APS How F’ed are the schools with MM

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I also meant to add that the whole idea of building out/trailers for option schools doesn't happen for good reasons. I think people who are not in option programs often see them as quick fixes for short-term student population surges in neighborhood schools. While they absolutely help meet surges within the system, you can't just pop up and dump trailers in options programs. Why? Once you admit students you have to be prepared to host them for the whole journey of the program. If you admit 2X immersion students from K one year because of a demographic surge, you have to then be able to host them through5th or 8th. You don't kick out students later and say "sorry, we only let you in for a year because your neighborhood was crowded."

Um...so you're saying you can't expand option schools because you're stuck with the kids all the way through; but you can over-extend a neighborhood school with no definite timeframe for any boundary shifts or additions or new schools being built. That it's not fair to kick-out program kids; but you can kick-out neighborhood kids.

Option schools should not be insurance policies for families to avoid overcrowding. I get the not kicking-out because it means a different curriculum (immersion, for example...ATS, not a different program per se; just what all neighborhood schools should be doing. Montessori and HB, not a huge deal either as far as programs, IMO but others will disagree) Anyway, I disagree. You don't get to ditch out of your undesired neighborhood school and then also be protected from overcrowding.

Its not that options are insurance policies for families in crowded neighborhoods, they are not at all. For starters, you have to get in one, and all options are limited by the very few open seats available every year. It's just that once you get in an option, that program must be ready to carry you all the way through, and in most options that means 8th grade. On the flip side, you are guaranteed a seat in your neighborhood. That may seem obvious but it's a big difference when you are designing a school system. If the Jamestown-to-Yorktown pyramid is important to you, all you have to do is be in-boundary and you're guaranteed a seat, no matter how overcrowded. Your neighborhood school must either add trailers or, in reality, reassign you to a new neighborhood in order to accommodate you. Another option is giving you preference to transfer to another school. But many people apply to get into Montessori or Immersion and never get the chance to begin with. There are pros and cons to both pathways, they just come in different ways.

Yes, I understand how it works. My point is, being in an option program should not protect you from overcrowding just because you're in an option program. Those schools need to be able to expand and accommodate additional growth as part of the overall "balancing enrollment" management. Option programs can (and have) taken on trailers just like neighborhood schools. Your statement "that the whole idea of building out/trailers for option schools doesn't happen for good reasons" is wrong. Nobody was ever going to kick students out after a year or two and - what? - send them back to their neighborhood school because it was no longer overcrowded?? Claremont immersion used to be one of the most over-crowded schools in the system. HBW, however, has always been protected from higher enrollment and crowding. THAT's not right. Small class sizes and a manageable enrollment within the size of the facility is just as important to other programs - even neighborhood programs - as it supposedly is for HBW.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote: School board has been clear that there's no land to build another comprehensive high school.

That's what eminent domain is for. Just take over some lobbyists' office spaces, even if lobbying is protected by the first amendment.

Taking over an office building isn't going to give you near enough space for a 4th comprehensive high school. that's the whole problem. You need space for all the fields and pools or whatever, or the kids at that school are just going to have to share the facilities at some preexisting high schools that already has too many kids fighting for use of the facilities. That's why the discussion of doing the 4th comprehensive 10 (or whatever) years ago was key and the county just couldn't find a way to make it happen. If they couldn't do it then, they won't do it now, or 5 years from now, or 10 -- because there is just not the land to do it. I think washington country club should donate their golf course -- that might be enough space (though it's basically right in between WL and Yorktown so...). Or maybe we could turn a park into a high school.


Certain schools are not allowed to have any trailers on their campus, due to the design layout. Examples are Discovery, Fleet, HB, and Arlington Tech, too, once it’s finished, iirc.
Meanwhile, if you don't do something drastic like that, it's flex scheduling or virtual schools on the table and I don't think anyone really wants that. Or just keep crowding kids into WL? County just keeps sitting on its hands thinking bonus density being used by developers is a good idea and teachers keep quitting so ... not really sure what's going to happen here.

Let this go. It's not happening and there is a compelling case for why it's not necessary and worth the enormous expense. Siphon off kids who will self-select into high-quality specialty programs...STEM, performing arts, other. There will be plenty of fields left for the kids who prioritize this kind of experience.

