Anonymous wrote:DPR has announced a public meeting for Wednesday.

Here's the notice I got:
Neighbors,
For anyone who enjoys using Duke Ellington Track & Field with their DCPS students or with their families, young children or dogs, you should not miss the DPR Community Meeting on Wednesday, January 15th from 6:30pm-8:00pm at the Georgetown Library at 3260 R Street.
This may be your only opportunity to speak to DPR to hear their plans which include potentially limiting access to neighbors, local DCPS Schools, like Duke Ellington. The field is currently managed by DCPS and Duke Ellington High School for the Performing Arts.

The public comment period has been extended until Feb. 12, 2020. However, this is your one opportunity to meet with DPR and have a say in the future of Duke Ellington Track and Field. Please attend this important meeting on Wed Jan 15th from 6:30pm-8pm at Georgetown Public Library. Share the Park!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hardy should just use Ellington field. It is good enough for Georgetown University yet somehow beneath Hardy.

Ellington controls Ellington field. Schools/teams can't just show up and play. Georgetown has a long standing agreement with Ellington to use the field at certain times.

From what I understand, Ellington didn't really want to manage the field. It didn't want to pick & choose among applicants, it didn't want to invest in the field's infrastructure, and it didn't want to manage scheduling. It was content to let the field sit empty, except when the DESA marching band has practice after school. Lots of different entities approached Ellington over the years to reserve the field but Ellington basically just never responded.

There is a bigger narrative that this is all a part of.

This year DCPS made news when enrollment passed 51,000 students, a modern record. But in 1968 DCPS had 149,150 students. Fifty years ago DCPS was three times the size it is now. DCPS lost students every year from 1968 to 2008, forty years running. For most of the past fifty years the biggest facilities problem that DCPS faced was what to do with all the empty buildings, some of them literally couldn't be given away. The city also had too many libraries and rec centers. The bankruptcy of the Boys and Girls Club in 2008, which led to the city assuming their property, was also due to the collapse of the city's youth population.

During most of that time the city was happy to basically give away those properties to anyone who could find a use for them. The youth population started rebounding in 2008, and between 2008 and 2013 DCPS closed 24 schools, and only in the past few years has DCPS started coming close to having the right number of buildings and other facilities.

In that environment it raised no eyebrows that Ellington had literally an entire city block in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the city that it used only for band practice a few hours a week.

For a marching band in a school with no sports teams. If that isn’t emblematic of the illogical waste in DCPS....

Why do you have to have sports teams in order to have a marching band. If that isn't emblematic of illogical thinking...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hardy should just use Ellington field. It is good enough for Georgetown University yet somehow beneath Hardy.

Ellington controls Ellington field. Schools/teams can't just show up and play. Georgetown has a long standing agreement with Ellington to use the field at certain times.

From what I understand, Ellington didn't really want to manage the field. It didn't want to pick & choose among applicants, it didn't want to invest in the field's infrastructure, and it didn't want to manage scheduling. It was content to let the field sit empty, except when the DESA marching band has practice after school. Lots of different entities approached Ellington over the years to reserve the field but Ellington basically just never responded.

There is a bigger narrative that this is all a part of.

This year DCPS made news when enrollment passed 51,000 students, a modern record. But in 1968 DCPS had 149,150 students. Fifty years ago DCPS was three times the size it is now. DCPS lost students every year from 1968 to 2008, forty years running. For most of the past fifty years the biggest facilities problem that DCPS faced was what to do with all the empty buildings, some of them literally couldn't be given away. The city also had too many libraries and rec centers. The bankruptcy of the Boys and Girls Club in 2008, which led to the city assuming their property, was also due to the collapse of the city's youth population.

During most of that time the city was happy to basically give away those properties to anyone who could find a use for them. The youth population started rebounding in 2008, and between 2008 and 2013 DCPS closed 24 schools, and only in the past few years has DCPS started coming close to having the right number of buildings and other facilities.

In that environment it raised no eyebrows that Ellington had literally an entire city block in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the city that it used only for band practice a few hours a week.

For a marching band in a school with no sports teams. If that isn’t emblematic of the illogical waste in DCPS....

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hardy should just use Ellington field. It is good enough for Georgetown University yet somehow beneath Hardy.

Ellington controls Ellington field. Schools/teams can't just show up and play. Georgetown has a long standing agreement with Ellington to use the field at certain times.

From what I understand, Ellington didn't really want to manage the field. It didn't want to pick & choose among applicants, it didn't want to invest in the field's infrastructure, and it didn't want to manage scheduling. It was content to let the field sit empty, except when the DESA marching band has practice after school. Lots of different entities approached Ellington over the years to reserve the field but Ellington basically just never responded.

