Murch moving to lafayette

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:JULY 16 construction update meeting at Lafayette

http://www.lafayettehsa.org/event/construction-update-meeting/

If anyone attends, please post thoughts here.

Here is info from website

http://files.ctctcdn.com/0f5df61c001/bd57ac69-39c5-424f-82e7-173f1e75bdf0.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe Murch should cap its enrollment to fit the site?

Why would anyone say something so logical on dcum?

I would actually put your very wise suggestion in past tense. They should have capped it about 5 years ago.

Exactly. And why the parents of the school don't see this is beyond anyone. They complain about the site not fitting a huge school just fine though. It will be overcrowded before it is complete.

Are you kidding? What could possibly make you think we don't see it? More to point, what control do you think we have over it? DCPS just did the first redistricting in decades, and no proposal made Murch a smaller school; their solutions just tried to keep it from getting much bigger--not very helpful when we're already at almost 200% capacity.

The school can't just decide to limit the number of kids. The school community is trying to ensure we get the best possible solution given a very difficult set of circumstances dictated by DCPS (accommodate 700 kids on a city block where only 2/3 of the space is usable).

I think the school community could try to limit is size on the margin. None of the ways would be especially appealing or be easy to get consensus on, but they have some options. They could reduce the number of PK4 classrooms, consider boundary revisions, and distasteful as it seems, move the autism classrooms to another school. None of these will solve the problem, but they will ease the pressures somewhat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe Murch should cap its enrollment to fit the site?

Why would anyone say something so logical on dcum?

I would actually put your very wise suggestion in past tense. They should have capped it about 5 years ago.

Exactly. And why the parents of the school don't see this is beyond anyone. They complain about the site not fitting a huge school just fine though. It will be overcrowded before it is complete.

Are you kidding? What could possibly make you think we don't see it? More to point, what control do you think we have over it? DCPS just did the first redistricting in decades, and no proposal made Murch a smaller school; their solutions just tried to keep it from getting much bigger--not very helpful when we're already at almost 200% capacity.

The school can't just decide to limit the number of kids. The school community is trying to ensure we get the best possible solution given a very difficult set of circumstances dictated by DCPS (accommodate 700 kids on a city block where only 2/3 of the space is usable).

I think the school community could try to limit is size on the margin. None of the ways would be especially appealing or be easy to get consensus on, but they have some options. They could reduce the number of PK4 classrooms, consider boundary revisions, and distasteful as it seems, move the autism classrooms to another school. None of these will solve the problem, but they will ease the pressures somewhat.

How could the school community "consider boundary revisions"? That's a DCPS process that affects all schools. Murch can't just dictate its boundaries. And the proposals DCPS put forward last year--neither the original one shifting kids to Hearst nor the final one shifting kids to Lafayette--made the school any smaller. They just (presumably) limited future growth. And where do you send the kids who would get districted out of Murch, anyway? Janney and Lafayette are also at/over capacity, and Hearst will be soon. This is a problem DCPS just refuses to deal with; it's not fair or realistic to expect a single school to solve this problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe Murch should cap its enrollment to fit the site?

Why would anyone say something so logical on dcum?

I would actually put your very wise suggestion in past tense. They should have capped it about 5 years ago.

Exactly. And why the parents of the school don't see this is beyond anyone. They complain about the site not fitting a huge school just fine though. It will be overcrowded before it is complete.

Are you kidding? What could possibly make you think we don't see it? More to point, what control do you think we have over it? DCPS just did the first redistricting in decades, and no proposal made Murch a smaller school; their solutions just tried to keep it from getting much bigger--not very helpful when we're already at almost 200% capacity.

The school can't just decide to limit the number of kids. The school community is trying to ensure we get the best possible solution given a very difficult set of circumstances dictated by DCPS (accommodate 700 kids on a city block where only 2/3 of the space is usable).

I think the school community could try to limit is size on the margin. None of the ways would be especially appealing or be easy to get consensus on, but they have some options. They could reduce the number of PK4 classrooms, consider boundary revisions, and distasteful as it seems, move the autism classrooms to another school. None of these will solve the problem, but they will ease the pressures somewhat.

