Ever since the Washington Post reported that D.C. School Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s office did a cost analysis for moving the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, Rhee has been inundated with phone calls and e-mails from furious parents. Now she’s moving quickly to temper their anger, saying that the District has no immediate plans to move the school out of its Georgetown/Burleith location, although it would eventually like to move it into a new building.

The Washington Post is reporting that Rhee will meet with members of the school’s governing board today, too, to try to mollify their concerns. They had been unaware of the cost analysis report. Bill Turque writes “Michaele C. Christian, president of the school’s governing board, told Rhee in a letter Wednesday that she was ‘appalled’ by the possible move, which had been considered without consulting the school community. She called the Logan site ‘woefully inadequate’ and said the move ‘would eviscerate one of the most outstanding educational institutions in the District.’”

Fears that the school would be moved into a vacant school building near Union Station weren’t helped by Rhee’s recent overthrow of the popular principal of nearby Hardy Middle School.

So for now, the Georgetown and Burleith neighborhood get to keep a beacon of artistic achievement—and Georgetown students know for sure now that their big green drunk perch is safe and sound.

Photo from CitySifting

Having already replaced the principal of Hardy Middle School in a much-criticized attempt to make the school more appealing to local families, D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee is eyeing the Duke Ellington School of the Arts—that’s the one on 35th Street with the big green chair—for possible conversion from an illustrious performing arts-centric high school into a public high school that would serve Ward 2 families.

Rhee and school construction czar Allen Lew say that they have no concrete plans to convert the school yet, but the Washington Post’s Bill Turque reports that Lew’s office has developed a cost estimate for moving the Duke Ellington school into the vacant Logan Elementary School in Northeast D.C., near Union Station.

Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans (D) is also strongly in favor of the conversion, as Ward 2 is the only ward in the District that does not have a neigborhood high school.

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On Friday afternoon at Georgetown’s Hardy Middle School, D.C. Chancellor Michelle Rhee proved speculations that she would remove the well-liked Principal Patrick Pope from his post to be correct. The Washington Post’s Bill Turque reported that before a roomful of incensed parents, Rhee announced that Pope would be leaving after this school year to plan a new magnet middle school for the arts.

Parents were outraged, Turque said, and for two hours, accused Rhee of trying to make the school more attractive to families of children at local, white “feeder schools,” which she has held meetings with over the past two years, at the expense of the school’s fine arts reputation.

On Monday, Jonetta Rose Barras seconded the accusations in her Examiner column:

“The recession, a new building and an education reform movement have merged to renew interest in Hardy among white residents. That’s a good thing. Problem is, they favor a traditional academic program and a principal who advocates that model. Hardy and Pope don’t fit that bill.”

Georgetown Metropolitan writes that after Rhee left, the Councilmember from Ward 7 Yvette Alexander told the audience gathered in the school cafeteria, “We’ve got to get rid of Fenty. And Rhee. And you can quote me on that!”

“Pope will be replaced this summer by Dana L. Nerenberg, principal of nearby Hyde-Addison Elementary, who will run both schools as a unified pre-kindergarten through eighth grade program,” Turque wrote.

He gave a speech thanking the audience for their encouragement without saying whether or not he had been forced out.

Photo taken from Flickr user David Clow – Maryland under a Creative Commons license.

Last Thursday, the Burleith Citizens’ Association held its annual meeting.  Yes, annual.

“One per year? I love it!” exclaimed guest of honor Mayor Adrian Fenty (D). “That’s unprecedented, at least in D.C.”

With only one meeting per year, the agenda was pretty packed, with Burleithers (Burleithians?) discussing everything from 61-D citations to the University’s ten-year plan, parking changes, D.C. Public Schools and cracking down on neglectful landlords.

MPD and 61-Ds: Lieutenant John Hedgecock, who has been in charge of West Georgetown and Burleith since early August, talked about the neighborhood’s crime stats and how the Metropolitan Police Department has been using 61-D citations.

When Hedgecock announced that issuing 61-Ds has been “very effective in quelling parties,” the crowd broke out in applause.  According to Hedgecock, once MPD receives a call, they assume that there’s been a breach of the peace.  If they observe a party and the noise “is too much for a residential area,” they will issue a 61-D citation to the person on the lease of the house or in charge of the party.

Hedgecock says while last year there were six “problem houses” in the area (four in West Georgetown and two in Burleith), this year there is only one.

“When we see a party starting, we put an end to it or advise them what will happen,” Hedgecock said.

One neighbor voiced concerns about the citations saddling students with a criminal record; Hedgecock replied that those who receive 61-Ds can contest them in court.

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In the interest of keeping you informed about the fine city we live in, Vox is starting a new feature, the District Digest, which will be a quick-and-easy guide to the most interesting and important D.C. stories of the week.

The big, sad, awful story of the week was the shooting at the Holocaust Memorial Museum on Wednesday.  James von Brunn, an 88-year-old white supremacist, opened rifle fire at the museum, killing security guard Stephen Johns.

Plans for the District to get a voting representative in the House were derailed on Tuesday when Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton announced that she had decided to kill the D.C. House Voting Rights Act due to the Ensign Amendment, a provision tacked on to the bill that would have all but eliminated the District’s gun control laws.

The Board of Elections and Ethics will decide whether or not opponents of same-sex marriage will be able to hold a referendum vote on the D.C. Council’s decision last month to legally recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.  D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles said he doesn’t believe the same-sex marriage measure should be subject to a referendum, but the final decision lies with DCBOEE.

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