Photo by SdotCruz.
Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:
- Baked & Wired’s “Coffee Boss” competes in barista championships.
- GU students hit with rash of burglaries.
- Rhee not backing down on Hardy principal decision.
Tag Archives: Michelle Rhee
The Morning Metropolitan
Filed under The Morning Metropolitan
Rhee Meets With Hardy Parents
On Tuesday morning, DC Chancellor of Schools Michelle Rhee met with parents of students at Hardy School in Georgetown. The meeting was another contentious round of a fight that has been raging for months (and perhaps years, depending on your perspective). Last December, Rhee announced her decision to transfer the principal of Hardy School, Patrick Pope, to a new arts middle school that he would help develop. This was met with anger and frustration by current Hardy parents. However, of the Georgetown parents that GM has spoke with on this issue, most have viewed it favorably.
But how favorably? According to the reports (GM’s got a job and couldn’t make it to the morning meeting) the parents objecting to the removal of Patrick Pope argued that notwithstanding the change that is supposedly going to attract local families, no in-boundary families have yet applied to attend Hardy next year. Here’s a Fox report mentioning this specific point: Continue reading
Filed under Schools
The Morning Metropolitan
Baked and Wired by Camile A.
Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:
- Philly Pizza closes finally, Potomac St. sleeps soundly.
- Michelle Rhee talks to Kojo about Hardy School.
Filed under The Morning Metropolitan
BREAKING NEWS: Pope to Leave Hardy to Form New Arts and Music Magnet School; Hyde Principal to Replace Him
Tonight at a meeting for the Hardy PTA, Chancellor Michelle Rhee announced that Patrick Pope would leave his position as principal of Hardy Middle School and become the principal of a new arts and music magnet middle school. Dana Nerenberg, principal of Hyde-Addison, will become principal of both Hyde-Addison and Hardy.
The announcement was not taken well by the Hardy PTA. With Mr. Pope sitting silently in the audience, speaker after speaker criticized Chancellor Rhee for the content and process of the decision. GM will write up a fuller account of this, but for the curious, here is a recording of the bulk of Chancellor Rhee’s Q&A session (GM’s batteries died after 80 minutes or so):
What was not caught on the tape was what happened after Rhee left. Mr. Pope gave a heart felt speech of thanks and encouragement to the audience (he did not, however, discuss the plans for the new magnet school or whether he was in fact forced out; but in not addressing those issues he appeared to be confirming the PTA’s suspicions that he was forced out and that he was not entirely excited about starting over at a new school). After Pope spoke, Ward 7 Councilmember Yvette Alexander gave a rousing speech in support of the PTA and Mr. Pope. Big quote: “We’ve got to get rid of Fenty. And Rhee. And you can quote me on that!”
Filed under Breaking News
Showdown at Hardy: Rhee To Announce Plans Tonight
Tonight at 6:00 (UPDATE: The meeting is starting at 6:30, not 6:00, however it appears that the Hardy PTA is encouraging its members to arrive at 6:00, so if getting a good seat is important to you, you might want to arrive early.) DC Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee is scheduled to speak at the Hardy School. This is expected to be the culmination of weeks of speculation and recriminations revolving around the future of the middle school.
The story begins at least as far back as February of this year. A group of parents who send their children to Key Elementary School in the Palisades had created a group called “Life After Key”, which focuses on exploring middle school options for their children. One of those options is the local middle school, the Hardy School (which is also the middle school that Georgetown’s Hyde feeds into). Concerned about the quality of Hardy, the group arranged for a meeting with Chancellor Rhee to discuss the future of the school. The minutes of that meeting are available here.
According to these minutes, Rhee acknowledged to the group that parents are anguished over their decisions for middle school and that they wish they could view Hardy as an option for their children. Rhee stated that DCPA has a unique opportunity with Hardy since it has a newly renovated building with an excellent core group of teachers. She stated that within 3 to 4 years Hardy could be a school in high demand as “changes occur.” Continue reading
Filed under Schools
ANC Round Up: Let There Be Neon Light
The ANC met last night for the final time in 2009. After a year of contentious fights over topics from the Apple store to drunken alumni parades, the final meeting last night seemed a bit anti-climatic. But that’s not to say there were no interesting developments.
Fiat Neon Lux
The most exciting item on the agenda was the proposed renovation of the Georgetown theater sign. The iconic sign at 1351 Wisconsin has not lit up in many years and has slowly rusted away. The plan discussed last night would fix that.
The BID is kicking in $50,000 to restore the landmark. There’s a bit of deja vu with this since several years ago another plan was floated to renovate the sign, but never got off the ground. Let’s hope this time is different.
The sign will be repainted in its original black color and the neon lights will be their original “rose” color.
When (jokingly) asked whether this meant the theater was coming back too, the architect laughed and said he couldn’t say. (Translation: no).
GM is thrilled that this sign will be returned to its former glory. A little more clarification on what is going to happen to the building it’s attached to would be even better. Continue reading
Filed under ANC
Chancellor Rhee Speaks to CAG
Last night Chancellor of the D.C. Public Schools Michelle Rhee spoke to the Citizens Association of Georgetown at the Hyde-Addison School. Rhee spoke for about an hour to the packed crowd of mostly supportive listeners.
Before the meeting, however, a set of impressive student ambassadors gave members of the audience personal tours of the Hyde and Addison buildings. GM was particularly impressed with the poise and enthusiasm of his three ambassadors.
Now to the meeting: Rhee started it off with a quick introductory speech. She thanked Hyde principal Dana Nerenberg and congratulated her on being one of DCPS’s exemplary principals. Specifically she cited two of Nerenberg’s accomplishments.
First, Rhee mentioned that Nerenberg had developed a program to improve special education by offering Hyde as a location for more “inclusion kids”. To accommodate the addition children, Nerenberg worked with school building czar Alan Lew to completely renovate the empty Addison school. The school took over the Addison school last spring. Now kindergarten through first grade are in Hyde, while second through fifth grade are in the gleaming Addison building.
Second Rhee mentioned Nerenberg’s work with the principals of Mann and Janney. Together they developed a collaborative program for their three schools to help spread their success to six less highly achieving schools. The program enables the struggling schools to learn best practices from the higher achieving schools.
After speaking about Nerenberg, Rhee stated that we are nowhere near being able to say we can provide a good education to all the kids in the school district. But despite telling a journalist last year that she would give herself a failing grade, Rhee stated that there are nonetheless hopeful signs of progress. Specifically she mentioned that the improvements that the fourth graders made in math last year put the District in first place versus all the fifty states in terms year-over-year improvements.
Adorably, shortly after Rhee made this claim a student ambassador raised his hands and wanted to clarify that it was in fact his class-year that had increased its performance so well. The crowd got a kick out of that. Continue reading
Filed under Citizens Association of Georgetown
The Morning Metropolitan
Georgetown Cafe by Caroline Treadway.
Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:
- A balloon flew over Georgetown yesterday to take photos. No national scandal ensued.
- GU student who’s trying to hire a personal assistant speaks with the Post.
- Reminder: Chancellor Rhee speaks to CAG tonight at the Hyde School.
Filed under The Morning Metropolitan
The Georgetown Metropolitan 
You must be logged in to post a comment.