Maret still hoarding resources

[Anonymous]

Oh yay, the Maret basher is back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh yay, the Maret basher is back.

Somehow I don't think it's just one person who is pointing out the facts of Maret behaving poorly as a member of the DC community. It's been several news outlets reporting on the facts of Maret's unpopular actions with respect to Jelleff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maret can use some of the $55k/year it gets in tuition to get its own field and not hoard a public resource that it acquired through a sketchy DC council deal that wasn't offered to any institution but Maret (thanks to a City council member having his son enrolled at Maret).

DPR has $28 million in its budget to renovate Jelleff. It does not need the paltry few hundred thousand that Maret gave to get a decade of exclusive access to peak afterschool practice hours, while kids in Jelleff aftercare and public school kids at Hardy Middle School across the street are forced to play indoors at the rec center or at fields far away from their school.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So much drama at Maret not sure why

They seem to have a knack for doing the wrong thing and angering the community around them. It's not just Jelleff and keeping the public school kids from using the field. They pissed off Chevy Chase too.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/maret-sports-dc-playing-fields-equity-chevy-chase/2021/11/24/0fabcde6-4bbb-11ec-a1b9-9f12bd39487a_story.html

Paradise remade? A private school’s plan to build athletic fields roils Chevy Chase

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a parent at Maret. I don’t know the details of the agreement, but I do agree that the school should stop using Jellef (if that’s true).

Here’s some of the various news articles. I’m surprised you’re a parent at Maret and don’t know the history.

I can’t believe Maret is still hogging Jelleff after all these years of their shady backroom no bid deal. I thought they finally got tired of being a community pariah and stopped cheaping out and got a field.


https://deadspin.com/private-school-that-pocketed-public-rec-center-is-tired-1839260457/
https://deadspin.com/the-legendary-public-rec-center-in-a-private-schools-po-1837648863/

That’s not a news article, it’s an essay literally written by a pissed off Hardy parent (and to his credit, he discloses it). That fact that it’s online doesn’t make it news.

[Anonymous]

Maret maret maret …. What else do you deserve ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a parent at Maret. I don’t know the details of the agreement, but I do agree that the school should stop using Jellef (if that’s true).

Here’s some of the various news articles. I’m surprised you’re a parent at Maret and don’t know the history.

I can’t believe Maret is still hogging Jelleff after all these years of their shady backroom no bid deal. I thought they finally got tired of being a community pariah and stopped cheaping out and got a field.


https://deadspin.com/private-school-that-pocketed-public-rec-center-is-tired-1839260457/
https://deadspin.com/the-legendary-public-rec-center-in-a-private-schools-po-1837648863/

That’s not a news article, it’s an essay literally written by a pissed off Hardy parent (and to his credit, he discloses it). That fact that it’s online doesn’t make it news.

Deadspin was a popular sports blog. And yes, a pissed off parent wrote it, but you don't seem to be refuting the facts.

Anyway, you can read the articles from the Washington Post if you don't like Deadspin.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/a-private-school-saved-a-public-dc-field-should-it-get-preference-for-play-time/2019/10/21/7030f9c8-f412-11e9-a285-882a8e386a96_story.html

A dispute over a place to play soccer and baseball in Northwest Washington on Monday morphed into a broad debate about equity in the District, a city with stark disparities rooted in class.

D.C. lawmakers heard hours of emotional testimony on Monday from parents and students about a controversial arrangement that allows the private Maret School near-exclusive access to a public field across the street from Hardy Middle School in Georgetown.

City officials and Maret leaders defended a no-bid deal that allows the elite K-12 school the right to use the field at Jelleff Recreation Center during prime after-school hours until 2029. In exchange, the school with a $34 million endowment has agreed to pay $950,000 for maintenance and some renovations to the field and adjacent recreation center.

Critics and some lawmakers question whether a city now flush with cash still needs Maret’s help to maintain a public facility. And they note that the deal means that students at Hardy are blocked from using the field during prime hours, forcing their sports teams to travel across the city to compete. Under the arrangement, Hardy, which does not have a regulation field on its campus, is allowed to use Jelleff only on Wednesdays.

Katrina Tracy testified about the challenges of playing soccer as a Hardy student without regular access to the field next door.

She said she frequently missed her last classes of the day to travel for games and practiced alongside the boy’s soccer team at Hardy’s outdoor space: a cramped, oval-shaped piece of land with no lines and no full-size goals. The arrangement with Maret meant she never played a single home game in her years at Hardy, she said.

[Anonymous]

https://www.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

The deal signed this summer extends the older agreement, which is set to expire in 2020, according to Talbott. It is a continuation Maret has long been planning for and expecting, she said.

