Murch- Getting screwed again?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:See Kaya's budget priorities recently released. Alternative schools, longer school year for certain schools etc.
Keeping strong schools and families in DCPS bottom of the priorities. Maybe when families realize that and hightail it to MD and VA and property taxes and home values take a dive - she will listen.

Drop in collected taxes will make it harder for her to fulfill any "priorities". Upper NW involved families: DCPS does NOT care about or respect you.

But they do care about the taxes you pay. They especially love families who pay high taxes and send their kids to private schools -- easing enrollment pressure on high-performing, high-demand Upper NW elementary schools (and perhaps even freeing up space to create popular lottery slots).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:See Kaya's budget priorities recently released. Alternative schools, longer school year for certain schools etc.
Keeping strong schools and families in DCPS bottom of the priorities. Maybe when families realize that and hightail it to MD and VA and property taxes and home values take a dive - she will listen.

Drop in collected taxes will make it harder for her to fulfill any "priorities". Upper NW involved families: DCPS does NOT care about or respect you.

But they do care about the taxes you pay. They especially love families who pay high taxes and send their kids to private schools -- easing enrollment pressure on high-performing, high-demand Upper NW elementary schools (and perhaps even freeing up space to create popular lottery slots).

Well, at $40K a kid, that's just not happening.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And where is Mary Cheh in all of this? Where is her advocacy? Shame in her for not supporting her constituents.

In general, she's amazing, I don't know what she's doing on this. But I do know that as much as I respect her she is no match for the downtown political machine...we have the city we have.

Wow, you're the first person I've ever heard use a superlative like "amazing" to describe Mary Cheh.

"She's no match for the downtown political machine" = "She's not very good at her job"

(Still waiting for any sort of acknowledgement of an email I sent her two days ago. Doesn't she have a constituent relations staff?)

Well, that is a very common sentiment among neighbors I know in different areas of Ward 3. Perhaps you need to broaden your network a bit.

Couldn't be that you need to broaden yours, right?

And I still can't get over the idea that it's some badge of honor that she can't get anything done for her constituents because she's somehow too pure or good to work the system that exists.

But, in her defense, she did finally respond to my (second) email. Hopefully she'll prove me wrong and get some results for Murch.

Professor Cheh certainly has her "Mary knows best side." If she's interested in your issue, she can be very good. If not, good luck. And if she has a different viewpoint, she doesn't especially want to hear yours. And, like many professors, she can get impatient with questions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They can't fit that number of kids or staff on the site, can they?

Well, that is the bottom line, isn't it. They can't. To make a cafetorium work you need less than 400 students. Any more, and you can't have lunch and run a full PE program in the same room. You certainly can't do it with almost double the number of classes. The site restrictions mean they can't build up and they can't build to the North at all. They can only build down to make 730 students fit on one of DC's smallest lots. And they say they can't afford to do that. So either they fully fund it, or they don't do it and find somewhere else to send 330 students. Interestingly, that is exactly enough students to build another school entirely -- which would actually cost less. That excess -- 330 students -- is the about the same as or bigger than 36 other DCPS elementary schools, 11 middle schools, and 3 high schools. The over enrollment at Murch is more students than at 50 other DCPS schools!!!!!!

Why on God's green earth are they trying to shoehorn so many kids onto this one spot of land?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Why on God's green earth are they trying to shoehorn so many kids onto this one spot of land?

Because everyone in the city wants to go to school EOTP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Why on God's green earth are they trying to shoehorn so many kids onto this one spot of land?

Because everyone in the city wants to go to school EOTP.

You mean, because folks EOTP are obsessed with avoiding their own schools, and end up overcrowding WOTP schools.

Bunch of hipocrites

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Why on God's green earth are they trying to shoehorn so many kids onto this one spot of land?

Because everyone in the city wants to go to school EOTP.

You mean, because folks EOTP are obsessed with avoiding their own schools, and end up overcrowding WOTP schools.

Bunch of hipocrites

m

Murch would be overcrowded even if all OOB students were gone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Why on God's green earth are they trying to shoehorn so many kids onto this one spot of land?

Because everyone in the city wants to go to school EOTP.

You mean, because folks EOTP are obsessed with avoiding their own schools, and end up overcrowding WOTP schools.

Bunch of hipocrites

m

Murch would be overcrowded even if all OOB students were gone.

True. And yet, DCPS will not admit that even though they can't afford to retrofit Murch to fit 730, and Janney has 32 kids in 5 3rd grade classes, and Lafayette is built to an obscene 800 and will be full the day it opens ... they don't think they need an other school in Ward 3.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Why on God's green earth are they trying to shoehorn so many kids onto this one spot of land?

Because everyone in the city wants to go to school EOTP.

You mean, because folks EOTP are obsessed with avoiding their own schools, and end up overcrowding WOTP schools.

