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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
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That Foxhall ES can only be filled by denying students from Glover Park access to their excellent neighborhood school is yet another example of scaremongering fomented by those with vested interests. If I lived in Glover Park and I was told that my kids were going to be sent to Foxhall ES, I would do all I could to oppose the creation of that new school too. However, logic dictates that this is very unlikely to happen because it just doesn't make any sense. It's even less likely to happen now that Stoddert ES won the money that it was seeking for the mayor for its extension. And, regardless, the grandfathering provisions that the chancellor has promised would ensure that no current students (and their siblings) would be affected.

There are blocks in Burleith (south of Whitehaven Parkway and north of Reservoir Rd) - Hillendale is a good example - that are equidistant to the Foxhall ES site than they are to Stoddert ES. I can imagine some contention on whether these neighborhoods would be zoned to Foxhall ES or Stoddert ES. But any proposals to zone neighborhoods in Glover Park proper to Foxhall ES are indefensible, even for proponents of Foxhall ES.

Also, there similarly seems to be a lot of misunderstandings around the proposition of how large Foxhall ES would be. Some people would like others to believe that it will be 550 students on day one (and that this will be achieved by dragging students from Glover Park, A.U. Park, Georgetown, and goodness knows where else). Of course, it won't be. It could well open with just a couple of hundred students. But, given the demographic projections and given that schools in the area have found themselves without sufficient space even after massive new additions (Hyde-Addison being the most recent example), it would be irresponsible to plan for a school that the projections strongly suggest would already be too small by the time it opened (with or without PK).
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I appreciate your level-headedness on this issue.  However, I don't think you're up to date on the situation.  Burleith (and Hillandale) has already left the Stoddert catchment (with grandfathered kids still there, I think) for Hyde-Addison due to planning and anticipation of Stoddert overcrowding.  My understand is that Frumin helped this transfer, though I wasn't here then (2017?).

The [u]only[/u] catchment discussed by DCPS/CWG was one where southern Glover Park sends their kids to fill the Foxhall school.  Burleith is left untouched, despite being closer.  (This is where the ludicrous hike through Glover-Archbold comes from, to shorten the distance from Glover Park to the Foxhall school.  That really annoyed me, they weren't even honest about what they're doing!).
https://ibb.co/mzN8vbD
I figure that, having switched schools once recently, and being in Ward 2, DCPS didn't want to touch them again.  Unfortunately for Glover Park, Cheh had other interests in Ward 3.

You can find more discussion of this "example" -- the one and only example, and the boundaries they spend a lot of time discussing and defending -- on the CWG google site.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1xc_9YJEZ-snB0FEoFmxfrYsdKhuVXgsc
Check the discussion (Q4) with the Stoddert community, for example
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1IXrSwfJCOGWVUid_vwkr7-QqUYZGYDIM
DCPS sees Stoddert overcrowding and figures it can send the students without redrawing the rest of Ward 3, an immaculate redrawing as it were: "We have prioritized alleviating Key and Stoddert as these schools have the most acute capacity needs among the Hardy feeder schools."  Of course, what makes sense is, as you point out, to involve Burleith, and not Glover Park, but that option is never considered.

None of this is fear mongering.  This is DCPS's (and the CWG's) plan (with regards to the ES).  It's a bad plan that deserves the criticism.  You called it indefensible, and I agree.

[/quote]

Thanks for taking the time to post these sources. I had not seen them before or, if I had, I hadn't given them the necessary attention. Whoever drew that example map either wanted to sabotage Foxhall ES or was very naïve. So, yes, with due apologies to the FCCA, this is nothing but an own-goal by DCPS/CWG.

All of that said, it is just one example and one that I would bet my life savings would never be implemented by DCPS because, well, it is just stone-cold crazy. If you find any candidates that endorse this example, please feel free to scream from the hilltops.

And, to the point, the badly-conceived example does not suggest that Foxhall ES cannot be filled with students from the area, nor even that it would be a good idea to build a much smaller school than what is proposed (particularly given the increases in density called for by the Comp Plan and families will inevitably move to where the schools are).

It certainly is not justification for rejecting a new school building next to Old Hardy in favor of pie-in-the-sky dreams (like LAB opting to abandon their sweetheart lease and move to the River School). [/quote]

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