WHAT high quality specialty programs are you talking about, besides Arlington Tech? Nothing like this currently exists. How long do you think it would take the county to budget and create something like that when currently NOTHING LIKE THAT is on their TO DO list or even running wild in their imaginations?

DP. And they still need space for these programs.

Even if they just make Arlington Tech into a high quality math/science/engineering/CS program, they would clearly get lots of students to do it. People fall all over themselves to get into HB. Why would this be any different if marketed well. I'm telling you they've already started doing this. They have middle school kids thinking Arlington Tech is the dream. Over subscribed and lottery in place. A new building and expanded student body with more class offerings as a result means they will have plenty of takers and Chad and Ethan can be assured of their access to the lacrosse fields.

Other than the Chad and Ethan comment, +1
APS, per usual, sucked at rolling out and promoting the AT program. Parents didn't understand the program and then the whole extracurriculars and no music classes thing. But now that students are graduating from the program with a year or two's worth of college credits due to all the dual enrollment classes and parents are seeing the schools graduates are applying to and going to, along with the long-delayed investment in new facilities, they're suddenly going to be clamoring to get their STEM kids in - even though it still is, and never will be, TJ Science and Technology. Of course, it was never intended to be, either.

Basically AT is going to be viewed as vocational plus, with DE credit that only applies in-state schools more or less. With its co-location with actual vocational programs like hair styling, cooking, and HVAC repair at Career Center, it will never have the wide appeal of HB.

But there still may be enough interest to fill the schools and have a waitlist; and I’m sure eventually they will expand the campus with trailers and expand the AT program. It won’t have the protected capped population of HB lofted off in The Heights.

This is not true and already not true. It is billed as a rigorous STEM program (the word rigorous is used by APS) and many high achieving, college-bound kids are choosing it and excited about it. I have a middle school kid and know parents of 8th graders. Kids were clamoring to get in and feeling good about getting a spot following the lottery.

Just because it's in the same building as vocational programs, it's not tainted as you are suggesting (which yes is kind of gross for you to say). It's specific to APS that programs are not more often co-located. In many districts, vocational programs and college-track courses are in the same facilities and the students are all together.

BS. I went to a rural school district and our vocational program was call “Cowtown Tech” and was it’s own separate campus.

Btw PP that’s the problem with the “Tech” moniker. TJ is Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology.

But most vocational schools are call vo-tech schools, and then co-locating it at Career Center really muddies the message.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocational-technical_school

PP is right. It will be swamped with applicants desperate to leave Wakefield, so it will be as “popular” as HB.

But they will expand the size. You can build modular trailers on a rooftop surface lot. They can increase class size or make career center students do night shift. Don’t worry it’s coming.

It really hasn’t muddied the message for most people but I guess you are slow. Because the idea they would put trailers on the of a 4 level parking deck is flat out dumb.

Do you think it’s physically impossible — it’s not because there are modular versions. Do you think it’s a bad idea for students? Sure but that hasn’t stopped a lot of dumb APS decisions. They could designate them as career center space and free up rooms for AT for example.

????
Really?! This is what you think of career center classes and students? Most of the "career center classes" require special equipment. But hey, let's put cosmotology in the pop-up; or TV/media production. CTE students deserve good facilities. Those programs have endured a crappy building for years. My only issue with co-locating AT and CC programs is that AT will be/is treated as superior to the other programs - they already get priority access to CTE classes over the other neighborhood hs students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: School board has been clear that there's no land to build another comprehensive high school.

That's what eminent domain is for. Just take over some lobbyists' office spaces, even if lobbying is protected by the first amendment.

Taking over an office building isn't going to give you near enough space for a 4th comprehensive high school. that's the whole problem. You need space for all the fields and pools or whatever, or the kids at that school are just going to have to share the facilities at some preexisting high schools that already has too many kids fighting for use of the facilities. That's why the discussion of doing the 4th comprehensive 10 (or whatever) years ago was key and the county just couldn't find a way to make it happen. If they couldn't do it then, they won't do it now, or 5 years from now, or 10 -- because there is just not the land to do it. I think washington country club should donate their golf course -- that might be enough space (though it's basically right in between WL and Yorktown so...). Or maybe we could turn a park into a high school.


