Reply to New opposition petition to the Maury-Miner boundary proposal from DME

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/02/19/any-school-fail-without-adequate-support/

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Good op ed except the suggestion that Maury get preferential funding is false. [/quote]

Don't twist what is said. The op-ed simply states that Maury got a $52 million renovation while Miner struggles with basics like a functional PA system and usable field space. That's not an attack on Maury, it's a perfect illustration of how DCPS, and DC generally, tend to handle facilities issues -- they love to cut a ribbon on a brand new school, field, rec center, etc., but they are terrible at maintenance and essentially abandon facilities at a certain point, figuring they are past the point of repair and they'll just rebuild them later.

I say this as a parent at a neighboring school that is in horrible disrepair and has been for years, but because we are slated for a full-scale renovation in a couple years, good luck getting them to fix basic stuff like malfunctioning heating systems, and toilets/sinks/water fountains that work for maybe two months out of every 12. DC is horrible at maintaining buildings, and that's why Maury is nicer than Miner. It's just newer. Soon Maury will also start to fall apart and the city won't do anything about that either.[/quote]

No, it clearly implies that there is a funding disparity between the schools, which there absolutely is not. Miner was not due for a modernization, Maury was. And now the modernization of the old Miner building is underway. I will concede that it’s possible that Maury parents on the margin are more able to be a squeaky wheel to get maintenance attention. But if so, isn’t that DCPS’s fault for not having a better system? [/quote]

It does not "clearly imply" this, and the only reason you think so is because you want to jump all over anyone advocating on behalf of Miner as attacking Maury. Name the language that implies a funding disparity? There is none. You are reading something into it because of your own defensiveness.

It's absolutely an embarrassment that DCPS can't even provide Miner students with baseline technology or a functional exercise field. The fact that the city will tout Maury's modernization (which they absolutely will, as an example of their investment in education) while ignoring the fact that a school 3 blocks away doesn't even have a functional PA system is emblematic of a school district, and city government, that regularly papers over it's own incompetence by pointing to something shiny and new nearby.[/quote]

I mean, this is a problem of perception, but it shows a lot of the cracks in the system. DC is required by law to have a balanced budget every year. Modernizations come out of capital budget, which has a five or ten year timeline. These are separate from annual school budgets which are almost all personnel.

Maury was definitely due for its modernization, but I don't think anyone thinks that full modernizations should preclude basic maintenance at other schools, which happens time and again. Construction is a joint venture of DCPS facilities and DGS, and maintenance (and general lack thereof) is all DGS. Schools with less political clout and/or fewer angry white parents get pushed to the back of the line time and again.

If you want real change and accountability, some of these decisionmakers need to be out from under the mayor—the chancellor and DME should not have the same boss! Hold DGS accountable for their complete mismanagement of school buildings. The Council needs an Education committee AND staff, instead of making school oversight a side project for the Committee of the Whole. And while we're at it, an elected school board with teeth, who can make SBOE actually do the sh*t they're supposed to do.

It looks like a bunch of $$ going to one school over another for one reason, but it's actually a bunch of $$ going to one school over another for seven different reasons.

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