Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think if it is going to be UDC it would be announced and every one would breathe a sigh of relief and DCPS would sit back and bask in the win. That is not happening so I think it is a negative. But I am a doomsday kind do person.

UDC thinks that Ward 3 doesn't really want them in Upper NW and so they have little interest in helping the neighborhood.

UDC is correct. Show of hands: Any homeowner in Ward 3 ever take a class or use any UDC facilities?

Bowser said at a Ward 3 meeting this week that the school renovation budget will be cut back next fiscal year. Hopefully Murch's project is getting in under the wire. The Duke Ellington overruns have put tremendous pressure to cut costs elsewhere.

Anonymous wrote:Quick question: why will the Murch renovation take 2 years when the Lafayette renovation is only one year? The scope is similar.

DGS has never been able to answer this repeatedly asked question. Though Lafayette got a lot more money, so maybe that has something to do with it.

Murch is a fantastic school and I'm sure my child will be very happy with his teachers and classmates wherever they are located. With that said, I have absolutely no confidence that the construction will be sufficiently advanced that children can safely occupy the renovate old building/trailers by August 2017, with adequate play areas, especially since, once they move the kids back onto the Murch site in 2017, the construction will probably slow down. This sounds like they are sneakily moving the "swing on site" option back despite the almost universal opposition to that plan and it also very much sounds like the soccer fields' renovations is being made a priority over the education and wellbeing of 650 kids. Additionally, DCPS/DGS has been consistently opaque and unforthcoming about their plans for Murch, to the extent of sharing information with Lafayette before they shared it with the principal of Murch, which makes me doubt pretty much everything they say. They've had to be dragged virtually kicking and screaming to make every single decision about this renovation, and they seem to present options at the last minute that were never discussed at any of the meetings I attended (such as the one year in one space, one year in another option.) So forgive me for having almost no confidence in their planned timeline or in their guarantees that the kids would be able to play outside in the middle of construction.

To reiterate, the school is great, and we're there till the end of elementary, but parents, teachers and staff deserve a lot better than they've gotten from the organs of DC government so far!

Quick question: why will the Murch renovation take 2 years when the Lafayette renovation is only one year? The scope is similar.

Anonymous wrote:Why so much anger? What were you expecting? The alternative: to not renovate, push the project off again? No thanks. It will be fine. Be tough, your kids will be getting a brand new school.

No, the alternative was two years at UDC, imperfect but workable. Murch is being pushed out because DCPS and the DC government didn't fight for the school and handed the land over to private schools that want access for their sports teams.

Plus my kids aren't getting a brand new school. They will be out of elementary school when it is done.

What I love are the schematics that went out with the email to show the planned spaces for the next two years. Those look awesome!!!

Oh right. There are none.

And the plan for before and after care. Well thought out. Oh wait. No details about that.

But best of all is that DCPS took the time to weight all the options and think through what is best for the children while listening to the community, principal and SIT. Best of all they have put a lot of thought into the final plan. Oh wait, this option wasn't ever presented to anyone over the last 5 years until 11:00 today when it released as the final (multiple delayed) decision.

Well done DCPS. Well done indeed!

Even if your kids don't get the new school if you live IB your property value will get a boost. Also, what is the alternative - staying in a decrepit building, fantasizing about getting renovate 5 years ago?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You guys are too much. Have some perspective. Our children will be fine. They most assuredly couldn't care less.

I jut hope they don't inherit their resilience from you. They'll make millennials look like soldiers in comparison.

As a tax paying person in this, girl you crazy. Our children have been short changed for years. As the parent of a fourth grader, and a younger as well this is just ridiculous. The shortsightedness on DCPS is unconscionable. This was never on the table! This is a last minute solution, and how much have they really thought this through. So Janney and Lafayette and Hearst and Key all got a better plan and solution, our renovation sloppy seconds. If it is good enough for you. Enjoy. Deal breaker for us. We will be going some where else.

I don't understand why you are unhappy or what better solution you would have preferred. Your 4th grader will spend his last year in trailers -- but that seems inevitable. Your younger child will spend one year being bussed to udc, with an adjacent play space, and one year on site, perhaps in a modernized building, also with play space.

You don't understand. You don't have the facts about the logistics and the huge unanswered questions (you flippantly assume there will be play space -- ha!). This is irresponsible planning at its most ridiculous. Of all the possibilities, this one manages to combine the worst of the worst. There is so much anger at Murch among teachers, parents, neighbors, everyone tonight.

I think a few loud people are angry. And you sound irrational--and like you're primarily pissed over some perceived slight of Murch vs other schools.

I'm not angry. I think this solution is not ideal but not bad. I'm ready to move on and make the best of it.

Anonymous wrote:Why so much anger? What were you expecting? The alternative: to not renovate, push the project off again? No thanks. It will be fine. Be tough, your kids will be getting a brand new school.

