The fate of Fillmore

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What's the problem with Fillmore, again? Or, for the first time? I missed it.

Downtown has always hated it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's the problem with Fillmore, again? Or, for the first time? I missed it.

Downtown has always hated it.

And I don't like Asparagus. But, really, what's the problem with Fillmore? That one day Hardy MIGHT want to increase its enrollment and take over Fillmore's art rooms? Is that a good reason? (being a bit snarky here, admittedly(

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's the problem with Fillmore, again? Or, for the first time? I missed it.

Downtown has always hated it.

And I don't like Asparagus. But, really, what's the problem with Fillmore? That one day Hardy MIGHT want to increase its enrollment and take over Fillmore's art rooms? Is that a good reason? (being a bit snarky here, admittedly(

Cost. The schools pay what they would pay for art teachers and DCPS has to kick in more to make it work.

Staff accountability. Some say the teachers are contractors to the Fillmore nonprofit; others say they work for DCPS. But regardless they don't report to a single principal and thus it probably messes with the accountability.

Equity. Parents who want to keep Fillmore talk about the excellent arts education they are getting; better, in fact, than what DCPS provides for everyone else.

[Anonymous]

Also -- loss of instructional time while traveling to and from Fillmore.

[Anonymous]

Who are you, Marie Antoinette? Do you wear a powdered wig, too?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this a WOTP thing?

Not exactly. Housed at Hardy middle school, Fillmore provides arts instruction to students from Key, River Terrace, Ross, Stoddert and West.

It requires bussing the kids to Hardy, and the schools that use it devote part of their school's budget to pay for it. http://fillmoreartscenter.org/about-2/

Fewer schools use it now than in the past. Marie Reed used to be a Fillmore school, but now that its renovation is complete they do arts instruction in-house.

River Terrace and West are nowhere near Fillmore! There has to be a better way. The intra-day commute makes no sense.

Ross parent. The commute is about 20 on a slow bus trip. It is not really a big deal. Especially when the alternative is no arts space, not even a space sink to wash paint brushes in the school building. Some of the programming is very average, some is great. But way better than what could be delivered in our school building.

I don't really get why arts instruction can't be done in regular classrooms? Why does it require so much space? Not trying to be obtuse -- I just really don't understand.

In some cases it can. fine arts for example - if there are sinks, and space for arts supplies. Our school has neither. Dance and drama could be possible if the desks were moved out of the room, but noisy for for the next door classes, music pretty much impossible. Pottery defiantly not.

The problem with putting it in the regular classroom is space--for sinks, for supplies (easels, paper, drawing materials, paints, clay, etc.), for projects to dry, etc. Also, having it in a dedicated room means that the art teacher can do set up and clean up before the kids arrive and after they leave, so less cutting into regular instruction time. And music really needs its own space if you're using any instrument bigger than a recorder.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's the problem with Fillmore, again? Or, for the first time? I missed it.

Downtown has always hated it.

And I don't like Asparagus. But, really, what's the problem with Fillmore? That one day Hardy MIGHT want to increase its enrollment and take over Fillmore's art rooms? Is that a good reason? (being a bit snarky here, admittedly(

Cost. The schools pay what they would pay for art teachers and DCPS has to kick in more to make it work.

Staff accountability. Some say the teachers are contractors to the Fillmore nonprofit; others say they work for DCPS. But regardless they don't report to a single principal and thus it probably messes with the accountability.

Equity. Parents who want to keep Fillmore talk about the excellent arts education they are getting; better, in fact, than what DCPS provides for everyone else.

To cost: when I was on the LSAT downtown told us Fillmore cost more, we asked them to show us the numbers, they couldn't. In general DCPS budget numbers are a mess but the Fillmore accounting was particularly hinky, a lot of the numbers seemed just fetched from thin air.

To equity: if the program doesn't cost more, why kill something just because it's good? By that logic no one should ever have anything any better than the worst DCPS provides, in any category.

To the accountability and time arguments, all I can say is the principals like Fillmore. If it were a problem they'd be against it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's the problem with Fillmore, again? Or, for the first time? I missed it.

Downtown has always hated it.

And I don't like Asparagus. But, really, what's the problem with Fillmore? That one day Hardy MIGHT want to increase its enrollment and take over Fillmore's art rooms? Is that a good reason? (being a bit snarky here, admittedly(

Cost. The schools pay what they would pay for art teachers and DCPS has to kick in more to make it work.

Staff accountability. Some say the teachers are contractors to the Fillmore nonprofit; others say they work for DCPS. But regardless they don't report to a single principal and thus it probably messes with the accountability.

Equity. Parents who want to keep Fillmore talk about the excellent arts education they are getting; better, in fact, than what DCPS provides for everyone else.

To cost: when I was on the LSAT downtown told us Fillmore cost more, we asked them to show us the numbers, they couldn't. In general DCPS budget numbers are a mess but the Fillmore accounting was particularly hinky, a lot of the numbers seemed just fetched from thin air.

To equity: if the program doesn't cost more, why kill something just because it's good? By that logic no one should ever have anything any better than the worst DCPS provides, in any category. Equity would mean everybody gets the same access to Fillmore because it's better. So either all DCPS arts teachers are hired, trained, managed, supplied by Fillmore and sent on-site, like West and River Terrace. Or, every principal can ask to schlep kids over to Fillmore space so staff can get more planning time.

To the accountability and time arguments, all I can say is the principals like Fillmore. If it were a problem they'd be against it. Really? Then why are there fewer on-site schools every year? Ross, Key, and Stoddert are left. Ross shouldn't even be a school given how small it is.

So the real issue is space for anything, not just art, at Stoddert, Hardy and Key.

If only there was a $180 million state-of-the-art arts facility somewhere in Ward 2 that has space for......art.

[Anonymous]

HA HA. I think the idea of using some Duke Ellington space has bounced around. Not sure how workable it is.

Since they have state of the art music and performing spaces it would be great. But I am not sure if they are the sharing types, or even if they actually have room to space.