My kids went through Capitol Hill Cluster, my son is at Walls now. My wife worked her butt off to keep Hine in the Hine building, unsuccessfully. Who are you? Over 70% of the kids at Hine were in-boundary. You won’t know this, so I will tell you: That’s a very high percentage in-boundary for a DC middle school. I live right here near Hine, and I never saw busloads of these bussed-in kids arriving. Were they invisible busses?

But I did not come here to argue with some Anonymous who puts up false misinformation and then states, “It’s simply a fact.”

I came here to say, whichever proposal you are for, this is the final week for public comment.

Go to dcbiz@dc.gov, state your name, address, how long you’ve lived here, your community involvement, your preference for DSF or 7 Penn/Bozzutto or Stanton or Leadership Campus, and why. Rare enough residents are asked to get involved in this big a development decision. It would be a shame if anyone with a computer failed to state his or her opinion.

Do you think the parents with toddlers and strollers, who now plan to hike out to Hine-Eliot in the old Eliot building (under the same successful principal who was in the middle of turning Hine around) would have somehow been unwilling to send their dumpling darlings to a more conveniently located Hine Jr. High at the Hine Site?

The current DC Office of Planning Comprehensive Plan still (belatedly) calls for the site to be developed in cooperation with DCPS, with a new, appropriately sized, appropriately situated Hine Jr. High, and plenty of room left over for development. That’s what should have been done. It wasn’t. Let’s move on.

Hine was under-enrolled and not a choice of schools for familys making the Hill “lousy with toddlers and strollers”. Most of the Hine students were out of boundary, and the building was a better candidtate for charter schools seeking space. As a public school school Hine had trouble maintaining even half enrollment, let alone full enrollment.

I wish DCPS made a stronger play to move its headquarters here rather than renting space, but at least Fenty realizes the economic potenial for the city presented by this project.

The time to recognize Wallach was before bulldozing it. Wallach School has historical significance, but it’s irrelevant to this discussion. By your reasoning maybe we should also mourn for the historic Carberry, Lenox & Bryant schools, all of which were sold off by the city to condo developers years ago.

Hine should not have been closed. The Hine kids were shoved out to the combined Hine-Eliot in the old Eliot building near RFK. That was wrong for three reasons:

1. This neighborhood is lousy with toddlers and strollers and in a few years we are going to really want those Jr. High slots at Hine, but too late, they’re GONE.

2. The Hine site formerly was home to the Wallach School, built during the Civil War, as the first school building welcoming African American and white students. Neither Councilmember / Former Schoolboard Member Tommy Wells, nor Chancellor Rhee, saw fit to recognize the historic importance of this site, part of DCPS since 1864, when they decided to hand the site over to developers. Shame on both of them for their ignorance or lack of sensitivity to history.

3. The school building was vacant this year, and will remain standing and vacant for at least 2-3 more school years before demolition starts. Why? It was shut prematurely, and for all the wrong reasons–NOT for the benefit of kids, but for the benefit of developers.

All those are reasons I am especially excited by the DSF/Street Sense decision to bring Tiger Woods Foundation and its programs for Jr. High and HS kids into the development.

It’s clear Hine kids (their school was shut down, and then GET THIS–last year’s Hine graduates, the last class to graduate from that historic site, were informed in JUNE that Eastern HS, where Hine feeds, would accept no freshman this year) bear most of the burden for the hasty, greedy decision by Wells and Rhee to shut Hine down. Getting Tiger Woods Foundation on the site ameliorates the burden a little bit for those kids.

The DSF plan is the sexiest, and I at least like that the scale is reasonable in relation to the current site. BFD on the name dropping however.

The only thing I like about the Bozutto plan is the TJs (although name dropping still lame). The renderings look totally out of scope for the Hill, with both greater building mass and incompatible design. The Bethesda Row description is apt.

Stanton Dev plan could use some revision due to the enclosed interior, but their exisiting work in the immediate area around Eastern Market is very impressive. The corner of Penn & 7th SE conceals its density very nicely. Not as crazy about some of their other projects on the Hill.