Ellington Field

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NIMBYs and other criticism may want to reconsider their opposition to DPR taking over this field. The alternative, proposed by some in the Office of Planning as well as housing advocates, is to build dense subsidized public housing on the Ellington field site if it is underused for recreational purposes. The site is near several bus lines and Georgetown hospital. And the mayor really wants to add significant affordable housing west of Rock Creek Park.

You can not use the field because they will not let anyone reserve the field and the neighbors do not want anyone of “those” type of people in their neighborhood. So no way in hell will the space be used for a new high school or developed for housing. The neighborhood will not let it happen. Now jeffell field is a prefect location for development.

The current state and use of the field shows why the field should not remain with DCPS.

The field is way too small for a new high school. The high school should be at the Western HS site currently occupied by Duke Ellington. Move Ellington downtown or even out to PG (where is seems a lot of it’s students live already).

The Ellington building would cost yet another hundred million to make it work for a regular high school. Then you need to acquire new property and build another arts high school, which isn’t cheap because an arts education is expensive. It also makes no sense at all to build another high school, given the vast capacity in the rest of the city.

The economy has slowed. DC is going to struggle to finish renovating the schools that have not yet been touched.

No new high school but let’s invest in the comprehensives and make them stronger - like providing state of the art science AND tech AND math education at McKinley. Build on what we have.

[Anonymous]

Exactly. Move Ellington to a surplus or underutilized building in a more central part of the District.

By the way, considering that an arts education is so expensive, why are the DC taxpayers providing a free or heavily subsidized arts education to PG residents ??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NIMBYs and other criticism may want to reconsider their opposition to DPR taking over this field. The alternative, proposed by some in the Office of Planning as well as housing advocates, is to build dense subsidized public housing on the Ellington field site if it is underused for recreational purposes. The site is near several bus lines and Georgetown hospital. And the mayor really wants to add significant affordable housing west of Rock Creek Park.

If this is the alternative, I think it is a great idea. Seriously.

DC should be able to build as tall as Georgetown Hospital under current zoning. If you imagine a building like the new family shelter on Idaho Ave NW, the site could fit two or even three buildings, up to 9 stories.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Exactly. Move Ellington to a surplus or underutilized building in a more central part of the District.

By the way, considering that an arts education is so expensive, why are the DC taxpayers providing a free or heavily subsidized arts education to PG residents ??

FFS learn the facts or drop it. Ellington families now have the most intrusive residency checks in the city every year. The up to 10% tuition paying out of state students are not all, or even mostly, from Prince George’s County. Further the Ellington Foundation picks up the tab for the extra operating costs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Exactly. Move Ellington to a surplus or underutilized building in a more central part of the District.

By the way, considering that an arts education is so expensive, why are the DC taxpayers providing a free or heavily subsidized arts education to PG residents ??

FFS learn the facts or drop it. Ellington families now have the most intrusive residency checks in the city every year. The up to 10% tuition paying out of state students are not all, or even mostly, from Prince George’s County. Further the Ellington Foundation picks up the tab for the extra operating costs.

DC taxpayers fund 100 percent of Ellington’s capital costs (and all of its cost overruns) and about 93 percent of its operating budget. Even for the above-board Maryland residents at Ellington (as opposed to the more numerous fraudsters who lie about a DC address), the school is not very diligent about actually collecting the heavily subsidized tuition.

Ellington is a terrible deal for hardworking DC taxpayers. And care to guess how many Ellington board directors that the DC government gets to appoint ? Zero. There is ZERO accountability with Ellington.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Exactly. Move Ellington to a surplus or underutilized building in a more central part of the District.

By the way, considering that an arts education is so expensive, why are the DC taxpayers providing a free or heavily subsidized arts education to PG residents ??

FFS learn the facts or drop it. Ellington families now have the most intrusive residency checks in the city every year. The up to 10% tuition paying out of state students are not all, or even mostly, from Prince George’s County. Further the Ellington Foundation picks up the tab for the extra operating costs.

DC taxpayers fund 100 percent of Ellington’s capital costs (and all of its cost overruns) and about 93 percent of its operating budget. Even for the above-board Maryland residents at Ellington (as opposed to the more numerous fraudsters who lie about a DC address), the school is not very diligent about actually collecting the heavily subsidized tuition.

Ellington is a terrible deal for hardworking DC taxpayers. And care to guess how many Ellington board directors that the DC government gets to appoint ? Zero. There is ZERO accountability with Ellington.

