When SEED School co-founder Eric Adler first approached the run-down building he and his partner hoped to transform into the nation’s first urban boarding school, the only way he could describe it was as a “crack house.”
The structure in Anacostia’s Fort Dupont neighborhood soon would be razed and replaced with a beautiful four-story building containing what is lauded as one of the most groundbreaking educational efforts in the country.
Now Adler and SEED co-founder Rajiv Vinnakota are trying to convince skeptical neighborhood leaders that 15 acres on what is now an RFK Stadium lot is the right spot for a new 600-student campus — nearly twice the size of the current school.
Mayor Anthony Williams pressed the federal government, which owns the site, to set aside the land for the SEED School, which it did last summer by saying first preference should go to a “pre-collegiate urban boarding school.”
The SEED School is the only one in the country that meets that criteria.
The citysent out solicitations for the site last month.
Neighborhood leaders fear the boarding school will eliminate already scarce green space and increase traffic.
They also say it is yet another example of federal officials using their neighborhood as a dumping ground for pet projects.
“We know the community is weary of new projects,” Adler said. “But we are working very hard to take in as much input as we can.”
The problem, Adler says, is that some neighbors don’t want to hear anything SEED has to say.
Adler said they have been routinely kicked out of community meetings, and offers to tour the current facility have not been accepted.
The organization plans to hold at least three more public forums and an open house at the current facility before submitting its final plans to the city by April 24.
“We want to do a good thing for the city again,” Adler said. “The city earned this school.”
