APS Elementary Location Working Group 4/12

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's clear they shouldn't add any more option schools. First they kick the Tuckahoe hornet's nest and now they've angered Nottingham. We all know how that turns out.

And how would you react if your kid walked a block to a school you could see from your house and then we’re told they would be riding a bus to who knows where?

And the reason it all happened is because some NEW school has been promised to another neighborhood? And no one told you that having that school means losing yours?

Yeah. Those kids who can walk to Reed don't deserve it! Those are McKinley kids and you know ours are deserving than yours.

No one said anything about deserving it. Just asking how you would react, but clearly you live in Westover. The least disruptive way to do this is to make Reed an option site. Of course Westover will go nuts over how it deserves a neighborhood school more than anyone and how it was promised one. But it has no claims to one anymore than anyone else. It should be part of this discussion to.

So, it better to make bad decision in order to keep Nottingham happy? That is how the board operated in the past. FWIW, I don’t think any more sites should be option schools. And, if one did go in the N, neither Reed nor Nottingham would be the smart choice. However, I don’t believe in throwing other schools under the bus to get my way. Again, that hasn’t always worked out for my community.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The board expressed a lot of skepticism about the capacity criteria in their rubric (must be able to go up to 750 with at least 20% coming from relocatables. I think we’ll see some revision of that standard once they look at the application numbers for each option school. If a school gets 1000+ applications, yes, put it in a place that can flex up to 750 because that’s a great program to help manage capacity. But if a school gets only 650 applications, putting it at a school that can flex up to 750 is a waste of seats, and they’re better of putting it at a site with a lower maximum preferred capacity.

Exactly. You should have explained it to the SB!

But couldn’t ATS fill 750 seats easily at Reed or McKinley?

ATS isn’t moving.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The board expressed a lot of skepticism about the capacity criteria in their rubric (must be able to go up to 750 with at least 20% coming from relocatables. I think we’ll see some revision of that standard once they look at the application numbers for each option school. If a school gets 1000+ applications, yes, put it in a place that can flex up to 750 because that’s a great program to help manage capacity. But if a school gets only 650 applications, putting it at a school that can flex up to 750 is a waste of seats, and they’re better of putting it at a site with a lower maximum preferred capacity.

Exactly. You should have explained it to the SB!

But couldn’t ATS fill 750 seats easily at Reed or McKinley?

The ATS site already fits that criteria, it continues to be the perfect site for that program. Its maximum preferred capacity is 753.

More broadly, though, I got the sense the SB already has this on their radar, which is part of why they're concerned about this criteria. Another concern may be with the notion generally that we can effectively manage capacity with option programs. Sure, if everyone is over capacity, increasing the capacity of option programs comparably makes sense. But if one quadrant is way over capacity while another is under capacity, there's no guarantee that expanding an option school will draw from the over-capacity area rather than the under-capacity area, not unless they fundamentally change the lottery system for option programs and create an HB-style quota from each elementary zone that can be adjusted year-to-year based on school populations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The board expressed a lot of skepticism about the capacity criteria in their rubric (must be able to go up to 750 with at least 20% coming from relocatables. I think we’ll see some revision of that standard once they look at the application numbers for each option school. If a school gets 1000+ applications, yes, put it in a place that can flex up to 750 because that’s a great program to help manage capacity. But if a school gets only 650 applications, putting it at a school that can flex up to 750 is a waste of seats, and they’re better of putting it at a site with a lower maximum preferred capacity.

Exactly. You should have explained it to the SB!

But couldn’t ATS fill 750 seats easily at Reed or McKinley?

The ATS site already fits that criteria, it continues to be the perfect site for that program. Its maximum preferred capacity is 753.

More broadly, though, I got the sense the SB already has this on their radar, which is part of why they're concerned about this criteria. Another concern may be with the notion generally that we can effectively manage capacity with option programs. Sure, if everyone is over capacity, increasing the capacity of option programs comparably makes sense. But if one quadrant is way over capacity while another is under capacity, there's no guarantee that expanding an option school will draw from the over-capacity area rather than the under-capacity area, not unless they fundamentally change the lottery system for option programs and create an HB-style quota from each elementary zone that can be adjusted year-to-year based on school populations.

.

