DCPS students shafted again - sign petition to keep Jelleff field public

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not real clear.

Private school pays to have public land redeveloped, wants to use it exclusively during school hours.

Neighborhood community pays nothing, but wants exclusive use 24 hours per day...

Ummmm ok.

You must be a Maret shill or just profoundly uninformed. DC bought Jelleff for $15 million and has allocated $7 million to update its Rec center. Yet Maret retains exclusive rights on Jelleff during weekdays because it promises to upgrade some AstroTurf and build a fence. Sign me up for that deal! I can beat Maret’s offer.

+1 $22mn in taxpayer dollars for a public park for the use of Maret is a travesty. Maret has fields-and half their kids aren’t even dC residents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not real clear.

Private school pays to have public land redeveloped, wants to use it exclusively during school hours.

Neighborhood community pays nothing, but wants exclusive use 24 hours per day...

Ummmm ok.

The public is providing the land, which is worth more than some field improvements.

Meanwhile, DC *can* pay the field improvements. Clearly, it’s taxpayers would prefer that.

Why did DC even buy the land if it couldn’t afford a much smaller additional amount for improvements? Oh, right — DC bought it so that Maret could lease it. Surely that’s aboveboard....

Either way, DC and Maret made a deal that is expiring. Maret got what they contracted for, and there is no good reason for the city to repeat it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not real clear.

Private school pays to have public land redeveloped, wants to use it exclusively during school hours.

Neighborhood community pays nothing, but wants exclusive use 24 hours per day...

Ummmm ok.

You must be a Maret shill or just profoundly uninformed. DC bought Jelleff for $15 million and has allocated $7 million to update its Rec center. Yet Maret retains exclusive rights on Jelleff during weekdays because it promises to upgrade some AstroTurf and build a fence. Sign me up for that deal! I can beat Maret’s offer.

+1 $22mn in taxpayer dollars for a public park for the use of Maret is a travesty. Maret has fields-and half their kids aren’t even dC residents.

Nine public schools and the Boys and Girls Club have requested weekday after school access to Jelleff, a piece of land taxpayers paid tens of millions for. Yet, only Maret, a public school, gets exclusive time. In what state of the universe does this make sense?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Finally!: https://beta.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/why-dont-we-get-the-field-use-of-playing-field-pits-an-elite-private-school-against-dc-public-schools/2019/08/31/5081b5de-ca5c-11e9-a1fe-ca46e8d573c0_story.html

Not a very detailed article. They don’t even mention Evans. This reads like a check the box piece. Shame.

Agreed. Crap journalism that doesn’t even reference the various nuggets unearthed by DCUM posters. It also leads with Maret’s counter-arguments. We need the Sun to start covering DC. WaPo is useless at it.

It took the WaPo a long time to finally get this in print and it’s really badly written. “ Person x said everyone at the community meeting hated the Maret deal. But the Maret head of school said everyone was very positive about the deal.” Nothing included that a reporter might do to ascertain which opinion was true (or closer to the truth). The reporter went to Georgetown Day and it looks like she took everything the head of school of Maret said as Gospel.

She termed the opponents “an angry coalition” — that’s inappropriately perjorative.

I had to laugh when I read the sentence that Talbott said about Maret being a good partner to the community because they let a public school use Jelleff for one hour a week on Wednesdays. Yup, that’s the socially responsible Maret we all know and love.

One of Ben bradlee’s grandkids went to Maret. That might explain some of the WaPo’s unwillingness to write an actual journalistic article about this issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One of Ben bradlee’s grandkids went to Maret. That might explain some of the WaPo’s unwillingness to write an actual journalistic article about this issue.

I am debating whether to cancel my subscription over this. I feel it’s important to support quality journalism as heavan knows it’s desperately needed at this time, but when the editors assign an intern to half-ass an article on municipal corruption that is undermining public education in town, then I think that’s not something I need to support. There is a nexus between local politicians, one-percenters, and the media in this town that would make many southern cities blush.

