Why is the Foxhall Community Citizens Association scared of public school children?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is nuts. Why doesn’t someone publicize the list of names of this so called representative organization?

https://foxhall.org/the-association/fcca-board-members/

Whenever it would open, most of the students at Fox- hall school would come from outside of our neighbor- hood. The City’s own planning figures show that less than 150 students live within 3⁄4 of a mile of the school and thus are “walkable.”
• Originally Foxhall was proposed as a solution to over- crowding at Key, Mann and Stoddert schools. However, in June the City decided to deal with Stoddert’s over- crowding by building out the school, leaving Foxhall solely as a solution to Key and Mann.
• Key and Mann are both currently operating below ca-
pacity. Indeed, Key School enrollment has been flat since 2011 and has actually declined since 2017 (its peak year). Although there are issues about sufficient cafeteria/common space the school is currently operat- ing well below capacity (even without the trailers) and was so pre-covid. Mann is also operating below capacity and has no trailers.
• All parties agree that there is a need to provide addi- tional spaces for Pre-K students in Ward 3 including Key and Mann neither of which offer Pre-K3. There are no official estimates of how many seats would be needed but projections based on enrollment in schools which do offer full Pre-K suggest numbers of 24 at Key and 54 at Mann.
• Regardless of the type of school chosen, almost all of the students at a new GDS school would come from out of our area. Less than 100 students in DC public middle schools or high schools live in the Key school area. A 700-student school would thus have to draw most of its students from somewhere else[

Wow seems like a boondoggle and not well thought out. This will greatly increase the traffic in the area and they are eliminating the park to put in a school. The traffic on Reservoir Road by Georgetown is already horrendous. I wonder who will gain from this?


Also this does not address the over crowding issues.

Everyone admits that Ward 3 has school overcrowding, but the most severe prob- lems are at Deal Middle School and Wilson High School. Foxhall does nothing to address this and GDS’s inaccessible location suggests that it is a poor solution to either problem, likely to generate major opposition from impacted parents whose children would be redistricted there. Moreover, the local Hardy Middle school is operating way below capacity, so it is hard to make the case for GDS as a new middle school.

Who are the people pushing this? Must be some rich people over in fox hall. The city is going to spend a lot of money and not address any of the issues.

[Anonymous]

Mary Cheh is the one pushing this over the objections of the neighborhood. She lost my vote.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mary Cheh is the one pushing this over the objections of the neighborhood. She lost my vote.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is nuts. Why doesn’t someone publicize the list of names of this so called representative organization?

https://foxhall.org/the-association/fcca-board-members/

Whenever it would open, most of the students at Fox- hall school would come from outside of our neighbor- hood. The City’s own planning figures show that less than 150 students live within 3⁄4 of a mile of the school and thus are “walkable.”
• Originally Foxhall was proposed as a solution to over- crowding at Key, Mann and Stoddert schools. However, in June the City decided to deal with Stoddert’s over- crowding by building out the school, leaving Foxhall solely as a solution to Key and Mann.
• Key and Mann are both currently operating below ca-
pacity. Indeed, Key School enrollment has been flat since 2011 and has actually declined since 2017 (its peak year). Although there are issues about sufficient cafeteria/common space the school is currently operat- ing well below capacity (even without the trailers) and was so pre-covid. Mann is also operating below capacity and has no trailers.
• All parties agree that there is a need to provide addi- tional spaces for Pre-K students in Ward 3 including Key and Mann neither of which offer Pre-K3. There are no official estimates of how many seats would be needed but projections based on enrollment in schools which do offer full Pre-K suggest numbers of 24 at Key and 54 at Mann.
• Regardless of the type of school chosen, almost all of the students at a new GDS school would come from out of our area. Less than 100 students in DC public middle schools or high schools live in the Key school area. A 700-student school would thus have to draw most of its students from somewhere else[

Wow seems like a boondoggle and not well thought out. This will greatly increase the traffic in the area and they are eliminating the park to put in a school. The traffic on Reservoir Road by Georgetown is already horrendous. I wonder who will gain from this?


Also this does not address the over crowding issues.

Everyone admits that Ward 3 has school overcrowding, but the most severe prob- lems are at Deal Middle School and Wilson High School. Foxhall does nothing to address this and GDS’s inaccessible location suggests that it is a poor solution to either problem, likely to generate major opposition from impacted parents whose children would be redistricted there. Moreover, the local Hardy Middle school is operating way below capacity, so it is hard to make the case for GDS as a new middle school.

Who are the people pushing this? Must be some rich people over in fox hall. The city is going to spend a lot of money and not address any of the issues.

I guess you missed the part about all of the points you enumerated as comprised of little other than bovine excreta. Please don't consume it or, even worse, spread it around. Its not particularly good for your health or anyone else's.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mary Cheh is the one pushing this over the objections of the neighborhood. She lost my vote.

