Bowser cuts school renovation funds - Murch, others delayed or cancelled while Ellington tops $178 M

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Feel bad for all the Murch parents on the southern end of the boundary who fought tooth and nail to prevent being zoned for Hearst. Maybe given the overcrowding and substandard facilities it's not too late to switch to Hearst?

But Hearst is .1 miles too far away!

[Anonymous]

When you can't prevail on the merits of a debate them resort to disparaging and demeaning those who you disagree with. Is that a low-SES PG County thing? (See what I did there?)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They will end up spending nearly a quarter of a billion dollars on Ellington after its all done while more than a few schools in the district are literally falling apart. Goes to show DCPS priorities are freakishly skewed. (So, Wilson. Not even close to a priority for DCPS. In fact, they want to kick it down a bit).

The right move would have been to tell Ellington to take a few more years raising money from its donors if the Ellingtons really believe they need hundreds of millions of dollars spent on an over-the-top, state-of-the-art new school. The effect is to screw over a lot of folks who just need the basics out of their school and are not getting even that.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Wilson the first HS to get renovated?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All of you Ellington haters need to go back to whatever midwestern state you're from. since many of you claim that most of the students that attend Ellington are from MD and VA, perhaps you should do a FOIA request for documentation about tuition collection. However, it is not likely that you will do that because all of baseless assumptions would be proven wrong. I think Iowa is calling you.

I went to Ellington in the late 80s and still live in DC. While I have never been to Iowa I am sure it is lovely.

That said the spending is out of control. There are just over 500 kids in the school. That spending level is much too high. My employer generously supports Ellington and is a major contributor to their 2015 Benefit Concert which includes a performance by Bobby McFerrin. The amount the raise is staggering. Now it seems shameful in light of the public spending too.

For the other PP about asking wealthy parents to pay I know that doesn't happen but do other schools get celebrities to headline events?

[Anonymous]

Taxpayers are entitled to know who signed off on this boondoggle? Doesn't the buck stop with Henderson and the former DME? Instead she shrugs her shoulders and tries to shift the focus to Grosso and the DC Council Ed Committee.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:When you can't prevail on the merits of a debate them resort to disparaging and demeaning those who you disagree with. Is that a low-SES PG County thing? (See what I did there?)

I know that you are trying to make a point, but an earlier poster also brought up PG and I really wish we could stop the disparaging of Prince Georges here. It is hard to see that as being more than a code word for "black" and we really don't need more ways to be racially offensive in this forum.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you can't prevail on the merits of a debate them resort to disparaging and demeaning those who you disagree with. Is that a low-SES PG County thing? (See what I did there?)

I know that you are trying to make a point, but an earlier poster also brought up PG and I really wish we could stop the disparaging of Prince Georges here. It is hard to see that as being more than a code word for "black" and we really don't need more ways to be racially offensive in this forum.

Thank you, Jeff, for adding some reason to this conversation. My daughter currently attends Ellington, and one of her best friends travels from N.Va (Arlington I think) in order to attend Ellington. I assume that her parents are paying tuiton since that is what's required for students who live outside of DC. I have spoken to several parents who reside outside of DC, PG and MoCo, and they pay tuition because the benefit of a superior arts education outweighs the cost. For them, the $9000/yr tuition is small sum for the high-quality arts and academic education their child receives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wha??? It says nothing about this on the Murch renovation website.

Wow, untimely and misleading post and article. Page 94 of the Mayor's proposed budget funds the Murch renovation -- they've already started drilling pilot holes on school grounds.

http://cfo.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/ocfo/publication/attachments/2016_DCBudget_V6_Opt_2%20--%20Part%202r_0.pdf

There is no link in the article to anything newer than the actual proposed budget. The reference to Murch is embedded in an older article referencing the mid-year reprogramming of the 5 mil that was not spent due the last delay. Old news.

Thank you! This thread had me worried!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you can't prevail on the merits of a debate them resort to disparaging and demeaning those who you disagree with. Is that a low-SES PG County thing? (See what I did there?)

I know that you are trying to make a point, but an earlier poster also brought up PG and I really wish we could stop the disparaging of Prince Georges here. It is hard to see that as being more than a code word for "black" and we really don't need more ways to be racially offensive in this forum.

Thank you, Jeff, for adding some reason to this conversation. My daughter currently attends Ellington, and one of her best friends travels from N.Va (Arlington I think) in order to attend Ellington. I assume that her parents are paying tuiton since that is what's required for students who live outside of DC. I have spoken to several parents who reside outside of DC, PG and MoCo, and they pay tuition because the benefit of a superior arts education outweighs the cost. For them, the $9000/yr tuition is small sum for the high-quality arts and academic education their child receives.

