New DCPS school on former Georgetown Day site will be a high school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, this is all on the Mayor, as is the Jellef debacle. (Well that's partially on Jack Evans.)

I don't agree with FCCA generally, but that building is actually historical. It deserves protection more than a lot of other joke historical buildings/areas in the city. (See directly across Reservoir, in fact.)

I wouldn't trust anyone attempting to shift blame to the FCCA. DCPS has plenty of historic schools. If they wanted Old Hardy, despite the mayor's secret plans, they had plenty of time to say so. Instead they didn't, and went along with the whole thing. Needless to say, they're not the most competent, and it's just another example of that.

DCPS doesn't exist as an entity distinct from the executive branch, which is run by the Mayor. Anyone in DCPS who publicly spoke out on Old Hardy would face the Mayor's wrath.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Which is why it is a good thing Cheh is retiring. Her annoited successor should not be rewarded in this election.

Y’all have this backwards. There were a lot of divisive neighborhood issues that Cheh tried to straddle or otherwise sidestep, but Old Hardy was not one of them. Bowser first tried to use emergency legislation to dispose of the building and turn it over permanently to LAB; Cheh stopped that (https://thedcline.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/2019-03-06-Dear-Colleagues-re-Old-Hardy.pdf). The Bowser administration then unilaterally decided to renew the LAB lease 3 years early, announcing this on Christmas Eve 2020. Cheh was very pissed off by this and asked the AG to review the legality of the renewal (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/08/20/dc-council-should-stop-allowing-private-entities-take-over-public-parks-buildings/). She opposed the renewal; she was not involved in it.

Also opposed to the renewal was the Palisades Community Association, which was most recently led by Tricia Duncan. See here for the details: http://www.palisadesdc.org/documents/hardypublic.pdf

Other than Bowser, the lease renewal was backed by one other group and that was the Foxhall Community Citizens Association (FCCA). They wrote to the mayor opposing the “Keep Old Hardy Public” campaign and had the building historically designated in 2017 to complicate the process of repurposing it as a public school building (DM Kihn has claimed that the designation was a key factor in the decision to renew the lease).

Bowser’s chief fundraiser had a kid or kids at Lab and his wife was on the Lab board, yes?

That is true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:yes

the fix was in, cheh was part of it from the outset

The thing about the Lab lease is it took almost eight years, the first public announcement was in late winter 2013 and the final deal was signed in late December 2020. When the lease was first proposed Cheh didn't oppose it, although I don't think she cared much either way. Lab parents are incredibly vocal, FCCA is incredibly vocal, she just didn't want the hassle of having to deal with either of them. Then as word seeped out and opposition grew she realized she had to take a stand, and she came out against it. But that was years into the saga, maybe around 2018? (I'm trying to remember).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm very much in favor of fixing up the Trolley trail, but I didn't think the DDOT studies actually looked at replacing all the bridges they removed in the 60s/80s? Some of those crossings are unsafe for anyone (Canal rd to the West, Foxhall rd to the East).

The city could, though very unlikely, put bus lanes on Foxhall, Resevoir, or MacArthur (and M street!). There's definitely room.

The DDOT study on the Palisades Trolley Trail indeed proposed to build the new bridges. See here: https://ddot.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/ddot/page_content/attachments/Appendix1_TrailConceptDesignPackage_FINAL_Reduced.pdf

Reservoir is wide enough to accommodate a dedicated bus / bike lane (similar to H St in front of the WH). You just need to take out the parking in front of the Gtown hospital. Given that the hospital is building a new parking garage, that shouldn’t be a problem.

This seems like a whole heck of a lot of drama to prevent WOTP folk from being re-routed East. Why not figure out a bus system that takes some Wilson bounded kids to Cardozo High while also making Cardozo more appealing to citywide kids.

If you can figure out how to make Cardozo more appealing to citywide kids (and ain't because it's not next to a Metro stop), you'd literally be worth millions to the city. Please send them your ideas. In the meantime, we face a choice between: (i) busing; (ii) restricting students to in-boundary schools; (iii) tolerating over-crowding in the good schools; or (iv) building more schools in the parts of town where schools are over-crowded so those schools can at least continue to be good. Of those alternatives, I think (iv) is the least worst. If you disagree, let us know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm very much in favor of fixing up the Trolley trail, but I didn't think the DDOT studies actually looked at replacing all the bridges they removed in the 60s/80s? Some of those crossings are unsafe for anyone (Canal rd to the West, Foxhall rd to the East).

The city could, though very unlikely, put bus lanes on Foxhall, Resevoir, or MacArthur (and M street!). There's definitely room.