How could the school community "consider boundary revisions"? That's a DCPS process that affects all schools. Murch can't just dictate its boundaries. And the proposals DCPS put forward last year--neither the original one shifting kids to Hearst nor the final one shifting kids to Lafayette--made the school any smaller. They just (presumably) limited future growth. And where do you send the kids who would get districted out of Murch, anyway? Janney and Lafayette are also at/over capacity, and Hearst will be soon. This is a problem DCPS just refuses to deal with; it's not fair or realistic to expect a single school to solve this problem.

The city boundary process provided for revisiting the boundaries of crowded schools in the near future. When that comes up, Murch as a community would have to decide whether to take advantage of that. During the city-wide process, a small number of folks in the area proposed to be shifted fought tooth and nail, and the rest of the community more or less supported them or kept quiet. I'm not saying that it will be easy, but next around, the broader Murch community will have a chance to say yes we are overcrowded and maybe we need to have our boundaries shrink. Hearst still has some room and is a small school now, you could start adding trailers and make it bigger if you ever reached 100% IB. Or if that space were to really be used up, they could shift Hearst's southern boundary north to give up area to Eaton. Heck maybe you do something really crazy like shift some of the area east of Connecticut over to Powell or West. People will scream at all of these ideas, but Murch is approaching or is even at the physical limit of what the space will hold. At some point in time, you will have to ask where will you even put the next set of trailers.

[Anonymous]

Murch had the largest boundary change in the upper NW schools.

[Anonymous]

That doesn't say much though, does it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Murch had the largest boundary change in the upper NW schools.

Actually Wilson had the biggest boundary change of any of the upper NW schools when it lost large portions of its boundary outside of Deal and Hardy's boundaries. Deal might come second in losing all of Eaton.

[Anonymous]

Eaton had the most significant change in the boundary process of the upper nw schools.

[Anonymous]

Eaton had the most significant change in the boundary process of the upper nw schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Eaton had the most significant change in the boundary process of the upper nw schools.

Their feeder changed. Their boundary barely changed.

[Anonymous]

The Murch and Janney parents on the southern boundaries were foolish. If they had requested to be redistricted to Hearst then overnight it would have created the best IB elementary in the city. Small classes, two per grade, brand new construction. Done and done. Totally understand that no one wants to be the first in the life boat, but it was not well thought out. Instead, their elementary schools are the size of high schools and under constant construction with trailers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Murch and Janney parents on the southern boundaries were foolish. If they had requested to be redistricted to Hearst then overnight it would have created the best IB elementary in the city. Small classes, two per grade, brand new construction. Done and done. Totally understand that no one wants to be the first in the life boat, but it was not well thought out. Instead, their elementary schools are the size of high schools and under constant construction with trailers.

People are freaked because Hearst only goes to third grade. It is the easiest way for EOTP folks to get into the Deal-Wilson feeder however.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Murch and Janney parents on the southern boundaries were foolish. If they had requested to be redistricted to Hearst then overnight it would have created the best IB elementary in the city. Small classes, two per grade, brand new construction. Done and done. Totally understand that no one wants to be the first in the life boat, but it was not well thought out. Instead, their elementary schools are the size of high schools and under constant construction with trailers.

People are freaked because Hearst only goes to third grade. It is the easiest way for EOTP folks to get into the Deal-Wilson feeder however.

Hearst goes to fifth grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Murch and Janney parents on the southern boundaries were foolish. If they had requested to be redistricted to Hearst then overnight it would have created the best IB elementary in the city. Small classes, two per grade, brand new construction. Done and done. Totally understand that no one wants to be the first in the life boat, but it was not well thought out. Instead, their elementary schools are the size of high schools and under constant construction with trailers.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Murch and Janney parents on the southern boundaries were foolish. If they had requested to be redistricted to Hearst then overnight it would have created the best IB elementary in the city. Small classes, two per grade, brand new construction. Done and done. Totally understand that no one wants to be the first in the life boat, but it was not well thought out. Instead, their elementary schools are the size of high schools and under constant construction with trailers.

I'm confused. Isn't Hearst under construction? How is one year of construction at Murch, in the almost 100 years since it's been open "constant"?