Maret Athletic Fields

[Anonymous]

Games this week are advertised as being on jelleff still. I keep hearing that it’s “any day now”, but so far the day has not come…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Comms on this from the school are really bad.

The comms are very clear and include usage guidelines and FAQs: https://www.maret.org/athletics/jelleff-field

The fields are in use and are preparing for a nice showing at homecoming.

People on this board crowdsource easily identifiable information in order to start a problem.

Did you really just say the comms are clear and then include a link to info on JELLEFF field??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Games this week are advertised as being on jelleff still. I keep hearing that it’s “any day now”, but so far the day has not come…

Building permits are slow… and the school as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The side eye from colleagues when we are either not given updates or are told it’s not the school’s fault when things aren’t working or finished. We are talking the basics. I have never seen anything like this.

Did you miss the part where Maret took over a DC public field for the most attractive part of the day, for nearly a decade, keeping the neighborhood kids out, under a sweetheart backroom deal engineered by a Maret parent of triplets?

lol Maret took a derelict field, paid for its renovation including artificial turf and lights, continuous maintenance and up keep. For this Maret uses the field from 3-5pm Monday -Friday from mid August to late October and February -April. So a total of 2 hours 5 days a week for 20 weeks a year. This is a field that was sitting unused. 3-5 pm week days during school is not the most attractive part of the day.

Now because the field is maintained, turfed and has lights it is use constantly by club, rec, travel teams and neighborhood kids. From 5pm -10pm plus all day on the weekends during that 20 weeks the field is in constant use. The rest of the year it is all club, rec, travel teams and neighborhood kids using the field. During the school year The British School uses the field from 10am -3pm.

Hardy administration has never had an interest in using the field. In fact for 10 years before the Maret deal the field was empty and not used by Hardy. Hardy has no plans or desire to use the field once Maret’s lease is up.

Meanwhile the Duke Ellington field sat idled. No DC school used the field during the school day and no clubs, rec, travel teams were allowed to use ever. It became a dog park.

As someone who has lived in the neighborhood for many years and with kids who went to Hardy, I think the deal made with Maret was a great deal for the city, neighborhood and kids needing a place to play. There are many private school fields (like St Pat) that sit unused because the neighborhood has placed restrictions on fields use. I have concerns that the new Maret field will have the same restrictions.

I wish people like you would actually work to remove neighborhood restrictions on fields. DC kids who play travel have to drive to Gaithersburg for home games while passing DCPS and private school fields that are empty. Also how about Hardy taking some of its money and renovating the field house at Jelleff? Will Hardy renovate and maintain Jelleff once Maret’s lease ends or will Jelleff turn in to Duke Ellington field?

[Anonymous]

^^^Maret DCUM comms crushing it!

[Anonymous]

I wonder what was the cost of the new field. It’s that the reason tuition increased double digits last year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All I know is that the person in charge of these projects was promoted to Associate Head and he treats us teachers as if we are leaching off benefits and time off. Meanwhile, we are dealing with teaching in a building that constantly has problems and timelines are never met. I guess accountability is only for faculty.

+1 on this comment. He has tried to make the school a corporate environment, not appreciating teachers. Yet, Would all these lingering issues at the school be acceptable at the corporate level while always pointing a finger??? Frustrating.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for revealing what this thread is really about—disgruntled employees posing as parents then airing out their own faculty grievances.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The side eye from colleagues when we are either not given updates or are told it’s not the school’s fault when things aren’t working or finished. We are talking the basics. I have never seen anything like this.

Did you miss the part where Maret took over a DC public field for the most attractive part of the day, for nearly a decade, keeping the neighborhood kids out, under a sweetheart backroom deal engineered by a Maret parent of triplets?

lol Maret took a derelict field, paid for its renovation including artificial turf and lights, continuous maintenance and up keep. For this Maret uses the field from 3-5pm Monday -Friday from mid August to late October and February -April. So a total of 2 hours 5 days a week for 20 weeks a year. This is a field that was sitting unused. 3-5 pm week days during school is not the most attractive part of the day.

