Renovation Process Query

[Anonymous]

It apparently takes years of planning/negotiations/bird dogging to get a renovation done at many otherwise successful schools as well as schools where there is a growing community invested in their neighborhood schools' academic success. At the same time, as noted multiple times on this board recently, there are $100 million plus renovations of previously unsuccessful schools that do not appear to have an organized advocacy community.

As I see it, a decision was made to invest in infrastructure under recent Mayoral Administrations and that has resulted in much improved infrastructure across the city since say 10 years ago.

What are the political drivers that cause some major projects to go through while others languish? Do decision makers have the view that equal dollars (or imbalanced) dollars have to be spent to avoid allegations of favoritism to wealthier areas of the city?

[Anonymous]

The high schools have lots of alumni in the city, people who went to them 30, 40 or more years ago and feel sentimental about their alma mater. For the most part they've lost touch with the realities of the current situation but many of them are in position to lobby for their old school.

Mayor Gray is a Dunbar graduate, for instance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The high schools have lots of alumni in the city, people who went to them 30, 40 or more years ago and feel sentimental about their alma mater. For the most part they've lost touch with the realities of the current situation but many of them are in position to lobby for their old school.

Mayor Gray is a Dunbar graduate, for instance.

PP, did you just say that Mayor Gray has lost touch with reality. Or are you playing a Connect-the-Dots (and if so, do you realize that you can't connect the dots between page 1 and page 23)?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The high schools have lots of alumni in the city, people who went to them 30, 40 or more years ago and feel sentimental about their alma mater. For the most part they've lost touch with the realities of the current situation but many of them are in position to lobby for their old school.

Mayor Gray is a Dunbar graduate, for instance.

PP, did you just say that Mayor Gray has lost touch with reality. Or are you playing a Connect-the-Dots (and if so, do you realize that you can't connect the dots between page 1 and page 23)?

NP here. I thought that the pp was saying that the fact that we all know where the Mayor attended HS is an example of the weird pride that some DCers have in their old schools.

[Anonymous]

DCPS has had the schedule of renovations planned out for about 10 years. There's no lack of transparency, so you don't have to make any suppositions - I'm sure Google will tell you all you need to know.

[Anonymous]

So 10 years ago they mapped out the two rounds of Janney renovations? Okay, now I get the dcps priorities, thanks!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCPS has had the schedule of renovations planned out for about 10 years. There's no lack of transparency, so you don't have to make any suppositions - I'm sure Google will tell you all you need to know.

What's not at all clear is that 10 years ago there was much thought given to the future needs of DCPS, I think they just made a list of run-down schools and then drew up a schedule for fixing all of them. Which, in fairness was a huge task, considering that DCPS had just come off of a 40 year period of total disinvestment.

The problem DCPS has is that it has a tremendous mismatch between the schools it has and the schools that people want to attend. Overall DCPS has about 60% more school space than it needs, but about 10% of the schools are overcrowded. So we get the situation where on the one hand hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on schools that are severely underutilized, and won't have the school population to justify that investment in the foreseeable future, and on the other hand hundreds of millions of dollars are spend on renovating schools that are over capacity the day they open.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCPS has had the schedule of renovations planned out for about 10 years. There's no lack of transparency, so you don't have to make any suppositions - I'm sure Google will tell you all you need to know.

If they followed the plan to the letter there would be total transparency, but that is not what has happened now is it? Plans get adjusted, projects get moved back/delayed in some instances but not others. It sounds like in some instances it takes a tremendous amount of effort to get a renovation off the ground but not in others. I am interested in understanding why some large projects move forward without a real plan for making full use of the improved space (e.g., Roosevelt and Dunbar) while others required such dedication by the community to move

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The high schools have lots of alumni in the city, people who went to them 30, 40 or more years ago and feel sentimental about their alma mater. For the most part they've lost touch with the realities of the current situation but many of them are in position to lobby for their old school.

Mayor Gray is a Dunbar graduate, for instance.

This had nothing to do with Dunbar's renovation. That was planned well before V. Gray became Mayor. Wilson was also renovated and Kwame Brown was a graduate along with the other criminal - but to say that alumni have something to do with it is just dumb. There was an entire master plan for facilities developed years ago, schools were ranked based on their condition and a priority list was developed. And I recall that the office charged with modernizing schools at least back in 2007 was a separate office from DCPS, not sure how it works now.

[Anonymous]

Alumni are voters. Yes DCPS alumni have this strange allegiance at the high-school level but is that an awful situation? Eastern has a strong alumni base, Woodson has the youngest Alumni base and Ellington probably has the most star-studded. The alumni base is as only as powerful as DCPS has allowed. It is bizarre that elementary schools are parent based/focused. Middle-schools are the lost experiment. High-schools have become the badge of honor in some instances; Dunbar has had three bites at the apple when it comes to a school building. Underlying factor; alumni. Powerful alumni I may add e.g. Gray. Woodson benefitted from the Gray-ize because they have had two bites at the apple with new buildings. The latter is all due because Gray is Ward 7 political/resident. It ain't a bad thing but more importantly it ain't gonna change.

[Anonymous]

Regardless of some 10 year plan, schools that fight hard for their schools through their parent groups, I think for good reason, do get resources. I know Hearst parents were incredibly organized about making sure the steps for their renovation actually came through, and Janney also seems to have had success.