Sports at Walls (WaPo article)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How can J-R take this crew opportunity away from SWW kids all of a sudden? Our daughter was counting on going to SWW and starting on the J-R crew team after training all year.

Anonymous wrote:This has been one of my big disappointments with Walls. We knew there wasn't much of a Walls campus, but it is crazy that the swim team commutes to Dunbar for practice everyday when GW has a pool. J-R is pulling up the ladder on having Walls students row on their crew team because of changes in how regattas are defining schools and school districts. So that opportunity is going away. Having a place for graduation is nice, but the sports stuff affects kids day-in and day-out.

Your child can row year around at TBC. Many kids on other high school teams do it for summer and fall at a minimum. While JR has allowed the Walls kids on their team there were always questions as to why that was allowed. The crackdown on teams doing that is a good thing. TBC is great and your child will be just fine.

J-R is the only DCPS high school with a crew program - why can't kids who attend other DCPS schools participate? It's not as if those kids are freeloading; they have been part of the team, they have put in the blood, sweat and tears, they have PAID THE SAME FEES. But they attend schools that are much smaller and lack the resources (those boats cost upwards of $60K) to create their own programs. This is not MoCo, where there are multiple large high schools that can each field its own team. This was a really crappy move by the J-R parents who run the crew program.

Dude, read the previous posts. The regional and national crew associations have recently changed their rules to prevent high school teams from building all-star teams comprised of rowers from multiple high schools. So it is a rule change, not "crappy" parents, who are responsible. In general, please make at least a minimal effort to understand a situation before attacking other people.

Dude, first of all, some of the regional crew associations still permit mixed boats, so Walls rowers could still race in some events, as they did earlier this spring. Second, the decision by the national association is assuming suburban school districts like MoCo, where multiple schools have crew programs so they could ostensibly create one powerhouse team with ringers from other district schools that would demolish the competition. That is not DC, an urban system made up of (most?) Title 1 schools that lack the resources to support multiple crew programs. The idea that J-R is importing ringers from Walls is ridiculous. Also, let's be real, J-R had been considering cutting out Walls kids for years now; the decision earlier this year by the national association just made it easy.

Wrong. The JR club does not want to cut Walls kids. Why would they? Their model has been incredibly successful in competing at a high level and - what is most important to the volunteers who run the club - getting as many kids from JR and Walls (and multiple MSs in learn to row) on the water. They have avoided this for as long as they could.

Perhaps you could contact the national assn and convince them to change their minds. I am sure the JR club hasn’t thought of trying that.

[Anonymous]

So weird to me that Walls parents seem to feel entitled to have their kids participate in a club run by parents at a different school, particularly given the nasty things we heard from Walls parents when our kid turned down a Walls spot to play their sport at JR (basically variation on “How could you choose to let your kid go to school with ‘those people’?”).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So weird to me that Walls parents seem to feel entitled to have their kids participate in a club run by parents at a different school, particularly given the nasty things we heard from Walls parents when our kid turned down a Walls spot to play their sport at JR (basically variation on “How could you choose to let your kid go to school with ‘those people’?”).

Some of the parent volunteers who run the JR club have kids at JR. And some have kids at … Walls! Shocking, I know.

Nice try, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So weird to me that Walls parents seem to feel entitled to have their kids participate in a club run by parents at a different school, particularly given the nasty things we heard from Walls parents when our kid turned down a Walls spot to play their sport at JR (basically variation on “How could you choose to let your kid go to school with ‘those people’?”).

So weird, right? So weird when you consider that these are all DCPS kids. And about 20 percent of the JR Team this year are Walls kids. And Walls kids have been part of the team for years. And the Walls parents volunteer, alongside the JR parents, to run the program. And the Walls parents pay the same fees to support the program. So weird, the nerve and audacity of those weird Walls families.

[Anonymous]

Listen the JR club parents can fight each other all they want. The regatta rules have been clear for years (where JR has been competing) that composite crews are ineligible to compete. The regulations, again for years, has stated: All competitors in a boat must attend the same scholastic program, defined as all participants must be students in the same school.

