Anonymous wrote:There is zero chance they will move Duke Ellington or retake the old Hardy from Lab. Politically the Mayor and Council decided to build a new elementary on Hardy park land than moving lab out. It’s just not an option. So worth moving on to thinking about what they have done in buying the gds building for the new HS.

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Anonymous wrote:Few in-boundary Ward 3 kids will switch to Douglas Macarthur High in the first few years. They will stay in the current feeder pattern as long as they are grandfathered. The property was too small even for the private GDS lower grades; it's hard to see how it supports a real high school. And the transportation options from most Ward 3 neighborhoods that will feed to the new high school. In the short to medium term MacArthur will create a lot of Ward 3 high school spots for kids outside of Upper Northwest. It will be a great political win for the mayor and a number of council members who will benefit politically with their base. It won't be so great for Ward 3.

The best solution would be for DCPS, which is taking over Ellington, to move Ellington to a more central location in the next 5 years. Wisconsin Avenue is like the spine of Ward 3, so Western would be a lot easier to reach by bus than a school on Macarthur Bldv. Then Western High School could be reconstituted, complete with its adjacent playing field a block away.

DCPS is actually NOT taking over Ellington.

Anonymous wrote:Few in-boundary Ward 3 kids will switch to Douglas Macarthur High in the first few years. They will stay in the current feeder pattern as long as they are grandfathered. The property was too small even for the private GDS lower grades; it's hard to see how it supports a real high school. And the transportation options from most Ward 3 neighborhoods that will feed to the new high school. In the short to medium term MacArthur will create a lot of Ward 3 high school spots for kids outside of Upper Northwest. It will be a great political win for the mayor and a number of council members who will benefit politically with their base. It won't be so great for Ward 3.

The best solution would be for DCPS, which is taking over Ellington, to move Ellington to a more central location in the next 5 years. Wisconsin Avenue is like the spine of Ward 3, so Western would be a lot easier to reach by bus than a school on Macarthur Bldv. Then Western High School could be reconstituted, complete with its adjacent playing field a block away.

Anonymous wrote:I think the MacArthur school exists both because Ward 3 parents demanded adequate schooling, and because it will open up more OOB seats either at MacArthur or at J-R. There's no tension between those views. We'll see in 5+ years if J-R is still super overcrowded or if DCPS limits numbers through limiting OOB. I'd bet the former, but it's debatable.

On Ellington and/or Hardy moving, these both make a ton of sense to me. Ellington, though, had powerful backers in its current spot pre-renovation. After the renovation went $100 million over budget, there were no repercussions, and it's not going to move now. Hardy is a tougher issue, as it's both crowded (not over, yet), and has little room to expand.


Really, the major issue is that DCPS is unable to plan ahead. Ellington could have moved (or not spent so much on it). Hardy could have expanded next door, to the building between it and Fillmore. The new building the British school is building could have been DCPS. None of these things happened, or will happen.

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Anonymous wrote:Few in-boundary Ward 3 kids will switch to Douglas Macarthur High in the first few years. They will stay in the current feeder pattern as long as they are grandfathered. The property was too small even for the private GDS lower grades; it's hard to see how it supports a real high school. And the transportation options from most Ward 3 neighborhoods that will feed to the new high school. In the short to medium term MacArthur will create a lot of Ward 3 high school spots for kids outside of Upper Northwest. It will be a great political win for the mayor and a number of council members who will benefit politically with their base. It won't be so great for Ward 3.

The best solution would be for DCPS, which is taking over Ellington, to move Ellington to a more central location in the next 5 years. Wisconsin Avenue is like the spine of Ward 3, so Western would be a lot easier to reach by bus than a school on Macarthur Bldv. Then Western High School could be reconstituted, complete with its adjacent playing field a block away.

Umm, no. None of what you say is likely. Obviously I cannot guarantee MacArthur will be a success for the Hardy feeder pattern, but I truly expect it to be a success, and a run-away one at that.

Transportation is currently a problem, but some people are making progress on that front as I type. Will it be enough quickly enough? I don't know. I hope so.

I actually agree that taking over Ellington is the best option. I pushed for it in 2014. It got nowhere then, and $225 million later, it will make even less forward progress now. If you don't understand what happened over the last 8 years, I could see why you'd think your insights are, well, insightful.

Why take over Ellington rather than Hardy?

And Hardy would go where?

I wonder if Hardy could go back to where it used to be on Foxhall Road (which the LAB school now occupies). Then the old Gordon Junior High could become the reconstituted Western HS.

An idea similar to that was considered and rejected by DCPS after they bought the MacArthur site. The site was acquired without a plan for how to use it. One of the things they considered was moving Hardy to MacArthur and turning the Hardy building into a high school. I liked it because I think MacArthur is a better middle school site and Hardy is a better high school site. But DCPS decided it would be too disruptive to move the school.

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Anonymous wrote:Few in-boundary Ward 3 kids will switch to Douglas Macarthur High in the first few years. They will stay in the current feeder pattern as long as they are grandfathered. The property was too small even for the private GDS lower grades; it's hard to see how it supports a real high school. And the transportation options from most Ward 3 neighborhoods that will feed to the new high school. In the short to medium term MacArthur will create a lot of Ward 3 high school spots for kids outside of Upper Northwest. It will be a great political win for the mayor and a number of council members who will benefit politically with their base. It won't be so great for Ward 3.