Bunch of hipocrites

yep, this. Looking at you especially, Crestwood / Mt. Pleasant / 16th St Hts. People of some means who don't actually want to be with the people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Why on God's green earth are they trying to shoehorn so many kids onto this one spot of land?

Because everyone in the city wants to go to school EOTP.

You mean, because folks EOTP are obsessed with avoiding their own schools, and end up overcrowding WOTP schools.

Bunch of hipocrites

m

Murch would be overcrowded even if all OOB students were gone.

But here's the deal: the southernmost streets in this boundary -- say, Chesapeake on south -- SHOULD all go to Hearst (along with a bunch of current Janney streets). They "could," but that would mean that there'd be no room in Hearst for our fine friends from Crestwood and Mount Pleasant. that's why this is an EOTP OOB problem, once removed.

http://dme.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dme/publication/attachments/Murch.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They can't fit that number of kids or staff on the site, can they?

Well, that is the bottom line, isn't it. They can't. To make a cafetorium work you need less than 400 students. Any more, and you can't have lunch and run a full PE program in the same room. You certainly can't do it with almost double the number of classes. The site restrictions mean they can't build up and they can't build to the North at all. They can only build down to make 730 students fit on one of DC's smallest lots. And they say they can't afford to do that. So either they fully fund it, or they don't do it and find somewhere else to send 330 students. Interestingly, that is exactly enough students to build another school entirely -- which would actually cost less. That excess -- 330 students -- is the about the same as or bigger than 36 other DCPS elementary schools, 11 middle schools, and 3 high schools. The over enrollment at Murch is more students than at 50 other DCPS schools!!!!!!

Why on God's green earth are they trying to shoehorn so many kids onto this one spot of land?

One of the problems cited in the audit of school modernizations is that DGS/DCPS do not take into account meaningful demographic projections when making decisions. This short-sightedness is a key reason they keep going over budget on modernizations and why recently updated schools like Janney, Stoddert, Deal, and Wilson are already overcapacity. Just watch, the same thing will happen with Hearst, Lafayette, and Murch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Why on God's green earth are they trying to shoehorn so many kids onto this one spot of land?

Because everyone in the city wants to go to school EOTP.

You mean, because folks EOTP are obsessed with avoiding their own schools, and end up overcrowding WOTP schools.

Bunch of hipocrites

yep, this. Looking at you especially, Crestwood / Mt. Pleasant / 16th St Hts. People of some means who don't actually want to be with the people.

Perhaps you should move so you can be with the people. Hypocrites indeed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Why on God's green earth are they trying to shoehorn so many kids onto this one spot of land?

Because everyone in the city wants to go to school EOTP.

You mean, because folks EOTP are obsessed with avoiding their own schools, and end up overcrowding WOTP schools.

Bunch of hipocrites

m

Murch would be overcrowded even if all OOB students were gone.

But here's the deal: the southernmost streets in this boundary -- say, Chesapeake on south -- SHOULD all go to Hearst (along with a bunch of current Janney streets). They "could," but that would mean that there'd be no room in Hearst for our fine friends from Crestwood and Mount Pleasant. that's why this is an EOTP OOB problem, once removed.

http://dme.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dme/publication/attachments/Murch.pdf

+1. Be careful though, logic will get you nowhere in this discussion.

[jsteele]

I don't really understand why this thread keeps returning to boundary issues given that that topic has been put to rest until 2022. But, if can't stop yourself from discussing that topic, please start another thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Why on God's green earth are they trying to shoehorn so many kids onto this one spot of land?

Because everyone in the city wants to go to school EOTP.

You mean, because folks EOTP are obsessed with avoiding their own schools, and end up overcrowding WOTP schools.

Bunch of hipocrites

yep, this. Looking at you especially, Crestwood / Mt. Pleasant / 16th St Hts. People of some means who don't actually want to be with the people.

That's rich. For decades, schools like Murch counted on OOB students to make them viable because inboundary families went private, refusing to attend. Families in those neighborhoods you mention with distain availed themselves of a legal policy established by the District government (ability for OOB children to enroll in any public school) finding workable school solutions for their children while ensuring those schools remain full. Flash forward, down economy, crazy real estate prices and inboundary families have suddenly determined they will send their kids public after all. Great, but the city is never going eject elementary students from their school communities because new money families suddenly want those pesky OOB kids gone, now that you've determined that they have exhausted their usefulness. Not gonna happen. You are going to wait as those children matriculate. Don't like it? Go private. OOB will fade away as schools stop making the spots available because inboundary families start commuting to enrolling. Oh, and stop bailing on your school after 3rd or 4th grade to go private and the school won't be forced to go to the OOB wait list to plug the budget shortfall you created by leaving early. It's inevitable that those OOB 4th and 5th graders will have younger siblings, thus prolonging the OOB matriculation waiting game.