The fact that JR Club has been deciding on their own that the rules don't apply to them is their own fault. Have they won races with ineligible crews due to not following the rules? I have no idea. They are now being asked to follow the rules (which haven't changed) which will now be enforced so no Walls kids. There is no rule that any team has to compete in regattas. If JR would like to keep the Walls kids and do some scrimmages with other teams they can!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Listen the JR club parents can fight each other all they want. The regatta rules have been clear for years (where JR has been competing) that composite crews are ineligible to compete. The regulations, again for years, has stated: All competitors in a boat must attend the same scholastic program, defined as all participants must be students in the same school.

The fact that JR Club has been deciding on their own that the rules don't apply to them is their own fault. Have they won races with ineligible crews due to not following the rules? I have no idea. They are now being asked to follow the rules (which haven't changed) which will now be enforced so no Walls kids. There is no rule that any team has to compete in regattas. If JR would like to keep the Walls kids and do some scrimmages with other teams they can!

The JR club parents aren’t fighting each other, much as you seem to wish that were true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Listen the JR club parents can fight each other all they want. The regatta rules have been clear for years (where JR has been competing) that composite crews are ineligible to compete. The regulations, again for years, has stated: All competitors in a boat must attend the same scholastic program, defined as all participants must be students in the same school.

The fact that JR Club has been deciding on their own that the rules don't apply to them is their own fault. Have they won races with ineligible crews due to not following the rules? I have no idea. They are now being asked to follow the rules (which haven't changed) which will now be enforced so no Walls kids. There is no rule that any team has to compete in regattas. If JR would like to keep the Walls kids and do some scrimmages with other teams they can!

No dog in this fight but seems black and white then that the team has not been following the rules and now it’s being enforced so it is what it is.

I mean seriously, did they purposely disregard the rules? If so that is pretty problematic and speaks to a bigger issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Listen the JR club parents can fight each other all they want. The regatta rules have been clear for years (where JR has been competing) that composite crews are ineligible to compete. The regulations, again for years, has stated: All competitors in a boat must attend the same scholastic program, defined as all participants must be students in the same school.

The fact that JR Club has been deciding on their own that the rules don't apply to them is their own fault. Have they won races with ineligible crews due to not following the rules? I have no idea. They are now being asked to follow the rules (which haven't changed) which will now be enforced so no Walls kids. There is no rule that any team has to compete in regattas. If JR would like to keep the Walls kids and do some scrimmages with other teams they can!

No dog in this fight but seems black and white then that the team has not been following the rules and now it’s being enforced so it is what it is.

I mean seriously, did they purposely disregard the rules? If so that is pretty problematic and speaks to a bigger issue.

I mean, seriously, why do you care? The club was completely transparent with the assn and the assn was ok with the club. Now the assn is choosing to enforce the rule and the club is unhappily (because they actually want to have as many kids have a chance to row as possible - wow, what a terrible idea!) complying. Pls tell us about the bigger issue someone with no dog would be so concerned about?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So weird to me that Walls parents seem to feel entitled to have their kids participate in a club run by parents at a different school, particularly given the nasty things we heard from Walls parents when our kid turned down a Walls spot to play their sport at JR (basically variation on “How could you choose to let your kid go to school with ‘those people’?”).

So weird, right? So weird when you consider that these are all DCPS kids. And about 20 percent of the JR Team this year are Walls kids. And Walls kids have been part of the team for years. And the Walls parents volunteer, alongside the JR parents, to run the program. And the Walls parents pay the same fees to support the program. So weird, the nerve and audacity of those weird Walls families.

I’m not sure why you think paying dues a and volunteering somehow changes things. If Walls kids have been participating, of course they would do those things. That’s part of what’s meant by “participating.”

