Murch moving to lafayette

[Anonymous]

NPS won't let Murch use its land, even on a temporary basis. It is a non-starter.

[Anonymous]

Had DGS started doing its research early it may actually have worked. The political legwork, permit application process takes time. Now they are up against the clock. Has Eleanor Holmes Norton went to bat for Murch? Has she been contacted?

Waiting till the 11th hour and not doing the necessary work in advance has a price. Using that space was possible.

[Anonymous]

Aren't there plenty of already renovated schools around the city with low enrollments?
Couldn't Murch be temporarily housed in an actual building during the renovation?

For example, isn't Francis Stevens under enrolled?

I remember during the Hardy renovation, the whole school went to another building for the year.
Similarly, when Takoma had the fire, they were housed in a school on 14th street ( nowhere near their original school).

DCPS has actual building space-time to use it.

[Anonymous]

For those of you who thinking swinging at Lafayette is the best choice because the other choices don't have enough play space, can you explain how Lafayette will be an advantage? There will be one playground, shared by 1400 students (since Lafayette's new playgrounds can't be built until the trailers on the green top are gone). I can't imagine it being safe to have more than 200 kids on the playground at any one time, so that's 7 shifts of students. Some kids aren't going to have recess until the very end of the day!

[Anonymous]

Neither a Murch or Lafayette parent, but I am a DC taxpayer. I am not saying that Murch swinging in the Lafayette trailer space is the best option, but it should be explored. Those trailers are pretty darn expensive and it seems a shame to waste the money when such a workable and close by site is available.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NPS won't let Murch use its land, even on a temporary basis. It is a non-starter.

How recently have you heard that? Because I'm pretty sure DGS/DCPS reached an agreement to build playspace on the NPS land contiguous to the school. They won't allow buildings/permanent structures on the land, but they will allows playspace (within certain parameters). This was announced in the summer.

Not sure about the status of the negotiations over using the space across the street to play on during swing.

[Anonymous]

I am talking about the open green space across Reno - that s a non-starter. For the "campus" and the NPS portion, yes, of course.

[Anonymous]

I'm a Lafayette parent and while I greatly feel for the Murch families the thought of 1400 kids on the Lafayette site just seems like a disaster. Yes, the trailers were expensive to construct. But I'm amazed that anyone who knows the area truly thinks that that many kids can safely share that space. Drop off and pick up at the swing site is difficult, dangerous and congested with only Lafayette students. I seriously doubt the neighborhood streets could handle the traffic. And a two year renovation is tough to swallow. That's hugely disruptive to the neighborhood and to our kids who will have already lived through a year of chaos - so now it would be three years of chaos? Obviously there's no solution that everyone will be happy with - but there has to be something better than this. Better for Murch families and better for the Lafayette community.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Had DGS started doing its research early it may actually have worked. The political legwork, permit application process takes time. Now they are up against the clock. Has Eleanor Holmes Norton went to bat for Murch? Has she been contacted?

Waiting till the 11th hour and not doing the necessary work in advance has a price. Using that space was possible.

E.H. ("Representation without Taxation") Norton is about as skilled on the Hill as she is behind the wheel. I've seen her arrive and leave from a couple of events, and it's like bumper-cars. Everyone dives for cover. On the Hill, she can't even work with the Democrats.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Murch has gone so long without renovation and been pushed aside repeatedly for Janney and Lafayette. Not saying we are entitled to anything but right now we're just trying to figure out any solution. And it is not perfectly viable. Viable yes but far from perfect. And maybe you don't ever go by the Murch playground during the day but it is rare that there are not kids out playing - recess, PE or even just a class project.

Murch renovation being delayed really has no relationship at all with the ethics of removing an entire DPR property from general public use from 8 am to 6 pm. I'm in the camp that is deeply dismayed the renovation has taken so long to materialize, as the school population just exploded.

I go by Murch playground during the day and it's almost always empty. Why: because each individual recess and PE is so very short. They're in and outta there. That's a different thing than saying there aren't 700 kids who use the playground each day for recess and PE -- obv., they do. But since they're only doing that for itty bitty stretches of time, the idea that they cannot possibly do those short stints on a smaller play space doesn't hold up. see, e.g., Eaton one mile down the road on Reno. Optimal? no, but more than doable

Yes, Eaton has a small playground but it has 475 students compared to 620 (Murch). Someone else mentioned Ross as a comparable small urban playground but Ross has only 166 students. Contrary to what you might think, the Murch playground is a huge part of the school culture. It's also a major community hub after school and on the weekends, more so than some DPR sites. Using NPS land (part of Ft. Reno) across the street is dicey -- kids would have to be constantly escorted across Reno Road, which poses safety concerns and eats into instructional time. Plus, under the grass, part of that field is basically an abandoned road and is not great for running around. In any case, NPS hasn't exactly laid out the welcome mat.

