Eric Goulet, Whittle School and Ward 3 overcrowding

[Anonymous]

Eric Goulet has been personally posting on neighborhood listservs saying the best alternative for overcrowding in Ward 3 is to buy/lease the Whittle School. Is this a realistic option or sound byte? It was a big piece of his campaign platform.

Does he not know that the entire building is unbuilt..only one of 6 pods is finished--not seats for 2400 as his campaign verbiage suggests...there were 120 kids in there....Does he not know the landlord who built the building is suing the leasing agent, the leasing agent is counter suing, the contractors who were never paid and left work unfinished have filed over a hundred million in liens and lawsuits while the debt has been resold several times over with Chinese financiers sitting on up to $70 million in more pending actions against Whittle personally who co-mingled most of the money meant for the build-out of the school?..not to mention the State Dept controlling the property? 

Does he not read the news or do his homework or is he a master negotiator who could convince the city that this building, which is so expensive to heat due to the glass,  which was rejected by every developer in town and is a gaping construction hole,... is a viable option for Ward 3? 

I like the idea..it would be awesome if the city would completely overpay to build out and operate at a loss, this bottomless pit and fix it up, but it sure sounds like either he didn't do any homework or he has some kind of inside knowledge that could get this done? Does anyone know if there are actual negotiations going on or if this is hype he is spreading around?

[Anonymous]

That's bizarre, and Ward 3 is already getting MacArthur. DCPS cannot walk and chew gum well enough to take on a second project even if spending so much on Ward 3 could be justified.

[Anonymous]

It was his version of "build a wall."

[Anonymous]

This guy is proving himself unqualified for public office. Not only does his proposals defy common sense, he is assuming a mandate that his position on the Board of Education does not give him. It is perfectly reasonable to wonder whether he ever read the job description before deciding to become a candidate. There’s also the logos on his campaign materials and his claiming permissions to use them that he didn’t have.

[Anonymous]

DCPS policy is not to lease classroom space. This came up when Lafayette parents were stomping their feet about not getting their way with their demands for the ECC space.

But he's not wrong that we need more capacity WOTP, even beyond MacArthur and the other new school. Especially with all the development that's coming for W3.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCPS policy is not to lease classroom space. This came up when Lafayette parents were stomping their feet about not getting their way with their demands for the ECC space.

But he's not wrong that we need more capacity WOTP, even beyond MacArthur and the other new school. Especially with all the development that's coming for W3.

Yes, exactly. DCPS is going to need more schools WOTP, or say goodbye to development there. The issue isn't whether the Whittle school is appropriate (I have no idea), but whether it's better than the other options. DCPS, which is short-sighted as heck, has no other options. You need to beat a plan with another plan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCPS policy is not to lease classroom space. This came up when Lafayette parents were stomping their feet about not getting their way with their demands for the ECC space.

But he's not wrong that we need more capacity WOTP, even beyond MacArthur and the other new school. Especially with all the development that's coming for W3.

Yes, exactly. DCPS is going to need more schools WOTP, or say goodbye to development there. The issue isn't whether the Whittle school is appropriate (I have no idea), but whether it's better than the other options. DCPS, which is short-sighted as heck, has no other options. You need to beat a plan with another plan.

They should not buy this nightmare of a building! OMG no.

[Anonymous]

If DC bought the site, they could knock down the building and do both mixed income housing and a school on the site. I would love to see it be a boundaryless ECE program like Stevens and military road. Then the nearby schools could cut out pk4 and have more classroom space for the mandatory enrollment grades.

Personally, I think friendship heights is an even better location for this type of development, but whittle would be fine too. I have absolutely zero faith in DC being able to do this type of forward thinking and investment, or to be able to carry it out effectively if they did but a parcel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If DC bought the site, they could knock down the building and do both mixed income housing and a school on the site. I would love to see it be a boundaryless ECE program like Stevens and military road. Then the nearby schools could cut out pk4 and have more classroom space for the mandatory enrollment grades.

Personally, I think friendship heights is an even better location for this type of development, but whittle would be fine too. I have absolutely zero faith in DC being able to do this type of forward thinking and investment, or to be able to carry it out effectively if they did but a parcel.

The building is under historic designation.

The land is owned by the federal government. They don't typically sell to DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If DC bought the site, they could knock down the building and do both mixed income housing and a school on the site. I would love to see it be a boundaryless ECE program like Stevens and military road. Then the nearby schools could cut out pk4 and have more classroom space for the mandatory enrollment grades.

Personally, I think friendship heights is an even better location for this type of development, but whittle would be fine too. I have absolutely zero faith in DC being able to do this type of forward thinking and investment, or to be able to carry it out effectively if they did but a parcel.

Friendship Heights? On the Maryland border?

[Anonymous]

Here's an idea: Take some of the horribly underutilized UDC campus and put a DCPS school or schools there. That campus is a ghost town at all hours and it's right on top of a Metro station. DC already owns the land.

This is probably a pipe dream, because UDC is a sacred cow even though its whole concept needs to be rethought. And UDC had to be dragged into letting a tiny corner of its campus be used for the Murch/Eaton swing space (and campus admins were frankly pretty nasty to deal with once that swing space was erected). But that whole area is simply being wasted with its current use. (DC should probably build housing there, too, but that's a whole other topic.)

[Anonymous]

Here is what Eric Goulet said ( below) on our listserv---- ironic, given how Whittle was originally pitched to parents as the school of their dreams, a once in a lifetime opportunity...

"I'm going to step up advocacy efforts to obtain the Whittle School campus. DC cannot miss the opportunity to get the Whittle in the Fiscal Year 2024 budget, because it is a once-in-a-half-century opportunity to obtain a 2,400 seat transit-accessible school building. Three Ward 3 ANCs - 3B (Brian Turmail sponsor), 3C (Beau Finley sponsor), and 3F (J.P. Szymkowicz sponsor) - have approved resolutions requesting that DC purchase or enter into a long-term lease at Whittle. Obtaining Whittle must be a top priority if we are going to be able to solve Ward 3 school overcrowding challenges in the upcoming boundary study, because without Whittle, there is no identifiable path forward to solving overcrowding at both Deal and Jackson Reed."

Have the "once in a half-century opportunity" boosters actually looked at an operating budget or toured the building with a real estate professional? Or examined the 20 pages of liens and lawsuits on the property? All the docs are publicly available.

A resolution to purchase or enter into a long term lease--- on a well known disaster of a property they haven't seen or done a fact based analysis on? ..public servants shooting from the hip it seems.

[Anonymous]

It would probably cost a lot less money and take a lot less time if they converted the Lord and Taylor in Friendship heights to a school.

The State Dept. owns the land and considering it's proximity to Embassies they aren't likely to be selling it to the city any time soon.

[Anonymous]

Admittedly I don't live over there, but isn't a brand new HS being built over there already? And don't we not know yet how that will impact Hardy enrollment and feeder path?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If DC bought the site, they could knock down the building and do both mixed income housing and a school on the site. I would love to see it be a boundaryless ECE program like Stevens and military road. Then the nearby schools could cut out pk4 and have more classroom space for the mandatory enrollment grades.

Personally, I think friendship heights is an even better location for this type of development, but whittle would be fine too. I have absolutely zero faith in DC being able to do this type of forward thinking and investment, or to be able to carry it out effectively if they did but a parcel.

The building is under historic designation.

The land is owned by the federal government. They don't typically sell to DC.

Yes, IIRC, DCPS briefly considered the option for swing space there when all the elementary school were being renovated and it was a non-starter. In addition to the red-tape items mentioned, it also required too much expensive work to make it compliant with regs for public school occupation.