All of the neighborhood's representatives bar one supported it. The neighborhood is not the board of FCCA or a few outspoken residents of the FVHD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is nuts. Why doesn’t someone publicize the list of names of this so called representative organization?

https://foxhall.org/the-association/fcca-board-members/

Whenever it would open, most of the students at Fox- hall school would come from outside of our neighbor- hood. The City’s own planning figures show that less than 150 students live within 3⁄4 of a mile of the school and thus are “walkable.”
• Originally Foxhall was proposed as a solution to over- crowding at Key, Mann and Stoddert schools. However, in June the City decided to deal with Stoddert’s over- crowding by building out the school, leaving Foxhall solely as a solution to Key and Mann.
• Key and Mann are both currently operating below ca-
pacity. Indeed, Key School enrollment has been flat since 2011 and has actually declined since 2017 (its peak year). Although there are issues about sufficient cafeteria/common space the school is currently operat- ing well below capacity (even without the trailers) and was so pre-covid. Mann is also operating below capacity and has no trailers.
• All parties agree that there is a need to provide addi- tional spaces for Pre-K students in Ward 3 including Key and Mann neither of which offer Pre-K3. There are no official estimates of how many seats would be needed but projections based on enrollment in schools which do offer full Pre-K suggest numbers of 24 at Key and 54 at Mann.
• Regardless of the type of school chosen, almost all of the students at a new GDS school would come from out of our area. Less than 100 students in DC public middle schools or high schools live in the Key school area. A 700-student school would thus have to draw most of its students from somewhere else[

Wow seems like a boondoggle and not well thought out. This will greatly increase the traffic in the area and they are eliminating the park to put in a school. The traffic on Reservoir Road by Georgetown is already horrendous. I wonder who will gain from this?


Also this does not address the over crowding issues.

Everyone admits that Ward 3 has school overcrowding, but the most severe prob- lems are at Deal Middle School and Wilson High School. Foxhall does nothing to address this and GDS’s inaccessible location suggests that it is a poor solution to either problem, likely to generate major opposition from impacted parents whose children would be redistricted there. Moreover, the local Hardy Middle school is operating way below capacity, so it is hard to make the case for GDS as a new middle school.

Who are the people pushing this? Must be some rich people over in fox hall. The city is going to spend a lot of money and not address any of the issues.

"Eliminating the park" is a tell that you're not serious.

[Anonymous]

Can anyone use their crystal ball to foretell what all this means for the Key trajectory and Hardy/Wilson over the upcoming years?

[Anonymous]

It isn't the ideal location for a new school west of the Park, but something had to give to handle the demand.

I would have preferred something along Wisconsin Ave, or maybe the Episcopal Home that Maret just leased for the next 100 years.

Oh well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It isn't the ideal location for a new school west of the Park, but something had to give to handle the demand.

I would have preferred something along Wisconsin Ave, or maybe the Episcopal Home that Maret just leased for the next 100 years.

Oh well.

Maret is only leasing the athletic fields. The Episcopal school plans to reopen at some point. The Lafayette Karens demanded that DCPS buy the building for them but DCPS more or less laughed in their faces.

[Anonymous]

Episcopal wouldn't sell but offered to rent to DCPS. DCPS didn't want to rent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can anyone use their crystal ball to foretell what all this means for the Key trajectory and Hardy/Wilson over the upcoming years?

The wildcard is how the pandemic ends up affecting enrollment, but based on pre-pandemic trends:

Wilson is on an unsustainable trajectory, 2600 kids by 2026. The only practical way to prune enrollment is to drop a feeder, and that feeder is going to be Hardy. So the most likely scenario is that the Macarthur School is a new high school fed only by Hardy. Hardy will be fed by all of its current feeders plus a new Foxhall school.

MacArthur High will be the riches, whitest high school in the city. It will have a community that's been together since middle school, in many cases since elementary. It will be a good school academically. It will be small by DCPS standards and will struggle to offer a full selection of course offerings and extracurriculars. It probably won't have a football team and its sports will probably be generally weak.

Families in the Hardy feeder pattern are very sensitive to quality, as it is about half of them go private. Starting in about third grade the Hardy feeders see erosion as families leave for private. Having a boutique destination high school will buttress Hardy, and as Hardy improves the feeder schools will increase their capture rate. All of the feeder schools will get an enrollment bump.

This is all assuming that the pandemic doesn't radically change things. And that DCPS doesn't screw things up.

[Anonymous]

Noone in the community is "scared of public school children". Infact everyone in the community supports public school education. What they dont support is building a school on top a neighborhood park - that is used by many -both within and outside the community. There is an existing school on the property already and another public school one block away. It is unfair to burden a single neighborhood with 3 schools in a 2 block radius.
Hence once again- NOONE is against public schools; the community is against building a school on parkland with no traffic impact study. Hope that provides some clarification!

[Anonymous]

No one has looked at the logistics of MacArthur High. How will kids get there? There is one bus - the D6 - that goes anywhere close. The nearest Metro is in Virginia. There is nowhere to park on campus. There is no room for the amenities that a high school must have, e.g. playing fields. Ask any architect about the resource needs of schools & she will tell you that elementary schools require a certain profile, middle schools require roughly twice the land, high schools twice that. GDS served middle school students well. The same site would serve high school students poorly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Noone in the community is "scared of public school children". Infact everyone in the community supports public school education. What they dont support is building a school on top a neighborhood park - that is used by many -both within and outside the community. There is an existing school on the property already and another public school one block away. It is unfair to burden a single neighborhood with 3 schools in a 2 block radius.
Hence once again- NOONE is against public schools; the community is against building a school on parkland with no traffic impact study. Hope that provides some clarification!

Noone? Mark Noone? http://www.marknoone.com/ ? He's not scared of public school children. But he lives more toward Sibley, no way Foxhall people would consider him part of their community.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No one has looked at the logistics of MacArthur High. How will kids get there? There is one bus - the D6 - that goes anywhere close. The nearest Metro is in Virginia. There is nowhere to park on campus. There is no room for the amenities that a high school must have, e.g. playing fields. Ask any architect about the resource needs of schools & she will tell you that elementary schools require a certain profile, middle schools require roughly twice the land, high schools twice that. GDS served middle school students well. The same site would serve high school students poorly.

Buses can be added. Metro runs dedicated buses for Deal and Wilson.

No parking? The site actually has more than enough, DCPS is planning on removing some.

The site is not idea, I actually agree it has a lot of limitations. But tell me another site within the Hardy boundaries that could work as a high school.