Ellington. $250 m for 600 students. Murch. $70 m for 700 students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have driven by Ellington 5 times during the last 10 days on my way to a conference in Virginia. I have seen, literally, no work being done on the building. Is it on some kind of hold?

I hope so. Maybe we can revisit that disaster of a decision before we sink any more money into it.

I rarely see any work being done driving past Ellington in the middle of the day... So it's way over budget and way over schedule.

[Anonymous]

the Murch bellyaching is really tiresome. SO many elementary schools are in worse shape than Murch and not seeing a dime while some in the Murch community are complaining over $70 mil as insufficient. Try getting out of your bubble once in a while. Lots of successful schools have learned to live with less.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:the Murch bellyaching is really tiresome. SO many elementary schools are in worse shape than Murch and not seeing a dime while some in the Murch community are complaining over $70 mil as insufficient. Try getting out of your bubble once in a while. Lots of successful schools have learned to live with less.

Those successful schools are not DCPS but charters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:the Murch bellyaching is really tiresome. SO many elementary schools are in worse shape than Murch and not seeing a dime while some in the Murch community are complaining over $70 mil as insufficient. Try getting out of your bubble once in a while. Lots of successful schools have learned to live with less.

And you can objectively question the exorbitant cost overruns for Ellington without thinking the city should provide equal spaces at that trough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

When the building is done it will be an asset to the whole community, used year-round.

This is actually a sore subject. DCPS buildings are not, in general, available for the community to use. I don't know about Ellington, but [b]try using any DCPS field, gym or auditorium. It's virtually impossible.[/b] I take that back, I have tried to use the Ellington field, not available to the general public.

DC is the only place I've ever lived where you wouldn't be laughed out of the room for suggesting that the public can't use a building that their tax dollars paid for when the kids aren't using it.

I don't know how honest your statement is PP. I live near McKinley and people are always using the al the time for soccer and pickup soccer. I use the track myself for jogging, as does others. Langley school auditorium has been used in the past couple summers for a STEM camp, that is not sponsored by DCPS. The community has used the pools at Wilson for decades, and now the pools at Dunbar have been opened to the public during non-school hours. The tennis courts at Brookland MS are open to the public during school hours as long as the school is not using them at the time. Those are just a few examples that I know about, I am sure there are others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have driven by Ellington 5 times during the last 10 days on my way to a conference in Virginia. I have seen, literally, no work being done on the building. Is it on some kind of hold?

I hope so. Maybe we can revisit that disaster of a decision before we sink any more money into it.

I rarely see any work being done driving past Ellington in the middle of the day... So it's way over budget and way over schedule.

The delay infuriates me more than the price tag. Friend's DC is a sophomore at Ellington. Great student. Best case she will spend 1 year in the new building.

No excuse for ANY of these renovations taking 3+ years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:IMO, as an Ellington grad, it deserves more money. It is 1 of the only truly functional, successful DCPS high schools. I graduated some years back with a class of 92. 90 of us went on to at least community college if not a 4-year-college. I am friends with many Ellington grads and we all have good jobs, often still in our majors or close to them. Several are teaching in DCPS or otherwise involved with city kids. It's an amazing place that could be grown into a real draw for DCPS as a whole with a renovated building.

When I was there the theater was regularly rented out to professional theater companies. We students were hired to help out behind stage.

From the backgrounds of a lot of kids I was there with, I would say that most of them would not have ended up at college or even in a career if they had not attended Ellington. We should all be celebrating the energy of the kids who attend school for nearly 2 more hours than the rest of DCPS and are often there late into the evening rehearsing and otherwise using the facility. Ellington's building was absolutely my second home the entire time I was there and I was one of the few students for whom my first home was a middle class one with relatively functional parents and food on the table.

I'm the proud parent of a future Ellington student and I am absolutely thrilled about the renovation. We are truly a family and whenever you meet an Ellington student, grad, or teacher anywhere around you are instant friends. Let's be glad that the city is investing in a school that produces graduates of whom DCPS can be proud.

