Washington, D.C. (Map, News) - Four of D.C.’s most troubled high schools and a middle school with a history of violent episodes will be outsourced to private companies next academic year, city leaders announced Thursday.

The major leadership change was the most drastic of a series of plans unveiled to restructure 26 public schools that have failed federal standards five years straight.

The other plans include scrapping administration at 17 schools and teaching staff at seven, grouping schools into clusters with greater autonomy and transforming a handful into full-service sites with outreach to families.

Those schools being farmed out are Anacostia, Ballou, Coolidge and Dunbar high schools and Hart Middle School.

Ballou, in particular, has a reputation of crime. The Ward 8 campus was the site of the last homicide in a city school when student Thomas Boykin four years ago reportedly opened fire, killing football player James Richardson.

Hart, too, has struggled to escape a legacy of gun problems. School counselors have said students are so accustomed to losing loved ones to violence that they could do grief counseling every day.

Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee refused to say which company or companies would take over or how much would be spent to privatize.

But Rhee has been meeting with six firms, including St. HOPE Public Schools, whose leader, Kevin Johnson, is her friend. The other companies Rhee has met with are Belford Academy High School in New York, D.C.-based Friendship Public Charter Schools, Institute for Student Achievement in New York, Mastery Charter Schools in Philadelphia and Talent Development School in Baltimore.

Mary Levy, a schools watchdog with the Washington Lawyers Committee, said most of the options Rhee has chosen – privatization, getting rid of staff, giving the city control and turning schools into charters – have not proven successful.

“It’s not supported in the research that they do well,” she said.

Gina Arlotto, a parent and activist, said many residents breathed a sigh of relief that Rhee did not turn any of the schools into public charter schools. But she’s concerned that Rhee hasn’t announced the private companies that will take charge.

dlevitz@dcexaminer.com