Reply to DCPS students shafted again - sign petition to keep Jelleff field public

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

Reply to "DCPS students shafted again - sign petition to keep Jelleff field public"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]So only Maret students who are also DC residents should get to use the fields?[/quote]

Anyone can use the fields, when organizations haven't made arrangements for their use.  This is common.  My daughter's Stoddert soccer team has games at Jelleff; you can't use the field when they're playing, either.  [b]The issue here is that many PPs believe that DCPS should have first call on the DPR fields,[/b] and should be able to force DPR to forgo lucrative arrangements that help everyone in DC (without offering similar compensation), because DCPS has failed in its responsibility to provide adequate facilities for its students.

Also, Maret is paying for the upkeep and improvement of the field.  What many of you are saying is that DPR (not DCPS) has to pay for that upkeep and improvement?  DCPS pays for DCPS fields; the arrangement many of you are suggesting would shift that responsibility to DPR.  [/quote]

I mean ... that sounds totally reasonable to me.  DPR and DCPS are two DC taxpayer-funded agencies, so it seems perfectly OK to say that DCPS should have dibs on DPR facilities.  You're trying to make the patently unfair seem fair. [/quote]

Sorry, this is just wrong.  The entity charged with supporting students is DCPS.  DPR has a different mission.  They have different funding, and exists for different purposes.  The education of students (and their extracurricular activities) is not the only purpose of a local government.  In this instance, both Maret and DCPS are strangers to DPR.

I have no issue with, if faced with equivalent offers, DPR is required to prefer DCPS.  But I'll wager that isn't the case here.

FWIW, this goes both ways.  I once dealt with a situation where neighbors wanted unrestricted access to a charter school field, and didn't think that the school should be able to rent it out to soccer leagues in off hours.  But the public doesn't have first call on school property.  By the same token, schools don't have first call on exclusive use of public parks.

The fault here lies with DCPS, first for not providing adequate facilities for students, and then on expecting other city agencies to remedy the failure.  [/quote]

DPR is a DC TAX FUNDED ENTITY.  It's mission should be to support DC RESIDENT INSTITUIONS AND TAXPAYERS.  Not exclusionary private schools.  You have a weird idea about government agencies somehow being like individual private competitors in a marketplace.  [/quote]

DPR's mission is, "Our Mission. DPR's mission is to promote health and wellness; conserve the natural environment; and provide universal access to parks and recreation services."

This arrangement does support DC residents and taxpayers.  There's $250,000 that's now available for the maintenance and upkeep of *other* DPR facilities.  In fact, if those funds are used in Wards 7 or 8, you could say that this arrangement provides more benefit to the DC residents who need it most, as opposed to being used to benefit WOTP middle schools.  [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics