Any significant chance of Murch boundaries changing in the next couple of years?
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Anonymous
There is nothing wrong with brainstorming ideas. It is OK for you to not like them, but no one suggested any entitlement here. Discussions between DGS and NPS are in progress regarding building and egress restrictions for the NPS land already swapped with DC, which Murch has been using since the school opened. There are two odd points about that long-ago swap that are causing feasibility issues for the renovation on Murch's current lot -- no one is talking about a grant of new park land currently being used by the nation's public. I won't criticize you for being uninformed about this because it is hard to find this information if you are not at Murch or involved in these issues. The issue about school size depends on whether or not DC and NPS can resolve those issues. Reasonable people are having reasonable discussions about it. As for the community center, first, the comment was that dual purpose facilities are not unprecedented. This is true. Second: "The Chevy Chase School, located on land now occupied by the Chevy Chase Community Center and the Chevy Chase Library, on Connecticut Avenue between McKinley and Northampton Streets, was renamed for Elizabeth Virginia Brown in 1915." .... "The number of students continued to increase and portable buildings were erected: one in 1921, one in 1925, one in 1926, five in 1928, and one in 1929. To ease the pressure of overcrowding, in 1928 attendance was restricted to D.C. residents. The Chevy Chase Citizens Association asked Congress to build more schools. By 1929 portable buildings covered the entire playground: there were 300 children in portable buildings and 960 in the school’s 16 rooms, which had a capacity of 640, forty to a classroom. Portable buildings were also constructed in 1928 at Connecticut Avenue and Grant Road, now the site of the Murch School. In the same year, two portable buildings were built at Northampton Street and Broad Branch Road, now the site of the Lafayette Elementary School. As a last resort, schools were placed on half-day sessions to accommodate the large number of students." .... "Enrollment at the E.V. Brown school decreased rapidly after the new schools opened. The school was closed in 1942, and the building was used by the Office of Price Administration during World War II. After the war, the citizens succeeded in obtaining the building for a community center and the Chevy Chase Branch Library. In 1968 the building was torn down and replaced by the present library building and adjoining community center." http://www.chevychasecitizens.org/100YearHistory/ccca_history.pdf So today's parents, faced with similar crowding issues, are looking for solutions -- there is no sense of entitlement, just a lot of discussion and creative problem-solving through proper channels. I don't see how that is offensive. |
Anonymous
This isn't how it works. It is not like the entire 5th grade is OOB and everyone else is IB, such that 4 classrooms will be empty when they graduate. The OOB population is spread across the whole school with only 0-2 OOB students per classroom. Expelling all of these great kids today would not open up a single physical classroom. The need for addition physical space is entirely driven by IB population. |
Anonymous
Except there are many of us who realize that we need to have our boundaries shrunken especially with our land constraints. At least - we'll always have a good playground 
And yes - it would bite but it's not like Lafayette and Hearst aren't perfectly good options. Most of the city would kill to be able to go to Hearst. It's been renovated. If a sizable portion of Murch goes there - that will help the IB situation. There is more diversity which can be actually be a good thing. |
Anonymous
Thank you PP. Your comments reflect common sense and open-mindedness which sometimes seems in short supply in these boundary/school assignment conversations. Thank you. |
Anonymous
Early childhood center generally means pre-K through 1 or 2 so most of it is compulsory. Community center use is worth a good discussion. |
Anonymous
Most of the city would kill to to to Hardy also, but hard(l)y anyone from west of Rock Creek Park wants to go there. |
Anonymous
My feeling on this is same as PP and an prior post I wrote. I would not support DC putting a single $ into any new campus/facilities beyond the existing DCPS elementary schools in the neighborhood until all existing schools are more fully utilized by the neighborhood. In other words - until Hearst is equal IB % to Janney/Murch/Lafayette no way it makes sense to spend $ on a new/repurposed facility. Does not make sense for the neighborhood nor does it make sense when you consider the DCPS system as a whole where frankly there are much greater needs in other wards than in Ward 3. |
Anonymous
Don't be silly. You don't "expel" OOB students but you let them work through the systems as the school stops taking more. If the school is over capacity, it needs to stop taking OOB students. |
Anonymous
Early childhood centers are preschool, so, no. Not 1st and 2nd grade This idea is a complete nonstarter, for so many reasons. |
Anonymous
So if you have too many kids for 3 k classes, but if you do 4 there will only 19 in two of the classes you just don't fill the classrooms to capacity? That seems kind of selfish if there are families that want those spots for their children. What exactly the benefit of this plan? |
Anonymous
I know that -- I was using an extreme hypothetical to illustrate the point that even in the absence of OOB students (if they all disappeared tomorrow to be more extreme) there would be no reduction in the number of classrooms needed per grade at Murch. OOB students fill in the extra one or two seats created when the IB population pushes a grade to need another classroom. Overcrowding is caused by the need to add physical classrooms for IB students, not by filling the few extra seats in a classroom with OOB students. |
Anonymous
We are already there. There are more IB students starting K than can be handled with the current per grade capacity of these schools combined. |
Anonymous
Except that we are not there. The IB % ages at Hearst are still significantly lower than at Murch and Janney. Until they are equally high / eg 90% ish there is no logical argument for $ spent on additional school buildings |
Anonymous
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Hearst has room for less than 300 kids. The lower grades are more than 60% IB. I understand that the new pre-k has higher IB numbers than this and is quickly losing the diversity that Hearst parents love so much. Murch and Janney have long IB waiting lists for pre-k all of these kids just don't fit into Hearst.
What I am hearing in this argument is that unless all Ward 3 schools become overwhelmingly white and accept no OOB children the area does not deserve remodeling or new schools. Seems like the exact opposite of the ideal urban school that families EOTP and WOTP want. I also don't understand why current families advocate for boundary changes when what they are doing is obligating DCPS to tinker, something they do so poorly. The round one proposal zoned families out of district that lived less than a block away from their elementary schools. How is that in any way sensible or sustainable? My child is in a school that is considered overcrowded. I can tell you that I care about my neighborhood and community and would never ask a central office bureaucrat to kick my neighbors out of my school. |
Anonymous
It is not accurate to say 'the lower grades are more than 60% IB. The incoming PK 4 lottery spots were awarded to ~60% IB , have to see where enrolled students shake out. Incoming K, 1 and 2 are 50% or less. There is plenty of room for Hearst to increase it's neighborhood participation to levels closer to the other neighborhood schools . The round one proposal is off the table so why bring that up again? |