The Georgetown Metropolitan

Yesterday GM reported on the continued interest Georgetown families are showing in Hyde-Addison elementary school. But on Saturday, the Deputy Mayor of Education, Abigail Smith, announced preliminary proposals that could radically impact where Georgetowners are able to send their children.Today, GM will discuss the project’s background and the proposed changes to boundary map that may impact Georgetown.

Background

The District has kept the same school boundary map for decades, despite the significant population changes that directly affect how many children are enrolled in public school and where. To address this, the mayor created a task force to analyze school boundaries, as well as the whole system of how children are assigned schools. This committee has worked for months and months, and now is floating some preliminary proposals.

Boundaries

The first recommendation from the committee relates to the traditional rezoning battleground: boundary maps. The committee recognized the need for updated maps, although there’s just about nothing more controversial than telling a resident that they’re no longer in the great school zone they were yesterday. Probably reflecting this controversy, the recommended map changes are mostly limited.

And the changes wouldn’t directly impact Georgetown. No Georgetown families are being “zoned out” of Hyde. In fact, the proposal calls for the Hyde boundary to extend to capture Burleith and Foxhall Village. This small change is nonetheless controversial because it would move families out of the Stoddert and Key zones. These are both highly sought after schools. While GM personally thinks that Hyde is just as good, being zoned out of such successful schools is bound to cause anxiety. Not to mention the fact that for some the trip to school will be longer. Continue reading →

Photo by Justin Swan.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Nice narration of a walk along the canal.
• Win tickets to the Georgetown House Tour.

Dumbarton Oaks Park

Last week, the results of the new unified school lottery were announced. Although Georgetowners have no need to go through the lottery to attend Hyde-Addison, the local elementary school, for Kindergarten onward, they do if they’re interested in the Pre-K level. So every year a certain number of local families apply through the lottery.

Of the nineteen slots for Pre-K for next year, all nineteen were assigned to local families in the lottery. An additional twelve local children are on the wait list. Thus thirty-one Georgetown families applied for pre-K next year. That’s roughly the same as we’ve seen over the last couple years and reflects a strong and steady interest from Georgetown families in their local school. Continue reading →

Photo by Ron Cogswell.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Despite blitzing into the city, Peet’s Coffee can’t find a place in Georgetown.
• Here’s Carol Joynt’s interview with the great Kojo Nnamndi at the George Town Club.

1700 block of 32nd St.

There’s a new cafe open in the East Village on P St., just east of 27th. It’s called After Peacock Room. It is filling the long vacant space that the Consignment shop used to occupy. According to the cafe’s website:

AFTER PEACOCK ROOM is a fine dining cafe located in Georgetown, Washington DC. We provide excellent coffees and teas with fine pastries and savory light meals.

The design is a modern interpretation ofPeacock Room: Harmony of Blue and Gold, created by James McNeal Whistler in 1877.

This is the original Peacock Room: Continue reading →

Photo by Sofia Bustamente.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Georgetown resident kept dutiful weather records during the Civil War, providing a reliable historic climate record.
• GM saw this last weekend and hopes it doesn’t portend a downward spiral: Capitol Prague is under new management and is closed. That space is just damned.

3400 block of Q St.

This week in Old Georgetown in Color, GM travels to the days after World War I and visits a dog named Stubby. As the Smithsonian explains:

Stubby the dog, known to many as “Sgt. Stubby”…was the mascot of the 102 Infantry 26th Yankee Division in World War I. He showed up at training camp one day on the grounds of Yale University, and was such a hit with the soldiers that he was allowed to stay (he would drill with them, and even learned to salute). When it was time to ship off for Europe, Stubby went along for the ride to Newport News, Virginia, and was smuggled by Private J. Robert Conroy aboard the SS Minnesota. Upon discovery by Conroy’s Commanding Officer, the story goes, Stubby saluted him, and the CO was so impressed he allowed Stubby to remain with the troops. Stubby took to soldiering quite well, joining the men in the trenches. He was gassed once, and wounded by shrapnel another time, and once he disappeared for a while, only to resurface with the French forces who returned him to his unit. Stubby even captured a Hun (that’s WWI slang for a German soldier)!

After the war, Stubby’s caretaker enrolled at Georgetown University. Stubby, already a celebrity, became the mascot for the Hoyas. Stubby passed away in 1926 and was the subject of multiple newspaper obituaries. He was stuffed and eventually donated to the Smithsonian, where you can see him today, draped in about a dozen medals.

In the photo above, Stubby is being inspected by none other than the great Gen. John “Black Jack” Pershing.