Anonymous wrote:Interesting to see this thread with a discussion of me and my integrity.
On MacArthur, the expectation had been for a small high school on the site. The bump to 1000 came out of the blue in the Mayor's budget. That does not make sense and is bad for other high schools around the city.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:
The Community Working Group members who examined this for months and solicited hours of testimony and hundreds of pages of written submissions are nobody? Families in Foxhall who will finally have the neighborhood public school that every other neighborhood in DC has are nobody? Elementary school kids who walk 1.5 miles to get to school are nobody? 4th and 5th graders at Key being taught in “modular classrooms” are nobody? Kids who are forbidden to talk when eating lunch because their cafeteria is too small are nobody? Families across the city who would like to send their children to one of the high-performing Ward 3 elementaries but can’t because there are no out-of-boundary slots available are nobody? Families in Ward 3 who would like to send their 3 and 4 year olds to pre-K at a DCPS school but can’t because, again, there isn’t enough space to accommodate them are nobody? All of these people took this “idea” rather seriously. But to you, apparently, they are “nobody”.
You can claim you are being taken out of context but the context makes the same point less succinctly. The Foxhall ES building may not be the most aesthetically pleasing addition to the Foxhall neighborhood but it is the only proposal with funding, a timeline, and mayoral support that promises to solve the above problems (which maybe you don’t think are worth addressing). We all realize that projecting oneself as having a Midas touch that can magically achieve miraculous solutions to intractable problems is part and parcel with running for office, but your stance on the issue opens up a can of worms that threatens to derail the only chance on the horizon of resolving the worsening overcrowding in our local schools.
I don't mean this first part to be insulting, but did the CWG really think they did a good job? Didn't the members go to the community meetings, or read the comments submitted, or interact with anyone outside the Palisades? I commend everyone who serves on these sorts of committees, but doing a job does not mean doing a good job.
It's not pandering to actually weigh trade-offs, which the CWG failed to do. Ward 3 needs more schools, agreed. If you live in the Palisades and are presented with the option of Foxhall you will support Foxhall. I don't blame you. But enough of the thinking your motives are high and pure. Building a school at Foxhall with few kids nearby, then having to reach around the Ward to find kids to fill it is nonsensical.
Since you bring up having to walk 1.5 miles to school, check the CWG working group's estimate of the distance of the new school (via the only catchment that make sense to DCPS):
https://ibb.co/DQq60tn
The majority of the kids will be traveling a farther distance (186 > 155)! And this is with the CWG's dishonest estimate that Glover Park is a simple hike through the slop of Glover-Archbold Park. The actual distance, via walkable roads (with no bus line), is 2.0 miles, not the 1.2 reported in that table. Does your compassion extend to those children? As I said, you have to confront trade-offs, not simply take what's best for your own children. Frumin's suggestion of a small school at Foxhall, to serve those kids who are currently traveling far distances makes sense: it minimizes the kids who will have a much longer walk.
I realize this is a topic to make deserved fun of the FCCA, but shouldn't we laugh at the Palisades forcing out their grocery store? Safeway wanted to build a nice mixed-use building on the spot with housing and a new grocery store, but the Palisades couldn't imagine that. Now everyone has to drive for groceries. Maybe everyone in the Palisades has a car and loves driving. Some of us in other parts of the Ward don't. To the extent we ignore the FCCA's complaints, we should ignore the Palisades praise.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:
The Community Working Group members who examined this for months and solicited hours of testimony and hundreds of pages of written submissions are nobody? Families in Foxhall who will finally have the neighborhood public school that every other neighborhood in DC has are nobody? Elementary school kids who walk 1.5 miles to get to school are nobody? 4th and 5th graders at Key being taught in “modular classrooms” are nobody? Kids who are forbidden to talk when eating lunch because their cafeteria is too small are nobody? Families across the city who would like to send their children to one of the high-performing Ward 3 elementaries but can’t because there are no out-of-boundary slots available are nobody? Families in Ward 3 who would like to send their 3 and 4 year olds to pre-K at a DCPS school but can’t because, again, there isn’t enough space to accommodate them are nobody? All of these people took this “idea” rather seriously. But to you, apparently, they are “nobody”.