Certain schools are not allowed to have any trailers on their campus, due to the design layout. Examples are Discovery, Fleet, HB, and Arlington Tech, too, once it’s finished, iirc.
Meanwhile, if you don't do something drastic like that, it's flex scheduling or virtual schools on the table and I don't think anyone really wants that. Or just keep crowding kids into WL? County just keeps sitting on its hands thinking bonus density being used by developers is a good idea and teachers keep quitting so ... not really sure what's going to happen here.

Let this go. It's not happening and there is a compelling case for why it's not necessary and worth the enormous expense. Siphon off kids who will self-select into high-quality specialty programs...STEM, performing arts, other. There will be plenty of fields left for the kids who prioritize this kind of experience.

WHAT high quality specialty programs are you talking about, besides Arlington Tech? Nothing like this currently exists. How long do you think it would take the county to budget and create something like that when currently NOTHING LIKE THAT is on their TO DO list or even running wild in their imaginations?

DP. And they still need space for these programs.

Even if they just make Arlington Tech into a high quality math/science/engineering/CS program, they would clearly get lots of students to do it. People fall all over themselves to get into HB. Why would this be any different if marketed well. I'm telling you they've already started doing this. They have middle school kids thinking Arlington Tech is the dream. Over subscribed and lottery in place. A new building and expanded student body with more class offerings as a result means they will have plenty of takers and Chad and Ethan can be assured of their access to the lacrosse fields.

Other than the Chad and Ethan comment, +1
APS, per usual, sucked at rolling out and promoting the AT program. Parents didn't understand the program and then the whole extracurriculars and no music classes thing. But now that students are graduating from the program with a year or two's worth of college credits due to all the dual enrollment classes and parents are seeing the schools graduates are applying to and going to, along with the long-delayed investment in new facilities, they're suddenly going to be clamoring to get their STEM kids in - even though it still is, and never will be, TJ Science and Technology. Of course, it was never intended to be, either.

Basically AT is going to be viewed as vocational plus, with DE credit that only applies in-state schools more or less. With its co-location with actual vocational programs like hair styling, cooking, and HVAC repair at Career Center, it will never have the wide appeal of HB.

But there still may be enough interest to fill the schools and have a waitlist; and I’m sure eventually they will expand the campus with trailers and expand the AT program. It won’t have the protected capped population of HB lofted off in The Heights.

This is not true and already not true. It is billed as a rigorous STEM program (the word rigorous is used by APS) and many high achieving, college-bound kids are choosing it and excited about it. I have a middle school kid and know parents of 8th graders. Kids were clamoring to get in and feeling good about getting a spot following the lottery.

Just because it's in the same building as vocational programs, it's not tainted as you are suggesting (which yes is kind of gross for you to say). It's specific to APS that programs are not more often co-located. In many districts, vocational programs and college-track courses are in the same facilities and the students are all together.

BS. I went to a rural school district and our vocational program was call “Cowtown Tech” and was it’s own separate campus.

Btw PP that’s the problem with the “Tech” moniker. TJ is Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology.

But most vocational schools are call vo-tech schools, and then co-locating it at Career Center really muddies the message.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocational-technical_school

PP is right. It will be swamped with applicants desperate to leave Wakefield, so it will be as “popular” as HB.

But they will expand the size. You can build modular trailers on a rooftop surface lot. They can increase class size or make career center students do night shift. Don’t worry it’s coming.

It really hasn’t muddied the message for most people but I guess you are slow. Because the idea they would put trailers on the of a 4 level parking deck is flat out dumb.

Do you think it’s physically impossible — it’s not because there are modular versions. Do you think it’s a bad idea for students? Sure but that hasn’t stopped a lot of dumb APS decisions. They could designate them as career center space and free up rooms for AT for example.

????
Really?! This is what you think of career center classes and students? Most of the "career center classes" require special equipment. But hey, let's put cosmotology in the pop-up; or TV/media production. CTE students deserve good facilities. Those programs have endured a crappy building for years. My only issue with co-locating AT and CC programs is that AT will be/is treated as superior to the other programs - they already get priority access to CTE classes over the other neighborhood hs students.

It’s not what I think of them — my dad taught at a vocational high school, I know what’s involved — it’s what the county will prioritize. And when the neighborhood schools are overflowing, the sht will flow downhill to the quietest parents, which will be CC students. It will not touch HBW, as they are the loudest, so that will be the hierarchy.

[Anonymous]

so so so effed.

My favorite is the old folks who love missing middle but don't want the small cape next to them expanded...at all. WTheck?