Black Friday Shopping
Dear Shoppers:
The biggest sale day of the year is coming this Friday, and a lot of
people have come to celebrate Black Friday with more enthusiasm than
Thanksgiving Thursday. Does anyone have any shopping tips for finding
the best deals in town? In particular, are any local or specialty stores
cutting deals that are more enticing than those at the national chains
and big-box stores? Promote local businesses and give us a head start on
finding the best deals of the “shop ’til you drop and save the
economy” season; send any recommendations you have in time for
Wednesday’s issue of themail.
Better than I could explain it, two “Close to Home” op-eds spell
out why DCPS Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s mission to bust the teachers’
union won’t work to improve public school education and won’t even
succeed in busting the union (Larry Cuban, “Michelle Rhee: Better to
Be a Marathoner, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/21/AR2008112103222.html),
and why her promise of higher pay for teachers through merit bonuses is
an empty one (Bernadette Nakamura, “The Unmet Promise of Teacher Merit
Pay,” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/21/AR2008112103225.html).
Let’s hope someone in the Fenty administration reads these two
articles and realizes the administration is racing at full speed down a
dead-end road.
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
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As a parent of school-aged children who, mostly, do the right thing,
I am tired of DCPS always seeking ways to accommodate and adjust to the
most disruptive elements of the school. We constantly hear that nothing
can be done. Chancellor Rhee is now spouting another batch of nonsense
— eliminating out-of-school suspensions. The reason out-of-school
suspensions don’t work is there are no consequences for being
suspended. And, there are no expectations placed upon the child, or the
parent(s) of the child, being suspended. Out-of-school suspension should
not mean school work is suspended. Work should be given, and that work
should be required to be turned in upon the student’s return. In
addition, the parents don’t seem to care if the child is suspended.
The child clearly does not care. The child roams the streets during the
day and is not picked up by truant officers. At the end of the school
year the child is “socially promoted” to the next grade. And, as
crazy as it sounds, getting suspended gives you street cred.
If you want to start turning the schools around, start expelling
students who violate the rules. I did not say transfer them from school
to school — put them out! How many of you know of Chapter 25 of the DC
Municipal Regulations? It provides clear, unequivocal guidance regarding
offenses for which expulsion from DCPS is mandatory. Use or threatened
use of a weapon during school hours, on school-related transportation,
on school premises, or at school-sponsored activities regardless of the
time of day — expulsion. Possession or distribution of illegal drugs
or drug paraphernalia during school hours, on school-related
transportation, on school premises, or at school-sponsored activities
regardless of the time of day — expulsion. Commit any act that causes
severe injury to other students, personnel and/or staff during school
hours, on school-related transportation, on school premises, or at
school-sponsored activities regardless of the time of day — expulsion.
If we are going to reclaim our schools and our communities, we have to
demand accountability and responsibility. The same is true for adults,
but this posting is about DCPS. The question must be asked, why has DCPS
not been enforcing Chapter 25? This lack of enforcement is not new under
Chancellor Rhee. Chapter 25 has not been enforced for at least the last
ten years. If you want to know how and when we truly lost control of the
schools, it was when it became clear that there were absolutely no real
consequences for bad behavior.
What happens to those students? Let them go to private school. Their
parents can’t afford it? They should have thought about that before
they abused the right to attend free public schools. I do believe
education is a right, but it is not an absolute right. I have the right
to free speech, but I cannot yell “fire” in a movie theater. I have
the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but that right
ends where my neighbor’s nose begins. With every right there comes
responsibility. And when someone violates the principles inherent with a
right there should be consequences.
###############
[Reply to Ralph Chittams] Your points are well taken and we all need
to work together for solutions to address these issues. No matter what
behaviors a child displays, we are still responsible. I am confident
that the council will employ the executive to have a comprehensive
truancy and disciplinary plan of action for our troubled youth.
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Re: School Violence
Ralph Chittams, Sr., minchittams@aol.com
[Reply to Yvette Alexander] I take issue with one of your points. I
am not responsible for the actions of someone else’s misbehaving child
— they are. We, the community-at-large, are responsible for providing
the opportunity to receive a free, quality, public education. If someone
chooses to exempt themselves from that right, my hands are clean.
Ultimately it is the responsibility of the parent(s), not the school,
not the neighborhood, to train a child. The job of DCPS is to educate,
not regulate, behavior. I again ask the rhetorical question: we have
rules and regulations, why are they not being enforced?