Now because the field is maintained, turfed and has lights it is use constantly by club, rec, travel teams and neighborhood kids. From 5pm -10pm plus all day on the weekends during that 20 weeks the field is in constant use. The rest of the year it is all club, rec, travel teams and neighborhood kids using the field. During the school year The British School uses the field from 10am -3pm.

Hardy administration has never had an interest in using the field. In fact for 10 years before the Maret deal the field was empty and not used by Hardy. Hardy has no plans or desire to use the field once Maret’s lease is up.

Meanwhile the Duke Ellington field sat idled. No DC school used the field during the school day and no clubs, rec, travel teams were allowed to use ever. It became a dog park.

As someone who has lived in the neighborhood for many years and with kids who went to Hardy, I think the deal made with Maret was a great deal for the city, neighborhood and kids needing a place to play. There are many private school fields (like St Pat) that sit unused because the neighborhood has placed restrictions on fields use. I have concerns that the new Maret field will have the same restrictions.

I wish people like you would actually work to remove neighborhood restrictions on fields. DC kids who play travel have to drive to Gaithersburg for home games while passing DCPS and private school fields that are empty. Also how about Hardy taking some of its money and renovating the field house at Jelleff? Will Hardy renovate and maintain Jelleff once Maret’s lease ends or will Jelleff turn in to Duke Ellington field?

That's your opinion, and one can read the news articles to know that it's not an opinion shared by a lot of people--particularly the kids from Hardy who never got to host a game there, and the aftercare kids who didn't get to use the fields because the Maret kids were on it during the peak hours.
https://deadspin.com/the-legendary-public-rec-center-in-a-private-schools-po-1837648863/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The side eye from colleagues when we are either not given updates or are told it’s not the school’s fault when things aren’t working or finished. We are talking the basics. I have never seen anything like this.

Did you miss the part where Maret took over a DC public field for the most attractive part of the day, for nearly a decade, keeping the neighborhood kids out, under a sweetheart backroom deal engineered by a Maret parent of triplets?

lol Maret took a derelict field, paid for its renovation including artificial turf and lights, continuous maintenance and up keep. For this Maret uses the field from 3-5pm Monday -Friday from mid August to late October and February -April. So a total of 2 hours 5 days a week for 20 weeks a year. This is a field that was sitting unused. 3-5 pm week days during school is not the most attractive part of the day.

Now because the field is maintained, turfed and has lights it is use constantly by club, rec, travel teams and neighborhood kids. From 5pm -10pm plus all day on the weekends during that 20 weeks the field is in constant use. The rest of the year it is all club, rec, travel teams and neighborhood kids using the field. During the school year The British School uses the field from 10am -3pm.

Hardy administration has never had an interest in using the field. In fact for 10 years before the Maret deal the field was empty and not used by Hardy. Hardy has no plans or desire to use the field once Maret’s lease is up.

Meanwhile the Duke Ellington field sat idled. No DC school used the field during the school day and no clubs, rec, travel teams were allowed to use ever. It became a dog park.

As someone who has lived in the neighborhood for many years and with kids who went to Hardy, I think the deal made with Maret was a great deal for the city, neighborhood and kids needing a place to play. There are many private school fields (like St Pat) that sit unused because the neighborhood has placed restrictions on fields use. I have concerns that the new Maret field will have the same restrictions.

I wish people like you would actually work to remove neighborhood restrictions on fields. DC kids who play travel have to drive to Gaithersburg for home games while passing DCPS and private school fields that are empty. Also how about Hardy taking some of its money and renovating the field house at Jelleff? Will Hardy renovate and maintain Jelleff once Maret’s lease ends or will Jelleff turn in to Duke Ellington field?

That's your opinion, and one can read the news articles to know that it's not an opinion shared by a lot of people--particularly the kids from Hardy who never got to host a game there, and the aftercare kids who didn't get to use the fields because the Maret kids were on it during the peak hours.
https://deadspin.com/the-legendary-public-rec-center-in-a-private-schools-po-1837648863/

lol @ Deadspin. About as old and stale as this debate about a 2009 land deal. Very nice of you to paste a hard hitting piece of objective journalism to educate everyone though. Oh wait, the author’s 2 kids went to Hardy Middle School as per the “disclaimer” at the end of this “news article”.

