In 2010, during Michelle Rhee’s tenure as DCPS school chancellor, the District government promised the parents, students and staff of Bruce Monroe Elementary School as well as the surrounding community that if they tore the building down they would rebuild the school on the same spot. Long story short, the building is down but the new one hasn’t been built. All those Bruce Monroe stakeholders are still wondering what’s up? After all, when you say you’re gonna do a thing, integrity demands that you make your best effort.

Despite the ethical challenges facing our elected officials, parents continue to attend and testify at public hearings regarding the school. The latest hearing in which Bruce Monroe was mentioned was in March of 2011. Although Grassroots Media Project radio producer Rachel Estabrook put this audio segment together way back then, I’m just now getting around to posting it. (My apologies. )

Bruce Monroe Follow Up

To join the campaign to rebuild Bruce Monroe contact Daniel del Pielago at (202) 234-9119 ext. 104 or Daniel@empowerdc.org.

In the above audio segment, you will hear a number of parents testify about their continued frustrations over unfulfilled promises and problems with Parkview Elementary, the school their children are now attending. One of those parents is Sequnely Gray, Empower DC’s childcare organizer. She is all too familiar with the Bruce Monroe saga seeing as how three of her children attended Bruce Monroe before it was demolished. I asked her to chronicle a brief history of the organizing efforts of the Parents and Friends of Bruce Monroe. Her response, which I think is an inspiring example of community leadeship in the face of a city hall that , follows:

For the past ten years the friends, teachers, parents and staff of Bruce Monroe have fought continuously to insure that our children receive a quality education as well as a beautiful, safe and healthy environment for them to succeed in. In 2008, we were informed by the Washington Post that Bruce Monroe elementary school would be closed for good.

At that moment parents, staff and teachers rallied together with the help of Teaching for Change to advocate for our children’s school. We advocated for closed classrooms and new windows. The parents, staff and community members got together and reached out to some businesses in our community. As a result of our efforts, we received a generous donation of $1 million dollars from Target to build a 21st century, state of the art library and the whole east side of the school remodeled, including new walls and new windows.

Several months later we meet with Ward 1 councilmember Jim Graham, Mayor Adrian Fenty, and newly appointed DC Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee. They each stated that we didn’t need to beg and plead for a new facility for our children because this is what they should have and the only way to get it was to relocate to Parkview Elementary School on Warder Street NW. They promised that a new Bruce Monroe Elementary School would be built by the fall of 2011 under a public/private partnership. The parents were excited to find out that the school would not be closed. We rallied once again, knocking on doors and passing out flyers to make sure the community knew that [even though the old Bruce Monroe would be demolished a new state-of-the-art Bruce Monroe was still going to be built and opened] was still going to be opened.

For the 2008/2009 school year, we relocated to Parkview Elementary on Warder Street NW. The conditions of that building were very poor; poorer than they were at Bruce Monroe. In the summer of 2009, the parents, community members and the staff formed a SIT team to work in partnership with DCPS to develop plans for the rebuild of Bruce Monroe. We meet 2 or 3 times but after that we heard nothing from the city officials. We tried to contact and schedule meetings with Mayor Fenty and Michelle Rhee but we got no response.

While trying to figure out who to talk to next about the rebuild of the school, we decided that we needed help advocating for this property that had been stolen from us and to inform the community of what DC Government was doing behind our backs. With the help of Ms. Dyana Forester, we were connected with Empower DC.

Empower DC held trainings and facilitated meetings with the parents, staff and community members to build leadership and to help . . . → Read More: Bruce Monroe at Parkview: A Story of Promises Unfulfilled