Faculty, student and family input on ethical issues DC privates

[Anonymous]

That is not a description without commentary. It is laden with assumptions and innuendos.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That is not a description without commentary. It is laden with assumptions and innuendos.

Well, you can get the basics out of it. There is assumption and innuendo because parts of the story were hidden from public view. Lack of transparency and a difficult-to-understand outcome are at the core of the problems.

If you prefer, you can read the zillions of pages here:
https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/824200.page

And you can read the multiple news articles cited in those pages.

If, after that, there still seems to be something illogical about the situation, then you understand the problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That is not a description without commentary. It is laden with assumptions and innuendos.

Boys & Girls club wants to sell facility. Matet considers buying it. In the end, DC buys the property and Maret pays for improvements in exchange for exclusive access to prime after-school hours for 10 years. Community complains. Jack Evan’s son is admitted to Maret. 9 years go by, as Maret practices at the field after school, the Boys and Girls Club kids sit inside, and teams from Hardy travel an hour across town for practices and games. The community complains again, noting that DC can fund and manage the field maintenance themselves, and asks DPR not to renew the deal. DPR renews the deal, again signing over prime-time rights to the land for another 10 years. Community is enraged.

[Anonymous]

It’s been 24 hours and well over a hundred views of this thread since the last comment.

Nothing further to say about the parents’ role in school ethics?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That is not a description without commentary. It is laden with assumptions and innuendos.

Don’t you know how to google? Just type in Jelleff and Maret. The Washington Post, Georgetowner, WaMu and DCist have all done articles in the last week. Plus Deadspin.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s been 24 hours and well over a hundred views of this thread since the last comment.

Nothing further to say about the parents’ role in school ethics?

Ethics are fine and dandy except when they lead to tuition increases. So I say on behalf of Maret, maintain the exclusive hold on the public park with thanks to Maret parent Jack Evans, and let the plebe Jelleff aftercare kids from the Boys and Girls club eat cake.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having had to try to field many PPA soccer and outdoor basketball teams for my three kids I will be the first to say it: DC Parks and Rec is ridiculous.

Permits come in at the last second; They deny permits with no reason; They deny permits on perfectly good, usable fields all the time; They don't work with teams that have various early dismissal times or nearby schools.
Bethesda and Arlington fields do not have these chronic permit issues.

I don't care about Maret taking over some field that was only willy nilly permitted half of each year. Most of DC fields, including in NW DC are vastly underutilized, despite the permit demand and paperwork being filed.

With my youngest child, PPA and I started applying to FOUR+ different NW DC fields in the hopes of getting a permit for Wed or Friday after school. Denied, denied, denied, Maybe. And we'd go by our 1st or 2nd choice field weeks in to the season - totally empty. Not getting reseeded either. Totally empty.

That's the big picture here.

A private that charges $35k tuition is using its money to monopolize a playing field to the exclusion of many more kids who need it more. And DC DPR is ridiculous to have made this deal. That is the big picture. That you don’t care because you didn’t get what you want is exactly the attitude of Maret and Maret parents.

Tell it to the kids at the BGC program.

We don’t go to Maret. We go elsewhere and have 7 years of direct experience dealing with Dc parks system: they’re all mismanaged and undermanaged. So do I care that some other org is going to use a field that is otherwise unused, left for naught, and they are going to manage it— no,I don’t. Maybe some neighbored communities should craft a similar deal or demand their property taxes be actually managed and used properly!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having had to try to field many PPA soccer and outdoor basketball teams for my three kids I will be the first to say it: DC Parks and Rec is ridiculous.

Permits come in at the last second; They deny permits with no reason; They deny permits on perfectly good, usable fields all the time; They don't work with teams that have various early dismissal times or nearby schools.
Bethesda and Arlington fields do not have these chronic permit issues.

I don't care about Maret taking over some field that was only willy nilly permitted half of each year. Most of DC fields, including in NW DC are vastly underutilized, despite the permit demand and paperwork being filed.