That's kind of the point -- the tuition is way too low for what the DC taxpayers are putting into the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All of you Ellington haters need to go back to whatever midwestern state you're from. since many of you claim that most of the students that attend Ellington are from MD and VA, perhaps you should do a FOIA request for documentation about tuition collection. However, it is not likely that you will do that because all of baseless assumptions would be proven wrong. I think Iowa is calling you.

I don't think "baseless" means what you think it does.

It is easily established that there are a lot of non-DC kids at Ellington.

There are ten neighborhood high schools in DC. Every address in DC is in-boundary for one of those ten schools. On the DME website there is a document that shows where the kids who are in-boundary for each school actually go. That document is at: http://dme.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dme/publication/attachments/Appendix%20B_Boundary%20Participation%20Data%20Tables_DRAFT_Policy%20Brief_3.pdf


Here are the in-boundary high schools that the Ellington kids come from:
Anacostia 77
Ballou 53
Cardozo 45
Coolidge 37
Dunbar 36
Eastern 31
Roosevelt 69
Springarn 42
Wilson 66
Woodson 17

Total 473

According to the DCPS website ( http://profiles.dcps.dc.gov/ ) the enrollment of Ellington is 541. That means there are 68 kids, or 13%, at Ellington who are not in-boundary for any DCPS school. They live in Maryland and Virginia, mostly Maryland.

I was given documents by a DC elected official that showed the true number was over 15%, but since that wasn't for attribution I won't cite it here.

It is well documented that DCPS does a poor job of collecting tuition. Here's a link to a story about it: http://dcist.com/2012/05/dc_looks_into_non-residents_who_att.php

In the year in question, only 36% of kids who registered as tuition-paying actually paid their tuition.

My cousins used to live in Iowa, visited them once, no desire to return.

[Anonymous]

Leaving aside whether you think Ellington's students are entitled to modernization funds, that ship has sailed.

But Coolidge renovations have yet to begin...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you can't prevail on the merits of a debate them resort to disparaging and demeaning those who you disagree with. Is that a low-SES PG County thing? (See what I did there?)

I know that you are trying to make a point, but an earlier poster also brought up PG and I really wish we could stop the disparaging of Prince Georges here. It is hard to see that as being more than a code word for "black" and we really don't need more ways to be racially offensive in this forum.

Thank you, Jeff, for adding some reason to this conversation. My daughter currently attends Ellington, and one of her best friends travels from N.Va (Arlington I think) in order to attend Ellington. I assume that her parents are paying tuiton since that is what's required for students who live outside of DC. I have spoken to several parents who reside outside of DC, PG and MoCo, and they pay tuition because the benefit of a superior arts education outweighs the cost. For them, the $9000/yr tuition is small sum for the high-quality arts and academic education their child receives.

And the $9000 (assuming DCPS in fact collects it) is a small sum compared to the subsidy that DC taxpayers inexplicably are paying to educate students from MD and VA at Duke Ellington. At a time of school budget cuts to other schools, how is the DE out of state subsidized tuition not fiscal insanity?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Leaving aside whether you think Ellington's students are entitled to modernization funds, that ship has sailed.

But Coolidge renovations have yet to begin...

You think that ship has sailed? I think you should pay attention to what Grosso has been saying. You're ship is in the crosshairs.

[Anonymous]

Ellington is slated to receive $6.2MM allocation for 527 students next year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I don't think "baseless" means what you think it does.

It is easily established that there are a lot of non-DC kids at Ellington.

There are ten neighborhood high schools in DC. Every address in DC is in-boundary for one of those ten schools. On the DME website there is a document that shows where the kids who are in-boundary for each school actually go. That document is at: http://dme.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dme/publication/attachments/Appendix%20B_Boundary%20Participation%20Data%20Tables_DRAFT_Policy%20Brief_3.pdf


Here are the in-boundary high schools that the Ellington kids come from:
Anacostia 77
Ballou 53
Cardozo 45
Coolidge 37
Dunbar 36
Eastern 31
Roosevelt 69
Springarn 42
Wilson 66
Woodson 17

Total 473

According to the DCPS website ( http://profiles.dcps.dc.gov/ ) the enrollment of Ellington is 541. That means there are 68 kids, or 13%, at Ellington who are not in-boundary for any DCPS school. They live in Maryland and Virginia, mostly Maryland.

My cousins used to live in Iowa, visited them once, no desire to return.

Points for being both funny and snarky. Well played, sir/madam!