Anonymous wrote:Ellington's renovation only adds 40-50 additional spaces.

Anonymous wrote:Anyone is welcome at Ellington. Just pass the audition.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or of the opinion that trekking across the city (in either direction) for a viable eduction is a complete non-starter. Yeah, or that.

Or, of the belief that there isn't genuine social and political backlash from pushing a largely AA application school out of its home in Georgetown. This seems to be difficult for newcomers, gentrifiers, and generally higher SES white families to understand. There is real insecurity and even justified resentment about the geographic segregation in DC.

We can argue the particulars and justifications all day long, but it doesn't change the long-standing community opinion among a certain - large, and mobilized to vote - segment of the population.

To you, it's demographic common sense. To others, it's being exiled and excluded, and ultimately looks like segregation.

You don't have to agree, but you should understand what the tensions are and why this a hotter potato than you seem to think.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one is proposing taking away Duke Ellington. The school would still exist and in a potentially more central and more convenient location, with maybe even nicer facilities.

Ellington isn't going anywhere. These kids have to stay late into the evening to do their art and they're safer in that location than other places in the city.

If you guys want to move Ellington, why don't you talk to the administration, students, and families and see how they feel about it? If you could convince them it was in their interest, maybe you'd have some success but right now it just looks like a power grab.

Yes, thank you! The idea that "Ellington used to be Western, and it should be again to benefit the families in Georgetown, Palisades, and Glover Park - because we are the most important elements in the system" is more repellent on an emotional level than its proponents seem to understand.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one is proposing taking away Duke Ellington. The school would still exist and in a potentially more central and more convenient location, with maybe even nicer facilities.

Ellington isn't going anywhere. These kids have to stay late into the evening to do their art and they're safer in that location than other places in the city.

If you guys want to move Ellington, why don't you talk to the administration, students, and families and see how they feel about it? If you could convince them it was in their interest, maybe you'd have some success but right now it just looks like a power grab.

Anonymous wrote:Or of the opinion that trekking across the city (in either direction) for a viable eduction is a complete non-starter. Yeah, or that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one is proposing taking away Duke Ellington. The school would still exist and in a potentially more central and more convenient location, with maybe even nicer facilities.

That's the thing, though, Duke Ellington supporters want it to stay exactly where it is, convenience and facilities notwithstanding. I think it's related to a a long-term concern that residents in their current Georgetown location would like to kick the majority black school population out. This perception affects their reaction to arguments that a different location would actually benefit the school -- making it more accessible to more kids all over the city. The city has changed tremendously since Duke Ellington settled in Georgetown in 1974, including building an extensive subway system that is convenient to many DC schools, but not Ellington.

Anonymous wrote:No one is proposing taking away Duke Ellington. The school would still exist and in a potentially more central and more convenient location, with maybe even nicer facilities.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's the link to the article:

http://www.currentnewspapers.com/admin/uploadfiles/NW%2005-07-2014.pdf

So just to be clear- he wants to run a preschool- 8 neighborhood school in one location, a HS in another location, and a magnet HS in yet another location? HAvent there been a lot of problems with him trying to run just FS and SWW HS? Talk about hubris!

I was thinking the same thing. That, and he's pushing his own agenda by getting his name in the NW Current. Of course, that's a publication with zero political clout and a not-exactly-powerful readership base. Because seriously, the NW Current is for lining the catbox.

I don't think it's Hubris. The Walls parents are breathing down his neck with demands not to combine F-S with Walls; so he needs the F-S kids to go to another HS in order to take pressure off his duties at his main campus. Also, I've read nowhere that he actually enjoys dividing his duties between two schools -- I'll bet he'd be more than happy for a new principal to come in and take it off his hands. He's a high school teacher; he doesn't want to deal with PK and K kids, through 8th grade. There are differently qualified people out there to do that

I think he's raising Ellington as a possibility because it's centrally located between F-S and Hardy, and therefore is a prime location to draw students from

those two schools. No one else has publicly suggested a possible NEIGHBORHOOD space for a new high school for Hardy & F-S to feed into.

Right now FS and SWW HS are combined. He in no way wants to give up his duties at either school. He is a main force behind the whole merger. He is in opposition with the HS community about the merger. Right now he cannot just send FS students to the HS because it is application only. This new school he proposes would give their students a place to go. But don't think for one second he wants to give up running FS. He wants to run more schools, not the opposite. [/quotend
They are not even slightly combined. They just share a name and a principal. Thus, people are confused, and there is not proper leadership. That does not a combination make.