New school in Palisades

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:According to a recent Mary Cheh email - the site would be a middle school AND they will still go forward building a new "Foxhall Elementary" on the Hardy rec property. She related it to the specifically to the overcrowding at Deal and this would allow them to still have children from around the city attend ward 3 schools (she used a little more coded language). So, whenever this MS opens, there is clearly going to be new boundary, commute and transportation issues - fasten your seat belts!

What's the time line on these changes? If we're looking to relocate WOTP for schools, by when would we have reasonable certainty about the new feeder patterns?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:According to a recent Mary Cheh email - the site would be a middle school AND they will still go forward building a new "Foxhall Elementary" on the Hardy rec property. She related it to the specifically to the overcrowding at Deal and this would allow them to still have children from around the city attend ward 3 schools (she used a little more coded language). So, whenever this MS opens, there is clearly going to be new boundary, commute and transportation issues - fasten your seat belts!

What's the time line on these changes? If we're looking to relocate WOTP for schools, by when would we have reasonable certainty about the new feeder patterns?

DCPS wants to open MacArthur MS or HS in fall 2022. Foxhall Elementary would be two years later, I think.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:According to a recent Mary Cheh email - the site would be a middle school AND they will still go forward building a new "Foxhall Elementary" on the Hardy rec property. She related it to the specifically to the overcrowding at Deal and this would allow them to still have children from around the city attend ward 3 schools (she used a little more coded language). So, whenever this MS opens, there is clearly going to be new boundary, commute and transportation issues - fasten your seat belts!

What's the time line on these changes? If we're looking to relocate WOTP for schools, by when would we have reasonable certainty about the new feeder patterns?

DCPS wants to open MacArthur MS or HS in fall 2022. Foxhall Elementary would be two years later, I think.

Yes, that is what is in the presentations. I don’t think they have said when they will announce the redistricting?

[Anonymous]

Uh, that quoted Cheh email was posted upthread in July 2020. It would have been great to know it would be a middle school, but aren't we now discussing whether 1. Hardy MS will move there or 2. A high school, or 3. 9th grade only, sharing principal with Wilson?
It just so happens those numbers are how I rank the options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Uh, that quoted Cheh email was posted upthread in July 2020. It would have been great to know it would be a middle school, but aren't we now discussing whether 1. Hardy MS will move there or 2. A high school, or 3. 9th grade only, sharing principal with Wilson?
It just so happens those numbers are how I rank the options.

That's also the ranking of what would make the most sense, but probably the opposite of probability of happening because . . . DCPS.

[Anonymous]

You know what is really upsetting?!?! We are trying to get our public school kids back IN school and not sure what Cheh is really doing about it and I heard a private school is trying to rezone a single family lot to build a campus to hold less kids and the same square footage? How is this even okay and she hasn't done a thing?

[Anonymous]

Sorry, you aren't going to rile me up about the River School relocation. If you buy a home near Wisconsin Ave or Nebraska Ave, prepare for ongoing development and traffic. Good for River School.

Signed, a Janney parent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, you aren't going to rile me up about the River School relocation. If you buy a home near Wisconsin Ave or Nebraska Ave, prepare for ongoing development and traffic. Good for River School.

Signed, a Janney parent.

Leave it to a Janney parent to lose their sense of "community" when it doesn't work in their favor. This impacts every DCPS kid in that surrounding area, not just yours.

Hearst and Wilson Parent

[Anonymous]

PP here, how does the River School relocation to the "single family lot" aka a MANSION measurably impact Janney, Hearst or Wilson one bit? More cars? Its one of the NW quadrant of the city's main thoroughfares. There are constantly new buildings being put up, shopping centers (Mazza) vacated, etc. Development happens, we live in a city.

There are plenty of actual educational issues in the city, but a school for children with speech and language issues relocating to a larger more appropriate, central location ain't one of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, you aren't going to rile me up about the River School relocation. If you buy a home near Wisconsin Ave or Nebraska Ave, prepare for ongoing development and traffic. Good for River School.

Signed, a Janney parent.

Leave it to a Janney parent to lose their sense of "community" when it doesn't work in their favor. This impacts every DCPS kid in that surrounding area, not just yours.

