New DCPS school on former Georgetown Day site will be a high school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have there been any studies about how wilson will be impacted? Will removing the hardy feed simply “right size” wilson, or will this open up so many seats that DCPS does the same lottery thing at wilson that they plan to do at the new HS?

Wilson is absolutely not getting smaller. It’ll be just as crowded, but with OOB students. That’s the whole plan.

Run the numbers. This plan might bring Wilson down to capacity for a year or two before the baby boom from Lafayette hits. If there’s a “whole plan” other than having a place for kids to go to school, it’s a plan to keep Shepherd and Bancroft feeding to Deal, not a plan to have a lot of OOB seats at Wilson.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Students from Marie Reed and HD Cooke should be allowed to attend Hardy or Deal.

Because...? You're white and you want to?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it will be immensely popular. The building will be gorgeous, it will not be overcrowded and kids peers from Hardy will be there. It is also perhaps more convenient than Wilson for some definitely for those in the key boundary.

Have you seen plans for this “gorgeous” building? Roughly 500 out of the 1500 kids attending will be at-risk out of boundary by design, according to the plan. It’s sole purpose isn’t to serve the surrounding community. They’re setting a precedent for an entirely new system here.

How will someone living east of the park (aka not zoned for hardy or deal) who is at risk get to the school via public transit in less than an hour. They know they will never get that many at risk kids from oob enrolling. If they really wanted to do this they should at least do it at Wilson which is right on the metro.

I could be wrong but I believe at risk are entitled to a school bus.

Wrong. All DCPS students who must travel to school are entitled to Metro/bus passes.

We walk because we live two blocks away and we have a pass.All travel to school. Nobody lives at school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have there been any studies about how wilson will be impacted? Will removing the hardy feed simply “right size” wilson, or will this open up so many seats that DCPS does the same lottery thing at wilson that they plan to do at the new HS?

Wilson is absolutely not getting smaller. It’ll be just as crowded, but with OOB students. That’s the whole plan.

This I believe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it will be immensely popular. The building will be gorgeous, it will not be overcrowded and kids peers from Hardy will be there. It is also perhaps more convenient than Wilson for some definitely for those in the key boundary.

I guess it is good to be optimistic but I very much doubt it will be a gorgeous building. It is not an easy site for a high school and trying to retrofit an existing building will be a nightmare. Are they going to demolish the existing building or just modify it?
GDS was very glad to get rid of it. They were ready to negotiate but DCPS just plunked down the entire $$$ without any questions asked.
GDS could not believe their good fortune. No one else wanted the building. I know this because I have kids at both GDS and DCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it will be immensely popular. The building will be gorgeous, it will not be overcrowded and kids peers from Hardy will be there. It is also perhaps more convenient than Wilson for some definitely for those in the key boundary.

Have you seen plans for this “gorgeous” building? Roughly 500 out of the 1500 kids attending will be at-risk out of boundary by design, according to the plan. It’s sole purpose isn’t to serve the surrounding community. They’re setting a precedent for an entirely new system here.

How will someone living east of the park (aka not zoned for hardy or deal) who is at risk get to the school via public transit in less than an hour. They know they will never get that many at risk kids from oob enrolling. If they really wanted to do this they should at least do it at Wilson which is right on the metro.

I'm not even sure how somebody who ISN'T at risk would get to this school EotP. Palisades from Capitol Hill or Ward 5, a real headache due to bad traffic downtown. Take the Red Line to Dupont or Tenley Town and a bus over? Some sort of DCPS shuttle bus from a Red Line Metro stop would be needed to make the commute work, and it would still take EotP students 45 mins or an hour to get to this site. Having a parent willing to drive a kid wouldn't necessarily help much, not to Palisades during rush hour.

M4 to D6, from Tenleytown it’s 25 minutes of bus time plus the layover at Sibley. If MacArthur is a parking lot your healthy teenager can get out and walk the end of the route. In exchange he gets a shiny new school that, when it opens, will be an order of magnitude smaller than Wilson. Maybe your kid is planning to make the basketball team at Wilson and take AP World History as a freshmen (note: Wilson does not offer AP World History and does not allow freshmen to take APs) but not all kids have such ambitions and god willing enough kids will prefer the smaller school to relieve some of the pressure on Wilson, which is operating this year at 130% of capacity, with rising feeder school enrollments and a rising rate of retention from its feeders.

Red Line Metro to Tenleytown from Union Station is 20 minutes. You're talking about 50-60 mins commute time from where I live in Ward 6. My ex lives in Arlington, kids attend MS & HS school there. Commute time to Washington-Liberty is 15 mins before 7:30 AM.

You know, there's nothing to stop a Wilson 9th grader from prepping for AP World History independently (there are on-line AP courses, summer AP courses) and taking the test at a different school accepting outside test takers/homeschoolers. It's been done before.

[Anonymous]

Who was the mystery buyer DCPS had lined up? I'm inclined to think it was Maret, given their obvious thirst.

[Anonymous]

I mean GDS! Who was the buyer GDS had lined up before DCPS stepped in for the MacArthur site

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it will be immensely popular. The building will be gorgeous, it will not be overcrowded and kids peers from Hardy will be there. It is also perhaps more convenient than Wilson for some definitely for those in the key boundary.

I guess it is good to be optimistic but I very much doubt it will be a gorgeous building. It is not an easy site for a high school and trying to retrofit an existing building will be a nightmare. Are they going to demolish the existing building or just modify it?
GDS was very glad to get rid of it. They were ready to negotiate but DCPS just plunked down the entire $$$ without any questions asked.
GDS could not believe their good fortune. No one else wanted the building. I know this because I have kids at both GDS and DCPS.

