Dear Friends of Magruder Park—
A warm thank you and hearty congratulations to all of you! Together, we have made a huge difference!
Last week, Prince George’s County Public Schools announced that they WILL NOT build Hyattsville Middle School on Magruder Park! The PGCPS CEO's message to us is pasted at the bottom of this update.
Ms. Pamela Boozer-Strother (PGCPS Board of Education District 3) has also been exceptionally responsive as have Ms. Deni Taveras (County Council Member District 2) and Ms. Dannielle Glaros (County Council Member District 3).
Hyattsville Middle School was included in the Public-Private Partnership (P3) package approved by the Board of Education on 19th September.
This is a significant win, but we cannot be 100% sure of victory until the P3 Request For Proposal (RFP) is made public, but it looks like TOGETHER, WE SAVED MAGRUDER PARK!
To CELEBRATE MAGRUDER PARK, we invite you to a community potluck event to be hosted in Magruder Park on Saturday, October 19 from 1 to 5pm. Save the date and plan to join us!! We will send more details closer to the event date and post event updates on our webpage: www.protecthyattsvilleparks.org
Until our celebration party, there are a few things you can do to help wrap things up:
- Please take a few moments to send thank you notes to our Prince George’s County officials for protecting Magruder Park. Especially PGCPS CEO Dr. Goldson, our Board of Education representative Pamela Boozer-Strother and County Council members Deni Taveras and Danielle Glaros.
- Please consider supporting the various Hyattsville Middle School and Hyattsville Elementary School fundraisers throughout the year to support teachers, classrooms, and students. Here is a link to a wish list of items that HMS students and teachers need todayand here is a link to the upcoming Zombie Run fundraiser for HES.
- Take every opportunity to thank a teacher in the Prince George’s County Public School System for being a public school educator!
- Finally, this experience has taught us that we must be vigilant to protect our public parks from development and destruction. So, take some time to get to know all the parks that you know and love, and support groups like Protect Hyattsville Parks who will be now be watching to make sure that all of our parks are cherished and protected into the future.
Once again, congratulations on our tremendous achievement in Saving Magruder Park for our community and future generations.
We hope to see you at Magruder Park on Oct 19th!
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Dr. Monica Goldson's Email to Protect Hyattsville Parks on Sept. 19, 2019
From: Monica Goldson CEO <ceo@pgcps.org>
Date: Thu, Sep 19, 2019 at 1:59 PM
Subject: Re: Save Magruder Park Petitioner Comments
To: Protect Hyattsville Parks <protecthyattsvilleparks@gmail.com>
Cc: PGCPS Public Testimony <testimony@pgcps.org>, Taveras, Deni L. <dltaveras@co.pg.md.us>, Glaros, Dannielle M. <dmglaros@co.pg.md.us>, Pamela Boozer-Strother <pamela.boozerstrother@pgcps.org>, Alvin Thornton <alvin.thornton@pgcps.org>, Joshua Thomas <joshua.thomas@pgcps.org>, Barry Stanton <Barry.Stanton@pgcps.org>, Shawn Matlock <Shawn.Matlock@pgcps.org>, Candace B. Hollingsworth <chollingsworth@hyattsville.org>
Thank you for your valuable input and general interest in the future of Hyattsville Middle School.
As you may know, the PGCPS Capital Programs team has been evaluating 15 acres of the 44-acre Magruder Park as a potential new home for the rebuilt Hyattsville MS. The community benefits of this proposed plan (e.g., brand new recreational fields, gymnasium and walking paths/trails to be shared with the community as well as improved protection of woodland features and upgraded parking facilities with advanced storm-water management) were persuasive as was the opportunity for Hyattsville MS to expand beyond the tight constraints of its current site.
However, PGCPS has determined Hyattsville MS will not be relocated to any portion of the Magruder Park site. In part, this is due to much of the park being in a 100-year floodplain as the time and potential cost of full-scale evaluation and mitigation proved prohibitive. Moreover, PGCPS does not own the park land and the requisite acquisition timeline proved too significant a delay in what PGCPS plans to be a record delivery schedule (opening as soon as SY2023) for the much-needed new Hyattsville Middle School.
We hope you will continue to follow this project’s progress and to advocate for exceptional public education facilities for the students of Prince George’s County.