Eric Goulet, Whittle School and Ward 3 overcrowding

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is what Eric Goulet said ( below) on our listserv---- ironic, given how Whittle was originally pitched to parents as the school of their dreams, a once in a lifetime opportunity...

"I'm going to step up advocacy efforts to obtain the Whittle School campus. DC cannot miss the opportunity to get the Whittle in the Fiscal Year 2024 budget, because it is a once-in-a-half-century opportunity to obtain a 2,400 seat transit-accessible school building. Three Ward 3 ANCs - 3B (Brian Turmail sponsor), 3C (Beau Finley sponsor), and 3F (J.P. Szymkowicz sponsor) - have approved resolutions requesting that DC purchase or enter into a long-term lease at Whittle. Obtaining Whittle must be a top priority if we are going to be able to solve Ward 3 school overcrowding challenges in the upcoming boundary study, because without Whittle, there is no identifiable path forward to solving overcrowding at both Deal and Jackson Reed."

Have the "once in a half-century opportunity" boosters actually looked at an operating budget or toured the building with a real estate professional? Or examined the 20 pages of liens and lawsuits on the property? All the docs are publicly available.

A resolution to purchase or enter into a long term lease--- on a well known disaster of a property they haven't seen or done a fact based analysis on? ..public servants shooting from the hip it seems.

Goulet is claiming three ANCs have passed resolutions. I’ve only seen one of them (Beau’s). 3F has no commissioner named J.P. Szymkowicz and so it’s difficult to understand why he would sponsor a resolution for them. Have three ANCs passed resolutions or is Eric making things up again?

JP is 3D. He represents Foxhall Village and his constituents desperately want to scuttle the new schools.

It's just bizarre the way Goulet knows literally nothing about local politics. I mean, 3D is his own ANC.

[Anonymous]

Converting the Whittle School is a fantastic idea. It is the only proposal thus far that actually addresses the overcrowding issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is what Eric Goulet said ( below) on our listserv---- ironic, given how Whittle was originally pitched to parents as the school of their dreams, a once in a lifetime opportunity...

"I'm going to step up advocacy efforts to obtain the Whittle School campus. DC cannot miss the opportunity to get the Whittle in the Fiscal Year 2024 budget, because it is a once-in-a-half-century opportunity to obtain a 2,400 seat transit-accessible school building. Three Ward 3 ANCs - 3B (Brian Turmail sponsor), 3C (Beau Finley sponsor), and 3F (J.P. Szymkowicz sponsor) - have approved resolutions requesting that DC purchase or enter into a long-term lease at Whittle. Obtaining Whittle must be a top priority if we are going to be able to solve Ward 3 school overcrowding challenges in the upcoming boundary study, because without Whittle, there is no identifiable path forward to solving overcrowding at both Deal and Jackson Reed."

Have the "once in a half-century opportunity" boosters actually looked at an operating budget or toured the building with a real estate professional? Or examined the 20 pages of liens and lawsuits on the property? All the docs are publicly available.

A resolution to purchase or enter into a long term lease--- on a well known disaster of a property they haven't seen or done a fact based analysis on? ..public servants shooting from the hip it seems.

Goulet is claiming three ANCs have passed resolutions. I’ve only seen one of them (Beau’s). 3F has no commissioner named J.P. Szymkowicz and so it’s difficult to understand why he would sponsor a resolution for them. Have three ANCs passed resolutions or is Eric making things up again?

JP is 3D. He represents Foxhall Village and his constituents desperately want to scuttle the new schools.

It's just bizarre the way Goulet knows literally nothing about local politics. I mean, 3D is his own ANC.

Wait for the, “I mixed it up so the kids could play a fun game of sorting out which commissioner belongs to which ANC!”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Converting the Whittle School is a fantastic idea. It is the only proposal thus far that actually addresses the overcrowding issues.

You may want to read the rest of the thread first.

[Anonymous]

….it’s a good idea if the city is up for a complicated multi million dollar construction project because the building is an empty shell with a very small section built for a tiny private school of 100 kids approx. It won’t be able to accommodate overcrowding until a huge amount of work is done on it to essentially build a school that was never built

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If DC bought the site, they could knock down the building and do both mixed income housing and a school on the site. I would love to see it be a boundaryless ECE program like Stevens and military road. Then the nearby schools could cut out pk4 and have more classroom space for the mandatory enrollment grades.

Personally, I think friendship heights is an even better location for this type of development, but whittle would be fine too. I have absolutely zero faith in DC being able to do this type of forward thinking and investment, or to be able to carry it out effectively if they did but a parcel.

