February 2020 – Truxton Is In Shaw

Shaw School Review: Friendship PCS- Armstrong Elementary

Friendship PCS- Armstrong Elementary
1400 1st St. NW or 111 O St NW

Type of school: Public Charter
Grades: PK3-5 (Note: Middle School for 2020 grades 4-8)
Before & After School care: Yes. Contact school. Prob. $70 a week for before and after care.
Enrollment: 417 (2019-20)
—PreK3: 55; PreK4: 72; K: 63; 1st: 40; 2nd: 65; 3rd: 38; 4th: 37; 5th: 47
PCS LEA 1 Programmatic Capacity: 900; Unfilled seats 499 (2018-19)
Cost Per Pupil- No figures found. Apparently those numbers will be available later in 2020 or 2021.

Attracts Students From These DCPS schools (2017-18), 10 students or more

Name of School	# of Students
Thomas Elementary School	17
Truesdell Education Campus	10
Walker-Jones Education Campus	88
Browne Education Campus	23
Langley Elementary School	15
Seaton Elementary School	36
Cleveland Elementary School	13

Physical activity: Grades K-5: 65.00 Minutes/week

PARCC Scores 2018-19, % meeting & exceeding expectations
	Black	White	Hispanic	Pac. Is/Native Am.
ELA 2018-19	9.2%	n<10	n<10	n<10
Math 2018-19	22.9%	n<10	n<10	n<10
Males ELA	7.3%	n<10	n<10	n<10
Males Math	18.2%	n<10	n<10	n<10

Mari’s 2 cents–

I chose the picture of Armstrong before it was renovated. Friendship is the second charter school to take over the building. I almost feel that I should have a photo of the Langston school to show the importance of charters on the neighborhood. However, Langston is so far long gone no charter, no matter how well funded, isn’t going to touch it, unless the neighboring Slater building comes with.

I should write about the program. As the mom of a toddler, I should point out this is one of the few (the only I found) charters that seems forgiving when it comes to potty training. KIPP and Mundo Verde demand that students be potty trained.

They will have an open house on March 11, 2020 9:00am-10:00am and March 25, 2020 5:00pm-6:00pm.

Sources:
https://www.myschooldc.org/schools/profile/150
https://www.dcschoolreportcard.org/schools/120-0269
Copy of EdScape_Chapter 3 Facilities_Facility Enrollment and Utilization_6
2018-19 School Year Annual Enrollment Audit Report Supplemental Tables
Detailed 2018-19, 2017-18, 2016-17 PARCC And MSAA Performance

InShaw Blog Update-2003-2010 catalog added

I started this blog on Blogger and then due to some changes regarding URLs I moved to Moveable Type and then my host no longer supported that and so I’m using WordPress. I thought I added the Blogger posts but discovered the only posts that migrated over were from an announcement page I had. I have the main Blogger posts at dcinshaw.blogspot.com, but I have finally imported those posts, images and comments to this blog. Now there are over 2,500 posts here.

Sadly the Moveable Type (2010-2013) posts are still in limbo. Right now I can’t seem to locate those files. I’m sure they are on an external drive somewhere.

Black Homeowners of 3rd Street – 1940 No covenants

It has been a while since I looked at the Black Homeowners of Truxton Circle. I stopped because I got stuck on a mystery and I’m just going to have to let it go. I will never know who the mystery man was and that’s okay. I’m going back to the Black homeowners because of on-line conversations with Richard Layman and things I’ve been reading about redlining and restrictive covenants.

In my own research, I have not seen any restrictive covenants. I believe it is a thing that would be found outside of the L’Enfant planned city and in Washington County, those areas north of Florida Avenue. Mt. Pleasant, Trinidad, and Bloomingdale are the creations of developers who could put in those restrictions. So if you lived in Old City, the likelihood that your fee simple house (apt buildings could be a different thing) had a racial restriction would be low.

When looking at the property records, I have tried to make heads or tails out of them, but they are beyond me for now. I’ll see person X seem to transfer to person Y , then years later Z shows up with X. With E.L. Haynes who owned my house and several other properties in Truxton Circle and DC, she was able to borrow money for her rental properties. The financial details are in her papers at Catholic U’s archive and not so much with the Recorder of Deeds. Anywho, Black people managed to borrow money from somewhere to purchase real estate. Banks practicing redlining weren’t the only game in town.

Below is a table with data from the 1940 census, I’ve had to cut a lot out so it could fit, but know they are all for 3rd Street, they are all owners and African American.