Some of them will anyway.

Why so much anger? What were you expecting? The alternative: to not renovate, push the project off again? No thanks. It will be fine. Be tough, your kids will be getting a brand new school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You guys are too much. Have some perspective. Our children will be fine. They most assuredly couldn't care less.

I jut hope they don't inherit their resilience from you. They'll make millennials look like soldiers in comparison.

As a tax paying person in this, girl you crazy. Our children have been short changed for years. As the parent of a fourth grader, and a younger as well this is just ridiculous. The shortsightedness on DCPS is unconscionable. This was never on the table! This is a last minute solution, and how much have they really thought this through. So Janney and Lafayette and Hearst and Key all got a better plan and solution, our renovation sloppy seconds. If it is good enough for you. Enjoy. Deal breaker for us. We will be going some where else.

I don't understand why you are unhappy or what better solution you would have preferred. Your 4th grader will spend his last year in trailers -- but that seems inevitable. Your younger child will spend one year being bussed to udc, with an adjacent play space, and one year on site, perhaps in a modernized building, also with play space.

You don't understand. You don't have the facts about the logistics and the huge unanswered questions (you flippantly assume there will be play space -- ha!). This is irresponsible planning at its most ridiculous. Of all the possibilities, this one manages to combine the worst of the worst. There is so much anger at Murch among teachers, parents, neighbors, everyone tonight.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You guys are too much. Have some perspective. Our children will be fine. They most assuredly couldn't care less.

I jut hope they don't inherit their resilience from you. They'll make millennials look like soldiers in comparison.

As a tax paying person in this, girl you crazy. Our children have been short changed for years. As the parent of a fourth grader, and a younger as well this is just ridiculous. The shortsightedness on DCPS is unconscionable. This was never on the table! This is a last minute solution, and how much have they really thought this through. So Janney and Lafayette and Hearst and Key all got a better plan and solution, our renovation sloppy seconds. If it is good enough for you. Enjoy. Deal breaker for us. We will be going some where else.

NP here with kids in 1st and 5th. Maybe I resigned myself to a less than perfect solution a while ago after seeing what DCPS was doing, but I do not understand your outrage over this choice. other schools got better plans but they had different situations. Lafayette could swing onsite because the Lafayette site is very large, Murch's plot is much smaller so we do not have this option. Key and Hearst are much smaller schools, frankly I am not sure where Jenney relocated during renovations. to me this solution looks better than swinging at Lafayette (that would have been awful), or swinging on site, with double decker trailers on a small area literally feet away from an active construction site. the UDC site is large, with a large playground, right on Metro, so easy to drop off in the morning and go to work downtown. we are a family with just one car so it would have been a problem if the swing space was far from transportation. hopefully, if kids swing there, construction at Murch can proceed faster and after one year and two months, most of the renovation may be over, so a large group of kids may be able to go back to a renovated building. there still would be trailer, which is what the kids have now. if Language and X-day can also have space at UDC, that would be great and kids would not have to move around after school. I am not sure how you were planning to stay through two years of kids being out of the school for renovation but this solution becomes a deal breaker. what would you prefer? swinging in site?

as far as DCPS's behavior with Murch, saying that it was outrageous is not strong enough. so many deadlines missed, decisions pushed back, a meeting in December where most questions were met with "we don't know yet" (and the traffic study that was supposed to be done during the winter break) and than the cherry on the cake that Lafayette was told first about the Lafayette option, and then apparently today that Lafayette was not an option. but we are not leaving Murch over DCPS, we like the school and we will stay (even though we would have easy alternative options)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Murch get screwed again. This is seriously a joke right?DCPS can't make a decision to save their life. So now we get shifted all over the place? This option wasn't even on the table. How can you have presented UDC as an option if it was not truly possible as a swing site? For reals?

It's an embarrassment.

Humiliating. Soccer is more important than our kids and teachers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You guys are too much. Have some perspective. Our children will be fine. They most assuredly couldn't care less.

I jut hope they don't inherit their resilience from you. They'll make millennials look like soldiers in comparison.

As a tax paying person in this, girl you crazy. Our children have been short changed for years. As the parent of a fourth grader, and a younger as well this is just ridiculous. The shortsightedness on DCPS is unconscionable. This was never on the table! This is a last minute solution, and how much have they really thought this through. So Janney and Lafayette and Hearst and Key all got a better plan and solution, our renovation sloppy seconds. If it is good enough for you. Enjoy. Deal breaker for us. We will be going some where else.

I don't understand why you are unhappy or what better solution you would have preferred. Your 4th grader will spend his last year in trailers -- but that seems inevitable. Your younger child will spend one year being bussed to udc, with an adjacent play space, and one year on site, perhaps in a modernized building, also with play space.