I never realized that Eaton had nearly 500 students crammed onto a small school lot. It's only 40%+/- in-bounds, so you would think that someone would do the logical thing and take the opportunity to reduce Eaton's enrollment somewhat -- both to scale it closer to actual demand and increase square feet per child. On a per sq. ft. per capita basis, it's got to be one of the most crowded elementary schools in DC, and that's not necessary.

[Anonymous]

I have no intention to "storm" a Murch meeting and I actually feel badly that Murch has been late on the renovation schedule, but as a close neighbor to Lafayette, I don't think it's fair that we would bear the burden of *another* two years of this arrangement. I love living close to the school and have no complaints about the Lafayette renovation, but that is when it was scheduled to be about 1 year. Note that we already went through construction for the park the fall and winter before the school, so this is year 2 for the close neighbors. These are narrow streets that are hard to navigate when there is no construction. It is just not tenable or fair for those of us who live in the blocks surrounding the trailers to have to do this for a total of 4 years. I don't think anyone who lived in the zone around the school would disagree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am talking about the open green space across Reno - that s a non-starter. For the "campus" and the NPS portion, yes, of course.

Are you privy to non-public info? Because we were told for a long time that NPS wouldn't allow construction on the campus portion, but they worked through that. My understanding was that the green space across the street was still up for discussion.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I am a Lafayette parent who is vehemently opposed to the idea of moving the entire school to our trailers for 2 years.

HOWEVER - what if they only moved part of the school? PK-1 or whatever. They would then need less trailers at murch, would only need some of the Lafayette trailers, thus allowing the play space to be rebuilt and some of the field to be reclaimed...

Thoughts?

Agree with this. They could move families north of Murch to Lafayette and south of Murch could swing on-site or go to Chesapeake Park. Or the upper grades could stay at Murch and the lower ones go to Chesapeake. Or the north families use Lafayette trailers and the south families use the Hearst trailers. An influx of 300 students is a lot less daunting than an influx of 600.

Hearst has only one trailer ...

There are traffic jams each morning currently at Hearst for drop off. No way they could handle another 50+ drop offs. If only the southern Murch families did not oppose the boundary change to Hearst, they'd already be enjoying brand new, state of the art facilities...

This is because over 80% of the Hearst students live out of boundaries, the vast majority east of the Park and nearly all arrive by car. Some even arrive in Maryland cars (hmmm?). This is no way for DCPS to run a "neighborhood school system."

OOB is now 73%. http://profiles.dcps.dc.gov/Hearst+Elementary+School

and IB is even higher than that for the 2015 - 16 year.

OOB for this year's PK class at Hearst is approx 40%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I am a Lafayette parent who is vehemently opposed to the idea of moving the entire school to our trailers for 2 years.

HOWEVER - what if they only moved part of the school? PK-1 or whatever. They would then need less trailers at murch, would only need some of the Lafayette trailers, thus allowing the play space to be rebuilt and some of the field to be reclaimed...

Thoughts?

Agree with this. They could move families north of Murch to Lafayette and south of Murch could swing on-site or go to Chesapeake Park. Or the upper grades could stay at Murch and the lower ones go to Chesapeake. Or the north families use Lafayette trailers and the south families use the Hearst trailers. An influx of 300 students is a lot less daunting than an influx of 600.

Hearst has only one trailer ...

There are traffic jams each morning currently at Hearst for drop off. No way they could handle another 50+ drop offs. If only the southern Murch families did not oppose the boundary change to Hearst, they'd already be enjoying brand new, state of the art facilities...

This is because over 80% of the Hearst students live out of boundaries, the vast majority east of the Park and nearly all arrive by car. Some even arrive in Maryland cars (hmmm?). This is no way for DCPS to run a "neighborhood school system."

OOB is now 73%. http://profiles.dcps.dc.gov/Hearst+Elementary+School

and IB is even higher than that for the 2015 - 16 year.

OOB for this year's PK class at Hearst is approx 40%

Actually it is more like 25% and some of those OOB are Eaton families that are even closer to the school than the IB families. But quite frankly it doesn't really matter. The school has a fantastic community feel from both IB and OOB families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To my Chevy Chase neighbors, please tone down the rhetoric, you are making us all look nasty and selfish. That is not the neighborhood I chose to live in.

Yes it's sort of shocking to see what people would put their names too. But then again, as a long time reader of that listserv, maybe I shouldn't be.