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Re: School Violence
Jackie Pinckney-Hackett, msjudgejackie@aol.com
Let’s focus on two points: 1) it takes a village to raise a child,
and 2) bad behavior may be a sign of another problem. Minister Chittams,
we are our brothers’ keepers and the keepers of their children. And
this is why mentoring the youth (as you do) is so important. There are
times when others may be able to make a difference in a child’s life
when the child has turned a deaf ear to the parent. The community is
responsible for meeting the needs of its residents, which includes
students who are truant or behaviorally challenged. DCPS is responsible
for educating all students. Therefore, it must create a plan to address
the needs of students who have behavior challenges. And in cases where
the behavior prevents them from being educated we must evaluate them for
special education or a 504 plan. You see, this is not as clear-cut as
you and others might think.
I agree with Chancellor Rhee’s plan to eliminate out-of-school
suspensions. Children need to be in school and have their behavior
issues addressed appropriately in the school environment. This is were
wrap-around services would play a vital role. DCPS should create a plan
to include DOH, DMH, CFSA and DC Superior Court to address the behavior
issues and provide intervention to both the student and the family.
I disagree that parents and students do not care about suspensions. I
do believe that sometimes both the parent and student need behavior
modification and intervention. The truth is we truly lost control of the
schools when people started thinking like you, “I am not responsible
for the actions of someone else’s misbehaving child” — we are..
Last, but not least, in addition to Chapter 25 we have the Master
Education Plan, which requires schools to create a six-week plan to
address behavior, truancy, and other issues that prevent a student from
receiving an education. Oh, there is also a little thing called
compulsory education age; there will be no throwing out of children
under the age of eighteen. We must find a way to educate them all. And
by the way, expulsion for more than ten days automatically transfers the
student to an alternative setting. DCPS must educate these students
regardless of behavior, and there is no way around it! We must have “a
comprehensive truancy and disciplinary plan of action for our troubled
youth,” as stated by Councilmember Alexander, however, most
importantly we must have a comprehensive plan for parent and community
involvement.
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President of the Board of Library Trustees John Hill revealed on the
night of November 19 that his board has instructed Chief Librarian
Ginnie Cooper to proceed with construction documents for a standalone
library at Tenley. This comes in spite of Mayor Adrian Fenty’s
selection earlier this summer of developer LCOR to incorporate the
library into a mixed use project there. The mayor’s project involves
the joint development of a library, Janney Elementary School, 170 units
of housing and retail, as well as underground parking. A preliminary
plan ignited neighborhood opposition when it was first floated several
years ago. Since then, opposition has grown. Ward 3 Council member Mary
Cheh, who had initially sought the mayor’s support for the public
private partnership to build the library as part of the mixed use
project, recently reversed her position. Last month Cheh made public a
letter to the Mayor urging him to drop the partnership and support DCPL’s
standalone library.
The surprise announcement to ignore the mayor’s plan came at a
bimonthly meeting of the Trustees at the Lamond Riggs Library on South
Dakota Avenue, NE, serving Wards Four and Five. When one disbelieving
Tenley resident asked if Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Neil
Albert had been told, Hill responded that it was “not necessary. We
are an independent board and can move forward.”
Since hiring Chief Librarian Ginnie Cooper two and a half years ago,
the Trustees maintained that they would begin construction this fall on
the Tenley library and three others. They laid out what they termed a
“dual track” strategy, which included working with the neighborhood
to plan a standalone library while remaining open to explore the
possibilities of the public-private partnership. Numerous meetings with
development partner LCOR have not yielded a satisfactory plan for the
library in the mixed use project. Members of the Tenley community in
attendance thanked the Trustees for keeping their promise to move
quickly to rebuild the Tenley library. Trustee Bonnie Cohen deferred all
credit for the decision to the leadership of John Hill.
###############
DC Public Libraries Statements on Tenley
Library Construction
George Williams, george.williams2@dc.gov
Statement by John Hill, president of the Board of Library Trustees:
“The DC Public Library has been working closely and very cooperatively
with the mayor and the Deputy Mayor for Economic Development for some
time on the building of the new library in Tenleytown and the planned
mixed-used development. We will move forward with the construction of a
new library as quickly as possible and accommodate to the greatest
extent possible future development on the adjacent site and over the
Tenleytown Library.”
Statement by Ginnie Cooper, chief librarian for DC Public Library:
“We know that it has been important that there be a library in
Tenleytown without further delay. From the beginning, the Library has
embraced the plans for development around the library and the directions
given to the architect allows for this potential.”
Moving forward, the Library will work with the design team,
construction manager, and the Fenty Administration to develop a new
schedule with the goal of starting construction as soon as possible. If
you have any information requests about this matter, please contact the
DC Public Library.
###############
Inauguration Housing Idea
Annie McCormick mamccredz@msn.com
I keep reading in the paper about inauguration rentals, landlords,
etc. (latest article, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/19/AR2008111904436.html).
Why doesn’t the District rent out Franklin School? They won’t let
the homeless use the building any longer. Is anyone using the building?