With my youngest child, PPA and I started applying to FOUR+ different NW DC fields in the hopes of getting a permit for Wed or Friday after school. Denied, denied, denied, Maybe. And we'd go by our 1st or 2nd choice field weeks in to the season - totally empty. Not getting reseeded either. Totally empty.

That's the big picture here.

A private that charges $35k tuition is using its money to monopolize a playing field to the exclusion of many more kids who need it more. And DC DPR is ridiculous to have made this deal. That is the big picture. That you don’t care because you didn’t get what you want is exactly the attitude of Maret and Maret parents.

Tell it to the kids at the BGC program.

We don’t go to Maret. We go elsewhere and have 7 years of direct experience dealing with Dc parks system: they’re all mismanaged and undermanaged. So do I care that some other org is going to use a field that is otherwise unused, left for naught, and they are going to manage it— no,I don’t. Maybe some neighbored communities should craft a similar deal or demand their property taxes be actually managed and used properly!

Don’t kid yourself that this field would ‘go unused’ if Maret didn’t have rights to it. DPR might suck in ways, but the fields — good shape or not — get used.

Meanwhile, demanding that “taxes be actually managed and used properly” is precisely what the community is doing in this instance. The Maret deal is a poor use of DC property.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having had to try to field many PPA soccer and outdoor basketball teams for my three kids I will be the first to say it: DC Parks and Rec is ridiculous.

Permits come in at the last second; They deny permits with no reason; They deny permits on perfectly good, usable fields all the time; They don't work with teams that have various early dismissal times or nearby schools.
Bethesda and Arlington fields do not have these chronic permit issues.

I don't care about Maret taking over some field that was only willy nilly permitted half of each year. Most of DC fields, including in NW DC are vastly underutilized, despite the permit demand and paperwork being filed.

With my youngest child, PPA and I started applying to FOUR+ different NW DC fields in the hopes of getting a permit for Wed or Friday after school. Denied, denied, denied, Maybe. And we'd go by our 1st or 2nd choice field weeks in to the season - totally empty. Not getting reseeded either. Totally empty.

That's the big picture here.

A private that charges $35k tuition is using its money to monopolize a playing field to the exclusion of many more kids who need it more. And DC DPR is ridiculous to have made this deal. That is the big picture. That you don’t care because you didn’t get what you want is exactly the attitude of Maret and Maret parents.

Tell it to the kids at the BGC program.

We don’t go to Maret. We go elsewhere and have 7 years of direct experience dealing with Dc parks system: they’re all mismanaged and undermanaged. So do I care that some other org is going to use a field that is otherwise unused, left for naught, and they are going to manage it— no,I don’t. Maybe some neighbored communities should craft a similar deal or demand their property taxes be actually managed and used properly!

Yes, why let reality intrude on your selfish world view. Clearly all the DC fields are unused and empty, just waiting for efficient private school kids to come by and play lacrosse on them. You might try reading the Washington Post on occasion and learn that there’s an aftercare at Jelleff run by the Boys and Girls club where kids can’t play on the fields because the Maret kids have taken all the after school slots (except for 1 hr on certain Wednesdays when Maret generously allows Hardy teams to use the fields.) Or you could read the Geoegetowner and learn that 10 schools/community orgs had requested to use Jelleff once Maret’s exclusivity agreement came to an end in 2020. But yes clearly the field in a prime area of dC, next to a DC public school would be unused were it not for Maret.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Great question., it is not just the Maret lease, but the Sidwell acquisition and probably other issues too.

+1

What they did to those old residents was no about Quaker values, but capitalism at its worst.

Try again. Those old residents’ ***landlord *** put their home on the market.

Was the world supposed to look the other way and collectively pretend the owner wasn’t selling?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having had to try to field many PPA soccer and outdoor basketball teams for my three kids I will be the first to say it: DC Parks and Rec is ridiculous.