[Anonymous]

^^^less wine, less time on DCUM, more sleep!

[Anonymous]

I’m a parent. I love my kid’s teachers AND I have to say that the school’s facilities and constant issues are tough to swallow. Several years ago I would tell people to overlook some of those issues but now they are glaring especially in light of the big tuition hike we all had to take on. I have not received cohesive communication about the issues and mostly find out if I need to be on campus or hear something from my child. Don’t know who is at fault but in some ways it doesn’t matter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The side eye from colleagues when we are either not given updates or are told it’s not the school’s fault when things aren’t working or finished. We are talking the basics. I have never seen anything like this.

Did you miss the part where Maret took over a DC public field for the most attractive part of the day, for nearly a decade, keeping the neighborhood kids out, under a sweetheart backroom deal engineered by a Maret parent of triplets?

lol Maret took a derelict field, paid for its renovation including artificial turf and lights, continuous maintenance and up keep. For this Maret uses the field from 3-5pm Monday -Friday from mid August to late October and February -April. So a total of 2 hours 5 days a week for 20 weeks a year. This is a field that was sitting unused. 3-5 pm week days during school is not the most attractive part of the day.

Now because the field is maintained, turfed and has lights it is use constantly by club, rec, travel teams and neighborhood kids. From 5pm -10pm plus all day on the weekends during that 20 weeks the field is in constant use. The rest of the year it is all club, rec, travel teams and neighborhood kids using the field. During the school year The British School uses the field from 10am -3pm.

Hardy administration has never had an interest in using the field. In fact for 10 years before the Maret deal the field was empty and not used by Hardy. Hardy has no plans or desire to use the field once Maret’s lease is up.

Meanwhile the Duke Ellington field sat idled. No DC school used the field during the school day and no clubs, rec, travel teams were allowed to use ever. It became a dog park.

As someone who has lived in the neighborhood for many years and with kids who went to Hardy, I think the deal made with Maret was a great deal for the city, neighborhood and kids needing a place to play. There are many private school fields (like St Pat) that sit unused because the neighborhood has placed restrictions on fields use. I have concerns that the new Maret field will have the same restrictions.

I wish people like you would actually work to remove neighborhood restrictions on fields. DC kids who play travel have to drive to Gaithersburg for home games while passing DCPS and private school fields that are empty. Also how about Hardy taking some of its money and renovating the field house at Jelleff? Will Hardy renovate and maintain Jelleff once Maret’s lease ends or will Jelleff turn in to Duke Ellington field?

That's your opinion, and one can read the news articles to know that it's not an opinion shared by a lot of people--particularly the kids from Hardy who never got to host a game there, and the aftercare kids who didn't get to use the fields because the Maret kids were on it during the peak hours.
https://deadspin.com/the-legendary-public-rec-center-in-a-private-schools-po-1837648863/

lol @ Deadspin. About as old and stale as this debate about a 2009 land deal. Very nice of you to paste a hard hitting piece of objective journalism to educate everyone though. Oh wait, the author’s 2 kids went to Hardy Middle School as per the “disclaimer” at the end of this “news article”.

Sure, if you want to talk about biases introduced by having kids we can talk about the sweetheart no-bids allowed deal that gave Maret exclusive access to the DC public field at peak use hours. That deal was brokered by then DC County Council member Jack Evans who was a Maret parent at the time. If you don’t remember, Evans was forced to resign following an FBI raid and investigation around allegations of influence peddling.

[Anonymous]

Well, now Maret is gone from Jelledf and purchased a piece of land that allowed a school to survive and Maret to have nice facilities. Now we can watch the post-Maret Jelleff be managed by the DC government. What could possibly go wrong?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a parent. I love my kid’s teachers AND I have to say that the school’s facilities and constant issues are tough to swallow. Several years ago I would tell people to overlook some of those issues but now they are glaring especially in light of the big tuition hike we all had to take on. I have not received cohesive communication about the issues and mostly find out if I need to be on campus or hear something from my child. Don’t know who is at fault but in some ways it doesn’t matter.

I am on the same camp. Love the teachers but some things are mismanaged. Some parents find offensive discussing these issues openly.