Aware of the expiration date, opponents began contacting department officials in January, according to neighborhood commissioner Kishan Putta, one of the petition’s authors and a D.C. Council candidate for Ward 2.

The eight commissioners for the area sent a letter to the department in March requesting that the agency be "highly transparent" as it decided whether to continue the deal with Maret and that it consider the needs of all community members — including the Jelleff Boys and Girls Club, which hosts a free after-school program at the site from about 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. weekdays.

Students enrolled in that program, which serves about 100 children every day from all of the District’s eight wards, have long been frustrated by their lack of access to a field, according to Bob Stowers, the longtime director of the club.

The Department of Parks and Recreation met multiple times with Putta and neighborhood commissioner Elizabeth Miller throughout the year, Putta said.

He said that at the commissioners’ urging, the agency hosted a public hearing about the field in May and that the overwhelming majority of attendees spoke out against the Maret deal.

Martin Welles, the vice president of the Parent Teacher Organization at Hardy Middle School, said many parents there are angry about the situation. Welles said his three children, all of whom play sports, must travel hours across the city, often in traffic, to reach fields for their practices and competitions.

Because they must leave school early to arrive on time to their athletic commitments, his children collectively missed about 60 full classes last academic year, Welles said.

[Anonymous]

Nice 6 year old article. If anything this is a technical glitch, not a purposeful slight. Maret doesn’t use the field at Jelleff anymore and hasn’t seemed to submit any permits for it. But everyone just looks for the worst in everyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nice 6 year old article. If anything this is a technical glitch, not a purposeful slight. Maret doesn’t use the field at Jelleff anymore and hasn’t seemed to submit any permits for it. But everyone just looks for the worst in everyone.

Now they just torment the neighbors from
The new field. They are very good choosing victims.

[Anonymous]

Best place to run into Maret kids is at the St. Albans fields. They love hopping the fences and sneaking onto the fields.
Such a complex those little frogs have...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Because that’s what your city counselors agreed to.

In a corrupt, "emergency" agreement. You would think Maret would have the integrity to stop enriching itseslf based on a corrupt deal now that it has solved its facilities problem.

Sounds like your issue is more with the city council. Probably best to lobby them than to appeal to the integrity of a private school on an anonymous message board.

Maret and the councilmembers in 2019 should be ashamed.

My problem is with both of them, and people have complained, of course, to the city council The reality is that it is harder for the city council to fix than Maret, who can just STOP using the field today.

How is it that they still want Maret along with their new fields? Aren't the new fields enough?!

No they’re not.

Why not? What will they do in 2030? Bribe politicians to hold onto Jelleff again?

Bribery? Come back down to earth. It doesn’t help your case to be so hyperbolic.

Why do you think the city council renewed the deal in 2019 as an "emergency" and not following standard protocol that would have allowed for public comment? Why was it renewed when the circumstances surrounding the arrangement were vastly different than a decade earller?

It didn't happen because it made sense for constituents at large! Someone felt compelled to do a favor for Maret. Why? I don't know that it was bribes, but perhaps something a little vaguer and more indirect? I welcome you to explain to me the inexplicable!

Not true, they had an option to renew in the original agreement. Nothing was done on emergency in 2019 and there was a public hearing held even tho the council had no contractual leverage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maret hasn't used the field since last fall. DPR is in charge of permitting.

Maret doesn't use the field in the winter. Maret has claim to the same time that every school needs fields -- weekdays, after school, Fall and Spring.

Maret is not currently using the field. DPR is in charge of permitting.

No, Maret's weekday, after school, Fall and Spring time is not avaible for permitting.

Hardy was apparently told by Maret that they are using the field.

The problem is that it’s not Hardy’s field either. Just one set of entitled ppl replacing another. It is Jelleff’s field and should be used primarily for the kids in the rec center. Hardy needs to solve its own problem not in the backs of the rec center kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one has given actual evidence that Maret is still using Jelleff much less denying its use to Hardy. Some anonymous rando claiming it is happening is not evidence. It's just more poop stirring from the DCUM Maret basher.

What evidence do you want? Do you want to see Hardy softball's form asking for permission for each child to take the bus to Macomb or Palisades?

I don't know whether Maret is using it. But I 100% know that Hardy teams can't use it because Maret still lays claim.

+1 The deal is in place til 2029. There are news stories about this. Not sure why Maret is trying to pretend they're not part of this sketchy deal. Clearly the financial benefit of not paying to develop their own athletic fields outweighs the reputational hit they have from benefiting from a corrupt city council deal made by a corrupt city council member who was forced to resign when it was clear he was going to be expelled (and whose son attended Maret).

The deal was made with DPR during the agents administration, the CM you are alluding to was nowhere around and his son never attended Maret for a single day. Stop lying or being ignorant.

[Anonymous]

During the Fenty administration