Thank you for your post. There are so many haters on DCUM. They are pathetic, professional whiners.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:IMO, as an Ellington grad, it deserves more money. It is 1 of the only truly functional, successful DCPS high schools. I graduated some years back with a class of 92. 90 of us went on to at least community college if not a 4-year-college. I am friends with many Ellington grads and we all have good jobs, often still in our majors or close to them. Several are teaching in DCPS or otherwise involved with city kids. It's an amazing place that could be grown into a real draw for DCPS as a whole with a renovated building.

When I was there the theater was regularly rented out to professional theater companies. We students were hired to help out behind stage.

From the backgrounds of a lot of kids I was there with, I would say that most of them would not have ended up at college or even in a career if they had not attended Ellington. We should all be celebrating the energy of the kids who attend school for nearly 2 more hours than the rest of DCPS and are often there late into the evening rehearsing and otherwise using the facility. Ellington's building was absolutely my second home the entire time I was there and I was one of the few students for whom my first home was a middle class one with relatively functional parents and food on the table.

I'm the proud parent of a future Ellington student and I am absolutely thrilled about the renovation. We are truly a family and whenever you meet an Ellington student, grad, or teacher anywhere around you are instant friends. Let's be glad that the city is investing in a school that produces graduates of whom DCPS can be proud.

Yeah, F those poor kids who are at schools with lower graduation rates. They don't deserve to have a nice facility. Let's just shit on them or send them to jail.

Nice compassion you learned there...

Not the poster you responded to but darn you are one angry person with reading comp issues. No where in PP post did she even intimate what you suggested. The other schools are all receiving gut makeovers, but a regular comprehensive school does not require the same infrastructure as a specialty school such as DE. DE requires multiple art, music, sound, theatre, and dance rooms in addition to the science, computer and other classes found in a regular school. Otherwise, why bother calling it a school for the gifted arts.

However, now that DC has invested so much money to improve the gifted arts students, it would be really nice if they focused greatly on providing a HS for STEM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is exhausting. Parents are to blame because they wrongly believe that anything new and shiny means the school is better. So they bitch non stop for new facilities and wow, the test scores still suck. You can renovate Cardozo, rebuild Dunbar and build a new brook land middle...guess what the test scores are abysmal, high SES parents won't send their kids there but yet everyone whines to spend more money or more new buildings.

I don't believe it will change test scores. But I'd like my kids (and ALL other kid in the city) to have decent facility because DECENCY.

How's that for a reason?

Or do you think poorly performing kids /schools should just be left in squalor?

NP - no one wants them in squalor but they are half empty. We need fewer schools. Give them to charters on 20-year leases.

That's the crust of every argument. Give the schools to charters. Frack those kids attending DCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is exhausting. Parents are to blame because they wrongly believe that anything new and shiny means the school is better. So they bitch non stop for new facilities and wow, the test scores still suck. You can renovate Cardozo, rebuild Dunbar and build a new brook land middle...guess what the test scores are abysmal, high SES parents won't send their kids there but yet everyone whines to spend more money or more new buildings.

I don't believe it will change test scores. But I'd like my kids (and ALL other kid in the city) to have decent facility because DECENCY.

How's that for a reason?

Or do you think poorly performing kids /schools should just be left in squalor?

NP - no one wants them in squalor but they are half empty. We need fewer schools. Give them to charters on 20-year leases.

For now, sure. But 10 years from now that space may be needed for DCPS.

The question is whether DCPS or a charter would serve the public better with the space. DCPS isn't making a strong case for itself.

Hmm, if you give all the facilities to charters, where will the kids attend when the charters counsel them out for one reason or another? And please, don't give me that nonsense that charters do not counsel children out. I've seen it for myself. And before you give that trite argument that I must hate charters, just stop. I don't hate charters. My kid is benefiting greatly by attending a great charter and not having to deal with the kids that were counseled to find a better fit.