Permits come in at the last second; They deny permits with no reason; They deny permits on perfectly good, usable fields all the time; They don't work with teams that have various early dismissal times or nearby schools.
Bethesda and Arlington fields do not have these chronic permit issues.

I don't care about Maret taking over some field that was only willy nilly permitted half of each year. Most of DC fields, including in NW DC are vastly underutilized, despite the permit demand and paperwork being filed.

With my youngest child, PPA and I started applying to FOUR+ different NW DC fields in the hopes of getting a permit for Wed or Friday after school. Denied, denied, denied, Maybe. And we'd go by our 1st or 2nd choice field weeks in to the season - totally empty. Not getting reseeded either. Totally empty.

That's the big picture here.

A private that charges $35k tuition is using its money to monopolize a playing field to the exclusion of many more kids who need it more. And DC DPR is ridiculous to have made this deal. That is the big picture. That you don’t care because you didn’t get what you want is exactly the attitude of Maret and Maret parents.

Tell it to the kids at the BGC program.

We don’t go to Maret. We go elsewhere and have 7 years of direct experience dealing with Dc parks system: they’re all mismanaged and undermanaged. So do I care that some other org is going to use a field that is otherwise unused, left for naught, and they are going to manage it— no,I don’t. Maybe some neighbored communities should craft a similar deal or demand their property taxes be actually managed and used properly!

Yes, why let reality intrude on your selfish world view. Clearly all the DC fields are unused and empty, just waiting for efficient private school kids to come by and play lacrosse on them. You might try reading the Washington Post on occasion and learn that there’s an aftercare at Jelleff run by the Boys and Girls club where kids can’t play on the fields because the Maret kids have taken all the after school slots (except for 1 hr on certain Wednesdays when Maret generously allows Hardy teams to use the fields.) Or you could read the Geoegetowner and learn that 10 schools/community orgs had requested to use Jelleff once Maret’s exclusivity agreement came to an end in 2020. But yes clearly the field in a prime area of dC, next to a DC public school would be unused were it not for Maret.

+1. There are public school kids traveling an hour on weekdays to get to games on DC public fields when they could be using Jelleff if not for the Maret exclusivity agreement. That is ethically wrong. Maret should go find a private field to rent and not hog a taxpayer funded DC park.

[Anonymous]

Here are the private schools with their own private fields closer to Maret than Jelleff is to Maret. WIS, St. Albans, NCS, Sidwell. Slightly further away are Visitation and GDS. Hmm, seems upper NW is over run with private school fields. They don't pay taxes on those spaces do they? You could split hairs about these details, but look, it is really odd a private school and members of its league have to take a field from public school kids. Those schools already sit on a substantial portion of DC acreage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here are the private schools with their own private fields closer to Maret than Jelleff is to Maret. WIS, St. Albans, NCS, Sidwell. Slightly further away are Visitation and GDS. Hmm, seems upper NW is over run with private school fields. They don't pay taxes on those spaces do they? You could split hairs about these details, but look, it is really odd a private school and members of its league have to take a field from public school kids. Those schools already sit on a substantial portion of DC acreage.

+100 Maret already has a huge field and two gyms. And they use the UDC fields too. Good grief.

[Anonymous]

This is not a defense of Maret or this deal, but there are very few 90' baseball diamonds (those large enough for middle and HS baseball) in DC. Jelleff enabled Maret to have a baseball field, and Maret was in the process of building a strong baseball program. Maret does have a field, but its a K-12 school, and that one field is not enough to support all girls and boys middle and high school sports, nor is it large enough for HS baseball. Having had kids in GDS, which has its own field issues, the other area privates are somewhat accommodating in granting access to field space, but they use their own fields pretty heavily. It sounds like the first deal was necessary for both sides to get somethng they really needed at that time, but the current deal seems less advantageous for the District.

[Anonymous]

I totally understand the anger at Maret, but it sure seems like the majority of the responsibility falls to the city for agreeing to this deal. It's unconscionable that they did it, and certainly raises concerns.