You can claim you are being taken out of context but the context makes the same point less succinctly. The Foxhall ES building may not be the most aesthetically pleasing addition to the Foxhall neighborhood but it is the only proposal with funding, a timeline, and mayoral support that promises to solve the above problems (which maybe you don’t think are worth addressing). We all realize that projecting oneself as having a Midas touch that can magically achieve miraculous solutions to intractable problems is part and parcel with running for office, but your stance on the issue opens up a can of worms that threatens to derail the only chance on the horizon of resolving the worsening overcrowding in our local schools.
I don't mean this first part to be insulting, but did the CWG really think they did a good job? Didn't the members go to the community meetings, or read the comments submitted, or interact with anyone outside the Palisades? I commend everyone who serves on these sorts of committees, but doing a job does not mean doing a good job.
It's not pandering to actually weigh trade-offs, which the CWG failed to do. Ward 3 needs more schools, agreed. If you live in the Palisades and are presented with the option of Foxhall you will support Foxhall. I don't blame you. But enough of the thinking your motives are high and pure. Building a school at Foxhall with few kids nearby, then having to reach around the Ward to find kids to fill it is nonsensical.
Since you bring up having to walk 1.5 miles to school, check the CWG working group's estimate of the distance of the new school (via the only catchment that make sense to DCPS):
https://ibb.co/DQq60tn
The majority of the kids will be traveling a farther distance (186 > 155)! And this is with the CWG's dishonest estimate that Glover Park is a simple hike through the slop of Glover-Archbold Park. The actual distance, via walkable roads (with no bus line), is 2.0 miles, not the 1.2 reported in that table. Does your compassion extend to those children? As I said, you have to confront trade-offs, not simply take what's best for your own children. Frumin's suggestion of a small school at Foxhall, to serve those kids who are currently traveling far distances makes sense: it minimizes the kids who will have a much longer walk.
I realize this is a topic to make deserved fun of the FCCA, but shouldn't we laugh at the Palisades forcing out their grocery store? Safeway wanted to build a nice mixed-use building on the spot with housing and a new grocery store, but the Palisades couldn't imagine that. Now everyone has to drive for groceries. Maybe everyone in the Palisades has a car and loves driving. Some of us in other parts of the Ward don't. To the extent we ignore the FCCA's complaints, we should ignore the Palisades praise.
Anonymous wrote:
The Community Working Group members who examined this for months and solicited hours of testimony and hundreds of pages of written submissions are nobody? Families in Foxhall who will finally have the neighborhood public school that every other neighborhood in DC has are nobody? Elementary school kids who walk 1.5 miles to get to school are nobody? 4th and 5th graders at Key being taught in “modular classrooms” are nobody? Kids who are forbidden to talk when eating lunch because their cafeteria is too small are nobody? Families across the city who would like to send their children to one of the high-performing Ward 3 elementaries but can’t because there are no out-of-boundary slots available are nobody? Families in Ward 3 who would like to send their 3 and 4 year olds to pre-K at a DCPS school but can’t because, again, there isn’t enough space to accommodate them are nobody? All of these people took this “idea” rather seriously. But to you, apparently, they are “nobody”.
You can claim you are being taken out of context but the context makes the same point less succinctly. The Foxhall ES building may not be the most aesthetically pleasing addition to the Foxhall neighborhood but it is the only proposal with funding, a timeline, and mayoral support that promises to solve the above problems (which maybe you don’t think are worth addressing). We all realize that projecting oneself as having a Midas touch that can magically achieve miraculous solutions to intractable problems is part and parcel with running for office, but your stance on the issue opens up a can of worms that threatens to derail the only chance on the horizon of resolving the worsening overcrowding in our local schools.
Anonymous wrote:So I am going to call it a night. I'd urge others to read the blog, read the testimony and come to their own conclusions.
https://fruminforward3.com/food-for-thought-new-schools/
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vK46lTW1AyNoY4zWp...4zhcEBxi1D7qJ/view?usp=sharing
Anonymous wrote: On Foxhall, this was an idea that nobody took seriously when proposed.