[Anonymous]

At least Ellington is a school. Why is the city spending $55 million to build the Wizards a fancy practice facility?! It is ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is exhausting. Parents are to blame because they wrongly believe that anything new and shiny means the school is better. So they bitch non stop for new facilities and wow, the test scores still suck. You can renovate Cardozo, rebuild Dunbar and build a new brook land middle...guess what the test scores are abysmal, high SES parents won't send their kids there but yet everyone whines to spend more money or more new buildings.

I don't believe it will change test scores. But I'd like my kids (and ALL other kid in the city) to have decent facility because DECENCY.

How's that for a reason?

Or do you think poorly performing kids /schools should just be left in squalor?

NP - no one wants them in squalor but they are half empty. We need fewer schools. Give them to charters on 20-year leases.

That's the crust of every argument. Give the schools to charters. Frack those kids attending DCPS.

I think you mean crux.

No it's not. The idea is have the children in the under enrolled, failing schools have the opportunity to attend a renovated, fully enrolled school with more resources and effective DCPS administrators.

Let successful (Tier 1 only perhaps) charters compete for the chance to lease the empty buildings so that those students, who are also DC residents, have a decent educational experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have driven by Ellington 5 times during the last 10 days on my way to a conference in Virginia. I have seen, literally, no work being done on the building. Is it on some kind of hold?

I hope so. Maybe we can revisit that disaster of a decision before we sink any more money into it.

I rarely see any work being done driving past Ellington in the middle of the day... So it's way over budget and way over schedule.

The delay infuriates me more than the price tag. Friend's DC is a sophomore at Ellington. Great student. Best case she will spend 1 year in the new building.

No excuse for ANY of these renovations taking 3+ years.

I am a big supporter of Ellington, and turn my nose up at most of the belly whacking posters on this thread, but your post PP, I and most DE supporters can agree with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is exhausting. Parents are to blame because they wrongly believe that anything new and shiny means the school is better. So they bitch non stop for new facilities and wow, the test scores still suck. You can renovate Cardozo, rebuild Dunbar and build a new brook land middle...guess what the test scores are abysmal, high SES parents won't send their kids there but yet everyone whines to spend more money or more new buildings.

I don't believe it will change test scores. But I'd like my kids (and ALL other kid in the city) to have decent facility because DECENCY.

How's that for a reason?

Or do you think poorly performing kids /schools should just be left in squalor?

NP - no one wants them in squalor but they are half empty. We need fewer schools. Give them to charters on 20-year leases.

That's the crust of every argument. Give the schools to charters. Frack those kids attending DCPS.

I think you mean crux.

No it's not. The idea is have the children in the under enrolled, failing schools have the opportunity to attend a renovated, fully enrolled school with more resources and effective DCPS administrators.

Let successful (Tier 1 only perhaps) charters compete for the chance to lease the empty buildings so that those students, who are also DC residents, have a decent educational experience.

Come on! You don't care about those kids. You just want the building for another charter school. Those kids in the DCPS would have little chance of getting into this now newly relocated facility. That charter would be filled with the charters existing students, followed by siblings and teachers kids. BTW, the buildings are not empty. They may not be filled to capacity, but they are not empty. The students sitting in their seats are not inanimate objects to be ignored.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:the Murch bellyaching is really tiresome. SO many elementary schools are in worse shape than Murch and not seeing a dime while some in the Murch community are complaining over $70 mil as insufficient. Try getting out of your bubble once in a while. Lots of successful schools have learned to live with less.

I bet the Murch bellyaching is exponentially more tiresome for the Murch community who would rather not have to engage in it. It is not their fault that a school design that is similar to other recent school renovations was wrongly budgeted -- more than once apparently -- by DCPS. Are you really going to blame them for advocating on behalf of their school? More power to them I say. I guarantee that if I were in their place, my bellyaching would be the least of the things you found tiresome.