Hearst and Wilson Parent

I don't really see how the River School plan affects every DCPS kid in the surrounding area. (And as another Janney parent who's supposed to be against the River School due to "traffic" and "safety" concerns, according to the signs that someone has stuck all over our neighborhood, I also don't really care what River School wants to do.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They should create an IB program high school there for those who want to continue on with their IB education after Deal or for those who want to start an IB education and get the IB diploma. That would divert a lot of people away from Wilson.

But they can go to Banneker now? People don’t want an IB option. It’s too hard for their kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP here, how does the River School relocation to the "single family lot" aka a MANSION measurably impact Janney, Hearst or Wilson one bit? More cars? Its one of the NW quadrant of the city's main thoroughfares. There are constantly new buildings being put up, shopping centers (Mazza) vacated, etc. Development happens, we live in a city.

There are plenty of actual educational issues in the city, but a school for children with speech and language issues relocating to a larger more appropriate, central location ain't one of them.

New to this conversation here but it seems like you are interested if you keep coming back? I get it. There is A LOT going on with schools in all the neighborhoods for families and it this topic doesn't make it any easier. It may not get "you riled up" but you should know what the actual issues are before you shut it down; and other surrounding families similar to yours may feel differently. You feel because the lot is "mansion" size that it is okay for the River School to try and flip the historical/residential lot to commerical? What does that say about the "mansion" size lots in Spring Valley? Palisades? Kalorama? 16th Street? Anywhere in the city. Are they to be constantly worried someone can turn over their lot too? If you pay to play its fair game? If it was such a great idea what didn't DCPS think of it? Pushing people out of residential areas smells stinky to me.

Safety sounds like it isn't important to you. Maybe it will be more important when your kiddo gets older and is walking the neighborhood streets with friends and skateboarding, like mine, and being goofy kids not paying attention to speeding cars cutting through side streets.

The main road is very busy, yes, you are definitely correct! To add more cars and more congestion/traffic without a place to put the cars and no direction or feedback from the commercial entity trying to do it is not okay.

The school "ain't" focused on speech and language issues. Please read what the school actually does and their statistics, well if you can find any. There is a small percentage of students with hearing loss. It is not a specialty school and it does not market itself as one. Well, it only does when it wants to appear like they are out doing more good than they are really doing. This does add to the educational issues in
the city, especially now with COVID and the discrepancy between how much schooling the children are getting.

All the locations you mentioned are already commercially zoned so not relevant to the conversation. Development does happen and should continue to happen. Growth is needed for sure in the area and matters. Where and How it happens matters too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You know what is really upsetting?!?! We are trying to get our public school kids back IN school and not sure what Cheh is really doing about it and I heard a private school is trying to rezone a single family lot to build a campus to hold less kids and the same square footage? How is this even okay and she hasn't done a thing?

Sorry, but I don't understand how these are related. Why can't public school students go back in the fall if a private school opens up nearby?

[Anonymous]

Its going to very hard to drum up sympathy for this anti-River push, and it frankly seems like nothing more than NIMBY attitudes coming from people who have chosen to live within blocks of some of the busiest commercial thoroughfares in NW. I, too, live near one of these busy commercial areas, and while my children riding their bikes around worries me, it is the price of doing business for having a beautiful, leafy neighborhood in a major city. There are plenty of examples of large historic homes that are transformed into commercial/nonprofit/educational spaces. If they turned an old Ambassadors residence in Spring Valley into a small elementary school, I would be fine with that. If they built a new school at Hardy Park that could alleviate crowding at our schools but would add more cars to an already busy thoroughfare...I would be fine with that too! Consider it like NCRC in Cleveland Park. Its just not a big deal, and I think these anti-River organizers (are going to have a hard time painting this little school as some sort of nefarious actor that's going to turn 42nd St into the Indy500.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Uh, that quoted Cheh email was posted upthread in July 2020. It would have been great to know it would be a middle school, but aren't we now discussing whether 1. Hardy MS will move there or 2. A high school, or 3. 9th grade only, sharing principal with Wilson?
It just so happens those numbers are how I rank the options.

That's also the ranking of what would make the most sense, but probably the opposite of probability of happening because . . . DCPS.

The options are (1) a new middle school which would feed to Wilson HS; (2) a new high school (either at the MacArthur property OR at Hardy, with Hardy MS moving to MacArthur); or (3) a 9th grade academy (at either location).