Honestly, it sounds like JR has been trying to be inclusive and give more kids an opportunity to row, and now that’s no longer possible. I feel bad for the Walls kids, but I have to admit I feel a lot of disdain for the parents whose kids aren’t yet even at Walls yet blaming JR parents, as several posts on this thread hace done. The entitlement reflected by blaming parents from a school your kid doesn’t attend for a decision made by the athletic association is mind blowing to me. And honestly some of these parents (“we would have chosen private if we’d known”) sound like the Walls parents who said a lot of negative and frankly racist things to my kid about their decision to attend JR after being admitted to Walls.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can't believe there's no mention of Jelleff in this story. It's walkable from Walls.

Other schools and clubs use Jelleff as well. Walls has to compete for space with all of those groups.

Two points:

First, Google "Jelleff and Maret" to learn about what's going on there. In particular anything by Dave McKenna, including this story: https://deadspin.com/private-school-that-pocketed-public-rec-center-is-tired-1839260457

With this gem:

“No one ever explained why public school students couldn’t use the public field across the street from us,” a former Hardy Middle School student told the council, according to the Post’s story. “To allow a private school five days a week at the prime time is the epitome of private-school privilege.”

That testimony surely hurt the feelings of Ian Cameron, head of the school’s board of trustees. Cameron, a father of Maret students, told the hearing about how since news of the sweetheart deal broke, he’s endured accusations that the elite private school only got preferential treatment because of the money and clout of the parents who send their kids there.

“They accused our children of being the, quote, ‘Children of the powerful,’” Cameron whined.

Cameron’s wife, Susan Rice, the former National Security Advisor and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations in the Obama administration, was unable to testify at the hearing. As Cameron was singing the rich man’s blues, Rice was speaking at a gathering sponsored by Fortune magazine called, ahem, The Most Powerful Women Summit.

Second, the Council passed a law saying that DPR has to give priority to DCPS sports at DPR facilities, the only activity that can have higher priority is DPR's own programming. DPR has just refused to follow that law. This isn't about Jelleff, it's city-wide.

One of these days, Hardy Middle School teams should just walk over to Jellef, start practicing and force the city to try to arrest them for trespassing. It'll be a good look when a bunch of private schoolers are trying to call the cops on public school kids using a park across the street from their school. Then do it again the next day. And the next day. And the next day. I'm not a student, but i'll sure be sitting in the bleachers cheering for them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can't believe there's no mention of Jelleff in this story. It's walkable from Walls.

Other schools and clubs use Jelleff as well. Walls has to compete for space with all of those groups.

Two points:

First, Google "Jelleff and Maret" to learn about what's going on there. In particular anything by Dave McKenna, including this story: https://deadspin.com/private-school-that-pocketed-public-rec-center-is-tired-1839260457

With this gem:

“No one ever explained why public school students couldn’t use the public field across the street from us,” a former Hardy Middle School student told the council, according to the Post’s story. “To allow a private school five days a week at the prime time is the epitome of private-school privilege.”

That testimony surely hurt the feelings of Ian Cameron, head of the school’s board of trustees. Cameron, a father of Maret students, told the hearing about how since news of the sweetheart deal broke, he’s endured accusations that the elite private school only got preferential treatment because of the money and clout of the parents who send their kids there.

“They accused our children of being the, quote, ‘Children of the powerful,’” Cameron whined.

Cameron’s wife, Susan Rice, the former National Security Advisor and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations in the Obama administration, was unable to testify at the hearing. As Cameron was singing the rich man’s blues, Rice was speaking at a gathering sponsored by Fortune magazine called, ahem, The Most Powerful Women Summit.

Second, the Council passed a law saying that DPR has to give priority to DCPS sports at DPR facilities, the only activity that can have higher priority is DPR's own programming. DPR has just refused to follow that law. This isn't about Jelleff, it's city-wide.

One of these days, Hardy Middle School teams should just walk over to Jellef, start practicing and force the city to try to arrest them for trespassing. It'll be a good look when a bunch of private schoolers are trying to call the cops on public school kids using a park across the street from their school. Then do it again the next day. And the next day. And the next day. I'm not a student, but i'll sure be sitting in the bleachers cheering for them.

Which private schools are renting practice space from Jellef next year? Maret is building its own sports complex in Upper NW somewhere.