Then where do you put Spanish immersion? The Key neighborhood needs more neighborhood seats.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The board expressed a lot of skepticism about the capacity criteria in their rubric (must be able to go up to 750 with at least 20% coming from relocatables. I think we’ll see some revision of that standard once they look at the application numbers for each option school. If a school gets 1000+ applications, yes, put it in a place that can flex up to 750 because that’s a great program to help manage capacity. But if a school gets only 650 applications, putting it at a school that can flex up to 750 is a waste of seats, and they’re better of putting it at a site with a lower maximum preferred capacity.

Exactly. You should have explained it to the SB!

But couldn’t ATS fill 750 seats easily at Reed or McKinley?

The ATS site already fits that criteria, it continues to be the perfect site for that program. Its maximum preferred capacity is 753.

More broadly, though, I got the sense the SB already has this on their radar, which is part of why they're concerned about this criteria. Another concern may be with the notion generally that we can effectively manage capacity with option programs. Sure, if everyone is over capacity, increasing the capacity of option programs comparably makes sense. But if one quadrant is way over capacity while another is under capacity, there's no guarantee that expanding an option school will draw from the over-capacity area rather than the under-capacity area, not unless they fundamentally change the lottery system for option programs and create an HB-style quota from each elementary zone that can be adjusted year-to-year based on school populations.

.

Then where do you put Spanish immersion? The Key neighborhood needs more neighborhood seats.

It'll go to ASFS. Fleet will draw some students from Long Branch and then some students from the Key/ASFS zone can go there. Push some of Taylor into Jamestown and then more students can go there. Reed will take some current Glebe students and then some can go there. There's no where in the county that couldn't use the capacity that would be free up by moving an option school elsewhere or wouldn't feel cramped from losing 500+ seats to a relocated option program. On its own, it's just not all that compelling an argument.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The board expressed a lot of skepticism about the capacity criteria in their rubric (must be able to go up to 750 with at least 20% coming from relocatables. I think we’ll see some revision of that standard once they look at the application numbers for each option school. If a school gets 1000+ applications, yes, put it in a place that can flex up to 750 because that’s a great program to help manage capacity. But if a school gets only 650 applications, putting it at a school that can flex up to 750 is a waste of seats, and they’re better of putting it at a site with a lower maximum preferred capacity.

Exactly. You should have explained it to the SB!

But couldn’t ATS fill 750 seats easily at Reed or McKinley?

The ATS site already fits that criteria, it continues to be the perfect site for that program. Its maximum preferred capacity is 753.

More broadly, though, I got the sense the SB already has this on their radar, which is part of why they're concerned about this criteria. Another concern may be with the notion generally that we can effectively manage capacity with option programs. Sure, if everyone is over capacity, increasing the capacity of option programs comparably makes sense. But if one quadrant is way over capacity while another is under capacity, there's no guarantee that expanding an option school will draw from the over-capacity area rather than the under-capacity area, not unless they fundamentally change the lottery system for option programs and create an HB-style quota from each elementary zone that can be adjusted year-to-year based on school populations.

.

Then where do you put Spanish immersion? The Key neighborhood needs more neighborhood seats.

It'll go to ASFS. Fleet will draw some students from Long Branch and then some students from the Key/ASFS zone can go there. Push some of Taylor into Jamestown and then more students can go there. Reed will take some current Glebe students and then some can go there. There's no where in the county that couldn't use the capacity that would be free up by moving an option school elsewhere or wouldn't feel cramped from losing 500+ seats to a relocated option program. On its own, it's just not all that compelling an argument.

None of that solves staff’s fear (we don’t know yet if the SB shares that fear) of drawing long narrow boundaries east in the NW Quadrant. They mentioned it several times as a driver for their recommendations.

But I think that swap is the simplest one to pull off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The board expressed a lot of skepticism about the capacity criteria in their rubric (must be able to go up to 750 with at least 20% coming from relocatables. I think we’ll see some revision of that standard once they look at the application numbers for each option school. If a school gets 1000+ applications, yes, put it in a place that can flex up to 750 because that’s a great program to help manage capacity. But if a school gets only 650 applications, putting it at a school that can flex up to 750 is a waste of seats, and they’re better of putting it at a site with a lower maximum preferred capacity.

Exactly. You should have explained it to the SB!

But couldn’t ATS fill 750 seats easily at Reed or McKinley?

