Child crying over DCPS letter to cut Fillmore

[Anonymous]

Why don't you folks lobby for Ellington to host the arts program? They have the equipment, teachers and funds, right? I bet they will increase the Hardy enrollment eirh the extra space.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why don't you folks lobby for Ellington to host the arts program? They have the equipment, teachers and funds, right? I bet they will increase the Hardy enrollment eirh the extra space.

That's a good idea, assuming that the staff is able to work with young children. When will the renovations be ready?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why don't you folks lobby for Ellington to host the arts program? They have the equipment, teachers and funds, right? I bet they will increase the Hardy enrollment eirh the extra space.

That's a good idea, assuming that the staff is able to work with young children. When will the renovations be ready?

Fall 2018 (supposedly).

[Anonymous]

Why is Ellington relevant, other than the hundreds of millions the City is blowing on it in comparison to a few thousand to support arts for 5 elementary school kids? The root of the problem is these 5 schools are overcrowded without space, whereas Fillmore has the space. DCPS wishes to rob them of it and condemn them to an (obviously) sub-standard arts education when compared to all of the other kids in the City.

[Anonymous]

From the "Brent" thread, there's a link to last week's D.C. Council Public Oversight Hearing on schools, involving Kaya Henderson, Beers, and others:

http://dc.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=3105

At minute 50, Mary Cheh had questions about the homeless shelter; at min 54, Cheh has questions on Fillmore.

The good news is at min 57, Kaya Henderson said she "will cooperate" to keep Fillmore open next year with more funds.

Henderson repeated some incorrect talking points about Fillmore, such as the idea that Fillmore used to serve the entire city for period of time, and that there has been a significant dropoff of Fillmore feeder schools in the past few years which makes it less financially practical than it once was. Simply untrue.

Kaya also suggested that Fillmore needs public-private funding, like Ellington, if it wants a long-term future. That is probably true, Fillmore supporters!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Stoddert has 0 spare rooms, too. The new unfunded LEAP requirements further restricted the school's ability to make new space or do anything more to fund arts programming and certainly not start up a new arts program at the school.

The principles will probably use their art teacher positions to meet the requirements for this LEAP business. That's what I would do, not much choice really. Good night arts teachers, music and dance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From the "Brent" thread, there's a link to last week's D.C. Council Public Oversight Hearing on schools, involving Kaya Henderson, Beers, and others:

http://dc.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=3105

At minute 50, Mary Cheh had questions about the homeless shelter; at min 54, Cheh has questions on Fillmore.

The good news is at min 57, Kaya Henderson said she "will cooperate" to keep Fillmore open next year with more funds.

Henderson repeated some incorrect talking points about Fillmore, such as the idea that Fillmore used to serve the entire city for period of time, and that there has been a significant dropoff of Fillmore feeder schools in the past few years which makes it less financially practical than it once was. Simply untrue.

Kaya also suggested that Fillmore needs public-private funding, like Ellington, if it wants a long-term future. That is probably true, Fillmore supporters!

You're entitled to your own opinion. But you're not entitled to your own facts. Remember Fillmore East, as in East of the River? The most recent Fillmore withdrawals include Garrison and Hearst.

There are schools with full-time arts teachers and space that are logistically more efficient than Fillmore. Marie Reed could partner with Cooke. Ross could partner with Garrison.

That would leaves Hyde, Key and Stoddert, Hardy feeder schools. Maybe the leaders of those schools can figure out a way to make it work. Perhaps more IB people would attend Hardy if it was incorporated directly into feeders and indirectly through Fillmore breathing the same air in the Hardy building.

Kaya clearly wants to kick the Fillmore can down the road to assuage squeaky wheels. But make no mistake, the principals and central don't want the Fillmore arrangement. It's a legacy of desegregation efforts from the 70s. It's time to find an alternative.

[Anonymous]

As a matter of FACT, "Fillmore East" was a project that never took off. Kaya cannot credibly use it as a talking point for destruction of Fillmore. It's been around for 42 years and has served the same core primary schools for that entire time.

And I have no idea what PP is talking about with respect to "desegregation efforts"...something odd going on there.

[Anonymous]

You're entitled to your own opinion. But you're not entitled to your own facts. Remember Fillmore East, as in East of the River? The most recent Fillmore withdrawals include Garrison and Hearst.

There are schools with full-time arts teachers and space that are logistically more efficient than Fillmore. Marie Reed could partner with Cooke. Ross could partner with Garrison.

That would leaves Hyde, Key and Stoddert, Hardy feeder schools. Maybe the leaders of those schools can figure out a way to make it work. Perhaps more IB people would attend Hardy if it was incorporated directly into feeders and indirectly through Fillmore breathing the same air in the Hardy building.

Kaya clearly wants to kick the Fillmore can down the road to assuage squeaky wheels. But make no mistake, the principals and central don't want the Fillmore arrangement. It's a legacy of desegregation efforts from the 70s. It's time to find an alternative.

Which principals don't want the Fillmore arrangement? From what I know, all 5 principals support the continuation of Fillmore. Also, I'm not sure that your proposal to scale down the program to three schools rather than five makes sense. Why not just send Hyde and Key to SWWFS and Stoddert to Mann?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
That would leaves Hyde, Key and Stoddert, Hardy feeder schools. Maybe the leaders of those schools can figure out a way to make it work. Perhaps more IB people would attend Hardy if it was incorporated directly into feeders and indirectly through Fillmore breathing the same air in the Hardy building.

I don't understand this part. Fillmore already breathes the same air as Hardy, it's on the third floor of the Hardy building. What are you proposing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why don't you folks lobby for Ellington to host the arts program? They have the equipment, teachers and funds, right? I bet they will increase the Hardy enrollment eirh the extra space.

That's a good idea, assuming that the staff is able to work with young children. When will the renovations be ready?

Who would make such an assumption? Elementary education is so fundamentally different from HS. This sounds like the fartchild of someone whose brain thinks "oh - teaching, arts, programming... aren't they all the same?"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: Which principals don't want the Fillmore arrangement? From what I know, all 5 principals support the continuation of Fillmore.

Really? Why did OP's child come home crying? Didn't the principal not know about the letter from DCPS? Did any of the principals send something other than or in addition to that letter?

[Anonymous]

The PTAs have been sending home/emailing 'keep Fillmore open' letters & petitions. I haven't been particularly impressed by what the younger ES kids do are Fillmore, maybe it picks up as the kids get more sophisticated. I would be interested in what a school-anchored 'art on a cart' model could look like - especially with the gusto that our school parent community brings to programs at the school. On the other hand, now I'm having flashbacks to someone bringing in xylophones to my ES classroom & most of the time the kids spent trying to hit each other with the mallets. But no or less arts education would be worse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a little emotionally over-wrought, no?
Your kid is going to come home crying over much more important things in the future.

No. This is awful.

No. In the scope of things it really isn't. When high-strung entitled white families don't have access to the NPR of cheap and free arts programs in a city where a significant number of children can't read at grade level and SN students are underserved, this is not awful.

So, no.

Do you understand anything about education? Do you also think recess is a luxury for whiners? Arts and music and physical activity are absolutely necessary for performance in your precious "academic" studies. No wonder we're raising generations of visually illiterate and lazy kids.

Sigh. Illiterate means "unable to read." Full stop. Inventing terms like "visually illiterate" to bolster your defense of a boondoggle is lazy and unconvincing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why don't you folks lobby for Ellington to host the arts program? They have the equipment, teachers and funds, right? I bet they will increase the Hardy enrollment eirh the extra space.

That's a good idea, assuming that the staff is able to work with young children. When will the renovations be ready?

Who would make such an assumption? Elementary education is so fundamentally different from HS. This sounds like the fartchild of someone whose brain thinks "oh - teaching, arts, programming... aren't they all the same?"

Ellington arts teachers are part-time and only teach in the afternoon. Who would pay for additional hours and busing?