[Anonymous]

I'm guessing the current WaPo owner's kids trained him in the needs of the private school set.

[Anonymous]

An editor who gave a crap about unbiased reporting wouldn’t have assigned a recent product of a DC elite private school to write this story. The story about the Key ES controversy was garbage as well. WaPo local has gone to the dogs it seems . . . Ha ha ha.

[Anonymous]

Imagine the deals developers are getting if Mayor Bowser is willing to hurt families from across the city to help a private entity. We need a new mayor.

[Anonymous]

The mayor should explain what is happening and why. Her website has a number of ways to contact her.

https://mayor.dc.gov/biography/muriel-bowser

[Anonymous]

Maybe WTOP can cover the story? WaPo article is woefully incomplete!

[Anonymous]

Okay, and why is the story in the social issues section? Should be in the politics section!

[Anonymous]

I don’t understand the emphasis on the reporting. It is a DC public policy issue. People can be heard if they like.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No dog in this fight, but I’ve coached baseball in many different schools in DC. Jelleff was owned by the boys and girls club, the city bought the building and field in '08 or '09. There city didn't begin maintaining the building until then. The field was built, turfed, and maintained by Maret during the fall/spring according to the lease since then. The reason it's a 10-year lease is that 10 years is the lifecycle of the turf on the field. Maret uses the field until 6pm (unless there is a game being played, and Maret has earlier game start times than other teams in the league) Monday-Friday, 3 or 4 Saturdays a season. The British School uses the field during the weekdays until 330 pm on weekdays when the field is generally unused. The reason for this setup is to accommodate as many groups as possible including Stoddard, and Break-Out Lacrosse.

Furthermore, as someone who has extensive history with DPR's inability to maintain outdoor athletic facilities I know the city won't actually maintain the field space. I've spent countless hours prepping and maintaining public baseball fields like Banneker/Maury Wills, Ft. Reno, Friendship, Guy Mason, Hamilton (before it was turf) and Taft field. Every time the city loses one of it's public/private partnerships the facilities, and the children that year them, suffer. A recent and local example is the conditions that have deteriorated at Guy Mason since Georgetown Softball left.

If it were transferred to DCPS, then DGS would provide the maintenance. Not great, but perhaps better than DPR.

In any event, for after-school sports teams, a poorly maintained field is better than no field.

Have you seen Lafayette field since the renovation? Ha!

[Anonymous]

I’m a private school parent and cannot believe this. Really offensive, sad, and unnecessary situation. Hardy, the public school across the street, and the kids in the after school program at Jelleff should have priority access to these fields. Ridiculous!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No dog in this fight, but I’ve coached baseball in many different schools in DC. Jelleff was owned by the boys and girls club, the city bought the building and field in '08 or '09. There city didn't begin maintaining the building until then. The field was built, turfed, and maintained by Maret during the fall/spring according to the lease since then. The reason it's a 10-year lease is that 10 years is the lifecycle of the turf on the field. Maret uses the field until 6pm (unless there is a game being played, and Maret has earlier game start times than other teams in the league) Monday-Friday, 3 or 4 Saturdays a season. The British School uses the field during the weekdays until 330 pm on weekdays when the field is generally unused. The reason for this setup is to accommodate as many groups as possible including Stoddard, and Break-Out Lacrosse.

Furthermore, as someone who has extensive history with DPR's inability to maintain outdoor athletic facilities I know the city won't actually maintain the field space. I've spent countless hours prepping and maintaining public baseball fields like Banneker/Maury Wills, Ft. Reno, Friendship, Guy Mason, Hamilton (before it was turf) and Taft field. Every time the city loses one of it's public/private partnerships the facilities, and the children that year them, suffer. A recent and local example is the conditions that have deteriorated at Guy Mason since Georgetown Softball left.

If it were transferred to DCPS, then DGS would provide the maintenance. Not great, but perhaps better than DPR.

In any event, for after-school sports teams, a poorly maintained field is better than no field.

Have you seen Lafayette field since the renovation? Ha!

Maintenance of Palisades rec turf field has been fine.