Because DESA has basically incompetent management. Isn’t that what the DC Auditor concluded?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hardy should just use Ellington field. It is good enough for Georgetown University yet somehow beneath Hardy.

Ellington controls Ellington field. Schools/teams can't just show up and play. Georgetown has a long standing agreement with Ellington to use the field at certain times.

From what I understand, Ellington didn't really want to manage the field. It didn't want to pick & choose among applicants, it didn't want to invest in the field's infrastructure, and it didn't want to manage scheduling. It was content to let the field sit empty, except when the DESA marching band has practice after school. Lots of different entities approached Ellington over the years to reserve the field but Ellington basically just never responded.

There is a bigger narrative that this is all a part of.

This year DCPS made news when enrollment passed 51,000 students, a modern record. But in 1968 DCPS had 149,150 students. Fifty years ago DCPS was three times the size it is now. DCPS lost students every year from 1968 to 2008, forty years running. For most of the past fifty years the biggest facilities problem that DCPS faced was what to do with all the empty buildings, some of them literally couldn't be given away. The city also had too many libraries and rec centers. The bankruptcy of the Boys and Girls Club in 2008, which led to the city assuming their property, was also due to the collapse of the city's youth population.

During most of that time the city was happy to basically give away those properties to anyone who could find a use for them. The youth population started rebounding in 2008, and between 2008 and 2013 DCPS closed 24 schools, and only in the past few years has DCPS started coming close to having the right number of buildings and other facilities.

In that environment it raised no eyebrows that Ellington had literally an entire city block in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the city that it used only for band practice a few hours a week.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hardy should just use Ellington field. It is good enough for Georgetown University yet somehow beneath Hardy.

Ellington controls Ellington field. Schools/teams can't just show up and play. Georgetown has a long standing agreement with Ellington to use the field at certain times.

From what I understand, Ellington didn't really want to manage the field. It didn't want to pick & choose among applicants, it didn't want to invest in the field's infrastructure, and it didn't want to manage scheduling. It was content to let the field sit empty, except when the DESA marching band has practice after school. Lots of different entities approached Ellington over the years to reserve the field but Ellington basically just never responded.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A dumb question: why does DESA have a marching band if it has no sports teams ?!

Serious answer: why not? You can have one without the other.

Anonymous wrote:A dumb question: why does DESA have a marching band if it has no sports teams ?!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it crazy that School without Walls is just one building with no real access to sports fields. Isn’t that something that DCPS should be managing for the school?

Not crazy. It is supposed to be a .school WITHOUT WALLS.. a non-traditional high school where students spent more than half their time OUT IN THE CITY doing jobs, internships or attending GWU and getting an assoc degree. It wasn't supposed to be another AP-oriented, college prep high school with sports and so forth. Like at Ellington now, students who want to do sports and such can and should pursue them can and should do that at one of the comprehensive high schools.

1) merge Walls and combine with Coolidge Early College or Bard, which all have the same missions

2) turn the Walls HS campus into a city-wide ECE school, like SWS or CHML or put it up for bid to a charter

Anonymous wrote:I find it crazy that School without Walls is just one building with no real access to sports fields. Isn’t that something that DCPS should be managing for the school?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hardy should just use Ellington field. It is good enough for Georgetown University yet somehow beneath Hardy.

Ellington controls Ellington field. Schools/teams can't just show up and play. Georgetown has a long standing agreement with Ellington to use the field at certain times.

From what I understand, Ellington didn't really want to manage the field. It didn't want to pick & choose among applicants, it didn't want to invest in the field's infrastructure, and it didn't want to manage scheduling. It was content to let the field sit empty, except when the DESA marching band has practice after school. Lots of different entities approached Ellington over the years to reserve the field but Ellington basically just never responded.

Because DESA has basically incompetent management. Isn’t that what the DC Auditor concluded?

Disagree strongly with your takeaway.

The field is not part of DESA's core focus: the performing arts. Maintaining a field costs a lot of money and DESA has exactly zero sports teams. DESA is quite happy to be ceding control to DPR/DC government - it's one less (expensive) headache that distracts from the school's core mission.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hardy should just use Ellington field. It is good enough for Georgetown University yet somehow beneath Hardy.

Ellington controls Ellington field. Schools/teams can't just show up and play. Georgetown has a long standing agreement with Ellington to use the field at certain times.

From what I understand, Ellington didn't really want to manage the field. It didn't want to pick & choose among applicants, it didn't want to invest in the field's infrastructure, and it didn't want to manage scheduling. It was content to let the field sit empty, except when the DESA marching band has practice after school. Lots of different entities approached Ellington over the years to reserve the field but Ellington basically just never responded.

Because DESA has basically incompetent management. Isn’t that what the DC Auditor concluded?