May as well make some money from tourists who desperately want to see
history in the making. Market it as a bare bones, bring your own
sleeping bag, arrangement at an ideal location across from a lovely
park, convenient to all attractions downtown and only blocks from the
White House. For those who don’t have an outrageous amount of money to
spend on accommodations this would be an ideal solution. Good for school
groups, youth groups, or church groups?
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Weekly Residential Street Sweeping Ends
Friday, November 28
Nancee Lyons, nancee.lyons@dc.com
The DC Department of Public Works (DPW) announced that weekly
(signed), residential mechanical street cleaning will end for the season
on Friday, November 28. “No parking/street cleaning” restrictions
will be lifted and motorists may park along posted, alternate-side,
daytime street sweeping routes without being required to move their cars
on street-cleaning days.
Residential street sweeping is suspended for public safety concerns
during the winter. Trucks used to clean the streets emit a fine spray of
water to keep dust down as they sweep. When the temperature drops to
freezing or below, sweeping is discontinued to prevent freezing and
accidents to vehicles and pedestrians.
Overnight sweeping scheduled for the District’s major roadways,
which include Pennsylvania, Georgia, Constitution, and Independence
Avenues, will take place as usual all winter, weather conditions
permitting. Motorists are urged not to park in these areas during the
posted overnight sweeping hours. By suspending the street sweeping
program, DPW personnel will focus on leaf collection, which began
November 3, and the upcoming snow removal season. Residents and business
owners will be notified when street sweeping resumes again in the spring
of 2009.
###############
Nirvana Now? Reinventing Congressional
Oversight of DC
Len Sullivan, lsnarpac@bellatlantic.net
Six years ago, NARPAC sent the following letter to the then incoming
Congressional leadership. We find the suggestion equally valid today,
though we would now add emphasis on energy-squandering metro area
traffic gridlock as well. “NARPAC respectfully urges the leadership of
the 108th Congress to consider some reorganization of its House and
Senate committee structures to address two similar problems of
substance. The narrower issue involves the continuing financial
difficulties of our national capital city. This is, however, part of the
much broader national problem of festering inner city poverty and its
corrosive effects.
“DC faces two debilitating circumstances. First, the financial
needs of the 29 percent of the metro area’s poor living in DC cannot
be met with DC’s 11 percent of the region’s taxable income. Far from
unique, this problem plagues many other US inner cities: too much
poverty for so small a local tax base. Second, Congress has an
undeniable constitutional obligation to oversee District affairs. But
the four separate, low-ranking DC oversight subcommittees focus on
micro-managing DC’s local government, not addressing its root
problems. Subcommittee members have had clear conflicts of interest
impacting on DC’s financial security. We submit that Congressional
oversight of DC should be at a far broader policy level, and exercised
by a single committee.
“On the national scene, metro areas now define the quality of life
for most US households. But metro areas per se have no high-level
champion in Congress. It is time to assure that significant groups of
Americans, including those in the nation’s capital city, are not
discriminated against because of inadequate high-level attention in the
halls of Congress. For both situations, then, we urge the revitalized
Congressional leadership to disband the four DC oversight subcommittees
and replace them with a single, more senior Joint Congressional
Committee on Metro Area Affairs and the District of Columbia. It should
be charged with adopting federal policies and funding procedures aimed
at leveling the socioeconomic playing field between America’s
struggling inner cities and their prospering but unsympathetic suburbs,
including the national capital metro area. For substantiation of our
concerns, please call us, or visit our web site at www.narpac.org.”
###############
Rhee’s Children Are in Boundary
Anne-Marie Bairstow, annemariebairstow at hotmail dot com
Chancellor Rhee’s ex-husband lives on Woodley Place, within the
boundary of the Oyster School District, meaning that they didn’t jump
any lines to get in — that’s their local school.
###############
Diana Winthrop decried the lack of diversity in DC schools [themail,
November 19], but I haven’t experienced that. My twins attended
Stoddert Elementary in Glover Park last year and are now attending
Washington Yu Ying (a Chinese-language immersion charter school) in
Brookland. Both schools are extremely diverse. Although I’m not
familiar with the exact demographics, Stoddert has students of all races
and cultures, including many native-speaking Russians, thanks to the
nearby Russian embassy. Yu Ying is 47 percent African-American,
30-something percent white, with Asians and Hispanics represented by
double-digit percentages as well.
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If Not Obama, Everyone Else Get to DCPS
Nelson R. Jacobsen, Ward 3, nelsonjacobsen@yahoo.com
I can understand the concern of the first family and their personal
choice of schools for reasons that have more to do with security, as
well as, on the flip side, a decreased risk to the rest of the kids. I
do believe that the school-aged children of everyone else under him who
moves into the District should attend some form of public school. This
will change more about DC school culture then two little girls.