Anonymous wrote:Thanks. They make clear in the second paragraph why they think Foxhall as current conceived does not make sense for Stoddert, Mann or Key.
Anonymous wrote:It struck me it could be useful for folks to see the testimony in support of Hardy.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vK46lTW1AyNoY4zWpx94zhcEBxi1D7qJ/view?usp=sharing
Were they pandering on Foxhall?
Thanks and all the best,
Matthew Frumin
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I don't see a lot of FCCA donors in Frumin's reported take:
https://dcgeekery.com/dc-campaign-finance/2022/council-ward-3/frumin/points
I think that is a canard being thrown by some supporters of other candidates.
Campaign contributions, thankfully, are not everything. What was being referenced in this case is his response to a misleading screed by a long-time opponent of the new DCPS schools that not only failed to correct the various misrepresentations in the original e-mail but then presented proposals designed to appeal to those who harbor fears based on those misrepresentations (such as the poster above who claims that Foxhall ES will filled with "kids from Stoddert/Glover Park").
I think the point is, one can have a view that is sound, that isn't because of the FCCA. In this case, it is clear Mr. Frumin has basically zero donations from the Foxhall area, despite taking the largest amount of donations in the race. So the idea of cynically ascribing his view as pandering to the Foxhall NIMBYs is a false narrative.
Pandering doesn't mean taking donations. The Foxhallers have a completely bullshit position and Frumin is failing to call bullshit on them, but instead saying "well, they might have a point, let's try to find a compromise." You can't compromise with a bullshit position because they'll just move the goalposts on you.
I expressed my view on the MacArthur High School thread early on. It is a horrible location, transit hostile and doesn't really solve any of the problems, other than providing an enclave public high school for Palisades families. In other words, it is a poor investment of city money and doesn't solve any of the stated problems. Does that mean I am full of BS or buying the FCCA line of crap too?
The reason Palisades likes this solution is that it takes their kids out of Wilson and essentially gives them their own school that almost no one OOB will be able to attend. While a win for Palisades, it is a net negative to everyone else in the city. That isn't equity or equitable.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:The Wilson school paper wrote in its most recent issue that only 90 kids from Hardy go on to Wilson each year.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L0WD_EX1CdGCBupEQxpMCBwDSmMcK3fu/view
Is that true? If so, this new HS isn't going to help at all.
There are four years in a high school. So that would be 360 students, a significant chunk of Wilson's population.
And as also pointed out to the FCCA affiliate who posted their “factoid” about Jackson-Reed to various local listservs, the Hardy intake is growing rapidly.
6th and 7th grades are now 200 students each. In just a couple of years, it will be a lot more than 90 kids per year heading to J-R.
The incessant barrage of misinformation designed to keep public school children out of a particular neighborhood is extremely tiresome.
Saw this come across the Glover Park listserv. Can this dude run for city council?
…………
As is customary at this point: this post contains false data and initiates (not spreads) misinformation.
The poster claims “only 90 students attend Jackson Reed from Hardy MS.” The poster then pretends to have pulled this information from a student newspaper.
In actuality, the referenced source says “only 90 students come to Jackson Reed from Hardy EACH YEAR.” The omission is not an accident when viewed in totality with prior public statements.
Moreover, while Hardy MS is currently 532 students, the sixth and seventh grades are close to 200 students each. And this is nearly a 64% increase from four years ago. So, judge the reported current ANNUAL matriculation of 90 students in context and with full understanding of the dynamics here.
I have attached a slide presented by the Hardy MS principal during an Open House held at Hardy on 5 November 2021 that contains these data points.
The lesson here: reject alternative facts; determine trustworthy and untrustworthy sources of information and form beliefs accordingly; be inhospitable to those who attempt to perpetually gaslight.
Demand better. Be better.
Troy
It’s a great shame he didn’t. Some of us tried to convince him but he didn’t want to do it for whatever reason. It’s a shame. He would make a great representative for the ward.
He doesn't suffer fools, he'd be miserable on the Council.
This. He doesn't have the temperment to actually deal with people.