Under normal circumstances those of us in the room regarding what to JF Cook are disagreeing over the name of the neighborhood (or avoiding the naming fight altogether). However, last we were pretty much united against the idea of a food and clothing distribution and a city wide job training center. And strongly for a police substation, early child development and youth services/recreation.
Sadly, the MM Washington and JF Cook discussions were in separate rooms, despite the fact that the two schools are right next door to each other, so the same set of neighbors are impacted by what happens at either school. Our great BACA leader Jim Berry was there and later went to the next room where I guess he expressed the same background and concerns regarding the neighborhood, and the history of surplussed schools such as Armstrong. So, I have no idea what went on in the next room.
I can say what happened in the Cook room. There were several ideas about what the school could serve as in the interim and long term. The two ideas that got the room riled up came from two individuals who were pushing for services for the homeless and the nearly homeless. Because of the schools’ proximity to S.O.M.E. and the residents’ rocky relationship with the non-profit (and other near by social services) as a neighborhood entity, there was an uproar. It did not help those individuals’ case when they opposed the idea of moving the early child development from Slater to Cook and opposed the police substation idea. There was a lot of people talking over each other and the Planning Office representative looked like he was on the edge of losing his temper with the group.
If you missed this meeting there is a follow up April 10th at I guess the same time 6ish, at McKinley Tech’s Auditorium. But really, as someone mentioned, since these impact the local neighborhood these feedback sessions should be presented at the ANC meetings and to the civic groups.
Tag: schools
More on the empty schools
From the Truxton Discussion Forum:
Please see this idea from Jim Berry:
Please consider . . . the idea of making JF Cook School a police substation, the site of office space for ANC 5C and, perhaps, other appropriate community uses, as well as the idea of encouraging an Arts emphasis for the future use of MM Washington, should it eventually close. I think it safe to assume that none of us wants the buildings that now house JF Cook School and MM Washington to go the way of the former John Mercer Langston Elementary School or the former Armstrong Adult Education Center buildings — essentially, abandoned by the city and languishing in our community as an attractive nuisance for drug dealers and users, homeless persons, and the like.As for MM Washington… one possibility might be to turn it into a place for artists — an idea that was floated by the local government and one which we endorsed, I believe, in the late 1980’s/early 1990’s. At the time, O Street, N.W. and Hanover Place, N.W. were already budding hubs for this kind of activity. Perhaps we could revisit some of those ideas. Also, we could give artists special consideration to locate their businesses there and require them to hold classes for interested children and adults, in return for that consideration.
I love the idea of artists studios. There are artists studios already in the hood and the more the merrier. What I would love is something linking the artists areas in the TC so we have this spot over in southeast Truxton for art professionals and amateurs. Excellent idea Jim.
As far as the substation at Cook… Sure, as long as the building can share with offices.
What to do about empty schools
There will be a meeting (isn’t there always a meeting about anything around here?) March 20th for Ward 5 from 6-8pm at McKinley Technology High School about reuse of school buildings like JF Cook (as seen in pix); Backus; Taft; Slowe; MM Washington and Young.
If nothing else pops up on my after work calendar (like another meeting for something else or emergency hair appointment) I’ll probably attend. I have some ideas of what I’d like the two closing schools in the TC to be:
Not residential housing- Takes too long, requires too many committees, red tape, and people get all huffy when it’s not affordable or it’s not luxury.
Office Space…. for a non-social services branch of DC govt- I can’t imagine it would take too much work to replace small desks with cubicles. I say non-social services ’cause folks get annoyed with the non-profit social service orgs around here and get into a tizzy when another one pops up (SOME and group houses).
Office Space-non-profits (non-social services)- for the same reasons stated above. However, it would require hoops and other pieces of red tape.
My main interest is finding someone, something that could move into Cooke or MM Washington as soon as the kids clear out. As when the city mothballs these buildings they allow for their slow destruction. The longer they are mothballed the more likely they will look like Langston or Armstrong and become de facto homeless shelters and crack ho bordellos.
Sunday Ponderings
On the bus to Georgetown, going down P Street I gazed at the rear end of Shaw Jr. High, thinking, “gawd what an ugly building, tear that d@mned thing down.” However, I don’t think that will come anytime soon, as it is the school that gives our lovely hood its name. And regardless of the quality of the school people will fight to keep it open.
This weekend over on the Eckington Listserv frequent list contributer Ted McGinn made an excellent argument in support of some school closures. Here’s just the start (because the rest is too long):
We cannot continue to postpone taking the bitter medicine of school reform. When an elementary school’s enrollment falls to 200 or less students, the weighted student formula will not pay for all the bells and whistles of an excellent education. A trend of the declining school age population in many of our neighborhoods together with the draining of the pool of available students into charter schools has left us with grossly under enrolled schools. These schools in many cases have significant infrastructure issues including broken heating/AC systems, leaking roofs, poor plumbing and high maintenance costs. We fired Janey because he allegedly moved too slowly in addressing these pressing concerns. If you recall he had plans for closing schools as well, co-locating to fill buildings and creating school model programs such as K-8th grade to test which direction DCPS should head in for the future. Under Janey, we made our High Schools 9th thru 12th grade and redefined our middle schools as sixth grade thru eighth. There was such a backlash from the public and others about removing 6th grade from elementary schools that DCPS postponed it until the 08/09 school year.
I don’t know the numbers for Shaw Jr. High, but I do know that the regular public schools give some parents and guardians pause for thought. The middle class parents I know have shuffled their school aged kids into some excellent charter schools or considered how nice the public schools are in MD or VA, and moved accordingly. I’m not going to demonize charter schools, because right now they are the thing keeping people I like from moving.
Anyway, back to the late mid-century building that is Shaw Jr. High. In my morning pondering on the bus, I imagined bulldozers going at it and leveling the land and replacing it with a park with a nice big statue of Robert Gould Shaw in the middle.
BACA meeting to address Armstrong
Tonight is the 1st Monday of the month so, it’s BACA meeting time and one of the scheduled speakers is someone who can tell what’s going on with Armstrong. Ya know it would be nice if Armstrong opened before Cook and Washington close. Also there will be someone from the organization housed in the Slater school building.
According to Jim Berry:
As indicated, the first half of our meeting on Monday will include presentations by Mr. Thomas W. Gore, President/Executive Director of Associates for Renewal in Education, Inc., 45 P Street, N.W., concerning the interesting mix of services that A.R.E. provides to children in the community, and Mr. Wendell Butler, Chief Operating Officer of the Community Academy Public Charter Schools network, who will talk about plans to develop the building that formerly housed the Armstrong Manual Training School at 1st and P Streets, N.W. There will also be a few brief committee reports. Importantly, the second half of the meeting will be devoted to the hour of fellowship that we sponsor annually during the holiday season. This is an ideal opportunity to meet and greet neighbors from all parts of the community and, as usual, feel free to bring a dessert or a covered dish to share.
Note: I’m getting all woo-woo in the head and that’s nature’s signal for me to get more sleep. So I’ll be skipping tonight’s meeting and taking a nap, ’cause I don’t know how much longer I can last on auto-pilot today.