D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s 2021 budget proposal calls for building a $56 million Foxhall Elementary School on the site of the old Hardy School at Foxhall Road and Q Street.

The $56,354,00, with the funding to be spread from 2023 to 2025, is to “design and construct a school facility to address Ward 3 enrollment needs,” according to the capital spending proposal. Construction would start in 2024.

The budget document provides few other details about the proposed school, with the site being identified by city officials during the mayor’s budget press conference today. The school would be built adjacent to the current school building, according to the office of the deputy mayor for education.

City Administrator Rashad M. Young said the proposed school would relieve enrollment pressure on nearby Stoddert and Key elementary schools, and perhaps a third elementary school. “What we found is that it is more efficient and a better solution to create a new elementary school at Foxhall,” he said, adding that it would give residents in the Wilson High School feeder pattern more choices.

Source: D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s FY 2021 to FY 2026 Capital Improvements Plan, submitted to D.C. Council May 18, 2020.

The proposal jolts an already unsettled elementary school landscape in the Palisades.

In 2018, a $20.5 million expansion of Key Elementary School was part of the city’s five-year building plan, work projected to involve a complete rehabilitation. But the 2021 budget proposal shows a decrease of $20 million for Key Elementary School modernization. Two years ago, a $1 million replacement and expansion of modular classrooms occurred at Key.

Meanwhile, Georgetown Day School plans this summer to move its PK-8 campus on MacArthur Boulevard to Tenleytown, unifying with the high school on an expanded campus. GDS officials have said the MacArthur campus, which accommodated nearly 600 students, is to be sold to another private school. But they have not identified the school. Five entities expressed “bonafide” interest in buying the property, but DCPS was not among them, according to GDS officials.

About a block away, the old Hardy School building has been occupied by The Lab School of Washington under a long-term lease, which is running out. D.C. government leaders have been under pressure to return the building to public school use.