Can't demo the building. Its an historic landmark: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelsat_headquarters

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If DC bought the site, they could knock down the building and do both mixed income housing and a school on the site. I would love to see it be a boundaryless ECE program like Stevens and military road. Then the nearby schools could cut out pk4 and have more classroom space for the mandatory enrollment grades.

Personally, I think friendship heights is an even better location for this type of development, but whittle would be fine too. I have absolutely zero faith in DC being able to do this type of forward thinking and investment, or to be able to carry it out effectively if they did but a parcel.

Can't demo the building. Its an historic landmark: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelsat_headquarters

Landmarks can be demolished or altered, it just takes more time and steps. They aren't talking about knocking down the Lincoln memorial here. If the city wants to do it, it can be done. But I don't see any indication that they want to do this.

[Anonymous]

Again, DCPS needs to plan for new schools WOTP. They haven’t done so (and won’t do so unless forced). Whittle is a plan, some other sites mentioned here may be plans. But those are the comparisons, not some idealized future site.

[Anonymous]

Whittle is a logical plan. The existing landlord---who leases the entirety of the site from the State Department/US Govt.---and who had leased 90% of the site to Whittle---is now in possession of a huge white elephant. Whittle's buildout includes a full gym with four locker rooms and state of the art science labs. It sits a block from metro and on major buslines. The building's core is inefficient in terms of costs because of the huge interior atriums, which is why the landlord was unsuccessful in attracting office tenants years ago and turned to Whittle in 2018.

[Anonymous]

“ state of the art science labs” ? As a former Whittle parent we used to joke about how they had “labs” with no equipment. A room and some tables. not much more ..there is a basketball court on the top and it’s pretty nice but more than half the building is an unfinished construction site. A gaping hole. The issues about operating the building come from the cost of heating it. The massive amount of glass and the atriums caused every developer to pass.

[Anonymous]

I understand that a former Whittle parent might not be impressed about the unfinished construction but compared to what many public and private schools contend with---Whittle is still a good facility for education use. In addition to the gym, there are all those performance spaces which could be completed. But the building should really be used for elementary and not high school because it has no field space.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If DC bought the site, they could knock down the building and do both mixed income housing and a school on the site. I would love to see it be a boundaryless ECE program like Stevens and military road. Then the nearby schools could cut out pk4 and have more classroom space for the mandatory enrollment grades.

Personally, I think friendship heights is an even better location for this type of development, but whittle would be fine too. I have absolutely zero faith in DC being able to do this type of forward thinking and investment, or to be able to carry it out effectively if they did but a parcel.

The building is under historic designation.

The land is owned by the federal government. They don't typically sell to DC.

Whittle building is not historic.

[Anonymous]

how many OOB kids attend Ward 3 schools? Not every kid can go to school in Ward 3. DCPS needs to stop all OOB kids, stop feeder rights for OOB kids and create some centrally located text in magnet middle/high schools in downtown/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If DC bought the site, they could knock down the building and do both mixed income housing and a school on the site. I would love to see it be a boundaryless ECE program like Stevens and military road. Then the nearby schools could cut out pk4 and have more classroom space for the mandatory enrollment grades.

Personally, I think friendship heights is an even better location for this type of development, but whittle would be fine too. I have absolutely zero faith in DC being able to do this type of forward thinking and investment, or to be able to carry it out effectively if they did but a parcel.

The building is under historic designation.

The land is owned by the federal government. They don't typically sell to DC.

Whittle building is not historic.

https://planning.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/op/publication/attachments/Historic%20Landmark%20Nomination%20Staff%20Report%20Intelsat%203400%20International%20Drive.4000%20Connecticut%20Avenue%20NW%20Case%2014%2006%20.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If DC bought the site, they could knock down the building and do both mixed income housing and a school on the site. I would love to see it be a boundaryless ECE program like Stevens and military road. Then the nearby schools could cut out pk4 and have more classroom space for the mandatory enrollment grades.

Personally, I think friendship heights is an even better location for this type of development, but whittle would be fine too. I have absolutely zero faith in DC being able to do this type of forward thinking and investment, or to be able to carry it out effectively if they did but a parcel.

The building is under historic designation.

The land is owned by the federal government. They don't typically sell to DC.

Whittle building is not historic.

It is an officially designated historic landmark: https://planning.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/op/publication/attachments/Historic%20Landmark%20Nomination%20Staff%20Report%20Intelsat%203400%20International%20Drive.4000%20Connecticut%20Avenue%20NW%20Case%2014%2006%20.pdf