of a scandal involving inflated…

A dozen students at Tenleytown’s Woodrow Wilson High School were playing cards at a high-top table and relaxing on easy chairs in the senior lounge while on break between classes. Alex Wilson, the school’s director of academic development,…

Families in Anacostia will now have convenient access to early education programs for children ages 6 weeks to 3 years, thanks to a new child development center at Ketcham Elementary School, the recipient of multiple awards and honors in…

Dozens of early childhood teachers from around DC were gathered in a hotel conference room on an early Saturday morning to tackle a challenging and sensitive topic: how to talk about race with young students. It was one of two training…

Community support is gathering behind Save Shaw Middle School, a group advocating for DC to fulfill its previous commitments to create a new neighborhood middle school at 925 Rhode Island Ave. NW. The group’s Change.org petition…

Teaching math classes at DC’s Eastern High, Kareem Farah realized a while ago the traditional mode of instruction — delivering lectures and hoping all students would advance at the same pace — wasn’t working for the diverse range of…

Update, Jan. 16: The DC State Board of Education will vote at its monthly meeting tonight on a set of policy recommendations developed by its staff on how best to improve teacher retention. The proposal, presented at the board’s Jan. 9…

Some voices are unforgettable. For communities spanning from DC to Virginia to Maryland, Shellie Bowers’ voice was one of them. As a baseball coach, sports announcer, broadcast teacher, tutor, mentor and comedian, Bowers was involved in…

A new bill approved last week by the DC Council could add heft to the city's language access services, easing life for schoolchildren and parents who speak little to no English. The Language Access for Education Amendment Act,…

“Jambalaya.” The word typically refers to a large pot of Louisiana-style stew. It’s also the term Abimbola George uses to describe the melting pot of educational programs he’s helped introduce since 2014 at Malcolm X Elementary School in…

Voting isn’t over for residents of DC’s Ward 4. They will take to the polls on Tuesday to choose their representative on the State Board of Education. One month after elections for board seats in wards 1, 3, 5 and 6, this special election…

As a DC Public Schools student, Alexsandra Alfonso had to overcome unusual educational challenges due to her visual impairments — for instance, she once had to wait a month to receive a textbook in braille. Even so, she graduated with…

Election Day may be over, but there’s still more voting to come this year in one corner of DC. Four candidates vying to become the Ward 4 representative on the DC State Board of Education squared off at a recent forum on how they would…

Principal Rachel Tommelleo has the Midas touch of kindness. It’s her compassion for every student that makes her school in Ward 4’s Brightwood neighborhood a warm, welcoming place for each and every student. “If she had it her way, she…

Nearly 50 people rallied Saturday against Mayor Muriel Bowser’s plan to move the Benjamin Banneker Academic High School to the site of the former Shaw Junior High School, instead of the neighborhood middle school they say the city promised…

A decade into mayoral control of the schools, questions about whether the DC Council should add a level of independence for the state education agency have become a major issue in the DC State Board of Education races.   Two new bills —…