Enrollment in D.C.’s public and public charter schools is up for the third straight year and is continuing to surpass pre-pandemic levels, according to preliminary data released this week.

According to unaudited data released Tuesday, 99,770 students are enrolled in the city’s public and public charter campuses. That’s the highest city enrollment since at least the 2007-08 school year, according to the Office of the State Superintendent for Education.

The growth, Interim Superintendent Antoinette Mitchell said, is enabling the city to invest in career and technical education programs and offer a curriculum focused on early literacy and math.

“Everything is coming together in a way that families are just seeing the opportunities that are available to them in the DC Public School system,” Mitchell said.

This year, 52,036 students are enrolled in a DC Public School and 47,564 are enrolled in public charters. Final and audited data is scheduled to be enrolled early next year.

Enrollment continues to surpass pre-pandemic levels in both sectors. It comes as public school enrollment in the Maryland and Virginia suburbs remained stagnant this academic year.

Enrollment fell slightly in Montgomery County and Fairfax County public schools, the D.C. region’s other largest school divisions.

In D.C., Mitchell said the preliminary data points to growth in the city’s high schools and growth in adult education students.

“We’re particularly excited about this because it means that once students are completing elementary and middle school, they’re choosing to stay within the D.C. public school system, whether they choose to go to DCPS or to one of the charter schools,” Mitchell said.

When enrollment rises, Mitchell said the city is able to expand its programming, such as opening a new Advanced Technical Center in Ward 8, which focuses on health sciences, and complements the center in Ward 5. The centers enable students to participate in career and technical education programs, and earn college credit while remaining enrolled in high school.

“We are delighted to be able to offer internships to our students who seem to really love the opportunity to work in corporations around the area,” Mitchell said. “So as enrollment grows, we think that more students will take advantage of the programming that we’ve been able to put in place with the investments that the mayor has made thus far.”

The enrollment announcement comes ahead of EdFEST, the city’s annual public school fairs. EdFEST for high schoolers is scheduled for Dec. 7, and Dec. 14 for pre-K3 through eighth grade families.

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WASHINGTON – Authorities have shut down an illegal cannabis business in Northwest D.C., citing it as an imminent threat to public health and safety.

On Nov. 26, the Alcoholic Beverage and Cannabis Administration’s Enforcement Division, with support from the Metropolitan Police Department, executed a Closure Order at Peace in the Air, located at 2118 18th Street NW. 

The first-floor business was operating as an unlicensed cannabis retailer, despite a Cease and Desist Order already in place.

The Alcoholic Beverage and Cannabis Board issued the Closure Order, leading to the business being shuttered and its doors padlocked. Officials said the drastic measure was necessary given the risks posed by the illegal operation.

The shop’s owner, Darel Dawson, says the business had been closed for weeks prior to the raid.

“They banged out a door to an empty building,” Dawson told FOX 5. “If my stuff was still in there, and we were operating a business out of love, I would feel extremely violated.”

City officials confirmed that Peace in the Air had been issued a Cease and Desist Order for selling cannabis without proper licensing. Dawson admitted his business had been warned but expressed frustration with the regulatory process.

“To our knowledge, we weren’t doing anything illegally until we were given a warning,” Dawson said.

The ABCA stated that Dawson failed to comply with the warning, which led to Tuesday’s operation to secure and padlock the premises.

Dawson defended his decision not to pursue licensing under the new regulations.

“I did not avoid the licensing. But when it was time to be licensed, I declined because I don’t think the system was going to benefit the proprietor at all,” he said.

Peace in the Air sold clothing, music, and art alongside cannabis. Dawson expressed relief that no employees were present during the raid but criticized the city’s approach.

“I feel violated for the people. They have to pay hourly for all those police to be there. I feel for the taxpayers. And the other people doing business in this cannabis realm who will probably get violated,” Dawson added.

Dawson can request a hearing before the ABC Board. However, the property owners may face additional requirements before regaining access, including submitting a remediation plan to prevent future illegal cannabis sales on the premises.

The ABC Board also has the authority to fine property owners $10,000 for noncompliance.

The closure of Peace in the Air marks the 14th illegal cannabis operation padlocked since new enforcement powers were granted under the Medical Cannabis Conditional License and Unlicensed Establishment Closure Clarification Emergency Amendment Act of 2024. 

The law, which took effect on July 15, allows ABCA to take swift action against unlicensed cannabis businesses.

Since the law’s enactment, ABCA has issued 37 Cease and Desist Orders and 96 warning letters to unlicensed operators who failed to apply for a medical cannabis license during the designated application period.

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Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Ellen Reid notes that it takes “light and shadow [to] explore the conundrum of bringing new life into the simultaneously beautiful and crumbling world”. She is referring to her experience of being pregnant and giving birth while undertaking a prestigious residency at the storied Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. But it could also serve as a metaphor for Sunday’s life-giving concert at Washington Performing Arts, which opened with her richly textured new orchestral work Body Cosmic.

The modest 28-year-old maestro Klaus Mäkelä was until a few years ago unknown outside his native Finland. Today he is chief conductor designate to both the Royal Concertgebouw and Chicago Symphony Orchestras, two of the world’s most esteemed ensembles, as well as chief conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic and music director of the Orchestre de Paris (and a busy cellist in his own right). I am generally suspicious of any so-called wunderkind but, as it turns out, Mäkelä’s meteoric rise is not an accident of timing, nor clever career finagling from a press-savvy manager. Leading the Concertgebouw, he here gave a performance that was utterly instinctive and entirely musical.

Reid’s evocative sound-world, by turns evanescent and disturbing, liquid and filmic, was given space to breathe by the Concertgebouw, which has the collective intelligence to create unparalleled sonic subtleties. Rachmaninov’s mighty Symphony No 2 in E Minor was the concert’s second half, and Mäkelä and the Concertgebouw managed to make the ultra-familiar seem as box-fresh as the premiere we had just heard. They did this through sensitivity to phrasing, dynamics and tempi; a lack of complacency or flashiness; and a sense of creative unity that only comes with a willingness to submit to the humility of togetherness.

Between these magnificent offerings was Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No 2 in G Minor, written by the composer in 1935, when he was in exile from his beloved Russia. The soloist was Georgian violinist Lisa Batiashvili, who possesses ravishing tone, flawless technique and musical elegance. In combination with Mäkelä and the Concertgebouw, she found something raw, terrifying and tender.

The encore was a heartbreaking and heart-mending arrangement by Anders Hillborg of Bach’s “Ich ruf zu dir”. Batiashvili has previously described playing Bach as “something spiritual” — “[he] makes you believe in something.” Well, yes. The audience left the concert hall a bit stunned, a bit changed, a bit remade.

★★★★★

washingtonperformingarts.org