House #	Surname	First name	Age	Marital Status	School	Occupation	Industry	Income
1311	King	Cornelius	59	M	H-4	Casterman	US Printing Office	$1,859
1335	Brown	Hillary I	40	M	7	Janitor	Apt house	$936
1337	Turner	Anna	37	M	H-1	Waitress	Tea room	$320
1413	Taylor	Emma	46	M	H-3			$-
1415	Mudd	Harry	60	M	8	Machinists helper	Railroad Terminal	$1,900
1429	Aiken	James W	48	M	H-4	Waiter	Hotel	$520
1430	Neal	Victoria V	69	W	H-4			$-
1431	Anderson	Ada	79	W	6			$-
1538	Fitch	Lula	45	M	H-2
1542	Green	William M	40	M	H-1	Laborer	Gov’t Printing Office	$1,320
1544	Williams	Augustus A	56	M	C-5	Dentist	Private Practice	$2,000
1546	Brooks	Walter A	54	M	C-3
1548	Chisley	Sadee	62	W	6
1550	Blackwell	James	45	M	0	Cement Finisher	Cement Contractor	$960
1554	Taylor	Walter J	65	M	8
1617	Contee	Grant	63	M	0	Preacher	Ministry	$-
1626	Cobbs	Ferrel	45	M	H-1	Messenger	Interior Dept	$1,260
1628	Coleman	Edward	60	M	8	Messenger	Veterans’ Bureau	$1,500
1629	Jenkyns	Jerome S	61	M	C-8	Machinist	U.S. Government	$2,245
1630	Marsell	William	50	M	8	Custodian	Bureau – Standards	$1,140
1649	Heywood	Spencer	50	M	C-1	Barber	Barber Shop	$900
1634	Ford	Laura	54	S	4			$-

I highlighted 1649 3rd Street, because that was my hang up, but I’m letting go, letting go. Instead I need to figure out how to make a decent table. This doesn’t seem like a long list, but remember in urban areas, more people are renters.

The owners on 3rd Street NW are varied. There are government workers, widow women, skilled labor and an educated professional. The youngest is Anna Turner, a 37 year old waitress at 1337 3rd St NW. She lived with her son and a female lodger, a teacher, the eldest a 79 year old widow Ada Anderson.

At the DC Archives- Shaw School Urban Renewal

It has been a long while since I checked in on the DC Archives. I have opinions, but as I get older I know I should keep them to myself, for professional reasons, as my day job is in the field. What I will say is that I find it frustrating that there isn’t more available to the public on-line, the long promised new building has yet to be built, there are records that logically should be open that aren’t, and DC government agencies seem to be unclear as to where their records are.

Okay, now that’s off my chest.

I checked in on the DC Archives on-line to see if there was any improvement since the last time I went looking for something. The answer was yes, there was some improvement. One of my biggest complaints was that they didn’t have a decent catalog. You see many small archives are at universities and colleges, so their stuff sometimes sit on school library website, and librarians are super duper stars at getting information to the public. State archives vary. Some states are better than others, but there is usually a catalog. There are companies out there, go to an ALA conference, or even SAA and you will find companies that have catalogs with public sides, so the public can see what the heck you have. But if you’re too cheap/wary for that, there is always throwing PDFs of finding aids on your website.

One of those fine PDFs is for the Shaw School Urban Renewal District Case Files, 1967-1968. I have heard tale of this survey. What would be interesting is to see what buildings were found to be derelict in the 1968 survey that still stands today and has been renovated and if any had been demolished. What I find most useful is the list, on the last page, of all the squares in the Shaw neighborhood.

Truxton Black History Link- Dunbar Cadet Corps

Right now the Library of Congress website is being very uncooperative. They have photographs of Dunbar High School girl cadets from the 1940s. So instead I’m going to link to someone else’s old blog post about the boys’ cadet corps circa 1950-1960.

It’s a pretty good post with photos from the Dunbar High School year book describing what the cadet corps did and their history. The author, Marion Woodfork Simmons, said that the cadet corps was the precursor to the JROTC. My niece is in the JROTC at our (I & her mom – my sister- went there too) Florida high school. She’s interested in the Navy. Anwho, it seems Dunbar still has an JROTC program.

It’s Black History Month- Blame Shaw’s Own Carter G. Woodson

Carter G. Woodson statue at night — Memorial for Dr. Carter G. Woodson at 9th and RI Ave NW.

It’s February so that means it’s Black History Month. And eventually somebody says something about February being the shortest month of the year and African Americans getting short shrift. Which is really ignorant because the “Father of Black History” Carter G. Woodson picked a week in February for Black History Week. That week turned into a month and that brings us to where we are. He could have picked another week in another month, but he didn’t. Please shaddap about February.

Dr. Carter G. Woodson (PhD, Harvard, 1912) noticed there was a lack of history documenting and telling the story of Black Americans in America. So he saw a problem and then fixed it. Quoting the NPS biography of Dr. Woodson, “The public knew very little about the role of African Americans in American history, and schools were not including African American history in their curriculum. He worked tirelessly throughout his life to remedy this problem, becoming nationally recognized as “the Father of Black History.” ”

Dr. Woodson lived and worked at 1538 9th Street NW, which is in Shaw. This would explain the statue, if you missed it, at 9th and Rhode Island Avenue NW. And the National Park Service complex at his historic home’s location. And of course, there are programs going on this month to celebrate the man. On February 15th and 29th at 1PM an actor will lead a 3 hour tour (a three hour tour) in the life of Dr. Woodson. The historic house is regularly open 3 days a week, Thursday through Saturday, 9 to 5.