The DDOT study on the Palisades Trolley Trail indeed proposed to build the new bridges. See here: https://ddot.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/ddot/page_content/attachments/Appendix1_TrailConceptDesignPackage_FINAL_Reduced.pdf

Reservoir is wide enough to accommodate a dedicated bus / bike lane (similar to H St in front of the WH). You just need to take out the parking in front of the Gtown hospital. Given that the hospital is building a new parking garage, that shouldn’t be a problem.

This seems like a whole heck of a lot of drama to prevent WOTP folk from being re-routed East. Why not figure out a bus system that takes some Wilson bounded kids to Cardozo High while also making Cardozo more appealing to citywide kids.

If DCPS knew how to make schools appealing everything would be a lot simpler. They just don't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:yes

the fix was in, cheh was part of it from the outset

The thing about the Lab lease is it took almost eight years, the first public announcement was in late winter 2013 and the final deal was signed in late December 2020. When the lease was first proposed Cheh didn't oppose it, although I don't think she cared much either way. Lab parents are incredibly vocal, FCCA is incredibly vocal, she just didn't want the hassle of having to deal with either of them. Then as word seeped out and opposition grew she realized she had to take a stand, and she came out against it. But that was years into the saga, maybe around 2018? (I'm trying to remember).

Weren't there two leases? Cheh supported the first one, but Lab wanted guarantees for an extension, and Cheh "opposed" that, but the mayor moved forward.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:yes

the fix was in, cheh was part of it from the outset

The thing about the Lab lease is it took almost eight years, the first public announcement was in late winter 2013 and the final deal was signed in late December 2020. When the lease was first proposed Cheh didn't oppose it, although I don't think she cared much either way. Lab parents are incredibly vocal, FCCA is incredibly vocal, she just didn't want the hassle of having to deal with either of them. Then as word seeped out and opposition grew she realized she had to take a stand, and she came out against it. But that was years into the saga, maybe around 2018? (I'm trying to remember).

Weren't there two leases? Cheh supported the first one, but Lab wanted guarantees for an extension, and Cheh "opposed" that, but the mayor moved forward.

The original lease started in 1998, it had a ten year original term and options for three five-year extensions. They did all the extensions and the final one would have expired in 2023. The lease was originally to an entity called Rock Creek International School, which went bankrupt. Lab bought the lease from the bankruptcy trustees in 2008. In 2013, after the first five-year extension, Lab applied to have a 25-year lease with a 25-year optional extension, which the city had no option to refuse. The city would have lost control of the site for 50 years. By law those are the terms that the city has to give charter schools for former DCPS properties; Lab was asking to be treated like a charter school even though they are a private school and few of their students are DC residents. That lease failed to get council approval.

Members of the Lab board held a fundraiser for David Grosso, and he inserted language into the DCPS budget saying that existing tenants at former DCPS properties had to be treated like charters. Lab kept trying for the 50 year lease, and it kept failing to get council approval, by the narrowest of margins. At one point the Council actually approved the lease, but Bowser vetoed it on procedural grounds.

Finally, on Christmas Eve 2020 the Bowser administration just renewed the lease under the maximum term that wouldn't require council approval, 15 years.

I'm sure we haven't seen the last of the 50 year lease attempts.

[Anonymous]

So, what's the next step? Does the fact that the Chancellor announced plans for those two schools in a letter constitute notice to families? When should we hear about grandfathering policies, any formal venue for Hardy families to be heard? Where is the website that will reveal the planning for the physical campuses? How will the boundaries be redrawn to allow for the Foxhall Elementary School. Such typical DCPS process. Make a big, crazy-making announcement without any detail and then just keep mum.

The way the name change at Wilson HS was "announced" was such a thud...a nothingburger. There should have been a big sign unveiling, tshirts and other merch should have been handed out to the students and staff. Instead, I continue to receive emails with "Wilson" all over them but with Reed-Jackson included in the text too. For all the money they spend on crap, couldn't some decent PR firm have been given this contract? Sigh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, what's the next step? Does the fact that the Chancellor announced plans for those two schools in a letter constitute notice to families? When should we hear about grandfathering policies, any formal venue for Hardy families to be heard? Where is the website that will reveal the planning for the physical campuses? How will the boundaries be redrawn to allow for the Foxhall Elementary School. Such typical DCPS process. Make a big, crazy-making announcement without any detail and then just keep mum.

The way the name change at Wilson HS was "announced" was such a thud...a nothingburger. There should have been a big sign unveiling, tshirts and other merch should have been handed out to the students and staff. Instead, I continue to receive emails with "Wilson" all over them but with Reed-Jackson included in the text too. For all the money they spend on crap, couldn't some decent PR firm have been given this contract? Sigh.