The ATS site already fits that criteria, it continues to be the perfect site for that program. Its maximum preferred capacity is 753.

More broadly, though, I got the sense the SB already has this on their radar, which is part of why they're concerned about this criteria. Another concern may be with the notion generally that we can effectively manage capacity with option programs. Sure, if everyone is over capacity, increasing the capacity of option programs comparably makes sense. But if one quadrant is way over capacity while another is under capacity, there's no guarantee that expanding an option school will draw from the over-capacity area rather than the under-capacity area, not unless they fundamentally change the lottery system for option programs and create an HB-style quota from each elementary zone that can be adjusted year-to-year based on school populations.

.

Then where do you put Spanish immersion? The Key neighborhood needs more neighborhood seats.

It'll go to ASFS. Fleet will draw some students from Long Branch and then some students from the Key/ASFS zone can go there. Push some of Taylor into Jamestown and then more students can go there. Reed will take some current Glebe students and then some can go there. There's no where in the county that couldn't use the capacity that would be free up by moving an option school elsewhere or wouldn't feel cramped from losing 500+ seats to a relocated option program. On its own, it's just not all that compelling an argument.

None of that solves staff’s fear (we don’t know yet if the SB shares that fear) of drawing long narrow boundaries east in the NW Quadrant. They mentioned it several times as a driver for their recommendations.

But I think that swap is the simplest one to pull off.

I get that's what the staff is concerned about at the moment, but if you make Nottingham or Discovery option, all that does is push a bunch of families west and Key/ASFS will still feel a crunch coming from a different direction. Some of those families will displace to the east, but you'll still have about 300 families pushing into Jamestown, Glebe and Taylor, creating westward pressure on those school populations. Either way you end up with messy boundaries and busing. They can do it, but it's kind of a six of one, half dozen of another kind of argument.

[Anonymous]

Why does the staff fear drawing long narrow boundaries?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why does the staff fear drawing long narrow boundaries?

Because they aren't efficient and require more buses. Ashlawn's boundaries extend east into Clarendon, with buses that travel past or closer to ASFS, ATS, and actually even Glebe and Barrett to take kids to Ashlawn. Taylor's boundary stretches all the way to Rosslyn and kids pass Key and ASFS en route to Taylor. McKinley's boundary doesn't stretch as far, but has units much much closer to Glebe, Ashlawn, and/or ATS.

If one of their goals is to promote walkability and decrease dependence on buses, then long and skinny boundaries are the antithesis of that.

Current boundaries: https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/ESZones_Letter_2017_Revised2-1.pdf

[Anonymous]

They want to fix Ashlawn’s boundaries and avoid future boundaries like that as much as possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They want to fix Ashlawn’s boundaries and avoid future boundaries like that as much as possible.

So what would an ideal Ashlawn boundary look like? I mean, ATS is staying put, that is just how it is. Given that, how do they redraw the Ashlawn boundary? And how many neighborhoods get split up to make that efficient boundary? Because I think the SB also cares about keeping communities/neighborhoods together.

[Anonymous]

I've heard the staff's long narrow boundaries fear, and am quite sympathetic to it. That being said- I don't understand why that wasn't a 'criteria' in their study. It is the most legitimate reason for engaging in this exercise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've heard the staff's long narrow boundaries fear, and am quite sympathetic to it. That being said- I don't understand why that wasn't a 'criteria' in their study. It is the most legitimate reason for engaging in this exercise.

The Geography criteria tries to capture that, but its a crude method of doing so. I don't think the staff put too much rigor into those criteria because they weren't really given all that much detail from the SB about how they wanted to make the decision. This was a very preliminary analysis, and now that the SB has given them more guidance they'll go back and rework it.

[Anonymous]

If you look at the county by quadrants and look at the relative capacities of their schools, it's pretty clear that the SW quadrant is in the best position to pick up an option program. At the very least, it shouldn't lose one. Whatever else moves, Claremont and Campbell should stay where they are.

[Anonymous]

Still just amazed that any of this is even happening. We have kids in trailers, almost total lack of income diversity in most schools, and budget cutbacks and this county built too many schools in the wealthiest section of the county.

If any one on the SB is trading this, please stop the poor management. You and your predecessors are ruining this school system. And you are really upsetting parents across the county.