DCPS funds all capital costs for EVERY school -- including those with far worse performance than Ellington (see Ballou, Dunbar, Anacostia HSs). I think that any high school that is graduating 90%+ of its graduates, virtually all of whom go on to college, is doing right by DC taxpayers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Exactly. Move Ellington to a surplus or underutilized building in a more central part of the District.

By the way, considering that an arts education is so expensive, why are the DC taxpayers providing a free or heavily subsidized arts education to PG residents ??

FFS learn the facts or drop it. Ellington families now have the most intrusive residency checks in the city every year. The up to 10% tuition paying out of state students are not all, or even mostly, from Prince George’s County. Further the Ellington Foundation picks up the tab for the extra operating costs.

DC taxpayers fund 100 percent of Ellington’s capital costs (and all of its cost overruns) and about 93 percent of its operating budget. Even for the above-board Maryland residents at Ellington (as opposed to the more numerous fraudsters who lie about a DC address), the school is not very diligent about actually collecting the heavily subsidized tuition.

Ellington is a terrible deal for hardworking DC taxpayers. And care to guess how many Ellington board directors that the DC government gets to appoint ? Zero. There is ZERO accountability with Ellington.

DCPS funds all capital costs for EVERY school -- including those with far worse performance than Ellington (see Ballou, Dunbar, Anacostia HSs). I think that any high school that is graduating 90%+ of its graduates, virtually all of whom go on to college, is doing right by DC taxpayers.

It’s certainly doing right by PG fraudster- freeloader families !

[Anonymous]

^^ As are all the other DCPS schools that have residency cheaters. You have literally no basis for assuming that RIGHT NOW, post the intensive audits and continued oversight (not to mention staff firings) that there are more residency cheaters at Ellington OR that most are from Prince George's County.

Your assertions are racist and need to stop. In my small circle I know 3 students at Ellington who pay tuition -- 1 lives in Baltimore, 1 lives in Fairfax County and 1 lives in Arlington.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^ As are all the other DCPS schools that have residency cheaters. You have literally no basis for assuming that RIGHT NOW, post the intensive audits and continued oversight (not to mention staff firings) that there are more residency cheaters at Ellington OR that most are from Prince George's County.

Your assertions are racist and need to stop. In my small circle I know 3 students at Ellington who pay tuition -- 1 lives in Baltimore, 1 lives in Fairfax County and 1 lives in Arlington.

Racist? What are you suggesting about those committing residency fraud ?

[Anonymous]

The money spent on Ellington should be divided up and put into arts education at every school in the city.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The money spent on Ellington should be divided up and put into arts education at every school in the city.

Exactly. How did Ellington become some privileged but unaccountable sacred cow (and moreover, one that serves a substantial population that doesn’t even live in the District)?!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The money spent on Ellington should be divided up and put into arts education at every school in the city.

Exactly. How did Ellington become some privileged but unaccountable sacred cow (and moreover, one that serves a substantial population that doesn’t even live in the District)?!

Why do you all hate the arts so much? Seriously.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The money spent on Ellington should be divided up and put into arts education at every school in the city.

Exactly. How did Ellington become some privileged but unaccountable sacred cow (and moreover, one that serves a substantial population that doesn’t even live in the District)?!

Why do you all hate the arts so much? Seriously.

We love the arts. We just dislike scammers and grifters who misappropriate the arts and are completely unaccountable to the DC taxpayers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The money spent on Ellington should be divided up and put into arts education at every school in the city.

Exactly. How did Ellington become some privileged but unaccountable sacred cow (and moreover, one that serves a substantial population that doesn’t even live in the District)?!

Why do you all hate the arts so much? Seriously.

That’s the question that you should answer! You want to deny any exposure to the arts to the rest of the kids in the city. It is a very unfair and privileged system DCPS has. If an 8th grader is not selected by Ellington what other options do they have to Pursue the arts?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The money spent on Ellington should be divided up and put into arts education at every school in the city.

Exactly. How did Ellington become some privileged but unaccountable sacred cow (and moreover, one that serves a substantial population that doesn’t even live in the District)?!

Why do you all hate the arts so much? Seriously.

That’s the question that you should answer! You want to deny any exposure to the arts to the rest of the kids in the city. It is a very unfair and privileged system DCPS has. If an 8th grader is not selected by Ellington what other options do they have to Pursue the arts?

Exactly. And to add insult to injury, Ellington takes out of state residents over DC kids (the MD and VA residents who are up front about their residence, not counting the fraudsters who illegally claim a DC address to go to Ellington).