###############
CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
For the Greener Good
Jazmine Zick, jzick@nbm.org
Wanted: Power; Location: Anywhere But Here. November 24, 6:30-8:00
p.m. As the country’s appetite for energy grows, there is a consensus
that we need more power. But who wants a nuclear plant, wind farm, or
transmission lines in his or her back yard? A panel featuring Andrew
Karsner, former Assistant Secretary, US Department of Energy, Office of
Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy; Tyson Slocum, director of the
nonprofit group Public Citizen’s energy program; the Mayor of Port
Gibson, Mississippi Fred Reeves; and New York Times journalist
Matthew Wald, explore this heated issue. At the National Building
Museum, 401 F Street, NW, Judiciary Square stop, Metro Red Line.
Register for events at http://www.nbm.org.
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Tuesday, November 25, 6:00 p.m.-8:45 p.m., Labyrinth Walk, Washington
National Cathedral. Free admission. HSW joins the Washington National
Cathedral for two evenings of contemplative practices, music, and
reflection that is free and open to the public. At 6 p.m. the Cathedral’s
Program Manager Terry Lynn Simpson will meet HSW participant at St.
Joseph’s Chapel on the crypt level of the Cathedral for a brief
introduction and history of labyrinths. From 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.,
participants are welcome to walk the labyrinth while listening to the
melodic sound of harp music.
There is no right or wrong way to walk a labyrinth, since it is an
activity that becomes a metaphor for your own spiritual journey in life.
Some people walk with the intention to address an issue in their lives,
others to pray and meditate. It is helpful to pause before you enter to
center your thoughts on your intention. Walk between the lines of the
circuit, being aware that you are sharing the labyrinth. Allow yourself
time to contemplate what it means for you to be there; honor this space
in your life. The center is a place to pause, reflect and receive
insight. Walking the path back out of the labyrinth is a time for deep
reflection and a chance to consider what it might mean for your daily
living. For many, it is the most fruitful part of the walk. It can lead
to action and renewal. This program will be held at the Washington
National Cathedral, which is located at the intersection of
Massachusetts and Wisconsin Avenues in northwest, 3101 Wisconsin Avenue,
NW. Ages fourteen to adults. RSVP at historydc.org or 383-1828.
###############
Department of Parks and Recreation Events,
November 25
John Stokes, john.astokes@dc.gov
Tuesday, November 25, 5:30-7:30 p.m., Hillcrest Recreation Center,
3100 Denver Street, SE. The Distinguished Gentleman of Hillcrest will
prepare and serve dinner for the community. All ages. For more
information, call Orvin Wright at 645-9200.
Tuesday, November 25, 5:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m., Ridge Road Recreation
Center, 800 Ridge Road, SE. Thanksgiving basket giveaway, all ages. The
community will prepare and distribute food baskets to less fortunate
families. For more information, call Sonny Hicks at 645-3959.
Tuesday, November 25, 6:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m., Ferebee Hope Recreation
Center, 3999 8th Street, SE. Thanksgiving basket giveaway, ages 13-19.
Youth will come together with the community and give away Thanksgiving
baskets to those in need. For more information, call Greg Poag at
645-3916.
Tuesday, November 25, 4:30 p.m.-5:30 p.m., Payne Recreation Center,
303 15th Street, SE. Thanksgiving dinner, ages 6-13. Dinner will be
prepared and served for children of the community and those interested
in attending the festivities. For more information, call Stephanie
Foster 727-5474.
Saturday, November 25, 6:00 p.m.-8:30 p.m., Petworth Recreation
Center, 801 Taylor Street, NW. Thanksgiving basket giveaway, all ages.
The staff at Petworth Recreation Center and the churches in the
community will be giving baskets to selected community member. For more
information, call Howard Marshall at 576-6850.
Tuesday, November 25, 7:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m., Kalorama Park Recreation
Center, 1875 Columbia Road, NW. Thanksgiving basket giveaway, all ages.
Thanksgiving basket given to a needy family in the community. For more
information, call John Borges, site manager, at 673-7606.
Tuesday, November 25, 6:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m., Douglass Community Center,
2100 Stanton Terrace, SE. Thanksgiving feast, ages 6-13. Youth will come
together and enjoy a delicious meal while listening to music and
socializing. For more information, call Toni Thompson, Ward 8 manager,
at 645-3961.
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CLASSIFIEDS — INAUGURAL RENTALS
Room for rent for three days (maximum of two people), ten minutes
from DC events. I have a large furnished room for rent for people coming
to DC to be a part of history with the Obama family. Reply to 331-4418
or GlobalExtension@aol.com.
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CLASSIFIEDS — RECOMMENDATIONS
I am looking to have my kitchen remodeled. Any good references out
there? Please call 363-3945.
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