Yeah. Scary. Definitely something shady went on there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it will be immensely popular. The building will be gorgeous, it will not be overcrowded and kids peers from Hardy will be there. It is also perhaps more convenient than Wilson for some definitely for those in the key boundary.

Have you seen plans for this “gorgeous” building? Roughly 500 out of the 1500 kids attending will be at-risk out of boundary by design, according to the plan. It’s sole purpose isn’t to serve the surrounding community. They’re setting a precedent for an entirely new system here.

How will someone living east of the park (aka not zoned for hardy or deal) who is at risk get to the school via public transit in less than an hour. They know they will never get that many at risk kids from oob enrolling. If they really wanted to do this they should at least do it at Wilson which is right on the metro.

I'm not even sure how somebody who ISN'T at risk would get to this school EotP. Palisades from Capitol Hill or Ward 5, a real headache due to bad traffic downtown. Take the Red Line to Dupont or Tenley Town and a bus over? Some sort of DCPS shuttle bus from a Red Line Metro stop would be needed to make the commute work, and it would still take EotP students 45 mins or an hour to get to this site. Having a parent willing to drive a kid wouldn't necessarily help much, not to Palisades during rush hour.

M4 to D6, from Tenleytown it’s 25 minutes of bus time plus the layover at Sibley. If MacArthur is a parking lot your healthy teenager can get out and walk the end of the route. In exchange he gets a shiny new school that, when it opens, will be an order of magnitude smaller than Wilson. Maybe your kid is planning to make the basketball team at Wilson and take AP World History as a freshmen (note: Wilson does not offer AP World History and does not allow freshmen to take APs) but not all kids have such ambitions and god willing enough kids will prefer the smaller school to relieve some of the pressure on Wilson, which is operating this year at 130% of capacity, with rising feeder school enrollments and a rising rate of retention from its feeders.

Red Line Metro to Tenleytown from Union Station is 20 minutes. You're talking about 50-60 mins commute time from where I live in Ward 6. My ex lives in Arlington, kids attend MS & HS school there. Commute time to Washington-Liberty is 15 mins before 7:30 AM.

You know, there's nothing to stop a Wilson 9th grader from prepping for AP World History independently (there are on-line AP courses, summer AP courses) and taking the test at a different school accepting outside test takers/homeschoolers. It's been done before.

Oh, yes, I wasn’t trying to explain how kids would get from EotP to MacArthur. I was thinking that my kid, who already lives in Tenleytown, could roll out of bed onto the M4. The commute is no worse than the commute to Walls, and kids from around here do that every day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I mean GDS! Who was the buyer GDS had lined up before DCPS stepped in for the MacArthur site

It was a NYC based school that was planning to expand to the DC area. But they canceled their expansion plans and pulled out. GDS had no buyers at that point and were feeling pretty desperate but then DCPS stepped in with a full price offer.
Other schools looked at it but decided building + site was pretty crappy and not worth it. I don’t think DCPS did due diligence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I mean GDS! Who was the buyer GDS had lined up before DCPS stepped in for the MacArthur site

It was a NYC based school that was planning to expand to the DC area. But they canceled their expansion plans and pulled out. GDS had no buyers at that point and were feeling pretty desperate but then DCPS stepped in with a full price offer.
Other schools looked at it but decided building + site was pretty crappy and not worth it. I don’t think DCPS did due diligence.

Other schools are for profit or have to do a capital campaign to fix up a site. DCPS has a bigger capital budget for schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I mean GDS! Who was the buyer GDS had lined up before DCPS stepped in for the MacArthur site

It was a NYC based school that was planning to expand to the DC area. But they canceled their expansion plans and pulled out. GDS had no buyers at that point and were feeling pretty desperate but then DCPS stepped in with a full price offer.
Other schools looked at it but decided building + site was pretty crappy and not worth it. I don’t think DCPS did due diligence.

Other schools are for profit or have to do a capital campaign to fix up a site. DCPS has a bigger capital budget for schools.

So they should just pay whatever someone asks, even though there is no competition for it? Fine by me, too. I don’t care how they spend my tax dollars….

ps: Would you like to buy ny used Honda Civic? The price is $45,000.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I mean GDS! Who was the buyer GDS had lined up before DCPS stepped in for the MacArthur site

It was a NYC based school that was planning to expand to the DC area. But they canceled their expansion plans and pulled out. GDS had no buyers at that point and were feeling pretty desperate but then DCPS stepped in with a full price offer.
Other schools looked at it but decided building + site was pretty crappy and not worth it. I don’t think DCPS did due diligence.

The price that DCPS paid was the same as the price that the private school was willing to pay. The definition of market price is the price that a willing buyer and a willing seller agree upon.

Since then real estate in the immediate area has appreciated about 30%. DCPS could have done better but they didn't do badly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I mean GDS! Who was the buyer GDS had lined up before DCPS stepped in for the MacArthur site

It was a NYC based school that was planning to expand to the DC area. But they canceled their expansion plans and pulled out. GDS had no buyers at that point and were feeling pretty desperate but then DCPS stepped in with a full price offer.
Other schools looked at it but decided building + site was pretty crappy and not worth it. I don’t think DCPS did due diligence.

Other schools are for profit or have to do a capital campaign to fix up a site. DCPS has a bigger capital budget for schools.

Unless you're Lab School, a private school which Bowser thinks should be just handed property without any public input (perhaps because nearly the entire Lab School board has donated heavily to her campaign).