Reply to Why is the Foxhall Community Citizens Association scared of public school children?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Yes, I don't expect anything until after the election.  Should be fun to watch the people running for the Ward 3 council seat try to please everyone while saying nothing.[/quote]

On queue with the above prediction, Frumin responded as follows:

“Thank you [name redacted].  See my website here for responses to many of the questions you raise.

In short, I think MacArthur should be renovated promptly in its existing envelope where it likely will serve 700 students and without a 500 seat set aside for citywide seats. The Hardy community and the neighbors should play important roles in shaping the program and how it relates to the fabric of the community.  It can and should be a great school and have the benefit of helping to relieve overcrowding at Wilson which is an urgent priority.

We really need to look for an alternative to Foxhall, not forsake the funding, but the Mayor already is suggesting it will be years before it happens and we should use those years to explore alternatives.  Certainly it should not be 550 seats.

If the relevant funds in the Capital Improvement Plan are not used fully by these two projects, they should be used elsewhere in the Ward to address overcrowding.

And, an urgent priority is to give Stoddert as large of an addition as the community seeks to address overcrowding there.  I know sounds have been made that all that can be done is to take Stoddert to something like 516, but clearly there are ways to add more capacity and if it is needed to fully serve the existing Stoddert boundary, it should be delivered ASAP.

In my blog post, I outline some of the work I have done in this area and how it informs my thinking on these subjects.  Again, see here“[/quote]

That seems like a reasonable response. What is your objection to it?[/quote]

"The Hardy community and the neighbors should play important roles in shaping the program and how it relates to the fabric of the community. "

That is pandering. One of the things that the Foxhall neighbors have insisted on is that the people who live closest -- them -- should have a greater voice. I'm sorry that's not how democracy works, every voice is equal. And the Foxhallers have already shown themselves unwilling to engage in good faith. Build the school that needs to be built, not the one the neighbors want. And as to the neighbors having a say in the program? Are you kidding me? [/quote]

I've known Matt for a long time and one of the things he'll tell you -- which anyone who observes public education in DC will agree with -- is that DCPS makes boneheaded facilities decisions. And those decisions have long-lasting impacts, because facilities have long lives. And the reason DCPS makes so many boneheaded facilities decisions is that the decisions are inherently highly political, and DCPS is unwilling or unable to do the work necessary to come up with better solutions.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that Foxhall Elementary is suboptimal, and the direct result of previous boneheaded moves -- leading off with the handling of the Old Hardy School. But I also feel that given that we can't change the past, it's the best available option right now. "Tapping the brakes" -- as Frumin is proposing -- may sound like a reasonable compromise, but given the way facilities budgeting works it's tantamount to scuttling the project. And it is caving into the same kind of myopic, self-centered political pressure that has led to so many boneheaded decisions in the past. [/quote]

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