DCPS students shafted again - sign petition to keep Jelleff field public

[Anonymous]

How is this even allowable? Can’t even wrap my head around this decision and their response.

[Anonymous]

The city can afford to put down new turf and put up a new fence (if that’s even needed) on the city owned field! We don’t need Maret to do it. It’s nuts to tie up a scarce city resource like that for $250k (over the span of 10 years, so $25k a year). If DPR could be trusted to manage the field the city could make that $25K a year easily through rental fees to schools like Maret for giving them SOME access. Not exclusive, every damn day after school access, when nearby DCPS schools have no outdoor facility space for sports practices. Maret can take their millions and build elsewhere. This is disgusting.

[Anonymous]

Doesn’t DC Stoddert also use the field in the evening hours ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The city can afford to put down new turf and put up a new fence (if that’s even needed) on the city owned field! We don’t need Maret to do it. It’s nuts to tie up a scarce city resource like that for $250k (over the span of 10 years, so $25k a year). If DPR could be trusted to manage the field the city could make that $25K a year easily through rental fees to schools like Maret for giving them SOME access. Not exclusive, every damn day after school access, when nearby DCPS schools have no outdoor facility space for sports practices. Maret can take their millions and build elsewhere. This is disgusting.

This is totally insane! Must be some huge corruption going on here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Doesn’t DC Stoddert also use the field in the evening hours ?

Saturdays, maybe weekday evenings. But weekday after-school hours ate the focus here because that is when Hardy’s and other schools’ teams practice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Doesn’t DC Stoddert also use the field in the evening hours ?

It’s a public field. That is immediately across the street from a public middle school that has no sports fields. Hardy’s baseball team has to travel across the city (one example). That’s just wrong. And the city students are supposed to be grateful for the crumbs that Maret tosses their way in the “evenings and weekends” for a field owned by the city? What is wrong with you, Maret booster? It would be one thing if Hardy had its own fields, but it doesn’t! The point is, the public should have priority with the likes of Maret getting the scraps, not the other way around.

[Anonymous]

Not intimately familiar with Maret’s Campus but from the outside it looks like they have enough green space on their own land that they should be able to figure out a way to stay on it for practices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not intimately familiar with Maret’s Campus but from the outside it looks like they have enough green space on their own land that they should be able to figure out a way to stay on it for practices.

Yes, but then they’d have to sacrifice their rolling, expansive lawn with lovely trees. It’s better to steal from poor kids with the help of our elected government.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Doesn’t DC Stoddert also use the field in the evening hours ?

It’s a public field. That is immediately across the street from a public middle school that has no sports fields. Hardy’s baseball team has to travel across the city (one example). That’s just wrong. And the city students are supposed to be grateful for the crumbs that Maret tosses their way in the “evenings and weekends” for a field owned by the city? What is wrong with you, Maret booster? It would be one thing if Hardy had its own fields, but it doesn’t! The point is, the public should have priority with the likes of Maret getting the scraps, not the other way around.

What is wrong with you? How does asking if The DC Stoddert soccer club uses the field in the evenings makes me a ‘Maret booster’.
DC Stoddert is a private club that is not affiliated with Maret or DCPS.

[Anonymous]

DPR accommodates all sorts of leagues and outside donations (a field in our neighborhood was turned into a very nice, natural turf baseball field by the Nationals). It is also now locked and off limits for anything but organized baseball teams. Neighbors can’t go and practice or play.

The Hardy leadership should have been watching this and tried to head it off at the pass. Does the principal agree with you?

I think the same conflicts have happened at Lafayette and Shepherd.

[Anonymous]

The Hardy community was very engaged and very on top of this. We had a great showing at the meeting that really mattered. But all the reasonable and rational arguments fell on deaf ears because they had their eyes on a big fat check from a powerful private school’s endowment instead. Shame. Maret has their 10 years. Our public school kids need that field now. I really hope legal action can be taken.

[Anonymous]

If I'm not mistaken, Maret rented a field from UDC when Murch was there for 2 years. Murch was promised the use of the field for our 600 kids and then once school started we were told "nope, don't have access. Maret has it."

[Anonymous]

Same with the beautiful pool at Wilson. Its reserved during prime hours after school for private school who pay for exclusive use. No joke, the Deal swim team was bused to Takoma for after-school swimming because of this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DPR has always been like this. When I went to Banneker we weren't allowed to use any of the facilities attached to our building. I never understood why we had to walk past "Banneker Pool," "Banneker Field," and "Banneker Track" to go over to Howard University to use their facilities.

DPR views DCPS as the enemy. It's a turf battle. Kids be damned.

[Anonymous]

This is awful. Ugh. I signed. .