DCPS students shafted again - sign petition to keep Jelleff field public
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Anonymous
also, they only paid 25k/year. The rest of the money was for their own exclusive benefit. |
Anonymous
I think protesting the homecoming game points the spear in the wrong direction. So you want to cause a disruption to what should be a fun-filled time for any high school student? I don't know if you are the person posting throughout this thread chomping at the bit for a sit-in but if so, it seems you really want to do something to get back at the Maret students. A protest or some other type of action may be warranted but should be directed at where there is more leverage and has the power to create a different outcome. How about at the DPR office which is the other side of the two-side transaction and actually has in its mandate to deal with field allocation? How about the Mayor's office? Maret is not your leverage point. I want to join in the action of addressing community concerns but I am not going to join a protest at any high school soccer or football game or practice. Another route is to propose a solution that everyone still gets some decent outcome. Maret still pays for redoing the field and maintains it. maybe pays a fee too. Maret puts no $ into swimming pool or the rec center. For the fall soccer season next year: Monday/Friday: Hardy gets field before school or at 5:30; Maret gets field 3:30-5:30; Or Hardy can practice before school those days. Tuesday/Thursday: Hardy gets the field 3:30 - 5:30 and Maret gets it from 7pm to 9pm. They are high school kids so practicing later should be ok. On Wednesday Maret gets out of school at 1:45 so they get Jelleff 2pm to 4:00pm. Hardy gets it 4:00 to 6pm Afterschool kids use Hardy field while Hardy practices at Jelleff on Tuesday/Thursday/Wednesday afternoons DCPS furnishes bus to take aftercare kids to park in Glover park on Monday/Friday afternoons -- or just get rid of the pool and make a play space. |
Anonymous
You overlook the fact that the Maret "deal" and the lack of up-keep of fields like Ellington (e.g. Carter Barron, which is the absolute pits in my experience) are two sides of the same coin that is the total dysfunction at DPR. Maret and other private schools benefit from and exacerbate that dysfunction by arranging these deals in private. Maret can give all the scholarships it wants to whatever kids they deem to be "needy", but private entities that pervert established processes of public institutions are a menace to the public at large. If the leadership at Maret had any regard for the welfare of the citizens of this city, they would tear up whatever agreement they've come to with DPR and request that the process be re-run in a transparent fashion in which the needs of all stakeholders are heard and considered. |
Anonymous
| Maret absolutely is the pressure point. They walk away, the deal does. Clearly Maret is more sensitive to public pressure than our elected and appointed officials. |
Anonymous
Why is the city responsible for providing facilities for Maret? |
Anonymous
Think things through for a second. The leverage point is the mayor's office. Who does the mayor respond to? Her constituents across the city. So, if you want the attention of the mayor, then you have to get the attention of a decent share of her constituents. How do you do that? Get the attention of mass media - that is, TV news. How do you get the attention of mass media? By staging an event that provides a story (and footage!) worthy of the evening broadcast. Feel free to fill in the blanks of what kind of events qualify . . . Is it a problem that such an event would disrupt Maret athletes from practicing? Reasonable people can disagree. I don't think it's nice when kids are evicted from their homes (or property they enjoy is seized) because of something that their parents did or didn't do, but I understand the rationale of why that has to happen sometimes. In this situation, Maret athletes are directly benefiting from a very shady deal done by their administrators, which directly imposes a not-insubstantial inconvenience on others who are in many ways less fortunate than they are. It's perhaps too much of a romantic notion, but maybe some of the Maret athletes might sympathize with the cause of their Hardy counterparts and join them. At the least, they'd understand better what goes into making the sausage that is their playground. |
Anonymous
| Interestingly, the Jelleff case is not the first time DPR has been accused of doing favors for the private school set: https://www.washingtonian.com/2012/09/19/conflict-over-dc-soccer-fields-intensifies/ |
Anonymous
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DC priority is to provide services for DC residents, which includes DC schools and afterschool programs serving DC kids. It's priority should not be to provide a sweetheart deal to a wealthy private school which enrolls many non-dc residents.
Both DPR and Maret need to acknowledge and recognize that this "deal" is questionable. The fact that neither party has done so is shame but not surprising. People opposing this deal started with a petition and appealing to their local representatives, a good first step. However, if these steps don't lead to change, I don't see any problem with staging a protest or sit either at the homecoming game, at DPR and at Jelleff field. Not a lot of sympathy for Maret kids who might see protesters when I think about aftercare kids sitting in a basement everyday after school watching other kids play on field |
Anonymous
For the millionth time, other groups (largely Stoddert travel soccer teams composed largely of DC residents) have already paid a ton of $ to use Jelleff after the Maret-monopolized time slot ends at 5:30. (BTW Maret routinely fails to vacate the field on time. They have terrible manners.) Field space is at such a premium for teams NOT AFFILIATED WITH PRIVATE SCHOOLS that local travel soccer teams are often forced to practice on grass fields without lights or even goals on the other side of town. Assuming that most families would like to keep the main travel soccer option in the city alive, no, Maret can’t have those time slots at Jelleff when they already have their own perfect turf field on their own property. |
Anonymous
oh c'mon -- but then the Maret aftercare kids would have to sit inside a basement, watch television, or watch older Maret students practicing lacrosse. I'm not paying that much for tuition and aftercare for that! |
Anonymous
| DC Stoddert has MD kids playing on their teams. Jelleff also goes to MD lacrosse teams. DC Stoddert, Maret or any other organization can pay to use the fields in the evening. |
Anonymous
| OCCUPY JELLEFF! |
Anonymous
| Sounds like the city needs more fields and needs to prioritize multi-use of fields rather than having baseball only fields. I saw up thread someone saying the baseball fields are used a lot. So what? ARe they DC kids? Are there games more important than DCPS being able to use those fields after school for other sports practices if the fields were multi-use? Separately from Jelleff, who makes the decision on what to do with the field behind Francis Stevens, at Ellington, next to Lab school on foxhall, etc. Taking 2 hours a day from Maret at Jelleff may be a start but it doesn't solve the long term problem. |
Anonymous
| The “long term problem” is the accountability of the DCG, which involves the two-party system, weak local media, congressional “oversight” and so on. The Jelleff issue is a tad more manageable. |
Anonymous
| problem with DCUM is that we all want to comment and have others storm the barricades because we got jobs and no time or stomach for radical action. |