The top reported proficiency rate is 38% in English language arts. The lowest is 36% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Learn Dc Pcs
LEARN DC PCS is a public charter school on Duncan Street SW in Washington, sitting in the Ward 8 area near Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling. It opened in August 2021 to serve families from an underserved population in that part of the city and from the military base community, and it has been adding one grade each year since. The school currently runs from preschool through third grade in its state-reported profile, though publicly reported information from the school itself indicates it has already grown to serve through fifth grade and intends to keep expanding up to eighth grade. That planned growth means a family enrolling a young child here could potentially stay in the same building from preschool all the way through middle school, which reduces the number of school transitions a child experiences during the early and middle childhood years.
The enrollment is small for its grade band, and the largest group is in preschool, which tracks with a school still building its upper grades one year at a time. The student body is racially and ethnically diverse, with Black students forming the largest share, followed by white and Hispanic students, and a meaningful portion identified as two or more races. Small numbers of Asian and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander students round out the population. This mix gives children a peer environment that reflects a broad range of backgrounds.
On the academic side, the school reported state assessment results for the grade three through eight band in math and English language arts for the most recent school year. Only third graders at this school sit for those tests, so the proficiency figures reflect a relatively small tested group rather than a full elementary cohort. Proficiency in both subjects fell below what most families would consider strong, with ELA slightly ahead of math. Because the school is young and the tested population is narrow, these results may not yet capture where instruction is headed. A parent may want to look into this further with the school, asking how the curriculum supports children approaching grade-level benchmarks and what growth the school is seeing in its own internal assessments. No multi-year trend data was available, so there is no prior baseline to compare against.
The school has adopted Fishtank ELA as its English language arts curriculum for the upper elementary grades, which speaks to a deliberate literacy focus shaping how older students learn reading and writing. Beyond that, program offerings, staffing details, attendance figures, discipline data, and civil-rights reporting were not available in the data provided, so those aspects of the school environment could not be assessed here.
Free-or-reduced-price lunch counts were missing, as were individualized education program and English learner rates. Without these, it is hard to characterize the level of economic need or the share of students receiving specialized services, though the school's stated mission centers on serving an underserved Ward 8 population, which gives some context.
Because this is an early-grade school, there is no graduation rate to report. That metric simply does not apply here, and it will not apply until the school grows through eighth grade and potentially beyond, if it ever does.
The surrounding area's housing market sits well below the District's broader benchmark and modestly below the national one, with home values having declined over the past year. Rents have risen slightly over the same period. For a family considering renting near the school, the area appears more affordable than much of Washington, though mortgage rates remain elevated nationally. The school's location in the southwestern part of the city places it in a quadrant defined by the L'Enfant Plan's diagonal avenues and traffic circles, a part of Washington that is less dominated by the monumental core and more residential in character.
No neighbor comparison data was available, so the school could not be positioned against nearby charter or district schools in the county. That gap means a family would need to do their own side-by-side comparison with other Ward 8 options. What the available picture does show is a young, growing charter school with a clear literacy focus, a diverse student body, early-stage test results, and a structural plan to keep children in one building through middle school.
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