Nope. I think us Hardy families just get to accept this or leave. Be happy with the half baked high school! Why would you care about established programs and academics or leadership or anything else?!? What, this would have changed your behavior for the upcoming school year if you’d known before the lottery or private school application deadlines passed? Tough luck!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, what's the next step? Does the fact that the Chancellor announced plans for those two schools in a letter constitute notice to families? When should we hear about grandfathering policies, any formal venue for Hardy families to be heard? Where is the website that will reveal the planning for the physical campuses? How will the boundaries be redrawn to allow for the Foxhall Elementary School. Such typical DCPS process. Make a big, crazy-making announcement without any detail and then just keep mum.

The way the name change at Wilson HS was "announced" was such a thud...a nothingburger. There should have been a big sign unveiling, tshirts and other merch should have been handed out to the students and staff. Instead, I continue to receive emails with "Wilson" all over them but with Reed-Jackson included in the text too. For all the money they spend on crap, couldn't some decent PR firm have been given this contract? Sigh.

Nope. I think us Hardy families just get to accept this or leave. Be happy with the half baked high school! Why would you care about established programs and academics or leadership or anything else?!? What, this would have changed your behavior for the upcoming school year if you’d known before the lottery or private school application deadlines passed? Tough luck!

Nonsense. This is a very, very good thing. This HS will be stellar the day it opens. There will be some growing pains, but nothing that will get in the way of a superb academic environment. It will quickly be overcrowded.

I and the other Hardy parents I know are excited about this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, what's the next step? Does the fact that the Chancellor announced plans for those two schools in a letter constitute notice to families? When should we hear about grandfathering policies, any formal venue for Hardy families to be heard? Where is the website that will reveal the planning for the physical campuses? How will the boundaries be redrawn to allow for the Foxhall Elementary School. Such typical DCPS process. Make a big, crazy-making announcement without any detail and then just keep mum.

The way the name change at Wilson HS was "announced" was such a thud...a nothingburger. There should have been a big sign unveiling, tshirts and other merch should have been handed out to the students and staff. Instead, I continue to receive emails with "Wilson" all over them but with Reed-Jackson included in the text too. For all the money they spend on crap, couldn't some decent PR firm have been given this contract? Sigh.

Nope. I think us Hardy families just get to accept this or leave. Be happy with the half baked high school! Why would you care about established programs and academics or leadership or anything else?!? What, this would have changed your behavior for the upcoming school year if you’d known before the lottery or private school application deadlines passed? Tough luck!

Nonsense. This is a very, very good thing. This HS will be stellar the day it opens. There will be some growing pains, but nothing that will get in the way of a superb academic environment. It will quickly be overcrowded.

I and the other Hardy parents I know are excited about this.

Why is it nonsense that I want to send my child to an established high school? I don’t want my child to pave the way as either the first or second class in a brand new high school with growing pains. Or depending on what they do for grandfathering, maybe the first class with half the place still under construction. I’m happy for you that you think it’s great. Not everyone is as excited or interested. That is neither nonsense nor shocking that someone would have a different opinion on this when they’ve thought for the last 8+ years they had their child on track to attend one high school and 2 years out that gets pulled away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, what's the next step? Does the fact that the Chancellor announced plans for those two schools in a letter constitute notice to families? When should we hear about grandfathering policies, any formal venue for Hardy families to be heard? Where is the website that will reveal the planning for the physical campuses? How will the boundaries be redrawn to allow for the Foxhall Elementary School. Such typical DCPS process. Make a big, crazy-making announcement without any detail and then just keep mum.

The way the name change at Wilson HS was "announced" was such a thud...a nothingburger. There should have been a big sign unveiling, tshirts and other merch should have been handed out to the students and staff. Instead, I continue to receive emails with "Wilson" all over them but with Reed-Jackson included in the text too. For all the money they spend on crap, couldn't some decent PR firm have been given this contract? Sigh.

Nope. I think us Hardy families just get to accept this or leave. Be happy with the half baked high school! Why would you care about established programs and academics or leadership or anything else?!? What, this would have changed your behavior for the upcoming school year if you’d known before the lottery or private school application deadlines passed? Tough luck!

Nonsense. This is a very, very good thing. This HS will be stellar the day it opens. There will be some growing pains, but nothing that will get in the way of a superb academic environment. It will quickly be overcrowded.

I and the other Hardy parents I know are excited about this.