The best solution would be for DCPS, which is taking over Ellington, to move Ellington to a more central location in the next 5 years. Wisconsin Avenue is like the spine of Ward 3, so Western would be a lot easier to reach by bus than a school on Macarthur Bldv. Then Western High School could be reconstituted, complete with its adjacent playing field a block away.

Umm, no. None of what you say is likely. Obviously I cannot guarantee MacArthur will be a success for the Hardy feeder pattern, but I truly expect it to be a success, and a run-away one at that.

Transportation is currently a problem, but some people are making progress on that front as I type. Will it be enough quickly enough? I don't know. I hope so.

I actually agree that taking over Ellington is the best option. I pushed for it in 2014. It got nowhere then, and $225 million later, it will make even less forward progress now. If you don't understand what happened over the last 8 years, I could see why you'd think your insights are, well, insightful.

Why take over Ellington rather than Hardy?

And Hardy would go where?

I wonder if Hardy could go back to where it used to be on Foxhall Road (which the LAB school now occupies). Then the old Gordon Junior High could become the reconstituted Western HS.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Few in-boundary Ward 3 kids will switch to Douglas Macarthur High in the first few years. They will stay in the current feeder pattern as long as they are grandfathered. The property was too small even for the private GDS lower grades; it's hard to see how it supports a real high school. And the transportation options from most Ward 3 neighborhoods that will feed to the new high school. In the short to medium term MacArthur will create a lot of Ward 3 high school spots for kids outside of Upper Northwest. It will be a great political win for the mayor and a number of council members who will benefit politically with their base. It won't be so great for Ward 3.

The best solution would be for DCPS, which is taking over Ellington, to move Ellington to a more central location in the next 5 years. Wisconsin Avenue is like the spine of Ward 3, so Western would be a lot easier to reach by bus than a school on Macarthur Bldv. Then Western High School could be reconstituted, complete with its adjacent playing field a block away.

Umm, no. None of what you say is likely. Obviously I cannot guarantee MacArthur will be a success for the Hardy feeder pattern, but I truly expect it to be a success, and a run-away one at that.

Transportation is currently a problem, but some people are making progress on that front as I type. Will it be enough quickly enough? I don't know. I hope so.

I actually agree that taking over Ellington is the best option. I pushed for it in 2014. It got nowhere then, and $225 million later, it will make even less forward progress now. If you don't understand what happened over the last 8 years, I could see why you'd think your insights are, well, insightful.

Why take over Ellington rather than Hardy?

And Hardy would go where?

Anonymous wrote:Agreed. MacArthur HS did it happen to provide more opportunities for OOB kids. It happened because Ward 3 parents were crowing loudly and repeatedly about overcrowding at JR. She saw an opportunity to quiet them down and took it.

The school is not designed for OOB kids. Quite the opposite.

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Anonymous wrote:Few in-boundary Ward 3 kids will switch to Douglas Macarthur High in the first few years. They will stay in the current feeder pattern as long as they are grandfathered. The property was too small even for the private GDS lower grades; it's hard to see how it supports a real high school. And the transportation options from most Ward 3 neighborhoods that will feed to the new high school. In the short to medium term MacArthur will create a lot of Ward 3 high school spots for kids outside of Upper Northwest. It will be a great political win for the mayor and a number of council members who will benefit politically with their base. It won't be so great for Ward 3.

The best solution would be for DCPS, which is taking over Ellington, to move Ellington to a more central location in the next 5 years. Wisconsin Avenue is like the spine of Ward 3, so Western would be a lot easier to reach by bus than a school on Macarthur Bldv. Then Western High School could be reconstituted, complete with its adjacent playing field a block away.

+100 to the 1st paragraph. PP nailed it.

The mayor doesn’t care about ward 3 families. It’s all about getting more OOB kids out of their poorly performing school and into ward 3 schools. Then in 3-4 years, more ward 3 families will send their kids there. Some of course will opt out which is great because it will open up spots for more OOB. This is how they will integrate more OOB kids into ward 3 since it’s not possible to do it at the high school level now with the overcrowding.

Anonymous wrote:Few in-boundary Ward 3 kids will switch to Douglas Macarthur High in the first few years. They will stay in the current feeder pattern as long as they are grandfathered. The property was too small even for the private GDS lower grades; it's hard to see how it supports a real high school. And the transportation options from most Ward 3 neighborhoods that will feed to the new high school. In the short to medium term MacArthur will create a lot of Ward 3 high school spots for kids outside of Upper Northwest. It will be a great political win for the mayor and a number of council members who will benefit politically with their base. It won't be so great for Ward 3.

The best solution would be for DCPS, which is taking over Ellington, to move Ellington to a more central location in the next 5 years. Wisconsin Avenue is like the spine of Ward 3, so Western would be a lot easier to reach by bus than a school on Macarthur Bldv. Then Western High School could be reconstituted, complete with its adjacent playing field a block away.