Mary Cheh not running for re-election?
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Anonymous
Can't agree with the last sentence. Overall DC has a rather small proportion of families with children, which is one of the reasons DCPS can get away with being so mismanaged. Ward 3 has the highest percentage of kids in private school, about 50%. While parents of DCPS kids are organized and vocal they are few in number. |
Anonymous
Maybe in raw numbers, but at least three of the announced candidates are purposed DCPS people, so there will presumably be dialogue about what to do with Ward 3 schools being overcrowded. Frumin had an active role in a viable solution that DCPS chose to ignore. Frumin also was the parent in charge of the successful Wilson High School renovation and worked closely on the details that helped advance the educational and social programs there. He also played a role in the Reno School renovation with Deal. He has been a tremendous advocate for the Ward 3 schools over the last 20 years. People don't forget that. |
Anonymous
I was actually with most of what David was in favor of until he got to the part about not supporting the upcoming changes to CT Ave (bike lanes and lane switches). Making CT Ave a highway and giving commuters as many lanes as they want is a huge giveaway to MD commuters. I grew up in Ward 3 and my parents are still there and they and most of their friends support the changes to CT Ave because as they age it is harder for them to safely cross. |
Anonymous
I know her- she grew up in Ward 3 and graduated from DCPS schools. |
Anonymous
+1 The changes proposed by DDOT and the Mayor, as supported by ALL of the ANC's up and down Connecticut Avenue will vastly improve the quality of life for thousands of DC residents who live in Ward 3. It is decades in the making and cannot happen soon enough. It is so ironic that the republican candidate is the NIMBY here. |
Anonymous
That doesn't make her qualified to be a councilmember. She will have a lot of work to do to get known outside of the little hamlet known as Palisades, where she has zero exposure to affordable housing or density debates that take place on the other main corridors in the Ward. |
Anonymous
You want where you live to be an easy place to drive to, but not an easy place to drive through. |
Anonymous
This is correct, and yet, the nature of a primary like this one (with, like, 27 candidates, all with low name ID and no incumbent) makes it such that if you can lock up most of the "parents of current DCPS students" vote, you'll probably win. |
Anonymous
| All of those kids at Key Elementary who will eventually go on to Wilson high School, including Ms. Duncan's kids, have Matthew Frumin to thank for how great the renovation turned out. |
Anonymous
Citation needed. The number of Ward 3 kids who attend DCPS grew by 25 percent between 2014-15 to 2018-19, the largest increase in the city. Ward 3 also had the largest increase in students attending a DCPS high school over that span, growing by 33 percent. Hence we have schools that are overcrowded. https://www.dcpolicycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/State-of-DC-Schools-2018-19-web-res.pdf If you think that public schools will not be an issue in the Ward 3 primary -- and maybe *the* issue -- you are hopelessly clueless about Ward 3 politics. I would also wager that, even if a sizable number of Ward 3 kids go to private schools, Ward 3 public school parents are much more likely to vote in the primary and thus are a much more powerful constituency than the Ward 3 private school parents, many of whom I'd wager are Republicans who cannot vote in the Democratic primary and thus will have zero say in who is elected (the Republican candidate, whoever it is, has no hope of winning in the general election). |
Anonymous
All of this. The numbers of Ward 3 students attending Ward 3 schools ballooned over the last decade. They parents are generally active and engaged and will be watching this race very closely. |
Anonymous
The candidates really do seem to be splitting into two camps: those who have dealt with DCPS issues in the past, and the GGW, "development at all costs" candidates. I've had numerous conversations with the latter type in the CCDC SAP meetings, and I often ask them: How does adding thousands of residents to the area help schools that already are overcrowded? The answers they give are often revealing: -- "We'll figure it all out after adding density" (a recipe for disaster) -- "Ward 3 residents are all wealthy, they can just send their kids to private schools" (uhh, not all of us, and getting into private schools is not exactly easy) -- "They will just have to move" (so insulting) -- blank stare (from the many, many GGW supporters who don't have kids and have not given one ounce of thought to the issue; these people usually don't live in W3, either, but still think they know best) The candidates who ignore the schools issue do so at their own peril. |
Anonymous
| Clearly there needs to be redistricting so people are able to go to their inbound school and add capacity where needed. That is the whole point of the new campuses in lower Palisades, but that may not alleviate the jam at Wilson. |
Anonymous
Most of the kids who attend DCPS Ward 3 schools don't live in Ward 3. Yes, in elementary most of the kids are in-boundary, and the boundaries don't cross ward lines except for Lafayette. But Deal and Wilson comprise a substantial portion of the kids in Ward 3 schools, their boundaries cross ward lines, and both still have a substantial number of OOB kids. You add it all up and the non-Ward 3 kids are a slight majority. |
Anonymous
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But Ward 3 is not in a position to tell out of boundary kids they cannot attend deal and wilson unless or until there are middle and high school options that are on par. So a new Ward Councilmember can simply do what Cheh did - support DCPS in upgrading its program so kids in other parts of the city will feel comfortable with their in-boundary options.
Easier said than done because DCPS generally is disfunctional. |