Why is it nonsense that I want to send my child to an established high school? I don’t want my child to pave the way as either the first or second class in a brand new high school with growing pains. Or depending on what they do for grandfathering, maybe the first class with half the place still under construction. I’m happy for you that you think it’s great. Not everyone is as excited or interested. That is neither nonsense nor shocking that someone would have a different opinion on this when they’ve thought for the last 8+ years they had their child on track to attend one high school and 2 years out that gets pulled away.

Oh come on. This was a tad melodramatic, don't you think: "I think us Hardy families just get to accept this or leave. Be happy with the half baked high school!"

If your precious child is close to HS, they will have their choice of HS. If your child is not close to HS, it is hard for me to defend delaying boundary/feeder changes because you thought you had it all mapped out.

[Anonymous]

I am not sure why we work so hard at the navel gazing and looking for perfect answers.

Save $100M by having more kids go to Cardozo or Shaw or whatever

The alternative to sticking different populations and then matching staffing to matching their needs around here is always build an F-ing new building because a new box never has the old problems and the old box is a bottomless cesspool. People are so f-ing facile about this it's pitiful. You think you can get a sports team and advanced teacher of X at Palisades High that you couldn't get at Cardozo High? Forget it. It's the same process. There's no magic of the new.

So then comes the argument that we all are gonna leave. "White people ghost town. Black middle class needs to be the most fearful because the bad kids are black. Asian families demand TJ Junior." Blah blah terrible arguments blah.

We have always had the alternative of moving to east bumblefk. That's why DC has 600K and the region has 6M population. Just do it, it integrates the city and the tears last a f-ing year and then it's done. We hustle to get the teachers we want into the schools we got instead of into a construction project on Foxhall. Gawd we're like the kid standing at the end of the diving board all the time wondering if we can crawl back down the stairs instead of diving in. Eventually, we've got to dive in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: I am not sure why we work so hard at the navel gazing and looking for perfect answers.

Save $100M by having more kids go to Cardozo or Shaw or whatever

The alternative to sticking different populations and then matching staffing to matching their needs around here is always build an F-ing new building because a new box never has the old problems and the old box is a bottomless cesspool. People are so f-ing facile about this it's pitiful. You think you can get a sports team and advanced teacher of X at Palisades High that you couldn't get at Cardozo High? Forget it. It's the same process. There's no magic of the new.

So then comes the argument that we all are gonna leave. "White people ghost town. Black middle class needs to be the most fearful because the bad kids are black. Asian families demand TJ Junior." Blah blah terrible arguments blah.

We have always had the alternative of moving to east bumblefk. That's why DC has 600K and the region has 6M population. Just do it, it integrates the city and the tears last a f-ing year and then it's done. We hustle to get the teachers we want into the schools we got instead of into a construction project on Foxhall. Gawd we're like the kid standing at the end of the diving board all the time wondering if we can crawl back down the stairs instead of diving in. Eventually, we've got to dive in.

This reads like someone who has no f_ing clue about what she speaks. Like, do you even have children, let alone children in DCPS? You pronounce on high but betray that you know nothing.

Admittedly, this is not a substantive response. I see no indication that putting forth even a modicum of effort engaging with this poster will pay any dividends whatsoever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: I am not sure why we work so hard at the navel gazing and looking for perfect answers.

Save $100M by having more kids go to Cardozo or Shaw or whatever

The alternative to sticking different populations and then matching staffing to matching their needs around here is always build an F-ing new building because a new box never has the old problems and the old box is a bottomless cesspool. People are so f-ing facile about this it's pitiful. You think you can get a sports team and advanced teacher of X at Palisades High that you couldn't get at Cardozo High? Forget it. It's the same process. There's no magic of the new.

So then comes the argument that we all are gonna leave. "White people ghost town. Black middle class needs to be the most fearful because the bad kids are black. Asian families demand TJ Junior." Blah blah terrible arguments blah.

We have always had the alternative of moving to east bumblefk. That's why DC has 600K and the region has 6M population. Just do it, it integrates the city and the tears last a f-ing year and then it's done. We hustle to get the teachers we want into the schools we got instead of into a construction project on Foxhall. Gawd we're like the kid standing at the end of the diving board all the time wondering if we can crawl back down the stairs instead of diving in. Eventually, we've got to dive in.

Sorry, no interest in sending my kid to a high school where a shockingly low percentage of students can score proficient on testing, where truancy and the drop out rate are perpetually high, where AP classes are few and far between, where the guidance counseling staff spends so much time on emotional/social welfare issues that college counseling is an afterthought, and where there is an on campus playground for the children of teen parents. I owe it to my child to give them better, more. And i'm not interested in building or building up a school. So if that means moving, ok.